ProposalForCulturalNetworkingAtNorthBengal

The Issue of Identity
North Bengal is a veritable cauldron of sub-nationalist passion and linguistic sentiment for some decade. From the hills of Darjeeling to the plains of the Dooars and the Terai, communities have been structured along ethnic and community lines. Over the years, the region has been witness to social and political implosions that have resulted in calls for political autonomy, Statehood, and boycott of the elections. In the most extreme cases, these exhortations have led to demands for sovereignty. Other left extremists are trying to put their foothold and trying to address these issues on their own way.
The increasing importance of “identity issue” in Indian marginal society in recent times is discernable in the proliferation of movements based on identity and animative campaigns at the grassroots level- the demand by the Gujjars in Rajasthan and the Tea tribals in Assam for recognition as Scheduled Tribes, or Gorkhs for Gorkhaland campaigns for recognition by excluded tribal groups, dalit women, dalit Christians and Muslims, several religious and linguistic minorities, and minorities within minority groups across the country. It is also reflected in the organized electoral politics in the form of identity-based mobilization. In some areas the some of the members of the wretched communities attracted towards the extreme political ideology to address the crisis.
The national movement and the exposure to the western culture mediated by the colonial rule made Indians very self-conscious of their cultural identity. The anxieties about the impact of globalization and marketization of economy, media and information systems, the leisure and style of life etc., which have direct impact upon the symbolic contents and the foundations of the tradition, have today generated anxious debate among the scholars, the people and the political parties on the policy responses of the state. Such policy has long been in the making, but today the process of globalization and its impact on culture, both local and national, give it a new urgency.
The demands made by such movements and campaigns engaging in identity question range from recognition, self- respect, preservation of their cultural identity from some kind of perceived threat to positive discrimination and share in power and resources.
The discontent of the indigenous people of the region had further increased leading to manifestations of militancy in some places. Sometimes brute repressive measures taken by the govt. without trying to understand the problems and resolve them. The region called North Bengal suffers from the required development. But development there is not directed towards the indigenous people of the region to uplift the community economically nor culturally. Their ethnic identity crisis related to their language and particular cultural life has to be understood in the light of this deprivation. The dialogue would open up these issues for threadbare discussion.
The Govt.’s obduracy to go on denying the fact of the region’s comparative economic backwardness, let alone the relevance of the cultural and linguistic movement that had been plaguing the region for a decade. All these are for the Govt. retrogressive and separatist and must be suppressed. The so-called civil society could not break out of this ideology to take proper stock of the situation. No stock taking of the situation by the government, neither the ruling and elite middleclass community opened a dialogue to understand the coming crisis of the communities. The need of such dialogue needed more and more for throwing up the right kind of discourses as deterrent to the oppressive ones.
The people living in the rural areas and in the remote tea gardens and especially the Schedule Caste (SC) & Schedule Tribe (ST), OBCs go on being deprived of these benefits still now. It can be said that the mainstream politics and the civil society per se are yet to be rid of the colonial concept of development. The urban babus are the recipients of all the benefits of the fruits of development. The common people in the villages or the tea gardens are kept at the bay. It is a bare fact that these tea garden workers and other marginal sections of the North Bengal, who are mainly Dalit and Adivasis, are not a priority group for anyone - not even for unions and the ruling political elites, whose focus has been on bringing irregularities of the capitalists in book and giving voices of the people who are merginalised and silenced. Largely invisible, the large section of the communities emerges from the undergrowth and silence, only when they become part of the statistics of development politics only.
This situation is further aggravated when it comes to another divide in North Bengal, that of the indigenous people and the migrants. At the sudden demographic change the indigenous people could not cope with the migrants to seize whatever opportunities were coming along. This led to their recession in every sphere and the consequent discontent over the years. Various works of Prof. Jeta Sankrityayana also refers to the plight of the people living in the plantation areas where the state had no role in the development. It is only recently that the Panchayet is introduced there.
Ironically, when we are talking about strengthening the communities we do not know that, there are more than 100 medical sciences among the indigenous people of India, known as Lokvidya. We have never tried to use them. The base of the so called modern allopathic healing system was based on the Indian traditional healing knowledgebase. The middleclass have thrown them aside along the people in our stride towards modernity.
It can be equally said about our folk culture. The middleclass forget that what we call folk and tribal cultures are really the cultures of the country. What goes in the name of culture as against folk or tribal culture is really the culture of the few, but the few being dominant do thereby suppress it. What happens here in North Bengal, is understandable in this light. There are many in the country, academics, activists, intellectuals, who are fighting this situation and what is needed is to relationship with them. It is a common concern of all.
