Colonial Bengal Research Articles

Book review: Suvobrata Sarkar, Let There Be Light: Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Electricity in Colonial Bengal, 1880–1945

Suvobrata Sarkar, Let There Be Light: Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Electricity in Colonial Bengal, 1880–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), xliii + 266 pp.

The Era of Bengali Rennaissance – A Legacy of the Hallowed Sons of Bengal

The Bengal Renaissance (Bengali: বাংলার নবজাগরণ — Banglar Navajagaran), also known as the Bengali Renaissance, was a cultural, social, intellectual, and artistic movement that took place in the Bengal region of the British Raj, from the late 18th century to the early 20th century.Historians have traced the beginnings of the movement to the victory of the British East India Company at the 1757 Battle of Plassey, as well as the works of reformer Raja Rammohan Roy, considered the "Father of the Bengal Renaissance," born in 1772.[2] Nitish Sengupta stated that the movement "can be said to have … ended with Rabindranath Tagore," Asia's first Nobel laureate. Print language and literature played a vital role in shaping ideas and identities in colonial Bengal from the 18th century onwards. With its adoption by the ruling class and the indigenous population, Bengali marked a site that also oversaw contests for domination across a broad social spectrum. For the latter moreover, the language also defined their cultural identity, as part of the attempt to create a new literary prose Bengali to distinguish it from earlier colloquial forms. The new Bengali became an essential tool for the urban, educated upper middle classes to establish their power over lesser privileged groups - women, the lowly classes and poor Muslims. However, commercial print cultures that emanated from numerous cheap presses in Calcutta and its suburbs disseminated wide-ranging literary preferences that afforded a space to different sections of the Bengali middle classes to voice their own distinctive concerns.

Mapping of Malaria in Colonial Bengal using GIS

Mapping of Malaria in Colonial Bengal using GIS

Samiparna Samanta, Meat, Mercy, and Morality: Animals and Humanitarianism in Colonial Bengal, 1850–1920

Samiparna Samanta, Meat, Mercy, and Morality: Animals and Humanitarianism in Colonial Bengal, 1850–1920

From Hookah to Cigarettes: A Historical Journey of Tobacco Culture in Colonial Bengal

From Hookah to Cigarettes: A Historical Journey of Tobacco Culture in Colonial Bengal

The Legacy of Vaisnavism in Colonial Bengal, edited by Ferdinando Sardella and Lucian Wong

The Legacy of Vaisnavism in Colonial Bengal, edited by Ferdinando Sardella and Lucian Wong. Abingdon: Routledge, 2020. xiii + 266 pp. ISBN 9781032083650.

Vedantic Hinduism in Colonial Bengal. Reformed Hinduism and Western Protestantism. By Victor A. van Bijlert

Two books that successively appeared in 2021 and have greatly held my interest are Ankur Barua’s The Brahma Samaj and its Vaishnava Milieus (Brill) and the work under review. They both represent intensive studies of the intellectual, cultural, and religious terrain of colonial Bengal through a creative fusion of the disciplines of history and religious studies. In this work, Bijlert’s thesis rests on two major arguments: First, that Vedanta constitutes the moral and intellectual backbone of reform Hinduism and second, that reform Hinduism also purposively reflects Christian Protestant forms of work and organisation. Prima facie, these are reasonable and convincing conclusions to offer. Rightly or wrongly, from Rammohun down to Radhakrishnan (with Tagore and Gandhi placed in between), Vedanta has come to be seen as the quintessential thought of India. But here also lies the catch. In effect, ‘Vedanta’ turns out to be only a somewhat convenient shorthand for a particular sub-school within Vedanta, that is, Advaita or non-dualist Vedanta, whereas in principle, it represents all sub-schools within Uttaramimamsa—which, between them, reveal significant doctrinal differences. Quite possibly, this obfuscating practice goes back to pre-modern India, but Rammohun arguably strengthened it in some ways. The Raja appears to have little knowledge of Vedantic thinkers other than Acharya Sankara and the dualist Madhva he unjustly denigrated by comparing him with Carvaka! To compound matters, Rammohun invariably refers to Upanishadic texts as ‘Vedas’. Herein lies a double confusion: First, the religious and philosophical conclusions of the Upanishads varied considerably from those of the Samhitas, Brahmanas and Aranyakas but more importantly, as would emerge from a perusal of Rammohun’s writings, he had simply no idea of these other textual components. Whereas his paramaguru, Sankara, had commented on as many as ten Upanishads, Rammohun chose to comment on only five, which, I suspect, was aimed at pushing specific theological or philosophical agendas, namely the rejection of image worship, polytheism, and sectarianism. Rammohun used religion rather instrumentally, investing it with certain uncharacteristic features like social utility. How else is one to explain his oft-quoted letter stating that religion ought to promote ‘political advantage and social comfort’.

