Nation, religion and duration in India

The 1947 Partition of British India into India and Pakistan remains, for many Bengalis, the defining event of the twentieth century. This chapter analyses the role of household religious practice in the nationalism of the bhadralok before, during and after the 1947 Partition. In the wake of the Partition, some bhadralok migrants had to contend with the issue of what to do with their household deities. The bhadralok class marked their respectability by cultivating refinement and by eschewing manual labour and commerce, though they often had some landholdings from which they collected revenue. For the bhadralok, the kuldebata has long been the focus of household religious life. Most important, the kuldebata was responsible for the protection and prosperity of the lineage, in conjunction with the head of the household for well-being is best produced through the conjoining of their respective wills.