Naru embarked on a life-long cerebral journey to find acceptable explanations for a few unanswered questions that arose in his mind during his school days. Those previously unexplained issues were critical to understanding the history, geography, and concept of the Bengal region, popularly known as ‘Bangla’. In his journey through life, he was able to find a previously unheard of but logically sustainable explanation of the word ‘Banga’ and one more closely associated word, ‘Bangal’. That explanation was in consonance with the present understanding of the process of geological evolution of the Bengal Basin. It was also capable of aligning itself with the accepted concept of the geological evolution of that basin. However, something even more startling occurred to Naru’s mind. As his logic-based journey to arrive at an acceptable and verifiable explanation of the word ‘Banga’ was approaching its end, the information gathered by him, in conjunction with some logical deductions, took him to the gateway that led to a new horizon. Naru started to realise the presence of something that lacked supporting physical evidence. All writers of Indian history, and thus all writers of Bengal’s history too, had to introduce a new batch of migrants into the scenario and assign that group a very high level of excellence and attainment. That has been the demand for a logical construct to explain everything at hand in relation to prehistoric as well as ancient India. Strong indications exist that a superior civilization existed in that geography. No model could be framed that could explain the mysterious past of that land, even remotely. Nobody dared to trade on that path. It is almost impossible to defend any such model. Rakhaldas Bandopadhyay attributed the 'self-inflicted downfall’ of that group to keeping logical consistency with the perceivable course of history. In recorded history, humankind has seen the downfall of a civilisation in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Whenever an unexplainable gap appears in history, it becomes handy to attribute that dark area to a self-inflicted downfall, as such examples are available at hand. In the case of India, something extraordinary has happened. The entire imagined civilisation has disappeared without leaving any trace. No archaeological evidence has been found with regard to that postulated civilisation. In all the other cases where civilisational or societal downfall has happened, remnants of the existence of such people have been found. In one of his essays about the origin of the Bengali people, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay commented that the origin of the people who were very significant in number within Bengal, i.e., those who were much larger in number than the higher classes, was shrouded in mystery. Something irritated Naru when he thought that a materialistic person like Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay went on to comment that "no history has been written for Bengal." As it is evident from the writings of the experts, there is an "obscurity factor" involved with the past of the geography and history of the Bengal Basin. There is the undeniable presence of a spectre as far as the evolution of Bengali society is concerned. Naru wanted to see whether he could open a line of approach to the spectre associated with the Bengal Basin that was ever-present and allured all the travellers of history. Naru embarked on a new journey where an analysis of the different aspects of the life of the old inhabitants of Bengal became necessary to lift the shroud around the spectre associated with that basin. Ultimately, Naru was able to find a clue through which he thought that he would be able to continue his journey to the deep past of the Bengal Basin. This book provides a description of that clue and an account of the process of finding that all-important clue.

Naru embarked on a lifelong cerebral journey to find answers to a few questions that had appeared in his mind very early in his life. It was only in his mid-forties that he got the chance to start organising the thoughts and experiences that he had gathered thus far. A little before that time, he came into contact with the 'Wisp'. That chance encounter had a big impact on the progress of his search. Without being present in tangible format in his world, 'Wisp' guided Naru's quest in an enigmatic way for a long time. Naru crossed one hurdle after another to arrive at his own explanations of the concepts of Bangla, the origin of the term 'Bangal', the naming of 'Banga', etc. He thought that his journey was over and that he had been able to achieve what he intended to. That's when he felt the presence of a spectre in the past of the Bengal Basin. His search convinced him that all the travellers in history who dealt with the Bengal Basin felt its presence. Like all the previous travellers, he also lost his way to reach that phase of Bengal's history that precedes the presence of the spectre. There was a void. He called the simulated form of his 'Wisp' that he had successfully created in his mind to make up the emptiness that the absence of the 'Wisp' caused. The direction from the 'Wisp' was not sufficient to breach the barrier posed by the void. He took the virtual 'Wisp' to the place where they first met a long time ago. This time he tried to use the 'Wisp' as an instrument of his journey instead of an enigmatic direction giver. He achieved success in his effort. 'Wisp' broke the barrier posed by the void and took Naru to the other side of that barrier. The new light that illuminated the distant horizon of the history of the Bengal Basin had the capability to solve a great number of mysteries that are associated with that basin.