The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction

The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction

The Legacy of Vaiṣṇavism in Colonial Bengal. Edited by Ferdinando Sardella and Lucian Wong

A Bengali proverb says that there cannot be any song, without Kṛṣṇa (Kānu bine gān nāi). In a historical and cultural region that is so relevant for the study of Tantric Yogic traditions, Goddess cults, and South Asian Islam, even devotion to Śakti and the life of Prophet Muhammad are impregnated by Vaiṣṇava tropes and aesthetic sensibilities. The literary history of, and intellectual debates on the love of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa in Bengal are not only indispensable to understand Kṛṣṇa bhakti in its transnational and global declensions, but also to appreciate their pervasive aesthetic and affective influence across regions and religions. For these and many other reasons, The Legacy of Vaiṣṇavism in Colonial Bengal, based on a 2015 workshop held at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, is a welcome contribution. It comprises eleven chapters discussing not only the complicated trajectories of Vaiṣṇavism in colonial Bengal, but also the legacy of colonialism in the taste and ethical regime of new Vaiṣṇava agents, communities, and institutions. The so-called revival of Vaiṣṇava devotionalism initiated by Caitanya (1486–1534) and his followers gave way to multiple religious orientations and contrasting interpretations. This edited volume does not give readers the illusion of a standardised phenomenon that might be unequivocally called Bengali Vaiṣṇavism. Rather, it takes into account a variety of textual traditions and life stories to include various Vaiṣṇavism-s, differently transmitted, practiced, and embodied by diverse communities. The introduction by Ferdinando Sardella and Lucian Wong suggests that much research in this area assumed that modern manifestations constitute a rupture from the precolonial past, induced by the influence of Western education and Christian ideas. They argue instead that pre-existing Hindu sampradayic currents continued to play significant roles throughout the colonial period. Therefore, providing us with a fruitful path for future research, they suggest that explorations of the legacy of sampradayic Hindu streams in colonial South Asia can offer a richer picture of religious life than that afforded by analyses that rely on the ‘Renaissance paradigm’ (pp. 5–6).

Exploring Uncharted Territories: A Study of Bengali Women’s Travelogues in the Colonial Period

This paper situates pioneering travel narratives of women in colonial Bengal and explores their multi-layered experiences and problematics of identity in relation to the centre-periphery dyad. It also unravels how translated accounts of Krishnabhabini Das and Durgabati Ghose in A Bengali Lady in England (2015) and The Westward Traveller (2010), respectively, explicate the development of their identities by juxtaposing an expanding consciousness resulting from their accumulated observations. Locating the nascent stages of women’s writing in colonial Bengal, it brings to the fore complex issues of gender and mobility as well as the public/private dichotomy while navigating foreign shores, especially England. The paper also highlights how the power of the gaze lies with the colonised women who drew thorough comparisons between English society and contemporaneous Bengal. A critical investigation of the travelogues by adopting a postcolonial lens opens up the underlying intricacies of interactions, reflections, and dilemmas that the authors encapsulate in the narratives and thus help in contextualising their accounts in the larger sociocultural and political backdrop.

:Let There Be Light: Engineering, Entrepreneurship, and Electricity in Colonial Bengal, 1880–1945

Previous articleNext article No AccessModernSuvobrata Sarkar. Let There Be Light: Engineering, Entrepreneurship, and Electricity in Colonial Bengal, 1880–1945. 294 pp., bibl., index. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. $75 (cloth); ISBN 9781108874205. E-book available.Arindam DuttaArindam Dutta Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 113, Number 4December 2022 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/721933 Views: 10Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

“Blood mist blurs my vision”: Six poems by Sukanta Bhattacharya

ABSTRACTSukanta Bhattacharya’s powerful, bittersweet verses portray experiences of shared loss and survival in colonial Bengal of the 1940s – a cataclysmic and watershed decade in the region’s history. The emotional intensity and intellectual honesty of his work led to his being regarded as a celebrated Bengali poet. While the appeal and relevance of his poems remain undiminished, the meagre efforts to translate them into English have hitherto confined his reputation to a restricted circle of Bengali poetry lovers. Six of his poems are presented here in English translation in order to introduce readers of poetry in English to his artistic sensibility and concerns. Uniting the communicative and aesthetic functions of literary translation, this project aims to surmount the inadequacies of most existing translations of Bhattacharya’s poetry that have not only failed to impress the target readership, but also diminished his poetic significance and marginalized his contribution to Indian and world literatures.

The specular dream: Historical imaginary in speculative fiction of colonial Bengal

This article examines Bhudeb Mukhopadhyaya’s Swapnolabdho Bharatbarsher Itihas ( History of India Revealed in a Dream) as a speculative dream narrative within the wider context of literary practices of colonial Bengal in the nineteenth century. History is a contested terrain within the colonial domain and intersects with pedagogy, politics, and technology in myriad ways. History in the text is also refracted through identitarian religious, gender, and caste prisms. We investigate Bhudeb’s text within these sites, arguing that the text represents a contradictory colonial modernity that negotiates the historical self through the speculative possibility of a dream.