Some of the leading activist-scholars like Claude Alvares’ & Dharmapal work thus assume great relevance. They relentlessly expose the claims of the West of its superiority and bring out the fact that till the advent of the British in India, it was a far richer and scientifically superior a country than the West. Their works are an eye opener and a must for all interested in understanding the machinations of the British in condemning our great achievements of the past. The justification for this gross exploitation and denigration of colonial victims was known as the civilizing mission. The colonial powers argued that in exchange for the wealth they plundered, both material and intellectual, they were providing the colonized people an opportunity to ‘modernize'. Rajini Kothari, the famed sociologist, pays a profound tribute to the importance of the work done by the scholar-activists when he says, “these are an ambitious undertaking though not modestly carried out. A Political battle that is intellectually waged.”
But today a lot of new facts are coming out which show how the West plagiarized Indian traditional science and called it its own and the urban upper class rich middleclass helped then in this plunder. Even the botanical taxonomy was essentially based on Ezhwa, Bangla, Tribal & other Indian traditional knowledge, but no Western scientist ever refers to the contributions of Itty Achuden to the now famous Hortus Malabaricus. And the ruling upper class middleclass minority did not try to unearth the massive portion of traditional wealth exists in the country. And still today the urban middleclass babudom blindly following the grand colonial development design to protect their clutch over the communities.
At the same coin the wretched plight of the Tea Garden people, their culture, education, health and sustenance being absolutely at stake, when few hundred years back they are the masters of their own fate. The colonial policy of development uprooted these tribal community en-mass to the North-eastern parts of India, especially in Bengal and Assam.
Now they are at the mercy and vagary of the Tea Garden owners and babus who proved to be irresponsible for centuries. The introduction of the Panchayet has taken place only the other day. The region is inhabited by a number of ethnic groups who are equally wretched and neglected. But no unity among them has either formed or was forged for a united struggle against a common enemy.
All these issues have proved to be problems because we are still guided by the old European concepts of single identity, single language and single development. These three 19th and 20th century concepts were all along active among our middleclass babus and leaders and us. experience has been one of sheer futility of all these.
It is a fact that no one in the government as well as in the civil society arena pays heed of the degraded crisis of cultural identity of these marginalized SCs, STs and OBCs and other marginal communities of the North Bengal. Hardly any documentation and dissemination work has been undertaken by any of the govt. and non-government agencies in the tea garden and largely at the North Bengal per se. The dominance of the minority middleclass elitist culture marginalizes the folk and tribal culture of these majority communities day by day.
The crisis of identity compelled with the socio-economic-cultural backwardness creating dangerous trends - that of a loss of faith in the mainstream political activities. Most of the tribals are non literate and thus grassroot governance at the tea gardens are at the hand of some unscrupulous members of the Operating Management Committees (OMC). We felt that in some of the areas of Bengal-Bhutan border areas extreme communist rebel groups like the Maoists are working to cash the apathy of the workers to attract under their umbrella.
The rebel group is utilizing the poverty of the people, the apathy towards mainstream political scene and the marginalization of the community culture to shore up their base in the area. The Intelligence Branch (IB) of the West Bengal police has recently submitted a report to the state home department stating that the Maoist forces are gathering strength by roping in workers of the closed tea gardens under the banner of "Majdoor Kishan Sangharsh Samity".
Forming of Cumulative Polygon to launch the network
The volatile background of North Bengal bacons a situation to form a cultural networking with various communities based cultural organizations. Almost 150 years ago, the British brought these tribal workers, comprising Santhals, Mundas, Oraons and 10 other tribes from the Chhota Nagpur plateau, as bonded labour for the plantations in North Bengal. No effort has been made earlier to officially document the tribal culture and the way of life in the gardens. The stoic silence of the larger community created a greater level of suspicion amongst these communities.
The tribal composition in the North Bengal tea gardens is said to be unique to the region. There are around 3 lakh tribal workers in the gardens today. In today’s fast-changing scenario, in which traditions and cultures are undergoing sea change due to technological advancement and globalisation, the effort of cultural activism will serve as a lifeline of the life and culture of society in tea gardens so that the roots are not forgotten after the changes come to stay.
