Journal articles: 'Hindus of Bengal'

1

Dasgupta, Koushiki. "The Bharatiya Jana Sangh and the First General Election in West Bengal: The Enigma of Hindu Politics in early 1950s." Studies in Indian Politics 8, no. 1 (May 2, 2020): 58–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2321023020918063.

Full text

Abstract:

The first general elections proved to be a disaster for the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in Bengal in terms of its performance and its failure to make the Hindu Bengalis a consolidated political block. Prior to the election, the party had generated immense hopes and aspirations especially among the refugees from East Bengal. Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the leader of the opposition, appeared to be the sole spokesman of the Bengali Hindus and fought the election with a promise to secure the political fate of the Hindu Bengalis, especially the refugees from East Bengal. But very soon the party lost the essential spirit and enthusiasm to challenge the leftists especially in the refugee constituencies and failed to take a hold over the issues of multiple identities working parallel inside the refugee political space. The Hindu nationalist forces had never been a popular choice in Bengal; however, at least in the decades before partition they managed to make their presence felt in the political mainstream of the province. In this paper, an attempt has been made to understand why the Hindu nationalist parties in general and the Jana Sangh in particular lost its credibility among the Hindu electorate in Bengal after partition.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

2

Pramanik, Debashish Kumar, and Taposh Kumar Neogy. "The Bengal Partition of 1905: the Evaluation of British Civilians Activities and Its Effect and Consequence." Asian Journal of Humanity, Art and Literature 5, no. 2 (December 31, 2018): 63–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.18034/ajhal.v5i2.334.

Full text

Abstract:

The Partition of Bengal (1905) and the creation of a new province opened a new chapter in the history of this region. Whatever might have been the real motive of the colonial government behind the scheme, it divided the Hindus and the Muslims of Bengal. Most of the upper caste Hindus opposed it on the ground that by partitioning Bengal the government, in effect, had planned to divide the Bangla- speaking people. The also argued that it was the part of the government’s grand design of ‘divide and rule’. On the other hand, most of the upper class Muslims in general supported the scheme. The thought that their interests would be better protected in the newly created province and the would be able to overcome decades of backwardness. Yet, there were some Muslims who opposed the partition. As they belonged both to upper class and ordinary section of the Muslim population, their reasons for supporting the partition also varied. Personal, community, national and economic interests prompted interests prompted them to oppose the partition of Bengal.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

3

Routh, Deepa, and Suvendu Maji. "Understanding the Fertility Behavior of Bengali-speaking Hindu and Hindi-speaking Hindu Populations Occupying Similar Urban Locale of Kolkata, West Bengal: A Snapshot Regarding Family Planning Decision-making Process." Oriental Anthropologist: A Bi-annual International Journal of the Science of Man 21, no. 1 (February 28, 2021): 67–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0972558x21994682.

Full text

Abstract:

This study was conducted to understand the fertility behavior between the two population groups speaking different languages: Bengali-speaking Hindus and Hindi-speaking Hindus. The study further attempts to study the perception and practice regarding contraception use and their decision-making ability. The present study was conducted in Kolkata, West Bengal. A total of 64 women (Bengali-speaking Hindus: 34 and Hindi-speaking Hindus: 30) ranging between 15 years and 44 years were chosen by convenience sampling method. Semi-structured interview schedule was employed to record the response of the participants. Sociodemographic profile of the participants and of their husbands and fertility history were collected using structured interview. Open-ended questions were asked to the participants to understand their perception about family planning. Case studies were also taken from each participant to know about their decision-making process of family planning. Descriptive statistic was carried out to analyze quantitative data, and for qualitative data, thematic analysis was carried out manually. Mean age of the participants was 33.1 years and that of their husbands was 40.2 years. Age at marriage was low in both the groups. Source of knowledge on contraceptives was mostly husband in both the populations. The husband (100%) played a dominant role in decision-making in both the groups. The role of in-laws played a dominant role in decision-making among the Hindi-speaking population. Withdrawal method was a common method of contraceptives in both the groups.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

4

HOSSAIN, ASHFAQUE. "The Making and Unmaking of Assam-Bengal Borders and the Sylhet Referendum." Modern Asian Studies 47, no. 1 (August 9, 2012): 250–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x1200056x.

