Sunil's language suggests his ambitions. Not only was he steadfast in his quest for social status improvement, but he was also intent on economic betterment. He was himself unusually prosperous for a Namasudra farmer; indeed, he had grown wealthier since the exodus of the caste Hindus, more than doubling his landholdings, and eventually renting to sharecroppers. He had sent his children to the university and was deeply desirous of their upward mobility, even though he himself continued to till the land with his own hands. When I asked him about his ambitions for his children, his point of reference was, interestingly, the community of caste Hindus. His answer well illustrated the long history of class ambitions among Faridpur Namasudras and the intermingling of individual and group status mobility. (Notice how he mixed religious and economic signifiers in the context of class ambition, too, contrasting “caste Hindus” and sometimes “those Hindus” with “peasants”):
Your children are all highly educated. What was it that made you so determined to educate your children?
There were lots of caste Hindus around our place. My grandfather used to go to their places. He saw their customs. The relationship between the peasants and the caste Hindus was different. The way the caste Hindus lived and the way the peasants lived, anybody with a little vision could see that we are working so hard and producing crops, food grains, but we can't enjoy the fruits of our labor. We pay the price with our health.
On the other hand, those Hindus are living well, with just a little education. My grandfather realized it. I don't remember my father because he died when I was three. But I knew that my father got a little education from the fact that when I grew a little older I found my father's books from class nine, ten.
Even though my grandfather was overwhelmed with grief because of the deaths of my father and uncle, still he was conscientious about our education. Unfortunately, when I was in class seven my grandfather died. We lost our guardian, so we couldn't continue our studies. But I was a very good student. I always stood first in my class. I was heartbroken that I couldn't study any more. I knew that without a guardian I couldn't study as much as I wanted. So I prayed to god, “If you send me any children, please give me the ability to make it possible for my children to have education.” So I worked very hard so they could study and become capable of mixing with [upper-class] people.
…My son asked me, “Baba [father], why do you work so hard? It's so hard for you to afford my expenses at the university. It's hard for you, and it's hard for me.”
I replied that I have a dream. “To satisfy it, let me work hard. As for you, please try to have some compassion for my desire.”
[My sons] said, “You haven't passed matriculation. You could stop sending us to school after we matriculated. We could try to send our children to the next level of education. Maybe their children will then try for a university degree. Then their children can try for a master's.”
Then I told them, “The plan you are proposing will take four generations. I'll take the trouble, you also take the trouble, and let's do it now. Finish your education. I won't stop until you get your M.A. But I will make you indebted to me.”
Then they asked, “What is the debt?” And I said, “Being a poor peasant, a simple tiller, I could make you an M.A. So you think about what you want for your children. I want you to think that your poor father got us through an M.A. degree, so you should have even higher ambitions for your children.”
Sunil projected his progeny's destinies in a straight line upward. No land-tillers appeared in his idealized future, no followers in his own footsteps. After Jinnah's death, Jogen Mandal was ousted from national power. Sunil explained:
We were very disappointed, we local people. Still, we were not willing to go to India. This is our motherland. We are tillers. Cultivation is our only job. Our forefathers were krishak [tillers], we were krishak, we thought our children after us would be krishak. We didn't want to leave the land.
Sunil constructed a conceptual tangle of identities. His ardent wish was that his children and their children not be krishak. And yet it was precisely on the basis of his cultivation of the land that he proclaimed his rights to citizenship in a Muslim-ruled country. In one sitting, he spoke eloquently of his ambitions for class transcendence-and equally eloquently of his connections with the land he tilled. From his articulate tongue flowed the dilemma of the peasant, defensive of his work and rights, land-proud, yet wishing nothing more than that his children take their clean hands far away from that land, to the cities where alone his ambitions for wealth and status could be satisfied.
Most individuals can identify with any number of groups. Sunil is a krishak or peasant, and he is a landlord. He is both a Hindu and a Namasudra. He is a Bangladeshi. At what moment he chooses to see himself as part of one group or another is important, for it suggests the dynamics of identity. When hiring workers, Sunil's view of himself as a Hindu is of primary importance, dictating that he hire only Hindus. But when his community faced a choice of nationality, of opting for India or Pakistan, Sunil's interests as a peasant took clear precedence over his identity as a Hindu. As long as the Scheduled Caste alliance with the Muslims held firm, he and other Namasudras wholeheartedly supported the Muslim League and Pakistan. “Jogen Mandal,” he explained proudly, “was the leader in the Muslim League of the Scheduled Castes from before the Partition.” Even when that alliance broke down, he defended his roots in Pakistan, and now in Bangladesh, because of his relationship to the land. Presumably that relationship was not solely sentimental; to sell land in Pakistan and buy in India was beyond the limited means of a small owner like Sunil. Because of this crosshatching of identities and allegiances, this mix of consciousness and economics, the Namasudra community is a fertile source of understanding about group identities and their roles in social conflict.
But when it came to the riot, Sunil's position was unconfused. I asked in general about conflicts in his village, and he promptly began to tell us about the riot. By this time, sensing unease on Sunil's part, I had cleared the room of spectators, and he now vented his anger at the local Muslim leadership:
It started when a cow ate the crops in a field. The Muslims made the cows eat the crops of the Hindus. This fight was a result of the protest by the Hindus.
We complained to the leaders, but the leaders, instead of solving the problem, rather they said, “What is it? The Hindus are trying to live as they did in the past. Why are they making such a fuss about it? It was only a little kolai [another variety of lentil]. The cows could have eaten much more.” The leaders used these kinds of inciting words, and said, “Teach the Hindus a lesson. Call our community together.” So they did, and there was this communal riot.
So we too organized our community, in order to save ourselves. In actuality, they couldn't beat us into submission. If we had the strength of mind, we could have overwhelmed them. But because we didn't have enough strength of mind, we only stopped them and protected ourselves.
The Muslims were entirely to blame. They “made” the cow eat the lentil. The Hindus did nothing but protest. They were forced to organize their community for defense. Sunil's riot devastated choice. For his people there were no decisions to be made. They were victims cast in poses of self-defense.
The set of decisions made between the first round of the Panipur fight and its explosion into mass action was clearly delineated by many of my storytellers. First came the space in which the communities considered what to do. Despite Sunil's demurrals, he and his fellow Hindus participated in that process, too:
[Sunil:] I stayed home, but I directed others to spread the word throughout the community. The first day there was no fighting. It was all news. The next day early people began to gather.
[Mr. Ghosh:] People were