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A Partition of Contingency? Public Discourse in Bengal, 1946–1947

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2009

HAIMANTI ROY
HAIMANTI ROY*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, E51-186, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The historiography on the Partition of Bengal has tended to see it as a culmination of long-term trends of Hindu and Muslim communalism within the province. This essay offers a counter-narrative to the ‘inevitability’ of the Partition by focusing on Bengali public discourse in the months leading up to the Partition. The possibility of a division generated a large-scale debate amongst the educated in Bengal and they articulated their views by sending numerous letters to leading newspapers, district political and civic organizations and sometimes published pamphlets for local consumption. A critical examination of these public debates for and against Partition reveals the countdown to August 1947 as a period of multiple possibilities. Rather than being pre-determined, the stands for a separate or a United Bengal were contingent in nature. Understanding the genesis provides the starting point and the necessary corrective to evaluate India's path to post-colonial nationhood.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 6 , November 2009 , pp. 1355 - 1384
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

Bibliography

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All India Congress Committee Papers

All India Hindu Mahasabha Papers

Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Papers

L/Public and Judicial (P&J)/7

L/P& J/8

Amrita Bazar Patrika (Calcutta)

Ananda Bazar Patrika (Calcutta)

Hindustan Standard (Calcutta)

The Statesman (Calcutta)

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Bose, Sarat. Selected Speeches and Writings, 1947–1950. Calcutta: Thacker's Press, 1954.Google Scholar
Das, Durga, ed. Sardar Patel's Correspondence, 1945–1950. Vols. 1–8. Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1972.Google Scholar
Lahiri, Bhupendra Chandra. Bange Hindu Rashtra Chai. Calcutta: Publisher not given, 1947.Google Scholar
Mandal, Jagadishchandra. Banga Bhanga. Calcutta: Mahapran Publishing Society 1977.Google Scholar
Bandyopadhyaya, Sekhar. Caste, Culture, and Hegemony Social Domination in Colonial Bengal. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2004.Google Scholar
Bayly, C. A.Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Bhattacharjea, Ajit. Countdown to Partition the Final Days. New Delhi: HarperCollins, 1997.Google Scholar
Bhattacharya, Neeladri. ‘Notes Towards a Conception of the Colonial Public,’ in Bhargava, Rajeev and Reifeld, Helmut, ed., Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship: Dialogues and Perceptions. New Delhi: Sage, 2005.Google Scholar
Bose, Sugata. The New Cambridge History of India, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bose, Sugata. ‘Between Monolith and Fragment: A Note on Historiography of Nationalism in Bengal,’ in Bandyopadhya, Sekhar, ed., Bengal: Rethinking History, Essays in Historiography. New Delhi: Manohar, 2001.Google Scholar
Chakrabarty, Bidyut. The Partition of Bengal and Assam, 1932–1947: Contour of Freedom. London: Routledge, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. ‘Agrarian Relations and Communalism in Bengal, 1926–35,’ in Guha, Ranajit, ed., Subaltern Studies, Vol. 1. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. The Present History of West Bengal: Essays in Political Criticism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Chatterji, Joya. Bengal Divided Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chatterji, Joya. The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India 1947–1967. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Das, Suranjan. Communal Riots in Bengal, 1905–1947. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Ghosh, Semanti. Nationalism and the Problem of ‘Difference’, Bengal, 1905–47. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Tufts University, 2000.Google Scholar
Gopal, Sarvepalli. Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography. London: J Cape, 1975.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Hasan, Mushirul. India's Partition Process, Strategy and Mobilization. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Hashmi, Taj ul-Islam. Pakistan As a Peasant Utopia the Communalization of Class Politics in East Bengal, 1920–1947. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Inder Singh, Anita. The Origins of the Partition of India, 1936–1947. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Jalal, Ayesha. ‘Exploding Communalism: The Politics of Identity in South Asia,’ in Bose, Sugata and Jalal, Ayesha, eds., Nationalism, Democracy, and Development: State and Politics in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Murshid, Tazeen M. The Sacred and the Secular Bengal Muslim Discourses, 1871–1977. Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Page, David. Prelude to Partition the Indian Muslims and the Imperial System of Control, 1920–1932. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Pandey, Gyanendra. Remembering Partition Violence, Nationalism, and History in India. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rashid, Harun-or. The Foreshadowing of Bangladesh: Bengal Muslim League and Muslim Politics, 1906–1947. Dhaka: University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Ray, Rajat Kanta. The Felt Community Commonalty and Mentality Before the Emergence of Indian Nationalism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Sen, Shila. Muslim Politics in Bengal, 1937–1947. New Delhi: Impex India, 1976.Google Scholar
Southard, Barbara. ‘The Political Strategy of Aurobindo Ghosh: The Utilization of Hindu Religious Symbolism and the Problem of Political Mobilization in Bengal,’ in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3 (1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Charles. ‘Liberal Politics and the Public Sphere,’ in Taylor, Charles, Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Yong, Tan Tai and Kudaisya, Gyanesh. The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia. New York: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar