as dramatically as in American mythology. Rags-to-riches stories are not unknown, and twentieth-century upward mobility has become a prospect in the consciousness of modern-day citizens of the Indian subcontinent, if not a very common event. But the more usual and historic route to change, both economic and social, is through the group. One's group identity, the group that claims one and with which the world identifies one, is therefore very central to one's sense of self and treatment in the world. People in every agricultural society experience some variation on this same theme, however different the particularities may be.
The group defines for an individual not only how to behave, as the Panipur story well illustrates, but often how to feel and think as well. If life is to improve, the group as a whole must participate both in the process of gain and in the fruits thereof. It is in the nature of societies newly industrializing that this group-based mobility mixes with an individualized derivative. In Bengal during the 1950s the newly won independence of the country, combined with the formation of the entirely new nation-concept of Pakistan, unsettled old economic and power relations and opened up unfamiliar prospects. But people at one and the same time attended to their personal fortunes and experienced change in terms of their place in a group. Caste was an element in the definition, but the Panipur riot demonstrated how it intersected other identities, both economic and religious.
Bias and Loyalty
When the gauntlet was down, for instance, Mr. Ghosh's allegiance to his fellow Hindus won out over any class or caste estrangements. Even from a distance, he unselfconsciously revealed his affinities:
So many people gathered that each party had about two or three thousand people. The Muslims said, “We won't allow any Hindus to stay here” The Hindus were also saying, “We won't let any Muslims stay on this side of the river. We'll push them to the other side of the river.”…
The Namasudras were greater in number, and they were more courageous. They had a lot of food. But the Muslims, they didn't have much—only some chal [uncooked rice]. They would eat a handful of chal and some water. Since the Namasudras had plenty of food, they had plenty of courage.
Food weighs heavily in the scales of significance in many cultures, and especially in South Asia. Over and over, people expressed distinctions of status and nuances of respect through food, not to mention using it as a material demarcation of position. To eat uncooked rice is unthinkable to a Hindu. From Mr. Ghosh's tone of voice, I inferred that the Muslims eating it were, to him, inferior beings, a theme he elaborated as he continued his story:
The Muslims fell back a little, and the Namasudras advanced. Then Raghu Nandan [a Hindu police officer] said to the S.D.O. [subdivisional officer, a civil official], Raghubabu said, “Sir, this is the time to give the order to fire. Otherwise there will be a lot of bloodshed.”
So the S.D.O. said, “Inform both sides, if they don't stop, we'll fire.” Then Raghu Nandan rode his horse and went to both sides and told them of the S.D.O's decision, and said, “I'll raise a flag, and as soon as I raise it, you all leave this place. Otherwise we will fire.” As soon as the flag was raised, the Namasudras left. But the Muslims attacked. And the police fired. One or two-I'm not sure how many-were killed.
Not only had the police come and camped and stopped the fight, they had fired on the mob and killed people. Suddenly the stakes had risen dramatically. Mr. Ghosh's point of view continued to be woven into his historic memory. The only named official was not the high-ranking S.D.O., but a Hindu policeman who played the active role. Mr. Ghosh called him Raghubabu, a familiar and respectful form of address to a Hindu bhadralok, thus suggesting that they were acquainted, that this man of power was on his side. The Hindus, in Mr. Ghosh's account, continued to behave lawfully. They were stronger, more courageous; they advanced, but when the police told them to retreat they did so. The Muslims, on the other hand, disobeyed, moving forward, and so more of them were killed when the police fired. Mr. Ghosh managed to convey the notion that there was justice in their disproportionate slaughter. At first he seemed unsure just how many had died, but when pressed he gave us exact figures and an amazing interpretation:
Two Muslims were killed, and one Hindu. Since two men were killed on the Muslim side, they had to kill one more on the Hindu side. Otherwise it would look as though the police were partial. So the police later ran and killed a man on the Hindu side, to make it even.
Mr. Ghosh was clearly a reasonable and respect-worthy individual. Yet his construction of events seemed improbable. Biased accounts, memories at variance depending on the allegiances of the storyteller, were only to be expected. Who among us has ever engaged in contentious activity, from a fight with one's mate to a union battle or a campaign for a favored political candidate, without skewing reality toward our own perspective? But bias is more than false representation. If we take seriously the accounts of those involved, what emerges is a history of differing realities. Not only did people remember differently, or report differently; they actually lived the experience differently.6
To understand an event, not to mention a phenomenon, we must encompass the varying experiences of that event, even though we must understand that what we understand is only an approximation. That the approximation departs from the experience of the actor is not a problem; it is the point. How experience is experienced is one topic of importance. But how that experience is formulated, remembered, and retold tells the hearer something beyond “what happened,” which we cannot in any case know and which did not in any case happen, since what happened happened to many different people differently. To add to the fun, what happened also changed as it happened and went on changing later. Memory is formed by past knowledge and experience, but it is also altered by the future. Each new experience, including each telling, changes the tale. The telling itself is part of the experience, for what we live combines with what we think to construct what we do, and all three in constant interplay define experience. When the experience is a social one, when the telling is done by members of a group about a group event, the history of memory sheds light on the history of events. Collective memory is social action in its own right, and it is part and parcel of every historical act.7
The Muslims
Riveted by Mr. Ghosh's honest and forthright one-sidedness, I didn't immediately register the arrival of a newcomer. He was hard to miss, though, an imposing presence in the crowded room. He was the elected chairman of Panipur Union, Altaf-uddin, the very man to whom Mr. Ghosh had referred a little earlier. He wore a long white beard, the long white shirt and lungi, or ankle-length skirt, favored by Muslim men, and an Islamic cap. Our guide to this village had scheduled us to interview him first, at his home. I had, it seemed, upset social protocol by dropping in before that to see Basantibala. Word spreads quickly in a village, and when he had heard we were there, talking in the Majumdar house, Altaf-uddin had determined to right the situation by bringing himself to us.
He also brought a marked change to the tone of the discussion. Once Altaf was settled, I turned back to Mr. Ghosh and asked him what his reactions had been to the battle. There had been a decided shift in Mr. Ghosh's sails:
We had no adverse reaction.
Why not?
[With a sideways glance at Altaf: ] Because there were influential elders in this area. So whenever there were tensions among us, they would intervene. So we lived as brothers.
Altaf, as influential elder, promptly agreed:
There were some small incidents [before the riot], but they were smoothed over quickly…. Once an incident began, all the Hindus would take the side of the Hindus and all the Muslims would take the side of the Muslims. The influential people, both Muslims and Hindus, would come forward to solve the problem.
I already knew that Hindus talked differently in the presence
