ABSTRACT
This essay focuses on the Bengali Hindu refugees from East Pakistan who came to India in the wake of the partition. It explores a paradox: why is it that, while practices of caste privilege and discrimination continue in West Bengal, there is, unlike other parts of India, little discussion of caste in public life in this province – and this despite the political mobilization of the rural peasantry, – as well as the existence of the third largest percentage of Dalit population amongst Indian states – in the region? The essay explores how, in the wake of the partition of the Indian subcontinent, the “refugee colonies,” which were dominated by upper castes, established a cultural and ideological dominance on a new register, one no longer centred around the discriminations of caste practice. The new middle class formation drew primarily on cultural capital to offer a cultural repertoire that became the normative standard for Bengalis from all regions and social rank – one that is open to all to acquire and use new dominance. In other words, the upper-caste elite culture became hegemonic precisely because it was not exclusively about caste. Its persuasive power came from its ability to create and defend larger social consolidations.
