Recasting the Region

Abstract

Abstract This book examines the literary and cultural history of Bengali Muslims from the early twentieth century until the 1952 language movement. This book argues that Muslim political mobilization in late colonial Bengal did not emanate from north Indian calls for a separatist ‘Muslim’ state of Pakistan, but rather emerged out of a sustained engagement with local Bengali intellectual and literary traditions. This work examines Bengali language literary texts, the social histories of newspaper and magazine offices, and the writings of Bengali Muslim politicians and intellectuals. Inclusive of six chapters, the book features original research on topics such as the pursuit of folklore, literary modernism, and intellectual movements in both Dacca and Calcutta in the late colonial period. By focusing on the cultural history of Bengali Muslims, this work utilizes heretofore unexplored Bengali sources and offers a new interpretation of the emergence of the state of Pakistan.