Naru embarked on a lifelong cerebral journey to find answers to a few questions that had appeared in his mind very early in his life. Those questions were related to his birthplace, Bengal. At present, officially, a place known as ‘Bengal’ has become extinct, but the people of that geography still use that term to describe their motherland. In the last few centuries, huge efforts have been undertaken to understand and document the past of that land. The Europeans, particularly the British, the then-occupying force, put enormous effort into rediscovering the prehistoric literature of India. The effort they put into that front was probably unparalleled throughout the worldwide empire that they were running during that time. An army of Indian intellectuals, many of whom were Bengalis, sprang up in no time to contribute to that effort. Myriads of works of literature came to the forefront, the presence of which was unknown until that time. Not much progress could be made in the area of writing the history of Bengal to the perceived time when it is believed that prehistoric Indian literature was created. References to the geography known as ‘Bengal’ today may be found in those literatures. Sketchy historical accounts for that land are available up to a period of 3000 years before the present from some secondary sources. Some archaeological evidence has been discovered that dates the historical period of Bengal up to a period of 5000 years before the present. Through the application of unexplainable capabilities, Naru was shown some events that had happened inside the Bengal Basin by his ‘Wisp’. He managed to recognise that those events bore resemblance to the tale of Atlantis, a submerged land. As he could not be sure about his conjecture, he requested his ‘Wisp’ for a repetition of that journey. What he saw on the second journey had the capability to bridge many gaps that are present in the present understanding of human history.

The capital city of Bangladesh, situated in the eastern part of the geographical entity known as the Bengal Basin, is Dhaka. The word Dhaka, when used as a place name, is a noun, and it is a unique application of that word. That word has not been used anywhere else to name a place. Apart from having its use as a proper noun, the word ‘Dhaka’ finds its place in Bengali language dictionaries as an adjective, and that is the predominant use of that word. Many experts have put forward a number of explanations regarding the evolution of that place name. All those explanations are derived ones, i.e., none of those explanations can relate that name to that place in a directly meaningful manner. With the intervention of his ‘Wisp’ in his cerebral journey, Naru, the main character of this series of books, stumbled upon the idea that, deep in the past, there could have existed an island-mountain at the centre of the place that is currently known as ‘Bengal Basin’. The most famous island-mountain in history is known as 'Atlantis', as described by Greek philosopher Plato. The geological and geographical settings of the Bengal Basin can almost seamlessly fit into the description of Atlantis. The place-name ‘Dhaka’, may be explained satisfactorily and without the application of the idea of being derived, when the concept of a drowned island-mountain is introduced in that geography. In that situation, ‘sonar Bangla’, ‘the golden Bengal’, the other iconic phrase of Bengal, becomes a reflection of reality rather than a metaphor. Naru undertook a cerebral journey to find the validity of this idea in the available facts from various lines of study.

A wide-ranging survey of the Indian sub-continent, Modern South Asia gives an enthralling account of South Asian history. After sketching the pre-modern history of the subcontinent, the book concentrates on the last three centuries from c.1700 to the present. Jointly written by two leading Indian and Pakistani historians, Modern South Asia offers a rare depth of understanding of the social, economic and political realities of this region. This comprehensive study includes detailed discussions of: the structure and ideology of the British raj; the meaning of subaltern resistance; the refashioning of social relations along lines of caste class, community and gender; and the state and economy, society and politics of post-colonial South Asia The new edition includes a rewritten, accessible introduction and a chapter by chapter revision to take into account recent research. The second edition will also bring the book completely up to date with a chapter on the period from 1991 to 2002 and adiscussion of the last millennium in sub-continental history.

Explores how refugees were used as agents of nation-building in India, leading to gendered and caste-ridden policies of rehabilitation.

This book works at the intersection of two related yet different fields. One is the heterogeneous feminist effort to question universal forms of knowing. The second field follows from this conundrum: how does one think of the body when s/he speaks of embodiment? ‘Toward a Politics of the (Im)Possible’ engages the forefront of contemporary thought on the body, while remaining mindful of the requirements of a feminist approach.

First Published in 1977. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Deze bundel gaat over de vorming van identiteit door het samenspel van etniciteit, nationalisme en de effecten van globalisering. De essays in Crossroad Civilisations: Ethnicity, Nationalism and Globalism in Asia maken de gelaagdheid en de complexiteit hiervan duidelijk.