I fail to understand what she is really accusing you of…abandoning internationalism, minimizing alarm over Talibanization, not being alarmed by the Shariah, conservative cultural nationalism…But I enjoyed the Trade Union fable she offers us a guide to understanding Pakistan.

Just want to clarify that I was referring to the land reforms that took place under Allied Occupation. The Meiji Land Reform programme, though often called a Land Tax reform, was a lot more than that as it established alienable private property rights in land for the first time in the countryside and allowed the sale and use of land by landowners as collateral on credit markets.

Its another issue that the BJP is completely incapable of land reforms.

I don’t think that was my point at all; it isn’t a matter of party politics but of state power. The Indian state did try to implement land reform and other control measures over the agricultural sector and realised very quickly it simply didn’t have the capacity to carry this out with force.

Are liberalism and communism then devoid of ethnic politics, and function on the modern and humanistic principles only?

Of course not, there is always an element of such factors present; it is entirely different though to claim that they are in no way different from ethnic politics or dominated by them.

So where did I say that ‘land reforms took place without any violence’? This is a bizarre claim that seems to exist mostly in your mind. If peasant violence was so spontaneous it wouldn’t have needed the organisation of a political party to channel it; peasant rebellions have been extremely common throughout Chinese history, which you should know. I thought the BJP rationale was a bit different on Ayodhya at that time, given that there weren’t a lot of bearded Muslims at the site on December 6th running around ‘oppressing’ Hindus.

Your issue was with me saying Kolkata/Calcutta and Colo(u)mbia in the same breath. Calcutta was the earlier destination of the Bangla lord, now it is Columbia and others of the same ilk.

Well, no it isn’t; most of the erstwhile zamindars have remained in the state comfortably ensconced within the powerful institutions there; US academia is a much more level playing field, which requires greater investment of time and effort to perform well in and where personal connections don’t matter so much; hence the predominance of other social classes there.

I fail to understand why the Yadav or anybody else needs your certificate for being politically astute. Incidentally, as of now, at least the Yadav satraps (if not the Yadavs) are on the backfoot in both UP and Bihar. Congratulations for being a clairvoyant and estimating that only upper caste suckers whine (and have access to English and internet) about the Yadavs.

Nobody needs any certificate from me for anything, least of all Yadavs; they could certainly do without your patronising condescension though. I have done most of fieldwork in eastern UP actually and I grew up in Bihar, so I am well aware of the tensions between the OBCs and Dalits in the countryside; the whining though is confined to upper castes, in the manner which you replicate.

I wish you could do further fieldwork and read more Indian newspapers and know more about the nature of the Yadavs’ relationship with castes lower to theirs on the ladder.

PMSL, are English newspapers the best guide to what is happening in the countryside?! Is this the same source where you get the idea that “Yadavs have kicked out Rajputs and bhumihars from Bihar”?! News to at least half of my family and friends I can tell you, but then maybe that is because they haven’t read the English newspapers outlining how they have been kicked out the state :D

I still think you are impolite, and I still rankle you.

But if you think I am impolite, surely it should be me that is rankling you – no?

And these land reforms took place without any violence or to use your term ‘ethnic cleansing’, and, without the politics of identity, and without hatred? Did not Mao and his followers come up with the theory that peasant violence against landlords was a spontaneous reaction against oppression. Suspiciously similar to the BJP after Dec 6. What took place in Japan was a Land Tax Reform. Its another issue that the BJP is completely incapable of land reforms. Are liberalism and communism then devoid of ethnic politics, and function on the modern and humanistic principles only?

2) Your issue was with me saying Kolkata/Calcutta and Colo(u)mbia in the same breath. Calcutta was the earlier destination of the Bangla lord, now it is Columbia and others of the same ilk.

3) Yadav’s are a smart and politically astute people, they would never believe their own propaganda anyway; that is strictly for the, usually upper-caste, suckers who whine about them.