The contested city: Speculative fiction and metropolitan imagination in colonial Bengal

ABSTRACT Speculative fiction emerged in 19th-century Bengal as a mode of narrative engagement with the city’s colonial modernity during its contact with British colonialism. This fiction, however, was essentially a city-based enterprise interacting with, and moulding, the imperial city of Kolkata in myriad ways. The interaction gave rise to dissenting voices within the gradually emerging educated class of Kolkata. This article explores such intersections of the city and speculative fiction with the aid of two conceptual arcs – morality and corporeality – and argues that, located within divergent imaginaries of representing the city, they construct a contested cityscape. These arcs produce an alternative metropolitan imagination that subverts the colonial imaginary of the city. The article examines two early speculative texts written by Kylas Chunder Dutt and Shoshee Chunder Dutt to explore the nature of this imagination. The colonial imaginary of Kolkata within this speculative textual space offers a locus distinct from the colonizers.

Cattle plague and the introduction of veterinary education in colonial Bengal

Historically, Bengal had played a pivotal role in the introduction of a regulated regime of veterinary practice and education in colonial India. The proposed study seeks to view this practice through the lens of cattle plague that gripped the province in the second half of nineteenth century. Contrary to what the extant literature makes us believe, it is argued that in the matter of livestock management, Bengal paid more attention to her bovine inmates primarily for agricultural purposes rather than horse breeding and supply in military and transportation sector.

Multilingualism in Periodical studies — A Social History Perspective

Multilingualism in Periodical studies — A Social History Perspective

Widowhood revisited: Nature of landholding and women’s work in colonial agrarian Bengal

Despite major economic and political changes in the last two centuries, the incidence of underage marriage of girls as well as their widowhood is much higher in West Bengal than in any other parts of India. The incidence of widowhood was very high in Bengal among the major colonial provinces in the first half of the twentieth century. Many historians argue that marriage practices of the higher castes gradually percolated downwards, and many intermediary cultivating castes as well as lower castes started following the norms of child marriage and ban on widow remarriage as a means of attaining social respectability during the closing decades of the nineteenth and the early years of the twentieth century. This article tries to explore whether the very high incidence of widowhood in colonial Bengal in the first half of the twentieth century could also have been linked to the very nature of women’s labour force participation which in turn was largely determined by the nature of the agrarian economy.

Introduction

Introduction

Floods, aridity and rivers: An environmental history of pargana Mandalghat in eighteenth-century Bengal

This essay interrogates the role of rivers and the water they provided in the context of the agricultural economy of colonial Bengal; it provides a minute analysis of the impact of excess flow or floods at the pargana or locality level and documents the destruction of crops, drowning of cattle, loss of seeds and overall devastation to habitation. Riverine water played an important role in the formation of soil in the country, and, therefore, its supply affected the agricultural economy. The augmentation of the delta through soil formation was a geologic process that was gradual and slow, while changes in river courses could be sudden and violent. This essay constructs a narrative around riverine activities including responses to flooding situations, navigability of rivers and the interventions of the early colonial state in Bengal in the second half of the eighteenth century. Focusing on the specific impact of flooding in the locality of pargana Mandalghat, this essay demonstrates that the study of floods can reveal the manner in which agricultural decline affected pockets of habitation within the Bengal delta.

Chasms of ‘Perfect Chaos’: Medico-Legal Codifications of Criminal Insanity in Colonial Bengal, 1814-1860

The 19th century in British Bengal was a formative phase for ‘modern’ judicial administration. As integral part of the colonial enterprise, the function of criminal judicature not limited to disciplining an ‘inferior’ race, but also constructing a racial profile of an essentially Indian criminal. This entailed a larger program for the legal codification in the colonies which would put the entire imperial machinery in motion. One of the primary modes of such codification was through a burgeoning medico-legislation. As colonial authorities embarked on a detailed classification crime and criminality in Bengal, they were confronted with the problem of encoding criminal insanity. In a highly racist atmosphere, the Indian insane was sure to be viewed and categorized as everything negative with Indian biology. Touted as naturally prone to violent and often criminal fits of madness, the Indians in general were seen as predisposed to mental degeneration. The problem of distinguishing madness from common criminality in Bengal seemed a problem that had to be overcome by strict adherence to medical objectivity, especially modern psychiatry, but often the involvement of medical professionals in ascertaining criminal or dangerous madness led to a struggle between jurists and medical men in staking the ultimate claim over medico-legal space. This article argues that the medical professional in colonial Bengal, instead of being auxiliary to legal apparatus, shaped and re-shaped narratives of criminal insanity which went into the formulation of medico-legal codification.