Indian Historical Review, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 280-303, December 2023.
The present study seeks to look for discernible trends in the way settlement patterns took shape in the various sub-regions of Bengal (c. fourth to thirteenth century), broadly corresponding to the modern Indian state of West Bengal as well as Bangladesh. The sources primarily include the epigraphs issued by various ruling dynasties and the thirteenth-century text by Sandhyākaranandi, the Rāmacaritam. The essay has also made a comparison with the scenario prevailing in Assam. Certain pertinent findings on the occupation of people living in largely the marshy and riverine terrain of Bengal and Assam have also been commented upon. Occupations and settlement patterns both being traditional responses to ecological settings and historical factors, many people living in the marshy lands in Bengal and Assam took to fishing and boatmanship in the period under study. Conspicuous presence of the groups of Kaivarttas (traditionally associated with fishing and boatmanship) in both regions, and individuals having names suffixed with ‘-naukins’ in Assam substantiate this fact. Tentative map(s) prepared on the basis of inscriptions show that rural settlements were both nucleated and single farm kinds, regularly interacted at various levels, and for Assam, the possibility of nucleated form is more than what has been acknowledged by scholars so far.
Category Archives: Indian Historical Review
Book review: Sunita Lall, Neeraj Kumar and Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, BIHAR: Crossing Boundaries
Indian Historical Review, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 351-353, December 2023.
Sunita Lall, Neeraj Kumar and Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, BIHAR: Crossing Boundaries. New Delhi: Primus Books: 2020, 374 pp., ₹1395, ISBN: 9789390022281.
Sunita Lall, Neeraj Kumar and Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, BIHAR: Crossing Boundaries. New Delhi: Primus Books: 2020, 374 pp., ₹1395, ISBN: 9789390022281.
Book review: Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Climate of History: In a Planetary Age
Indian Historical Review, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 349-351, December 2023.
Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Climate of History: In a Planetary Age. New Delhi: Primus Books: 2021, vi + 284 pp., ₹995, ISBN: 9789390737543 (Hardback).
Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Climate of History: In a Planetary Age. New Delhi: Primus Books: 2021, vi + 284 pp., ₹995, ISBN: 9789390737543 (Hardback).
Beyond the Colonial Lens: An Investigation into the Chequered History of Assam Tea
Indian Historical Review, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 322-343, December 2023.
This article presents a fresh perspective on tea cultivation in Assam, negating the widely held belief that the British Empire’s introduction to Assam tea symbolised societal advancement and economic growth. This article argues that the primary intention of the British was pure economic that catapulted the destruction of the thick forested areas, marginalised the native population and abolished their kingdoms. Despite this, colonial Assamese elites and mainstream industrialists have glorified the British tea venture. In this attempt of reviewing the history of Assam tea from an alternative point of view, efforts have also been made to analyse how the East India Company’s desire to maintain its monopoly in the Chinese tea trade, the Calcutta Botanical Garden’s desire to uphold the supremacy of the Chinese tea plant, and the military personnel’s quest for new sources of tea played their roles in it.
This article presents a fresh perspective on tea cultivation in Assam, negating the widely held belief that the British Empire’s introduction to Assam tea symbolised societal advancement and economic growth. This article argues that the primary intention of the British was pure economic that catapulted the destruction of the thick forested areas, marginalised the native population and abolished their kingdoms. Despite this, colonial Assamese elites and mainstream industrialists have glorified the British tea venture. In this attempt of reviewing the history of Assam tea from an alternative point of view, efforts have also been made to analyse how the East India Company’s desire to maintain its monopoly in the Chinese tea trade, the Calcutta Botanical Garden’s desire to uphold the supremacy of the Chinese tea plant, and the military personnel’s quest for new sources of tea played their roles in it.
Book review: Sudit Krishna Kumar and Suvobrata Sarkar, Contextualizing the Body: An Indian Experience
Indian Historical Review, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 345-348, December 2023.
Sudit Krishna Kumar and Suvobrata Sarkar, Contextualizing the Body: An Indian Experience. New Delhi: Manohar Publisher, 2021, ₹1,650, ISBN: 9789 390035540.