Full text

Abstract:

AbstractThe creation of Assam as a new province in 1874 and the transfer of Sylhet from Bengal to Assam provided a new twist in the shaping of the northeastern region of India. Sylhet remained part of Assam from 1874 to 1947, which had significant consequences in this frontier locality. This paper re-examines archival sources on political mobilization, rereads relevant autobiographical texts, and reviews oral evidence to discover the ‘experienced’ history of the region as distinct from the ‘imagined’ one. The sub-text of partition (Sylhet) is more intriguing than the main text (Bengal), because events in Sylhet offer us a micro-level study. Generations of historians—writing mostly in Bengali and relying on colonial archives—have tended to overlook the mindset of the people of Sylhet. This paper, on the basis of an examination of combined sources, argues that the new province was implicated in overlapping histories, across Bengal-Assam borders. The voice of the indigenous—mostly Hindus but partly Muslim—elites were dominant from 1874 onwards. However, the underdogs—particularly ‘pro-Pakistani’ dalits (lower-caste Hindus) and madrasa-educated ‘pro-Indian’ maulvis—emerged as crucial players in the referendum of 1947. Hardly any serious study, however, has focused on the Sylhet referendum—a defining moment in the region. This study of the Sylhet referendum will reveal a new dimension to the multiple responses to these issues and provide a glimpse of the ‘communal psyche’ of the people in this frontier district, rather than a binary opposition between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ forces.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

5

Brown, Carolyn Henning. "Raja and Rank in North Bihar." Modern Asian Studies 22, no. 4 (October 1988): 757–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x00015730.

Full text

Abstract:

The Maithil Brahmans of Bihar and the Bengali Brahmans of Bengal, two of the five great North Indian Brahman castes, had, as of the early nineteenth century, closely similar systems of ranked grades and hypergamously marrying lineages. In addition, fundamental concepts—of purity and pollution, of coded substance, of sattva, rajas, and tamas (Dumont 1970; Inden 1976; Davis 1983)—form a shared construction of reality for both groups of Hindus. Yet despite a common ideation and similar patterns of organization up to that point, the ‘Kulin system’ of Bengal virtually disappeared in the middle of the last century, while among the Brahmans to the east in Bihar, the system faltered during the same period, then corrected itself, grew more complex with greater refinements of rank than at any time in the past, and has survived into the present.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

6

Togawa, Masahiko. "Syncretism Revisited: Hindus and Muslims over a Saintly Cult in Bengal." Numen 55, no. 1 (2008): 27–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156852708x271288.

Full text

Abstract:

AbstractThis paper reconsiders the concept of “syncretism,” and identifies its range and implications when applied to the analysis of the saintly cult of the Hindus and Muslims in Bengal. The mausoleum of Manamohan Datta (1877–1909) is situated in what is currently eastern Bangladesh. Both Hindus and Muslims in the area join together in the various rituals held at the mausoleum. The article discusses the social and cultural factors that explain the sharing of rituals and beliefs by these people. In particular, word correspondences in the religious vocabulary facilitates the mutual acceptance of different cultural forms and norms. The article also examines the critical discourses on syncretistic situations related to the mausoleum in the context of contemporary Bangladesh. Finally, the article discusses the usefulness of the concept of syncretism in elucidating the social and cultural conditions which make possible religious pluralism and multiple discourses. The article opens with a literature review and a statement of the problems. This is followed by a brief history of Saint Manomohan and a description of the ritual practices at the mausoleum. The pluralistic structure of these practices is then examined, and the conditions for acceptance of pluralistic practices are discussed with reference to the critical discourses conducted by the local population. The findings are summed up in a conclusion.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

7

SARKAR, ABHIJIT. "Fed by Famine: The Hindu Mahasabha's politics of religion, caste, and relief in response to the Great Bengal Famine, 1943–1944." Modern Asian Studies 54, no. 6 (February 14, 2020): 2022–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x19000192.