I fail to understand why the Yadav or anybody else needs your certificate for being politically astute. Incidentally, as of now, at least the Yadav satraps (if not the Yadavs) are on the backfoot in both UP and Bihar. Congratulations for being a clairvoyant and estimating that only upper caste suckers whine (and have access to English and internet) about the Yadavs. I wish you could do further fieldwork and read more Indian newspapers and know more about the nature of the Yadavs’ relationship with castes lower to theirs on the ladder.

4) I still think you are impolite, and I still rankle you.

Most Communist countries, particularly in Asia, where land reform was a main reason for the support of the peasantry for it would fall under this category. There are also fairly radical land reforms in Taiwan and Japan under more conservative regimes, whose aim was to pre-empt any Communist takeover.

how is it that ‘ordinary middle-class bengalis’ have a greater chance of joining this cosmopolitan paradise of the US academia than many other kinds of South Asians

I don’t recall saying this, unsure where you got this idea from; Bengalis are only just one of several groups well represented in US academia from South Asia. My comments just referred to the internal composition of the Bengalis that did cross over.

I also wish I was a Yadav propagandist blowing my own trumpet.

Yadav’s are a smart and politically astute people, they would never believe their own propaganda anyway; that is strictly for the, usually upper-caste, suckers who whine about them.

Anyways sorry to rankle you.

If I remember correctly, it was you that got upset at my lack of ‘politeness’ so I suggest that it wasn’t me that got rankled here.

Anyways sorry to rankle you. Have fun.

2) first off, the Annales is a lot more than just Braudel, the original founding fathers of the Annales school, Bloch and Febvre, wanted to go beyond just look at data of prices, currency and trade, technological changes and the structure of agrarian society but also to explore values, sensibilities and feelings. This was what is sometimes termed the ‘spirit of the Annales’ at the time. Secondly, even referring to Braudel to support your arguement, you are making a category mistake; while the tri-level division of history that Braudel makes relegates the lives of individuals and politics, dismissingly described as ‘event-based history), to tertiary importance; economic and social structures are the mid-level that connect this with the deeper demographic and environmental changes that actually cause tectonic shifts in underlying patters. Land reform is part of this mid-level change and the way it takes place and occurs is of importance, all changes in land ownership cannot simply be equated to one another, the differences here have important bearing on the outcomes. To simply try and relegate this to the surface level of event-based history, is a category mistake and a mis-understanding of Braudel’s theory of history. I won’t go into the swing back to the ‘internal lives’ and mentalities that has characterised more recent developments in Annales as through the work of Le Roy Ladurie and Goubert who reacted against the environmental long-duree approach of Braudel and his dismissal of ‘human insects’ since this isn’t meant to be a discussion about historiography, but just to note that equating the Annales school with Braudel is a mistake, quite apart from any issues of misinterpreting Braudel’s approach.