Take the case of Raju Oraon of Kanthalguri TG. He sings about shrinking wages, increasing work load and an uncertain future in his dumkachh tunes, a form of tribal song with an elegiac note performed in the tea gardens of North Bengal. Karam, Jetia, Baha and Solorahi (tribal porobs) have become low-key affairs with tea workers struggling to survive the worst ever crisis in the industry. At a time when such a threat looms large over the fate of folk and tribal culture not only in the tea gardens but in the entire North Bengal to start a dialogue by creating an open form of these communities is a need of the hour.
Paschjim Banga Yuva Kalyan Mancha(PBYKM) is working in the North Bengal area for last few years especially at the tea gardens to make an impact on the livelihood options of the workers of the closed Kanthalguri TG. They are also working in other three Kadambini TE, Shikarpur TE, Raipur TG. For last few years KalabotiMudra (a trust body on behalf of the traditional artists and artisans of Bengal and North-East India to document promote and propagate the grass-root-level people, technology and culture. Main thrust is to document & support people’s technology and Traditional Knowledge. It is managing two websites separately http://lokfolk.blogspot.com/ and http://buybengalihandicrafts.blogspot.com/ apart from jointly run website http://kmneinitiative.blogspot.com/) also working to document the culture of the teagardens as a part of its North Bengal Culture Initiative.
To unearth the voices of the communities through the community based organizations both the organizations formed a cumulative polygon together to do a cultural networking work at the North Bengal, where PBYKM will act as a primary resource group and Kalaboti Mudra will act as a cultural facilitator. The experience of working at the tea gardens as well as various parts of the North Bengal in both alternative livelihood options undertook by the PBYKM and to unearth cultural identities by Kalaboti Mudra ultimately help to organise the cumulative polygon. These two are coming into a conclusion after much deliberation and discourse that the need of the hour is to form a forum of the marginalized cultural community organizations across the five districts of West Bengal.
The cumulative polygon feels that the North Bengal is sitting in time bombs which are waiting for serial blast of unrest of greater magnitude. It was said earlier that the government and the civil bodies are just doing non-work or putting some patch works to address the core issue, the crisis of community identity. Like other parts history shows patchwork does not help to reduce the created boiling tensions between the communities. It is a known fact that voiceless people are trying to make their footprint felt and the cumulative polygon will facilitate the voices to come up in the mainstream arena.
Through starting a cultural networking the cumulative polygon wants to start to open a process of dialogue with these marginal communities more and more for throwing up the right kind of discourses as deterrent to the oppressive ones. The need of the forum is to come up with various formal and informal meetings it started with various ethno-cultural groups and communities.
To be working extensively in the Dooars and Terai tea gardens, the networking will showcase the important festivals, songs and dances of the various tribal groups. The networking is also expected to touch upon several aspects of tribal life - from their local brew haria to the social customs and practices prevalent among them.
For last few months this cumulative polygon is running a website dedicated to the culture of the North Bengal and North East India together. Through this website this joint social initiative will spread the voices of the communities to the larger masses. The address of the website is http://kmneinitiative.blogspot.com/. The websites will be opened to all the community members of the cumulative polygon and they can actively post they want to tell the larger society.
The action of the polygon will be to bring together most of the community based organizations of the five districts of North Bengal such as Darjeeling, Jalpaiguru, Coochbihar, South Dinajpur, North Dinajpur into a networking platform so that they can raise their voices.
The network will organize various districtlevel and statelevel consultative discourse to unearth the silent voices of the communities and the member CBOs will represent them. At the same time the network will react in various deep-rooted issues thrown in the mainstream arena if they feel the respected communities are going to suffer in any way.
The network will act as a lobby group and work as a mouthpiece in the government and other stakeholders to bring about changes of mindsets of the people who are at the decision making level.
It will publish a regular newsletter as well as other publications of Books, CDs, Videos and other form of publicity materials to propagate various cultures which is in the verge of extinction and aware various sections of the society about it.
To make the proposal the cumulative polygon is asking a funding of a paltry sum of rupees of 4hundred thousands.

ACaseStudy

Raju Oraon sings about shrinking wages, increasing work load and an uncertain future in his dumkachh tunes, a form of tribal song with an elegiac note performed in the tea gardens of north Bengal. Karam, Jetia, Baha and Sohorahi (tribal porobs) have become low-key affairs with tea workers struggling to survive the worst ever crisis in the industry. At a time when such a threat looms large over the fate of tribal culture in tea gardens, the KalabotiMudra and PBYKM's initiative to make a documentation on tribal art and culture in the gardens could not have been better timed.
