In Focus: Bangladesh
From Sultanate to Mughal: The Architectural Legacy of Bengal
In conversation with Professor Perween Hasan, distinguished historian and expert on architecture of the Indian subcontinent
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and the Muslim Renaissance in South Asia
This year marks the 207th birth anniversary of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, who was born into a prominent family with ties to the Mughal court in Delhi on 17 October 1817, and passed away on 27 March 1898.
50TH DEATH ANNIVERSARY / Abul Hashim and Revisiting the United Bengal Plan (1946-47)
Fifty years ago, in October 1974, Abul Hashim, a prominent political leader of the then dissolved Bengal Provincial Muslim League (BPML) breathed his last in Bangladesh, leaving behind an important political legacy now long forgotten.
“Reform must come from the people”
The 1969 Mass Uprising was primarily focused on achieving either provincial autonomy or independence, which ultimately led to the Liberation War in 1971.
The luckless president & an American icon !
As I was completing my undergraduate program in USA, the American Presidential election of 1976 came up.
Abdullah: The novel that pioneered a new era in Bengali literature
Kazi Imdadul Huq’s novel Abdullah, written nearly a century ago, is regarded as one of the first modern novels by a Bengali Muslim writer. Initially known for his poetry and children’s literature, Huq transitioned into a notable prose writer, offering profound insights into history, culture, and society. Abdullah was his only novel, published posthumously, and it has since become a milestone in Bengali literature, earning enduring acclaim from readers.
Nayakraj Razzak: A new man in the 1960s
In the often-treacherous world of showbiz, there is always “something else” beyond mere skill, charisma, and looks that contributes to stardom.
Shamsur Rahman and Muslim Bengali childhood - modernity, city, and soliloquy
The poetic tradition in the East, particularly in Greater India, has long been characterised by diverse literary experimentation, significantly influenced by Sanskritic, Arabic, and Persian cosmopolitan traditions.
Utpal Dutt and Postcolonial Political Theatre
The inspiration for decolonization, as a philosophical term, writes Achille Mbembe, was the ‘active will to community’ which can be translated as something like ‘to stand up on one’s own and create a heritage’.
A forgotten chapter in the intellectual movement of Bengali Muslims
Anwarul Quadir (1887-1948) was a key literary figure whose work significantly influenced the intellectual movement of Bengali Muslims in late colonial Bengal.
Cartographic Imagination and Colonial Landscape Paintings in and around Bengal
Cartography in India might have had its roots in this expansionist ambition but went on to achieve much more than this. Rennell’s Map of Hindostan, published by an act of Parliament in 1782, inaugurated the cartographic identity of modern India for the first time on the world stage.
Symbolic and Imaginary in Nazrul Islam
Kazi Nazrul Islam, according to Kazi Abdul Wadud (1895-1970), perhaps the first formidable critic who took him seriously, “was the first writer among Bengali Muslims of the modern era who was able to conquer the hearts of Hindus and Muslims alike of Bengal.”
Steam Power and Scientific Knowledge in Early British Bengal
In Europe, steam power evolved gradually and uncertainly over the course of the eighteenth century, with innovative peaks and long plateaus, from Thomas Savery’s steam pump (1698) via Thomas Newcomen’s reciprocating atmospheric engine (1712) to James Watt and Matthew Boulton’s double-acting rotative steam engine with a separate condenser (1765-90).
Rabindranath Tagore and the creation of national identity
Rabindranath Tagore is perhaps the only poet whose songs were chosen as the national anthems of two countries: India and Bangladesh.
A life dedicated to cultural activism
“I firmly believe in the profound impact of music, dance, and acting on shaping people’s thoughts and emotions.
Thus Spoke Sher-e-Bangla
I deem it a great privilege and pleasure to preside over this Convocation of the University of Dacca; and to join you in offering my blessings and good wishes for the success and prosperity of those graduates who have been admitted to various degrees today.
The Baropakhya Christians: A forgotten incidence of peasant repression in colonial Bengal
The Blue or Indigo Mutiny of 1861, was an outpouring of anger by Indian peasants coerced into cultivating the unprofitable indigo crop by British planters.
Silencing the subaltern voice
Historian Willem van Schendel divides the historiography of the War of 1971 into two broad categories: i) first-generation historiographies and ii) second-generation historiographies.