Notions of Nationhood in Bengal

by Gupta, Swarupa

• ISBN13: 9789004176140
• ISBN10: 9004176144
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-08-01
• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub

Summary

This book reopens the debate on colonial nationalisms, going beyond derivative , borrowed , political and modernist paradigms. It introduces the conceptual category of samaj to demonstrate how indigenous socio-cultural origins in Bengal interacted with late-colonial discourses to produce the notion of a nation. Samaj (a historical society and an idea-in-practice) was a site for reconfiguring antecedents and negotiating fragmentation. Drawing on indigenous sources, this study shows how caste, class, ethnicity, region and community were refracted to conceptualise wider unities. The mapping of cultural continuities through change facilitates a more nuanced investigation of the ontology of nationhood, seeing it as related to, but more than political nationalism. It outlines a fresh paradigm for recalibrating postcolonial identities, offering interpretive strategies to mediate fragmentation.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. IX
Introduction	p. 1
Nationalist Ideologues, Ideas and their Dissemination	p. 45
Recreating a Jati	p. 93
Samaj and Perspectives on Unity	p. 139
Caste, Class and Internal 'Others': 'Lower Orders' in Bengal	p. 173
Contiguous Ethnicities	p. 221
Sub-Regional 'Essences' and the Regional Self	p. 271
From Region to Nation: The Idea of India	p. 309
Conclusion	p. 351
Bibliography	p. 361
Glossary	p. 379
Index	p. 385
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