Sudit Krishna Kumar and Suvobrata Sarkar, Contextualizing the Body: An Indian Experience. New Delhi: Manohar Publisher, 2021, ₹1,650, ISBN: 9789 390035540.
Book review: J. S. Grewal, Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708): Master of the White Hawk
Indian Historical Review, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 344-345, December 2023.
J. S. Grewal, Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708): Master of the White Hawk. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019, xv + 297 pp., ₹1,100, ISBN 9780199494941.
J. S. Grewal, Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708): Master of the White Hawk. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019, xv + 297 pp., ₹1,100, ISBN 9780199494941.
Rammohun Roy and the ‘Conservative’ Overtones of His Liberal Sociopolitical Agenda
Indian Historical Review, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 248-265, December 2023.
Rammohun Roy, the liberal reformer of the early nineteenth century, and perhaps the first Indian to comprehensively embrace the ideal of modernity, encountered a volley of criticisms during his lifetime and beyond. Of all this, the twin charges, that is, his reformist project denigrated India’s ancient sociocultural heritage and he acted as an unconscious tool of the British Empire in India, have recently gathered a new momentum in the context of the changing dynamics of Indian politics. This article seeks to engage with this line of argument by examining the political, social and religious dimensions of Roy’s thought and action. It is accepted that he was inspired by the ideals of Western modernity, which, he believed, held the key to the long-term intellectual, sociocultural, political and economic development of the Indians. He also supported the continuation of British rule at least for a period of time to allow wider dissemination of these progressive values in India and to pave the way for its all-round advance. It is contended, however, that neither did he intend to undermine India’s classical heritage, nor did he favour mindless aping of the West. On the contrary, he took ample care to integrate indigenous sociocultural components into his proposed roadmap for the future. Thus, his liberal agenda had evident ‘conservative’ underpinnings that arguably put a new spin on the idea of modernity.
Rammohun Roy, the liberal reformer of the early nineteenth century, and perhaps the first Indian to comprehensively embrace the ideal of modernity, encountered a volley of criticisms during his lifetime and beyond. Of all this, the twin charges, that is, his reformist project denigrated India’s ancient sociocultural heritage and he acted as an unconscious tool of the British Empire in India, have recently gathered a new momentum in the context of the changing dynamics of Indian politics. This article seeks to engage with this line of argument by examining the political, social and religious dimensions of Roy’s thought and action. It is accepted that he was inspired by the ideals of Western modernity, which, he believed, held the key to the long-term intellectual, sociocultural, political and economic development of the Indians. He also supported the continuation of British rule at least for a period of time to allow wider dissemination of these progressive values in India and to pave the way for its all-round advance. It is contended, however, that neither did he intend to undermine India’s classical heritage, nor did he favour mindless aping of the West. On the contrary, he took ample care to integrate indigenous sociocultural components into his proposed roadmap for the future. Thus, his liberal agenda had evident ‘conservative’ underpinnings that arguably put a new spin on the idea of modernity.
‘Fractured’ Peasantry in Colonial Bihar in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: Reflections and Responses
Indian Historical Review, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 304-321, December 2023.
This article is an attempt at scrutinising the rural and agrarian structure through a caste framework in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Bihar, a period when Bihar was undergoing economic, environmental, social and political changes owing to colonial intervention. This article will highlight these everyday negotiations, forgotten struggles and exclusions that were carried on against the background of the importation of western science and technology, changing laws and encroachment on common lands. An intrinsic mechanism was used during the changing times to keep the hierarchical structure alive. Nevertheless, it led to springing up of various kisan sabhas, which aimed at voicing the opinions of the marginalised peasantry. New set of sources will capture different shades of peasant identities and a vast multitude of peasant politics that range from reformist to radical. When the oppression became unbearable, the peasants took agency and strived for collective action, mostly violent in nature. This work will bring to the fore case studies of rural ferment towards this order by low-caste and class peasants. This article will also elaborate on the reasons behind the survival of feudal relations of power juxtaposed over ‘modern’ structures.
This article is an attempt at scrutinising the rural and agrarian structure through a caste framework in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Bihar, a period when Bihar was undergoing economic, environmental, social and political changes owing to colonial intervention. This article will highlight these everyday negotiations, forgotten struggles and exclusions that were carried on against the background of the importation of western science and technology, changing laws and encroachment on common lands. An intrinsic mechanism was used during the changing times to keep the hierarchical structure alive. Nevertheless, it led to springing up of various kisan sabhas, which aimed at voicing the opinions of the marginalised peasantry. New set of sources will capture different shades of peasant identities and a vast multitude of peasant politics that range from reformist to radical. When the oppression became unbearable, the peasants took agency and strived for collective action, mostly violent in nature. This work will bring to the fore case studies of rural ferment towards this order by low-caste and class peasants. This article will also elaborate on the reasons behind the survival of feudal relations of power juxtaposed over ‘modern’ structures.
‘The Lamp that Illumines the Past’: Sanskrit Kāvya and the Writing of History in Early India
Indian Historical Review, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 233-247, December 2023.
Kāvya is literature as art. Few modern scholars have suspected such aesthetic and affective literature to possess an impulse for capturing human history, and certainly not in any form consistent with modern notions of the discipline. Interrogating anew the remarkably long-lived misconception that early India did not/could not write history, and moving beyond interpretations that identify ‘embedded’ rather than overt forms of historicity in our antiquity, this essay pioneers the argument that Sanskrit poetics (alam˙kāras´āstra) and its theories of representation may have conceived of poetry as in fact an ideal vehicle for writing history. And, taking seriously Kāvya’s traditional narrative modes may yield an alternative, more cohesive notion of historicality in early India that invested in the epistemic authority of the poet (kavi) and, in a constructivist vein, in history itself as a poetic production (nirmān˙a) underwritten by a deeply ethico-political discursivity.
Kāvya is literature as art. Few modern scholars have suspected such aesthetic and affective literature to possess an impulse for capturing human history, and certainly not in any form consistent with modern notions of the discipline. Interrogating anew the remarkably long-lived misconception that early India did not/could not write history, and moving beyond interpretations that identify ‘embedded’ rather than overt forms of historicity in our antiquity, this essay pioneers the argument that Sanskrit poetics (alam˙kāras´āstra) and its theories of representation may have conceived of poetry as in fact an ideal vehicle for writing history. And, taking seriously Kāvya’s traditional narrative modes may yield an alternative, more cohesive notion of historicality in early India that invested in the epistemic authority of the poet (kavi) and, in a constructivist vein, in history itself as a poetic production (nirmān˙a) underwritten by a deeply ethico-political discursivity.
Glimpses from Indian Naval History: Geography of Seafaring and Mythography of Prohibitions
Indian Historical Review, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 211-232, December 2023.
Many dharmaśāstra texts, starting from the most famous, the Manusmr+ti, declare sea voyage to be sinful and polluting for a Hindu. At the same time, from remote antiquity, Hindus from various castes, including Brahmans, had actively traversed the seas to the west, south and east of India for the purposes of trade, war, spiritual guidance, adventures and so on. This article seeks to review the geography of ancient and mediaeval Indian seafaring (in which Hindus played a significant role) and, more importantly, to discover why, in colonial India, the notion of sea travel being prohibited to Hindus became widely established, so that the descendants of the merchants who had operated from Aden to the Indonesian and Chinese ports would excommunicate their young caste fellows who desirous to study abroad.
Many dharmaśāstra texts, starting from the most famous, the Manusmr+ti, declare sea voyage to be sinful and polluting for a Hindu. At the same time, from remote antiquity, Hindus from various castes, including Brahmans, had actively traversed the seas to the west, south and east of India for the purposes of trade, war, spiritual guidance, adventures and so on. This article seeks to review the geography of ancient and mediaeval Indian seafaring (in which Hindus played a significant role) and, more importantly, to discover why, in colonial India, the notion of sea travel being prohibited to Hindus became widely established, so that the descendants of the merchants who had operated from Aden to the Indonesian and Chinese ports would excommunicate their young caste fellows who desirous to study abroad.