Almost 150 years ago, the British brought these tribal workers, comprising Santhals, Mundas, Oraons and 10 other tribes from the Chhota Nagpur plateau, as bonded labour for the plantations in north Bengal. No effort has been made earlier to officially document the tribal culture and the way of life in the gardens. The tribal composition in the north Bengal tea gardens is said to be unique to the region. There are around 3 lakh tribal workers in the gardens today. In today’s fast-changing scenario, in which traditions and cultures are undergoing sea change due to technological advancement and globalisation, the documentation process will serve as a record of the life and culture of society in tea gardens so that the roots are not forgotten after the changes come to stay.
To be working extensively in the Dooars and Terai tea gardens, the documentation initiative will showcase the important festivals, songs and dances of the various tribal groups.
The documentation & dissemination is also expected to touch upon several aspects of tribal life - from their local brew haria to the social customs and practices prevalent among them.

CulturalExpressionsOfTheTribasOfTeagardens

The tribes of the tea gardens celebrate Karam puja as their main festival, which is observed in the night of Bhado Ekadasi (August). Other festivals are Fagua (the festival of color), Sohorai, Gobordhan puja, Ganesh puja, Tushu puja and Gram puja.
They were landless persons who were often neglected by the higher classes of the society on the one hand and exploited by the landlords or Zaminders on the other. Properly speaking, they belonged to different castes, creeds and sects. But here in west Bengal they have lived together, mixed together and created a new common culture. They are proud of this culture. These people while living in their fatherlands observed some sorts of festivals and enjoyed pleasures and happiness in their sad life. They have not forgotten them. They have observed them in Bengal as they did them in the past of them mention may be made of the “Karam Puja”. It is the best national festival of the people of the tea garden tribe of Bengal, which they observed thrice a year as “Buri Karam”,”Ram Jumuir” and “Jitiya Karam”. he people of the tea garden tribe of Bengal observe many folk-dances for the sake of their mental gratification of which the “Jumur dance” is the best. They observe this dance in time of the Karam Puja, specialy the “Jitiya Karam Puja” held in the month of “Bhada”. The meaning of the “Jumur Nritya” or dance may be explained thus – “Ju (jhu)” means the atmosphere; “mur” mens the act of doing something moving in a circle or circling or surrounding; Hence the dance means the dance which is performed in a revolving or circling manner. The Karam is performed in Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orisa, Tamilnadu and Chennai all differently but in the month of Bhadra. This puja is in vogue in Bengal not only at the tea gardens but entire length and breadth of Bengal. Its popularity is on the increase. People participate in the dance and song of the Jumur performed as an essential part of the Karm puja. However, the Karam-Puja is started on the fourth tithi of Bhadra on the one hand and ended on the “Acadashi tithi” on the other. The puja is held in a wide place. The “Karmatis” play an important part in the puja from the beginning to the end.
The ‘Jumur dance’ is chiefly matriarchal. It is seen that young girls or women mainly take an important part in it. But that is not the end of the matter however. The young people or men also participate in the Jumur dance. Thus it seen that the Jumur dance is an important concerted dance of the young boys an girls, or male and females performed in connection with the Karam Puja.
The important musical instruments used in the Jumur dance are the drum, madal (a long drum), cymbal, flute and so on. The Jumur dance begins with the beating of the drum used in the function. Then the young girls begin to dance in a circular manner catching each other together. Side by side the Jumur song goes on being sung.
The Jumur song is started with a prayer to the Goddess Saraswati. The themes of the songs of the Jumur dance are vast and varied. They speak of the different events that occurred in the life of Lord Krishna. Apart form them the songs give us a lively description of the variegated matters of the life of the people living in the tea gardens of Bengal.
There is no definite or fixed dress to be worn in the Jumur dance. Only the universal dress of the labour of the society is used in the dance. The dancers wear Sari and put on a kind of ornament named Dhutia around the fingers of their legs. Moreover, they were a flower – & specially a red flower on the plait of their hair.Most of the Jumur songs are of four lines. Of course, there are some lengthy songs which are more than four lines. Again, the songs may be divided into some divisions and they can be sung only according to time.
The people of the tea garden tribe of Bengal have formed an important part of her population. They love Bengal from the core of their –heart as their motherland and are ever ready to keep her glory and prestige insect. This is clear to us from the following Jumur song sung by them in the Jumur dance.–
“Hamara majdur kisan
Hamara rakhba Asamar man
Na balib par desh
Asam balib go mai Asam.”
The people of the tea garden tribes of Bengal have contributed much to her culture. Their festivals and Jumur songs and dances are attractive and pleasing. They have attracted all sorts of the people of Bengal. As such, their popularity is on the increase day by day.