History

This book seeks to reconstruct the past of undivided Panjab during five medieval centuries. It opens with a narrative of the efforts of Turkish war­lords to achieve control in the face of tribal resistance internal dissensions and external invasions. It examines the linkages of the ruling class with Zamindars and Sufis paving the way for canal irrigation and agrarian expansion thus strengthening the roots of the state in the region. While focusing on the post-Timur phase it tries to make sense of the new ways of acquiring political power. This work uncovers the perpetual attempts of Zamindars to achieve local dominance particularly in the context of declining presence of the state in the countryside. In this ambitious enterprise they resorted to the support of their clans adherence to hallowed customs and recurrent use of violence all applied through a system of collective and participatory decision-making. The volume traces the growth of Sufi lineages built on training disciples writing books composing poetry and claiming miraculous powers. Besides delving into the relations of the Sufis with the state and different sections of the society it offers an account of the rituals at a prominent shrine. Paying equal attention to the southeastern region it deals with engagement of the Sabiris among other exemplars with the Islamic spirituality. Inclusive in approach and lucid in expression the work relies on a wide range of evidence from Persian chronicles Sufi literature and folklore some of which have been used for the first time.

Of all the Rajput states of Rajasthan Marwar represents the best model for understanding Rajput polity within the perspective of the rise and fall of the Mughal empire. The present study seeks to take a fresh look at the politico-administrative structure in this princely state during the Mughal period. Based on contemporary documents and records it traces the historical evolution of this structure and the forces which helped to shape it. The various aspects of Marwar polity such as the role of the nobility its organi­zation and composition nature of changes in the institutional structure caused due to external and internal factors and the sources of state revenue have been critically examined. Special emphasis has been given to the economic foundation of this institutional framework particularly the land revenue. The author has also discussed the political activities of the Rathor rulers and their relations with the Mughal emperors vis-à-vis the rulers of the neighbouring states. These constituted a part of the milieu in which the institutional structure evolved and the changes therein took place. The author has retained the social economic and administrative terms in their original form. Since words produce a particular image of the reality they are employed to describe an analysis of the contemporary connotation of these terms has also been made. These terms and the dis­cussion on them further broaden our understanding of the system.

The students of Sikh history have paid little attention to two significant points in the life of the community—the eighteenth century when Sikh ideas on religion society and politics crystallized and moulded the subsequent development of Sikhism and the period following the annexation of the Punjab in 1849 by the British when Sikh ideas moved from defeat towards a new self-awareness and militancy culminating in the formation of the Akali Dal and the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee. This guide discusses Sikh experience under British raj and introduces the vernacular and English-language literature on and by Sikhs written between 1849 and 1919. It has been designed to facilitate research on this neglected phase of Sikh History and to help scholars locate items relating to their special interests. An introductory statement on the individuals organisations and themes involved in the Sikh resurgence is followed by three sections surveying non-serial publications. A concluding section treats Sikh periodicals. Appended are notes on collection of Sikh printed documents and proscribed works and a select bibliography of biographies autobiographies and histories relating to the period. There are two indexes (subject-title and general) at the end.

Many books have been written about Indian women during the early part of the twentieth century but we have few accounts by women themselves. Shudha Mazumdar's A Pattern of Life vividly portrays the life and attitudes of a Bengali woman living through the first three decades of the century. Shudha Ghosh (b. 1898) was the daughter of a wealthy Europeanized Zamindar. The family owned vast estates in east and west Bengal and despite the Westernized attire and life-style of the father was careful to maintain its status within the community. Ceremonies were performed in an appropriate manner marriages were arranged with careful attention to detail and the father's influence on Shudha was carefully monitored. In all aspects of socialization Shudha grew up between two cultures. Her mother stressed the traditional culture her father the Western. The mother’s victory was an arranged marriage for Shudha when she was aged thirteen the father’s victory came later – when Shudha as a married woman with two sons wrote and published short stories joined and became an active member of a number of social service organizations and finally served as the Indian delegate to the International Labour Organization. There is little about Shudha Mazumdar's life that has not been com­mented on in A Pattern of Life. She is a woman with great talent for observation and an eye for the amusing and the absurd. When she was still a young girl her father presented her with a diary and so began a life-long habit. While her main concern was her personal life she has com­mented at length on family affairs and on the growing nationalist mood of the country. This book provides new insights into Indian family life the role of women in modern India and the potential of Indian women for social change.

Francis Buchanan was born in Scotland in 1762 and qualified as a medical doctor in 1783. He made several journeys to Asia and went on to become one of British India’s foremost surveyors. His travel accounts/surveys have been published and republished in India. In this volume Prof. Willem van Schendel presents a 200 years old virtually unknown document ‘An Account of a Journey Undertaken by Order of the Board of Trade Through the Provinces of Chittagong and Tiperah in Order to Look Out for the Places Most Proper for the Cultivation of Spices’ by Francis Buchanan M.D. Buchanan undertook this journey in 1798 and only one copy of his report survives in the British Library which has remained unpublished so far. It is the earliest detailed travel account on the region that we have and is a significant source of new information on eighteenth century Bengal Arakan Tripura Cachar Manipur Mizoram and Burma. His account is full of observations about social life places of pilgrimage ruins of centuries old Buddhist temples and stupas etc. He also reports about quality of soil geographical peculiarities and the state of agriculture trade and local products in the regions he visited. The information furnished by him about the Chittagong Hill Tracts is simply invaluable for the re­construction of the history of the area. The document is additionally important as a record of British expansion in the area. His account can also be seen as an example of how Europeans were beginning to understand the world about them more and more by means of a critical use of sources of information and by experiment. Further the document being Buchanan’s first full travel account is important for a proper understanding of his later surveys. Finally Buchanan is ‘first and foremost an intellectual forebear of all social scientists trying to make sense of social structure and social changes in South Asia’. So historians students of economy and social scientists all will find the account invaluable.

