Cultural Subjugation of Rajbongshis: Alienation of Debuttor Temples

Even though Bharatavarsha lives upto the saying ‘Unity in Diversity’ despite the attempts to break it through a 1000 cuts, there cannot be disagreement over the fact that some vulnerable communities that strive hard to protect their uniqueness are left to fend for themselves by the secular state. Rajbongshis of Coochbehar is one such community. They are currently the largest SC community in the state of West Bengal

Rajbongshi or Rajvanshi, as they are known in other parts of India, is a royal community of North Eastern India. The Kshatriyas of Rajbongshis used to rule the regions of today’s Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and some parts of Nepal and Bhutan recognized as Kamatpur kingdom or the Koch kingdom in the 1500s.

The Koch tribes along with Mech, Bodo, Cachari tribes lived in the Himalayas & the hills of North Eastern India. Koch lived in what is now eastern Nepal & hills north of Bengal. They were a Tibetan tribe who spoke the languages of the Sino-Tibetan or Tibeto-Burman family. They migrated & settled in the entire Northern part of Bengal & Assam where they established the Kamata Kingdom. Vast stretches of Bengal [including Mymensingh, Pabna, Bogra, Rangpur] and Assam were part of this kingdom. 

Although originally Tibetan tribes, they adopted Hinduism when they settled in Bengal and Assam. In Bengal, they were mostly Vaishnavs and some were Shaktas. A small minority became Muslims too & separated from the main Rajbangshi community. Since they were a ruling class who established a large Kingdom and whose members served as soldiers, they came to be regarded as Kshatriyas [hence the name Rajbangshi]. Throughout history, several communities in India’s periphery (like Meeteis, Cacharis, Tripuris, the Shah dynasty of Nepal) after their assimilation into the Hindu society got the status of Kshatriyas since they established Kingdoms of their own. 

In the British era census, it can be clearly seen that the Rajbangshis were numerous in Assam’s Brahmaputra valley & Bengal’s Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar state, Rangpur, Dinajpur; apart from that, there is a substantial Rajbangshi population living in Malda, Pabna, Bogra & Mymensingh. Sometime in the 16th century, the kingdom split into 2 – Koch Behar and Koch Hajo. Koch Hajo was soon taken over by the expanding Ahom kingdom while Koch Behar continued as an independent state in the Northern part of Bengal.

After the Cooch Behar kingdom was formed in the 16th century & the Koch Hajo got assimilated into the Ahom kingdom, the Koch-Rajbangshi community slowly adopted a dialect of Bengali (prevalent in the North Bengal) & Assamese language in Assam. The old Tibetan language went into obscurity & languages derived from Magadhi prakrit (Bengali dialects, Assamese) took over. This assimilation happened as the Rajbangshis lived alongside the pre-existing Hindu population [even in the Cooch Behar kingdom Rajbangshis were only half the population]. In Bengal, while many pre-existing Bengali Hindu populations were assimilated into the Rajbangshi community, the Rajbangshis in return adopted the language [a dialect of Bengali] prevalent there. In fact, the kingdom of Cooch Behar from the 16th century onwards began to use Bengali language for its administration and the trend continued even under the British paramountcy when Bengali remained the official language. This cultural exchange also led to the Rajbangshis in Bengal adopting many festivals from Bengal’s Vaishnav traditions such as Raash Mela and Rath Yatra which began to receive patronage from the Cooch Behar State.

King Naranarayana and his brother Chilarai who acted as the general of their army are regarded as the most successful personalities of their dynasty, as the kingdom was expanded the most during their reign. Rajbongshis have a unique culture that was well preserved by the monarchy till the East India Company(EIC) arrived. Due to the incompetence of the ruler of that time, Dhirajendra Narayan, the neighbouring Bhutanese kingdom started expanding its territory. This resulted in an emergency situation where the Koch kingdom had to seek help from the EIC to hold back Bhutan. The cost of hiring the army of EIC, accepting to being a subject of EIC and pay half of the revenue of the kingdom as a tribute to EIC proved to be a disaster for the kingdom. EIC merged the many parts of Koch kingdom with the Bengal province and the kingdom was limited to a district that came to be called as Cooch Behar district in Independent India. The partition of India aggravated the problem as some of the Rajbongshis were and still are living in East Bengal. Scattered over the North East region due to partition during independence, their strength reduced and they became minorities in their own land.

A kingdom in its own right getting constricted into a mere district played its part in debilitating the cultural bond and economic activities of the Rajbongshi community. As a result, the community which was once prevalent as the ruling class of the region was categorized as a lower caste group under British rule. Panchanan Barma, a celebrated reformer of the Rajbongshi community founded the Kshatriya movement to bring back their ancient glory and elevate the community to the Kshatriya status again. This was the phase in which a lot of communities in India went through a “Sanskritization” process, and re-asserted their Kshatriya status, and started wearing the sacred thread [many Rajbangshis too from then on started wearing the sacred thread].

The Koch kingdom being Hindu in nature took measures to protect their unique oral tradition of music, dance, agriculture and medical practices. The Hindu government had a Debuttor Trust set up and conducted the festivals like Raas Yatra and Ratha Yatra, set up funds for annadana, scholarships for poor students, classical artists and artisans, etc through the trust. This helped sustain and promote the Rajbongshi culture. This trust earned more than 1.2 lakh rupees in the 1930s itself and the administrative cost is said to be less than 10% of the income. The state also allotted nearly 2.5 lakh rupees every year for the purpose of conducting the festivities of Sri Madan Mohan Deb, the tutelary deity of the princely state as well as other state rituals.

However, after the independence of India and the merger of Cooch Behar state into the Indian union, the Rajbangshi community and the Cooch Behar royal family faced difficulties in maintaining their cultural & religious institutions which were ruthlessly taken over by West Bengal’s state government. When the princely state agreed to merge with the state of West Bengal, arrangements were made to oversee the management of temples in Cooch Behar. For this purpose, a Debuttor Trust Board was formed by the Indian government under which 30 temples, 28 in West Bengal and 2 in Uttar Pradesh were brought to be administered by Rajbongshis with the help of the West Bengal government. His Highness Maharaja Bhup Bahadur of Cooch Behar was the president of the trust with 3 nominees chosen by him and 2 nominees selected by the state government to govern the temples through a trust. However, now the trust is fully managed by the Tourism ministry under the government of West Bengal.

The properties of the temples located in Cooch Behar coming under the purview of the trust amounting to 1,17,405 bighas have been alienated by the West Bengal government through its Land Reforms Act, 1955. Having taken over the temple properties the state government is liable to provide funds to the Debuttor Trust for its activities as confirmed by the Kerala High Court concerning the management of temples in the erstwhile region of Malabar. However, the reality is contradictory as the state budget has allocated a mere 3.39 crore to meet the salary expenses and even worse a pittance of 61 lakh for the religious and charitable purposes of the Debuttor Trust. This is contrary to how the revenue was used by the trust – more to promote the Rajbongshi culture and religious activities than meeting administrative expenses. If we are to calculate the amount that should be allocated for religious and cultural activities of the trust, it would come around 90 to 100 crores now. Another glaring contradiction is that the same budget has allocated 4419 crores for Minority Affairs and Madarasa Department.

On the other hand, the West Bengal government is denying the rights of Rajbongshis to be a part of the Debuttor Trust by snatching the position of President from the Maharaja and appointing all 6 members of the board on its own. The Debuttor Trust is the last refuge of the community to protect its culture and the WB government is only making it worse for this cultural minority community by denying their rights over the management of their temples. The once ruling community is now targeted by the Joshua Project, which is trying to take advantage of their weakness in numbers and debilitating attack on their culture as the government is turning a blind eye to their well-being