3) Sorry but where did I say that changes in property ownership is not violent, please point that out to me. You seem to be arguing against something you think/wish I said, rather than looking at what I actually did. My point was the different types of changes in land ownership cannot be equated with each other nor can they be subsumed under the category of ‘Land reform’ which is actually quite a specific category. For example, replacing Hindu landlords with Muslim landlords is not ‘land reform’. You seem to be equating all changes in land ownership and land rights with ‘land reform’ which is wrong and seems more to delegitimize land reform as a distinct category, rather than any actual empirical evidence. There is also a large typology of different types of land reform (whether from ‘above’ or from ‘below’; how settlements are worked out, what property rights are actually given etc.) what form it actually takes has a huge impact on outcomes – something that most scholars of land reform will tell you. In terms of land reform, several major episodes of land reform have been carried out without wholesale violence, though inevitably it always involves a measure of coercion; zamindari abolition in India, for example through the Zamindari abolition acts in UP and Bihar, did result in a substantial transfer of ownership rights from the top level of landowners to the intermediary class. There is a massiv literature on this Jannuzi’s work on Bihar and Wolf Ladejinsky on UP being the classic works by observers present on the agrarian scene at the time they were occurring. Incidentally, I would like to add that Naxalism was not ‘contained’ by CPI(M) sponsored land reforms, attempts to actually impose land ceilings and redistribute land was what led to outbreak of fighting in Naxalbari and the split within the party in 67. Naxalism was smashed inside West Bengal because it was attacked by the Centre after the declaration of President’s Rule and use of the army and intercinine fighting with the CPI(M). Upon returning to power in 77 the Left Front govt quietly shelved plans to impose land ceilings and agricultural taxation, what was done was the registration of sharecroppers and the enforcement of harvest contracts that guaranteed them a fixed share of the output. This benefited the middle peasantry which was the key support base of the LF govt in the state and again was done through the administrative and constitutional machinery – it did not need and revolution or state-sponsored violence in the countryside. Within India, the state does not have the level of force to coerce land reform in the countryside or even to control agricultural production and distribution, attempts to do so by the Indira Gandhi govt in 1971-2 and during the Emergency were an abject failure. Also I don’t know where you got the idea that the ‘Yadav peasantry’ have kicked out the Rajputs and bhumihars from Bihar – this certainly has not happened, the latter are still very much there in the countryside, their larger estates have been broken up through legal ceiling limits, inability to utilise the new technologies of the Green Revolution and a reluctance to engage in output and profit maximisation cultivation, not through any direct ‘Yadav action’ – this sounds suspiciously like Yadav propaganda to me! Acquisition of adivasi lands by MNCs and Indian corporate groups is just another form of primitive accumulation, why it is even mentioned in the same breath as land reform is beyond me.

4) ‘Violence’ and ‘force’ are massive generalisations, almost all exercise of the law involve some measure of both; so conceptually it is useless. Ethnic cleansing is my term, not yours, you are free not to use it if you wish, I am not imposing it on you.
5) I see, your points here just strike me as somewhat confusing. Why mention Kolkata (a city) in the same sentence as Colombia (a university) it just strikes me as odd and not quite logical. Regarding Bengalis in the US, I agree that they are strongly represented in the Uni sector, especially in some depts. Like Development economics (or the ‘Bengali mafia’ as a friend described it to me!) but it is incorrect to make the comparison between this and the domination of many elite institutions within West Bengal by members of the erstwhile zamindari class from East Bengal; the presence of this class of East Bengalis in the US is nowhere near the same level and most come from much more ordinary middle-class backgrounds, not to mention from West Bengal as opposed to the East.

most of them sent their descendants to elite institutions like Presidency College and now run the state in West Bengal

well now they send their kids to Ivy League and Oxbridge also!

2) You need to read your Braudel with care. It is not a co-incidence that peasants taking up land ownership in Bengal has happened under different guises on both sides of the border.

3) Changes in the ownership of property are always violent. If you could give me substantial examples of voluntary submissions of property, I’d be gaining some facts thanks to you. White settlers in new world. Muslim peasants kicking out Hindu landlords in Bangladesh. The West Bengal CPM bringing in land reforms was a good way to contain naxalism, who were anyways promising land reforms. Yadav peasantry in Bihar kicking out Rajputs and Bhumihars. GoI and big business taking over tribal lands in Orissa. Ongoing or over and done with violent processes all. When and where did you see voluntary giving up of claims on property?

4) Don’t make me say ‘ethnic cleansing’, when I am talking about ‘violence’ or ‘force’.

1) You could do with some politeness.

Vikas – please don’t abuse the Annales school with that kind of stupidity, the process was also important for them as the outcome and equating the two different processes here is really crassly dumb. Columbia is an Ivy League university, I don’t quite see the relevance of it in anycase.

But I was unaware of any significant land reform taking place in the ‘name of Mohammed’ as you put it; there weren’t many Bengali Hindu landlords left in East Pakistan after 1947…

A paen to the Bengali feudal zamindari class, PMSL! Don’t shed too many tears though, most of them sent their descendants to elite institutions like Presidency College and now run the state in West Bengal, LOL!