Conversion in India should not be narrowed down to an individual moment of divine grace or a Gandhian change of heart. It is closely linked with the social aspirations of groups that suffer from discrimination and oppression. Since religion is supposed to cover all aspects of life the author argues that for untouchable caste communities a change of religion may serve as an idiom of social mobility in some respects closely resembling the more general process of Sanskritization. From the beginning of the nineteenth century the Christian missionaries' preachings attracted a large number of poor untouchables who tended to understand the Gospel in terms of their immediate needs and interests. These missionaries were in search of 'pure' converts and often felt dis­appointed when they found that material considerations played a large part in conversion movements. However learning by experience they came to show a growing awareness that concern for the material welfare of the people constituted a legitimate part of their calling. The book analyses the confrontation between Evangelical missionaries from Victorian England and low caste communities in the Hindu social order in the social setting of Travancore an Indian native state tucked away in the south-west corner of the Indian peninsula. However the problems like social stratification and cultural change dealt with by the author in the book concern a much wider field than Travancore or India alone. The author has used an impressive amount of missionary source material hitherto largely unexplored both in England and India. About the Author Dick Kooiman studied Asian history and Sociology in Amsterdam. His Ph.D. thesis was on the emergence of labour organizations in the Bombay textile mills before the First World War (1978). As associate professor he has been teaching Asian history in the Amsterdam Free University publishing widely on plantations christian missions and ceremonial traditions at the Indian princely courts. He retired from academic life in 2007.

Frank David Ascoli’s Revenue History of Sundarbans during the Period 1870-1920 looks at the area bounded on the north by the limits of Permanent Settlement in 24-Parganas, Khulna and Bakarganj districts and on the south by the sea face stretching from the Hughli estuary to the mouth of the Meghna River. A quarter of this large area consisted of water out of 19,501 sq. km . For administrative purposes the Division was grouped in three circles known as the Bagerhat, Khulna and Satkhira. Revenue stations were established at all the principal points of egress from the Sundarbans, and purchasers proceed to the forests and take their requirements from any locality they choose. The process of land formation appears to have been followed by the growth of different vegetation and plants which turned into forest it left uncleared. The entire Sundarban tract is managed by the Forest Department, which has operated a yearly auction for cutting rights for many decades. In this way the Sundarbans emerged between the Bay of Bengal and the fringes of the Bengal delta. The revenue history of the Sundarbans is distinct from that of the rest of the district that presents several peculiar features, so that a separate account of it is necessary. It is apparent that some of the most forbidding remnants of Sundarbans jungle were transformed into fertile rice fields, schools, dispensaries, post offices, markets and cooperative societies.

This book is an in-depth study of the eighteenth century Bengal especially the pre-Plassey period. It tries to dispel some of the myths which persist even now. Professor Sushil Chaudhury argues that Bengal's prosperity which was so marked during the first half of the eighteenth century came to an end gradually after Plassey and in the second half of the century there followed an economic impoverishment of the province under the aegis of the English East India Company and its servants. He contends that it is the very prosperity of Bengal and not its decline or weakness which made it a lucrative prize in the eyes of the Europeans in the mid-eighteenth century. He demonstrates this with a thorough analysis of Bengal's trade and industries as also the activities of the merchant-banking class in the eighteenth century. The author argues that the British conquest of Bengal was neither accidental nor was it the result of an internal crisis in Bengal. It has been indicated that there was neither a political nor an economic crisis in the province in the period prior to Plassey. The collaboration thesis has also been discounted. It is argued on the basis of both quantitative and qualitative evidence that even in the mid-eighteenth century it was the Asian trade – not the European trade – which was the most important factor in the commercial economy of Bengal. The author maintains that the impact of the European trade on Bengal economy was only marginal touching as it did the fringe of the economy. He shows that the British conquest of Bengal became imperative for the retrieval of the private trade fortunes of the Company servants which was facing a severe crisis in the late 1740s and the early 1750s. Based mainly on the manuscript records preserved in various European and Indian archives the book will be of immense interest to students of history and economics.

This collection of articles on varied facets of early modern Bengal showcases state of the art in the field and hopes to encourage new research. The essays explore the trading networks, religious traditions, artistic and literary patronage, and politico-cultural practices that emerged in roughly sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. Using a wide array of sources, the contributors to this volume, coming from diverse academic affiliations, and including several young researchers, have attempted to address various historiographical ‘black holes’ bringing in new material and interpretations. Early modern Bengal’s history tends to get overshadowed by the later developments of the nineteenth century. What this assortment of articles highlights is that this period needs to be studied afresh, and in depth. The region underwent rapid transformations as it got politically integrated with Northern India and its empires and economically with extensive global economic networks. Combined with its unique geography, the trajectory of this region in all spheres manifest an almost constant interplay of local and extra-local forces – be it in literature, art, economic domain, political and religious cultures – and considerable enterprise and ingenuity. Thus, a variety of themes – including travel accounts, Portuguese and Arakanese presence, early Dutch, French, Ostend companies’ forays into the region, artistic production in the Nizamat and later collections of art and missionaries, the English company state’s intrusions in local economy in salt and raw silk production and indigenous reactions and rebellions, consumption practices related to religious activities, circulation and translation of texts, representation of women in vernacular writings, and organization of religious traditions – have been analysed in this volume, with a wide ranging introduction tying up the themes to the broader historiographical issues and contexts. The collection will be an invaluable reference tool for students and scholars of history, especially of early modern India and Bengal.