Description
Book SynopsisWeaving personal remembrances with diverse sources including the author's academic research and field works, this book is an intriguing rural Muslim historiography in Colonial Bengal, a largely ignored swathe in South Asian history. The gripping true-life account is built around real peoplenot imagined characters. Between the twilight of the 19th century and nearly the first half of the 20th century, the Muslims in Colonial Bengal in India were haunted by their misgivings about an alien rule and its cohorts. The religiosity and identity questions, conflicting existential urges, the spiraling Hindu-Muslim discord, the feudal constraints, and marginalization by the bhadraloks swirled around them. Wracked by religious, cultural, social, and political conflicts, the old British Indian Bengal comes alive in this book's intergenerational narrative. With its 9 main chapters plus a preface and introduction, this volume seeks out average individuals' life amidst such turmoil while it
Table of Contents
Preface: Ways and Means of the Narrative – Acknowledgements – Introduction: Threads of Memories! – Weaving Contemporary and Comparable Memories – A Family Maverick: Existential Slog and Identity Encounters! – Nuri: A Virtuous Woman with a Voice of Her Own! – Achkan/Sherwani, Fez, Lungi or Dhoti? Identity and Dress – The Incredible Rezu Chacha: Quest for Sufism in a Rural Community? – Kaleidoscopic Rural Elites: Rai Sahebs/Khandans/Beparis? – Muslim Identity Imaginations: “Never Apologize for Being a Muslim!” – Eclectic Historiography: “Demise of Memories Is the End of History!” – Memories: A Cherag on the Edge of History! – Bibliography – Index.