Full text

Abstract:

AbstractThis article demonstrates how the Great Bengal Famine of 1943–1944 and relief activism during it fed the politics of the Hindu right, a development that has not previously received much scholarly attention. Using hitherto unused primary sources, the article introduces a novel site to the study of communal politics, namely, the propagation of Hindu communalism through food distribution during a humanitarian crisis. It examines the caste and class bias in private relief and provides the first in-depth study of the multifaceted process whereby the Hindu Mahasabha used the famine for political purposes. The party portrayed Muslim food officials as ‘saboteurs’ in the food administration, alleged that the Muslim League government was ‘creating’ a new group of Muslim grain traders undermining the established Hindu traders, and publicized the government's failure to avert the famine to prove the economic ‘unviability’ of creating Pakistan. This article also explores counter-narratives, for example, that Hindu political leaders were deliberately impeding the food supply in the hope that starvation would compel Bengali Muslims to surrender their demand for Pakistan. The politics of religious conversion played out blatantly in famine-relief when the Mahasabha accused Muslim volunteers of converting starving Hindus to Islam in exchange for food, and demanded that Hindu and Muslim famine orphans should remain in Hindu and Muslim orphanages respectively. Finally, by dwelling on beef consumption by the army at the time of an acute shortage of dairy milk during the famine, the Mahasabha fanned communal tensions surrounding the orthodox Hindu taboo on cow slaughter.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

8

Rey-Schirr, Catherine. "The ICRC's activities on the Indian subcontinent following partition (1947–1949)." International Review of the Red Cross 38, no. 323 (June 1998): 267–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020860400091026.

Full text

Abstract:

In 1945, at the end of the Second World War, the British government clearly stated its intention of granting independence to India.The conflict between the British and the Indian nationalists receded into the background, while the increasing antagonism between Hindus and Muslims came to the fore. The Hindus, centred round the Congress Party led by Jawaharlal Nehru, wanted to maintain the unity of India by establishing a government made up of representatives of the two communities. The Muslims, under the banner of the Muslim League and its President, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, demanded the creation of a separate Muslim State, Pakistan. The problem was further complicated by the fact that the approximately 300 million Hindus, 6 million Sikhs and 100 million Muslims in British India were not living in geographically distinct regions, especially in Punjab and Bengal, where the population was mixed.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

9

Saha, Ashis Kumar, Somnath Maitra, and Subhas Chandra Hazra. "Epidemiology of Gastric Cancer in the Gangetic Areas of West Bengal." ISRN Gastroenterology 2013 (October 23, 2013): 1–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/823483.

Full text

Abstract:

There is marked geographical variation in the distribution and incidence of stomach cancer. We tried here to describe the pattern of relationships of age, sex, religion distribution, symptom profile, histological subtypes and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection with gastric cancer in Gangetic West Bengal. This study was done over a period of five years (2006–2010). The patients residing in the Gangetic areas of West Bengal presenting with upper gastrointestinal symptoms underwent UGI endoscopy. Among gastric cancer patients, demographic characteristics, symptomatology, macroscopic and histologic lesions and H. pylori status were analyzed. At confidence level 95%, “” and “” value were calculated to find significance. Among 23851 patients underwent UGI endoscopy, 14106 were males, 9745 females, 17889 Hindus and 5962 Muslims. Among 462 gastric cancer patients, Male : Female 2.7 : 1, Hindus : Muslim 3 : 1, abdominal pain, indigestion, and weight-loss were commonest presentations. Antrum was the commonest site whereas ulceroproliferative type was commonest type. H. pylori positivity was 80.89% in adenocarcinoma with statistically significant relation with intestinal type. In future, our target will be to modify risk factors; it will need further demographic studies and analysis, so that we can detect it earliest.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

10

KURZON, DENNIS. "Romanisation of Bengali and Other Indian Scripts." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland 20, no. 1 (November 30, 2009): 61–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1356186309990319.

Full text

Abstract:

AbstractThis article will discuss two attempts at the romanisation of Indian languages in the twentieth century, one in pre-independence India and the second in Pakistan before the Bangladesh war of 1971. By way of background, an overview of the status of writing in the subcontinent will be presented in the second section, followed by a discussion of various earlier attempts in India to change writing systems, relating mainly to the situation in Bengal, which has one language and one script used by two large religious groups – Muslims and Hindus (in modern-day Bangladesh and West Bengal, respectively). The fourth section will look at the language/script policy of the Indian National Congress in pre-independence days, and attempts to introduce romanisation, especially the work of the Bengali linguist S. K. Chatterji. The penultimate section deals with attempts to change the writing system in East Pakistan, i.e. East Bengal, to (a) the Perso-Arabic script, and (b) the roman script.In all cases, the attempt to romanise any of the Indian scripts failed at the national – official – level, although Indian languages do have a conventional transliteration. Reasons for the failure will be presented, in the final section, in terms of İlker Aytürk's model (see this issue), which proposes factors that may allow – or may not lead to – the implementation of romanisation.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

11

Dey, Archita, Mahua Chanak, Kaustav Das, Koel Mukherjee, and Kaushik Bose. "Variation in lip print pattern between two ethnic groups, Oraon tribals and Bengalee Hindus, residing in West Bengal, India." Anthropological Review 82, no. 4 (December 1, 2019): 405–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/anre-2019-0031.

