Caste, Community, Religion and Empowerment: The Political Movement of the Muslims, Matua and Namasudras in the Colonial Bengal

This paper would illustrate the community formation of Namasudra and Muslims of the colonial Bengal that was constructed through their individual religious and socio-cultural ideologies and the constant protest against discrimination and deprivation by the high caste Hindu elites. The Matua religious sect developed in the late nineteenth century in South-Eastern part of the undivided Bengal province of India to meet certain social needs of the upwardly mobile peasant community of the Namasudras who gained solidarity and self-confidence with the help of the Matua socio-religious identities. The leaders of Namasudras were naturally compelled to look for political power and became more interested in institutional politics with Muslims, articulated themselves for separate political privileges from the British Raj. From the end of 1930s, they were being recognized in Bengal politics and gained some socio-economic rights through certain acts and rules passed under the British colonial rule. In 1938, a fraction of Matua Namasudras joined hands with Congress and fought for the Indian freedom struggle and at the same time consolidated their position. But the Bengal Partition in 1947 shattered the unity and strength of the Namasudra caste movement and they got displaced to Bangladesh (formerly called East Pakistan), West Bengal and different parts of India as refugees.