Looking Back: The 1947 Partition of India 70 Years On, Edited by Rakhshanda Jalil, Tarun K. Saint and Debjani Sengupta (Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2019). xxxviii + 355pp, ₹995.00 (Paperback).

Rup Kumar Barman, Samakalin Paschimbanga: Jatpat, Jati-Rajniti O Tapashili Samaj. Kolkata: Gangchil, 2022, 132 pp., ?400 (Hardback). ISBN: 978-93-93569-42-4.

Large-scale migration of people to a particular region often creates bitterness for the pre-settled communities (hosts/non-migrants or locals of that region) against the newcomers. This type of practical outcome of the Partition of Bengal (1947) has been evidently noticed in the case of North Bengal (northern part of West Bengal), particularly among the Rajbanshis (the largest Scheduled Caste [SC] community of West Bengal). Along with other developments in postcolonial North Bengal, this aspect of the Partition of Bengal has created such a complex situation that the host people of that region have repeatedly raised their voices against the consequences of the Partition of Bengal. So they have been clamouring for political autonomy as the means of recovery of their grievances. In this chapter the attitudes of the Rajbanshis, as the hosts of the ‘partition-induced displaced people’.towards the consequences of the partition of Bengal have been highlighted. ’

The Scheduled Caste (SC) communities of India have always been locked down with stigmatized social identities since the very beginning of the caste system. They were categorized with certain administrative identities under colonial rule and branded as 'Harijans' (Children of God) by the nationalist leaders. On the other hand, the SC communities themselves had asserted for respectable caste identities, opposed the Brahmanical hegemony, and fought against untouchability. Harijan identity, however, has transformed into Dalit identity in the post-colonial period. In such a context, Navayana Buddhism has appeared as a symbol of dignified identity. This article has highlighted this trend of changing identifiers of the SCs of Indian society.

For a couple of decades, the ‘history of science, technology, and medicine’ (HISTEM) has received widespread attention from scholars worldwide. Historians have paid adequate attention to exploring India's scientific and technological contributions to the global history of science. Simultaneously, the “codified” and “institutionalized” forms of certain medicinal practices and health-seeking traditions of the Indian subcontinent have achieved international recognition for their medicinal values to maintain good health. However, there are many indigenous (tribal/autochthonous/ adivashis/ marginal) communities whose medicinal practices have remained beyond the purview of HISTEM. In such a background, an intensive study has been undertaken in the context of Indian Sundarbans located in the southern part of North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas Districts of West Bengal. Here, the indigenous communities have developed and preserved their medicinal practices, preventive food habits, and folk culture with their long experience of interactions with the available natural elements. This project thus seeks to construct a brief history of diseases, medicinal practices, inheritance and transmission of medicinal knowledge, and the socioeconomic background of the indigenous healers and retailers of medicine of Indian Sundarbans.

Since the inception of Buddhism, the people of Bengal have maintained a very close relationship with Buddhist ideologies. In fact, Bengal appeared as a dominant center of Buddhist culture in the early medieval period (sixth to twelfth century CE) both for its institutional flavour as well as for state- sponsorship. However, with the fall of royal patronage and the conversion of the Buddhists to other religious faiths, Buddhism gradually lost its prominence in Bengal. It was during the colonial period (1757 to 1947 CE), Buddhism again started reviving in different corners of Bengal principally in the early twentieth century. However, the ‘Partition of Bengal Province (in 1947) appeared as a serious setback for the fate of Buddhism in this region. The East Bengali Buddhists had started a new episode of the struggle for survival in India more precisely in West Bengal as ‘refugees’ or as ‘asylum seekers. After their migration to West Bengal, the Bengali-speaking Buddhists have aspired to build up several Viharas (monasteries), Sanghasrams (spiritual hermitage), temples, and institutions in Kolkata, Sub-Himalayan Bengal, and certain other districts of West Bengal. They have preserved and maintained the Buddhist socio-cultural traditions that they have inherited from the southeastern corner of former East Bengal. This paper highlights all these aspects of the Buddhist culture of West Bengal with a fresh outlook.

