Bigot is a heavy word. If you call someone a bigot and the accusation sticks, that person would have a tough time being accepted in civil society or on social media. The charge of bigotry and racism has cast long shadows over the legacies of many worthies from the world of art, literature, science, and cinema. It takes a Mel Gibson to make a comeback after being branded as racist!
Yet, bigotry persists in various facets of life — from job interviews and bars to airport immigration counters and football fields. When their chosen club loses or wins a match, English hooligans resort to verbal and physical abuse, looting, arson, and posting derogatory comments and memes on social media platforms. Such behaviour has been called out, arrests have been made, and psychoanalysis of football racists has been conducted over the years. Unfortunately, nothing has stopped the brown sahebs, or Bhadraloks if you please, from being obnoxious towards others, from abusing their very own, as was seen at Kolkata’s Salt Lake Stadium and on social media on 3 September.
There is no bigot like the Bhadralok bigot. But how do you call out someone for bad behaviour when they have made it their moral duty to call out everyone else?
If Bengal stinks today, can India think tomorrow?
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Mohun Bagan wins, civility loses
For Bengalis, 3 September was the Sunday of all Sundays. The traditional rivals, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan football clubs, were clashing on the field. Fans with their faces painted in club colours eagerly watched from the stands or jumped from their couches at home with each pass on the field. The first half of the Durand Cup final remained goalless, raising adrenaline levels for the second half.
When Mohun Bagan was reduced to a 10-man squad after Anirudh Thapa was shown the red card for a foul tackle, it seemed like all was lost for the club and its fans. East Bengal fans had already started celebrating victory when a goal in the 71st minute from Dimitri Petratos saved the day for Mohun Bagan, leading the club to a 1-0 win against its rival.
Taunts on the field and a meme fest on social media were expected. What wasn’t expected was the resurgence of memories from the 1947 Partition and the resulting bloodshed among Bengalis caught in the ensuing riots. The club supported by ‘Ghotis’ had seized the day, but was it necessary to make the ‘Bangals’ feel so miserable about their existence?
For those unaware, Bengali Hindus are divided not only by caste and class but also by the Radcliffe Line, which partitioned India. Bengalis who originated from East Bengal, which became East Pakistan and later Bangladesh, are known as Bangals, while those who always resided on this side of the border and were not directly affected by the Partition are referred to as Ghotis.
Also Read: Rabindranath Tagore is polarising in new Bangladesh—for his Hinduness, Sanskritised Bangla
Ghotis, Bangals and bad faith
As communal violence broke out after the Partition, Hindu refugees poured into Bengal in the East, much like they did in the North. But, unlike North India, the influx of Hindu refugees into Bengal didn’t end with the Partition. A sizeable section of Bengali Hindus had stayed back in East Pakistan. They continued to migrate to West Bengal during the 1950s, ’60s, and even during the Mukti Juddho or Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, as anti-Hindu violence became the order of the day.
This homeless mass of humanity worshipped the same Hindu gods, spoke the same language (albeit in different dialects), and ate the same food (love for the river fish aside, the way food is prepared varied vastly). But when the Bangals started living alongside the Ghotis, they realised they were staring at a toned-down version of the othering that Muslims from undivided India faced when they migrated to Pakistan and were called Mujahirs.
The Bangals and Ghotis didn’t marry into each other’s families and were often openly contemptuous of one another. This apathy was visible when their preferred football clubs, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, clashed on the field. They played with the same toxic aggression seen in India-Pakistan cricket matches.
Life for Bangals in West Bengal was rather tough as successive governments didn’t quite know how to rehabilitate such a large population. Some were sent off to Dandakaranya, while the rest moved on from temporary refugee camps to cramped houses with tin roofs in crowded colonies.
Growing up in relative privilege during the early 1980s, as my family had managed to establish itself in a new land by then, I was aware that, unlike me, many Bangals were still struggling to find their footing. However, what had definitely changed by then was how Bangals and Ghotis perceived each other. The jokes were no longer cruel, food recipes were mixed, Bangals no longer spoke a different dialect, and intermarriage became more common. Yes, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan matches still drew crowds, but the underlying bigotry had ebbed.
I was wrong.
Last Sunday, as I saw a barrage of derogatory posts regarding food habits, refugee status, and differing dialects, I was initially mildly amused at how the current generation remembered these differences and how distinct Bangals and Ghotis once were. However, when the posts became reminders of the genocide families like mine escaped and threats of sending all of us ‘back to where we came from’ became rampant, I sat up. This wasn’t funny anymore. Some of my Bangal friends called me to ask if my social media timelines were as disturbing to me as theirs were. Many of the derogatory posts were about food habits and refugee status.
I couldn’t tell them that some of those writing such posts were friends from long ago—erudite, established, and supposedly egalitarian!
Offline, Bangals who had made the mistake of going to Salt Lake Stadium to watch the match witnessed even worse humiliation. Some had their club jerseys torn off, their heads and noses broken by iron rods, as tattered East Bengal club flags lay on the ground. The next day, the East Bengal Club issued a press note detailing the violence that followed the match, promising medical assistance to those affected.
But the Bangals are not innocent either. During the semi-final match between East Bengal and NorthEast United FC, which the former won, racial slurs were hurled, and stones and slippers were thrown at the opposing team. Northeastern students were attacked by East Bengal supporters.
“Such was the condition that immediate intervention by the Indian Army and local police was required to ensure safe exit of NorthEast United FC supporters,” The Indian Express reported on 30 August.
Also Read: Bengali films avoid Hindu themes. But Subhrajit Mitra’s Devi Chowdhurani set to change that
Bengali exceptionalism
No other part of India was as dismayed by America’s military misadventure in Vietnam as Bengal, and no one else proclaimed ‘China’s Chairman is our Chairman’. Perhaps no one else still believes that what their part of India thinks today, the rest of India will think tomorrow or never. A sense of Bengali exceptionalism deludes the Bhadralok into believing that, unlike the rest of India, they are neither racists nor bigots.
But growing up in a cultured, upper-middle-class family in Kolkata that had sent me to one of the city’s best schools, my friends and I had learned to use pejorative terms for Biharis, Odiyas, Punjabis, and South Indians. Bigotry had quietly seeped into the recesses of our minds, which even Tagore’s poems or Satyajit Ray’s cinema had failed to throw out.
The bigot sat quietly within the Bhadralok. All it took was a football match to bring it out.
Deep Halder is a writer and journalist. He tweets @deepscribble. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)