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Saugato Datta

15 Mar, 8 tweets, 3 min read

@sarkar_swati

I was surprised that @sarkar_swati, who claims expertise on Bengali society/culture, was unaware of something as basic as castes in Bengal having been classified as “(A)Jol-chol”. Since she insisted I was somehow concocting this, here are some references for her edification. 1/

Dasgupta, A (2000), “In the Citadel of Bhadralok Politicians: The Scheduled Castes in West Bengal”. Journal of the Indian School of Political Economy. ispepune.org.in/PDF%20ISSUE/20…

Roy, U (2010), “Aestheticizing labor: an affective discourse of cooking in colonial Bengal”, South Asian History and Culture. “...the most significant distinction in caste status .... was in terms of jalchal and ajalchal...”.doi.org/10.1080/194724…

Bhattacharjee, A. “Caste in Mind: Craving for Endogamy”, Anudhyan, An International Journal of Social Sciences academia.edu/25462696/Caste…

Chandra, Heierstaad, Nielsen (2015). “The Politics of Caste in West Bengal”.

Raha, B and Chattopadhyaya, S. (2018), “Mapping the Path to Maturity: An Interconnected History of Bengal and the Northeast”, Routledge.

Patridge, Roger. “Bengal 1943: The Forgotten Famine: A Novel”

@sarkar_swati

Just a few examples, mostly from scholarly literature in history & political science, that mention the jalchal/ajalchal divide. Hopefully @sarkar_swati will improve her currently rudimentary knowledge of Bengali social structure and its history before challenging others.

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Saugato Datta

@sd268

14 Mar

Hinduism has always policed temple entry & access to drinking water sources (think caste-segregated wells), punishing those who flout these “rules”. Poor Asif was “punished” for his “transgression”, as countless Dalits have before him. Be appalled, but spare me the surprise. 1/

I’ve been to many villages in Rajasthan and UP where people from disadvantaged castes would be risking death if they dared to try and drink water from a well earmarked for so-called “upper” castes. And the situation is no different elsewhere in the country. The entry of Dalits 2/

..into temples was fought tooth and nail by Brahmins and other “upper” castes. In Bengali, the term for castes who are of “similar” status is “jol-chol”, ie quite literally “those whom you can share water with”. Not sharing space, water and food: this is CENTRAL to caste.

Read 6 tweets

Saugato Datta

@sd268

13 Jul 19

Bangladesh’s excellent human development/social indicators are deservedly lauded as far better than India’s, but I was curious how they compared to West Bengal, arguably a very good comparator. So here are some data. 1/

Total Fertility Rate: West Bengal - 1.6 (2016 estimate); Bangladesh - 2.17 (2017 estimate). So both Bengals have dramatically reduced their birth rates, but West Bengal has actually done even better and is now well below replacement levels of fertility. 2/

Literacy: West Bengal (77.1%) again higher than Bangladesh (72.8%). WB rate is from 2011 and Bangladesh’s is the UNESCO estimate for 2017, so the gap may have changed assuming both continued to become more literate. 3/

Read 12 tweets

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