Full text

Abstract:

Abstract Lip print pattern (LPP) is unique to each individual. For decades, forensic experts have used LPP for personal identification to solve criminal cases. However, studies investigating ethnic variation in LPP are scanty. Our study wanted to investigate variation in LPP between two ethnic groups, Oraon tribals and Bengalee Hindus, residing in West Bengal, India. A total of 280 participants included 112 Oraons and168 Bengalee Hindus of both. Prints were taken using dark shaded lipstick and transparent cellophane tape and recorded into white A4 sheet. Prints were divided into four quadrants and examined by magnifying glass. For analysis of results, classification of Suzuki and Tsuchihashi was followed. A p value of 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. It was observed that Type II pattern was dominant in first and second quadrants in both ethnic groups, irrespective of sex. Combination of Type II+III was found to be the most common pattern in males among both Oraons (16.2%) and Bengalee Hindus (12.2%) whereas in females Type II pattern (25.0%) among Oraons and Type III pattern among Bengalee Hindus (11.4%) was the most common. Chi square test showed statistically significant difference among females (p<0.05) and in third and fourth quadrants among males (p<0.01) of both ethnic groups. Our investigation clearly demonstrated sex and ethnic variations in LPP. Further studies are required to investigate ethnic variation in LPP among the various populations groups, both tribal as well as non-tribal, from different regions of India.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

12

Sarwar Khan, Golam, and Khorshed Chowdhury. "Family Values and Cultural Continuity among the Displaced East Bengal Hindus in Kolkata." International Journal of Diversity in Organizations, Communities, and Nations: Annual Review 6, no. 6 (2007): 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.18848/1447-9532/cgp/v06i06/39282.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

13

Moodie, Deonnie. "ON BLOOD, POWER, AND PUBLIC INTEREST: THE CONCEALMENT OF HINDU SACRIFICIAL RITES UNDER INDIAN LAW." Journal of Law and Religion 34, no. 2 (August 2019): 165–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jlr.2019.24.

Full text

Abstract:

AbstractCritiques of animal sacrifice in India have become increasingly strident over the past fifteen years. In the state of West Bengal, many of these critiques center on Kālīghāṭ, a landmark Hindu pilgrimage site in Kolkata where goats are sacrificed daily to the goddess Kālī. However, while similar critiques of this practice have resulted in many Indian states pushing to ban it—or enforce previous bans of it—no such legal action has been issued in West Bengal. Instead, in 2006, the Calcutta High Court ruled that this practice must be visually concealed at Kālīghāṭ. Drawing on modernist notions of cleanliness and public space, the bench argued that the blood and offal produced by this practice creates an inappropriate visual experience for visitors at a major pilgrimage and tourist site in this city. In the act of concealing sacrifice, the Calcutta High Court follows suit with courts across India in deeming the practice unmodern. Yet the Court's orders are defied daily by practitioners at Kālīghāṭ who seek physical and visual access to sacrificed animals and their blood. They believe Kālī desires that blood, and bestows her power and blessings through it. Fault lines in Hindu conceptions of power are dramatized here. The power of the courts is pitted against the power of the gods as Hindus debate the potency, necessity, and modernity of this practice.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

14

Hak, Durk. "Pedagogy and religion. Missionary education and the fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal." Paedagogica Historica 50, no. 4 (June 24, 2013): 554–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2013.803692.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

15

Nair, Neeti. "Pedagogy for Religion: Missionary Education and the Fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal." Social History 37, no. 3 (August 2012): 341–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2012.696828.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

16

Bhattacharyya, Shatarupa. "Localising Global Faiths The Heterodox Pantheon of the Sundarbans." Asian Review of World Histories 5, no. 1 (June 29, 2017): 141–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.12773/arwh.2017.5.1.141.