Though Buddhism began to revive in India in the late nineteenth century, Buddhist organizations did not pay much attention to bring the Dalits into their folds. Rather, the lower caste communities had aspired for constructing respectable caste identities in the late colonial period. However, conversion of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) to a modified form of Buddhism (called ‘neo-Buddhism’) has appeared as a sociocultural tool for the Dalits to fight against the casteism. In this paper, we have highlightws the background of the introduction of neo-Buddhism and the location of the Scheduled Castes of West Bengal in it.

The concept of ideal society largely depends on one’s perception, experience and interactions with the given society. Thus it is ‘contextual’ and ‘relational’ in reality. While reality determines the nature of one’s ideas, the transformation of his ideas gets denials from traditional perceptions, taboos and vested interests. All these features of ideas and activism have been found in the lives and works of Panchanan Barma (1865–1935) and Dr B. R. Ambedkar (1890–1956). Both of them were the products of their times. Thus their ideas on an ideal society got maturity through the interactions with their contemporary society. Hence, their attempts at attaining ‘justice’ and ‘equality’ for an ‘ideal society’ were the outcome of their ideas on ‘just society’ and ‘equality’ and finding probable ways for attaining ‘self-reliance’ to fight against injustice. This article seeks to analyse the concept of social justice of Panchanan Barma (the father of the Rajbanshi community of Bengal) and to compare it with that of Dr B. R. Ambedkar (who has been accepted as the ‘Father of the Indian Constitution’).

‘Casteism’ and ‘politicization of caste’ are common phenomena of Indian society since the beginning of the twentieth century. Violation of social rights and caste discriminations of plural characters have added additional complexity to them. Casteism has thus appeared as a burden of postcolonial Indian society. As a subject of study, it is, however, not a comfortable one. Being a sensitive issue, it often gets mixed up with political, class, cultural and regional conflicts. Thus, academic scholars, general readers and policy makers do often face serious trouble in highlighting the basic premises of casteism. Academic studies on casteism and caste-discrimination in the context of West Bengal are also not free from this limitation. Moreover, there has been a common perception among the intellectuals as well as in the academic world that West Bengal is free from caste violence. Print, electronic and social media have also equally contributed to the creation of this perception in the late twentieth century, especially for considering ‘caste’ merely as a parameter of ‘class’. This ‘invented notion’ on caste has encouraged the people of the state to understand ‘caste’ simply as a social phenomenon irrespective of its social and class differences. However, it would be an utter lie to accept the general propaganda that casteism has no presence in West Bengal. Rather, our field surveys either through interviews or ‘face-to-face group discussions’ as well as contemporary media reports reveal that psychological, oral and behavioural casteism are social realities of West Bengal. Thus, this article is an attempt to highlight the nature of casteism and caste intolerance as faced by the Scheduled Castes (SCs) of West Bengal because of their birth in a particular sub-caste.

Introduction'Folk medicine', an essential feature of human civilization, is still in existence all across the world both in pristine and institutionalized form.In the global context, the medicinal practices of the indigenous communities of Sub-Himalayan Bengal [Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts of West Bengal] are no exception.Here, the indigenous caste and tribal communities have developed their own curative and preventive medicinal practices with their experience and interactions with flora and fauna of their habitation.Among them, the wide knowledge on folk medicine, preventive food habits, folk culture and health keeping behaviour of the Rajbanshis deserve special attention.Being the members of the largest indigenous community of Sub-Himalayan Bengal, the Rajbanshis were the main sufferers of different diseases common in this region.In the pre-colonial and early colonial days, common and poor Rajbanshis of this region were solely dependent on their own village medicine.However, with the introduction of modern medical practices especially after the development of indirect British rule in the Cooch Behar State (1773 ce) and direct British rule in Jalpaiguri (in 1869 ce); the traditional healing practices of this region began to be discouraged.Inspite of it, the Rajbanshis of remote villages of Sub-Himalayan Bengal, have maintained their traditional knowledge on medicinal plants, herbs, and food practice.They have developed their (i) own mechanism in making herbal medicine and drugs with available natural elements, (ii) foodstuff for consumption

