Abstract
The book probes the possibilities and historical reality of ‘nationalisms’ in Bengal in the first half of the twentieth century. The use of the word ‘nationalisms’ in the plural given in the title of the book is deliberate, in that the author contests the notion that there was ever a single brand of nationalism in Bengal or indeed in India as a whole.
This fairly voluminous work, running over 400 pages, demonstrates a meticulous use of sources, both literary and archival, in which the author’s journalistic experience provides the necessary dose of scepticism. The different political trends in Bengal between the Partition of the province in 1905 and the Partition of the country in 1947 that also divided Bengal constitute the main subject matter of the work. Within this span of time, she argues, Bengal was witness to the experience of imagining ‘nations’ that emerged with many contested versions of nationhood.
Ghosh argues that one can trace certain patterns in the dissenting voices to a single notion of nationalism. Instead of dismissing differences, multiple ‘nationalisms’ in Bengal sought to forge a space for negotiating with each of them. The author questions a few historical assumptions concerning the nature of communities. She argues that strands existing between nation and community are variously conceived by different elements from within the community. These internal differences within a community generated multiple articulations of nationalism, but the community as a whole never really constituted an alternative nation.
The second pertinent question that the book poses is the relationship between ‘region’ and ‘nation’. The Bengali identity, indeed, formed the axis around which a number of nationalist articulations within Bengal revolved. Irrespective of the religious affinities of the pursuers of national imaginings, the region remained a crucial constituent with all its linguistic and cultural idiosyncrasies, particularly as one space for common national belonging. The regional identity itself was shared across multiple articulations resulting in a number of parallel national perspectives which were eventually overwhelmed by a monolithic nationalism. This, the author argues, is indicative of the fact that ‘region’ and ‘religion’ in Bengal were not always opposed to the cause of nationalism. The conception of the nation–state was, of course, a Western import, the attendant ideology being ‘nationalism’ through mediations of various processes of reception. Such engaged reception led to the emergence of multiple ideologies in Bengal, particularly after the death of C.R. Das in 1925.
The Bengali Muslim community, for instance, represented a regional-religious identity within the broader category of Indian Muslims but betrayed certain trends within itself unique to it. The author argues that the existence of this trend by itself does not imply that the Bengali Muslim discourse was wholly represented by it, or the latter was devoid of any ‘national’ interest other than its ‘Muslim’ interest. Rather the Bengal version of Pakistan was symptomatic simply of a different nationalism. If the genesis of the separate state of Pakistan provided one alternative structure, another more resilient and cherished imagery of a nation was essentially evident in the emergent concepts of a federal structure co-existing with regional autonomy.
Envisaging a ‘federal’ structure was the most favoured dream of the Bengali leader Sarat Chandra Bose. The explorations of a federal nation constitute a major theme of this book only to emphasise the absence here of any concept of a Hindu nation. Ghosh argues that nationalism in Bengal exhibited an extraordinary insight and keenness to handle ‘differences’ and there were remarkable possibilities of a pluralist existence against the backdrop of identity politics.
The unequivocal appeal of a universalist nation propounded by Rabindranath Tagore cannot be overestimated and his persistent engagements with difference earn him a central position in this sphere. Besides, Ashwini Kumar Dutta through his swadeshi ventures in Barisal represented a creed of inclusionary nationalism. A more ‘composite nationalism’ of Bepin Chandra Pal or Aurobindo Ghose portrayed India as a ‘federation of faiths’ though underscoring the Hindu religious-cultural traditions. Yet another creed of nationalism was evident in the new nationalism of C.R. Das in the mid-1920s. His Bengal Pact remained unrealised as a project but undeniably promised an alternative concept of nation.
Another emotive and irreconcilable issue that history has held us hostage to since 1947 was the great Partition dividing the province as well as the country. Ghosh believes that the usual ‘inevitability narrative’ of Partition is not a convincing story. The author, however, does not provide us with any direct answer to the counter-factual question: Was the Partition of Bengal avoidable in 1947?
Partition in this genre was more an anticlimax than a logical conclusion of the events preceding it. The existence of different nationalisms of undivided Bengal allows us to test a counterfactual vision of non-occurrence of the Partition in 1947 even a re-evaluation of the historical possibility of avoiding it. Ghosh is neither an apologist nor an optimist, but her arguments necessarily generate nostalgia for events that could have averted the ultimate calamity.