Different Nationalisms Bengal, 1905-1947

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The period between the partition of Bengal in 1905 and the Partition of India in 1947 was witness to a unique experience of 'Imagining' nations in Bengal. With neither Bengali Muslims nor Bengali Hindus envisioning homogenous ideas about nationhood, many contesting and alternative visions emerged, both within and between the two communities. These 'other' nationalisms were not 'anti-national', but creeds of either a 'federal Indian nation' with 'regional autonomy' or a 'regional nation' on its own strength.

In Different Nationalisms, Semanti Ghosh goes beyond the Muslim-Hindu and nationalism- communalism binaries to reveal an unfamiliar terrain of hidden contestations over the concept of nation in colonial Bengal. For several of these competing ideologles, Partition, rather than being an expected or even desired outcome, was an anticlimax in their long-drawn battle for a nation.

This book first took shape as a doctoral thesis presented to Tufts T University (Medford, Massachusetts, USA) in 1999. Evidently, it has been a long journey. I have incurred so many debts of gratitude during this journey that to thank everyone adequately seems to be a challenging task.

The greatest debt, of course, has been to Sugata Bose, my supervisor at Tufts University during 1995-9. He has been supporting the project since it was launched. His scholarly insight has guided me in shaping the arguments of this book in a vital way. Also, while writing the book, he provided me with help and encouragement of the kind that went beyond the usual call of duty. Ayesha Jalal has been another pillar of support during all these years. Her appreciation of my work will remain a source of inspiration to me.

The research that has gone into this book was funded by a dissertation grant (1996-7) awarded by the South Asia Programme, Social Science Research Council (SSRC), New York. I am grateful to SSRC and the Ford Foundation for offering me the support to conduct research in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. I was also fortunate to receive a generously funded write-up fellowship from Tufts University in 1998-9 I had the opportunity of presenting parts of the thesis at the SSRC conference in Bangladesh in 1996, and at a number of conferences organized by the Centre for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies at Tufts University between 1997 and 1999.

Working in the archives and libraries in search of source materials was not always a fun experience. I remember with deep gratitude the patient assistance provided by the librarians and staff at the following institutions: in London, UK, at the India Office Library (now part of the Oriental and India Office Collections at the British Library); in New Delhi, at the National Archives of India, in Kolkata, at the West Bengal State Archives, the National Library, and the Bangiya Sahitya Parishat Library; in Bangladesh, at the Bangladesh National Archives, Bangla Academy, and Dhaka University Library in Dhaka, the Barendra Museum in Rajshahi, the Chittagong University Library and Museum in Chittagong, and the Mymensingh Public Library in Mymensingh. 1 was particularly fortunate in receiving short-term affiliations from the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh and Bangla Academy in Dhaka. During my stay in Bangladesh, I benefited greatly from the long discussion sessions with insightful scholars and writers such as the late Salahuddin Ahmed, Anisuzzaman, Mustafa Nurul Islam, Abul Momen, Jamil Chaudhuri, Mofidul Haque, and Shamsuzzaman Khan. My research assistants, Hasan and Apu in Dhaka, and Mohua in Kolkata, were staunchly by my side during the frantic times spent in the archives and libraries.

This book is about the scope and possibilities of nationalism in T Bengal between 1905 and 1947. The period between the partition of the province in 1905 and the great Partition dividing the province as well as the country in 1947 was witness to a unique experience of imagining 'nations' in Bengal. I use the term in plural deliberately. There indeed emerged many contested visions of nation- hood and alternative frameworks for its realization, producing a richly nuanced discourse. This book explores the process by which an over- arching concept of a grand, unifying nation came to be haunted and challenged by various 'other' nationalisms, based on 'other identities', or 'other kinds' of ideological formulations. The lynchpin for all these con- testing nationalisms was the notion of 'difference', which emerges within any perceived nation and counters the ambitious claims from within any conceivable nation. These alternative imaginings of the nation could hardly be deemed 'anti-national' even if the dominant discourse on the nation-state might wish to label them as such.

Although nationalism has been an over-explored problematic in the historiography of South Asia in general, and colonial Bengal in particular, the multiple perspectives on nation were often glossed over. The terms 'nation' and 'nationalism' have usually been considered in a one- dimensional way. The central problematic of this book is to question this customary assumption. It intends to break up this one-dimensional or un-problematized category of nationalism to unravel its myriad internal imaginaries. When I read about the relationships between colonialism, anti-colonial nationalism, and the assertions of cultural difference, 1 often found myself in deep discomfort as it seemed impossible for me to overlook the very fundamental dissimilarities in the ways these relation- ships had been perceived by the Bengali nationalists. They were nationalists, no doubt, but their nations appeared so very different from each other. I wanted to probe deeper into the matter of whether these nations only appeared so, or if in reality too they denoted different qualifiers. At the same time, when I read about the competing definitions of identity, and the so-called oppositional connection between these identities and the claims to nationhood, I felt somewhat perplexed by not being able to analyse many Bengali politicians and ideologues who combined their nations with the claims of identity rather deliberately. This sense of bewilderment has motivated me in pursuing this study of the contesting and contending voices of Bengali nationalism, both its Hindu and Muslim variants. In the course of my study, I could appreciate what Summit Sarkar indicated a few years ago to be the most valuable legacy of nationalism: 'self-criticism, debate, internal dissent'. Also, the study revealed that there existed certain patterns amidst the dissenting voices, as well as certain alternative structures of national politics and ideology. It suggested that the historiographical neglect of these variations has not, perhaps, helped us to assess the value of 'difference'. The point is not that differences have so far been ignored or overlooked, but that they might have been overemphasized as difference alone. I have tried to show that it is possible to think and write about multiple nationalisms in Bengal, some of which, instead of dismissing difference, often accepted them and sought to forge a space for negotiating with them.