Since the beginning of the provincial election in the early twentieth century, ‘caste’ has been a ‘political issue’ in India. It transformed into a matter of serious political contradiction when the ‘reservation’ was introduced in India. After the independence of India, in all provincial and parliamentary elections starting from to 1952 till date, organized political parties have further contributed to the ‘process of politicization of caste’. Truly speaking, caste is now a ‘determinant factor’ for formation of the union government. This trend has been equally detected in certain provinces of India especially where the Scheduled Castes (SCs) have substantial concentration. West Bengal, with 21,463,270 SC population (i.e., 23.5% of the state’s population), has been experiencing caste politics since 1952. However, the SCs of this state have been used in electoral politics merely as ‘voters’. They were controlled by the ‘Rights’, till 1962. The period from 1962 to 1976 was a transitional phase from the ‘Rights’ to ‘Lefts’. The ‘Lefts’ established their control over the SCs in 1977. However, re-emergence of the ‘Rights’ (particularly of the All India Trinamool Congress [AITMC]) in 2011 has transformed the SCs as the ‘puppet dancers’ under the direction of the ‘Rights’.

This article focuses on an unexplored domain of Dalit literature that was composed in colonial Bengal, both in the Bengali and English languages. After critically analyzing the contents and arguments of writings of the Scheduled Castes of Bengal, this article confirms that they (the Scheduled Castes) had raised their voice against social injustice and discrimination that they faced from the dominants/elites. The author has broadly classified their writings into three categories: (a) caste-oriented writings, (b) creative literary works and (c) autobiography (biography). The writings of first group had announced a ‘respectable identity’ of the Scheduled Castes by rejecting the traditional interpretations of origin and growth of caste. Creative writings have depicted the deplorable social condition of the Scheduled Castes and raised serious questions against injustice/discrimination and exploitation. Autobiographies on the other hand have recorded the experience of casteism of the Scheduled Castes as well as their struggle for survival. All these features of the article have established the hypothesis that the Scheduled Castes can read and write!

Caste has been an inseparable part of Indian society since the beginning of settled human civilization. Like other parts of India, certain caste communities of Bengal were assigned lower social status in the caste hierarchy. They were categorized in the colonial administrative records of the nineteenth and early twentieth century as ‘Hinduised Castes’, ‘Semi Hinduised Tribe’, ‘Depressed Castes’ and as ‘Depressed Class’. They began to be classified as Scheduled Castes with the adoption of the Government of India (Scheduled Castes) Order (1936). These communities had to face a lot of social injustice. In terms of their possession over capital goods, they were poor. So they could not develop their skills other than their traditional occupation(s). Lack of education and social restrictions made them an ‘oppressed social category’ who can be categorized as ‘Dalits’. In such a caste oriented social context of colonial India, certain lower caste communities of Bengal like Bhuinmalis, Chashi Kaibartyas, Chandals, Dhobas, Gopas, Malos, Patnis, Poundras, Rajbanshis, Sutradhars, etc., had developed a sense of self‐respect by announcing a ‘self identity’. Simultaneously, they adopted certain rituals from the caste Hindus to legitimize their demand. At the same time they placed their appeal to the colonial G9vernment for recognition of a respectable caste identity. They also initiated social reforms including the spread of education in their own society for materializing the dreams of achieving respectable caste status. In such a context of colonial society of Bengal, in this article I shall highlight the social movement of the Pods of Bengal who demanded Poundra (Kshatriya) identity for achieving respect and social justice what was granted by the Government of Independent India in 1956. The process ofd evelopment ofc aste consciousness among the Poundras, influence ofc olonial policy and the outcomes of the Poundras Kshatriya movement are also analyzed in this paper with a perspective of Dalit history.

In recent years violence has become a common phenomenon in India. It has engulfed the entire political, social, economic, cultural and even our personal lives. Violation of social justice and caste discriminations of complex characters have added additional burden to our society whereas we the Indians have been specially advised to practice 'non-violence.' The growing trend in violence thus provokes us to talk about nonviolence and to identify the roots of violence in India.