Full text

Abstract:

This essay foregrounds the Sundarbans, a littoral zone in India that moves between sea and land and is a site of global history. It studies the pantheon of divinities, especially Bonbibi (Lady of the Forest), a mythical figure of Muslim origin. Such deities are worshipped by both Hindus and Muslims exclusively in the Sundarbans (Beautiful Forest) that straddles the state of West Bengal (India) and the nation-state of Bangladesh. It demonstrates how the Sundarbans, during Islamisation in the medieval era actively adapted, as against passively adopting, the global faith of Islam to suit the local needs of the people there. The result was a religious worldview that was not quite Islamic, but not quite Hindu either, but rather a singular faith system unique to the region and suited to meet the needs of the people there. And because this faith system does not conform to the orthodox beliefs of either Hinduism or Islam, it can accurately be described as a heterodox pantheon.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

17

Maiti, Nibedita, Pubali Mitra, Amalendu Maiti, Biswanath Maity, and Madhusudan Das. "Health, Hygiene and Sanitation Practice of Santalis and Hindus in Rural Sectors of East Medinipur District, West Bengal, India: APreliminary Survey." International Journal of Research and Development in Pharmacy & Life Sciences 6, no. 7 (December 2017): 2867–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.21276/ijrdpl.2278-0238.2017.6(7).2867-2873.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

18

Hedlund, Roger E. "Book Review: Pedagogy for religion: missionary education and the fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal." Missiology: An International Review 41, no. 2 (March 18, 2013): 228–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0091829612475170c.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

19

Banerjee-Dube, Ishita. "Book Review: Pedagogy for Religion: Missionary Education and the Fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal." Indian Economic & Social History Review 51, no. 1 (January 2014): 133–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0019464613516598.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

20

Bhargava, Devendra Swaroop. "Nature and the Ganga." Environmental Conservation 14, no. 4 (1987): 307–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0376892900016829.

Full text

Abstract:

The Ganga's unique and numerous virtues appear to be based on myths, but the reasons for its importance are traceable to scientific premises. The Ganga, symbolizing Indian culture and civilization, is regarded by the Hindus as the holiest amongst the rivers, and it is the Indo-Gangetic plain's most significant river owing to its mighty basin and course, and extraordinarily high self-purifying powers. The Ganga originates from Gangori in the Uttrakhand Himalayan glacier as an upland stream, emerges as a river of the plains at Rishikesh, and, after traversing almost the entirety of India from West to East, finally merges into the Bay of Bengal.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

21

Bhavani, P., and Dr M. Kannadhasan. "The Conflict Of Nation And Partition In Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines." History Research Journal 5, no. 4 (August 23, 2019): 59–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.26643/hrj.v5i4.7117.

Full text

Abstract:

Amitav Ghosh is a postmodernist writer. He is immensely influenced by the political and cultural milieu of post-independent India. Being a social anthropologist and having the opportunity of visiting alien lands, he comments on the present scenario, the world is passing through in his novels. Almost all the works of Amitav Ghosh reflected the theme of borders and boundaries among nations. The Shadow Lines is a highly innovative, complex and celebrated novel of Amitav Ghosh, published in 1988. The Shadow Lines is the novel deal exclusively with the consequences of the Partition and mainly concerned with the Partition on the Bengal border. It is important to note that Ghosh happens to be the only major Indian-English novelist who is preoccupied with the Bengal Partition. There was a collective expression of grief, a demonstration of all religions in which Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus alike to took part. In January 1964 Mu-I-Mubarak was recovered and the city of Srinagar erupted with joy. But soon after the recovery, riots broke out in Khulna and a few people were killed.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

22

Bellenoit, H. J. "Pedagogy for Religion: Missionary Education and the Fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal. By Parna Sengupta." Journal of Hindu Studies 6, no. 2 (July 4, 2013): 228–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jhs/hit017.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

23

Elliott, Kelly. "Pedagogy for Religion: Missionary Education and the Fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal by Parna Sengupta." Journal of World History 24, no. 3 (2013): 721–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2013.0084.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

24

Basu, Gandhari, Joyeeta Roy, Chitra Chatterjee, and Manidip Pal. "Epidemiology of ectopic pregnancy: A cross sectional study in a sub urban teaching hospital of West Bengal." Asian Journal of Medical Sciences 6, no. 2 (September 15, 2014): 24–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ajms.v6i2.10625.

Full text

Abstract:

Objectives: To understand the epidemiology, prevalence of high risk factors, the mode of treatment in ectopic pregnancy (EP) cases over a largely unevaluated population. Methods: An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2012 to December 2012 in a teaching hospital of Kalyani, West Bengal. History was taken post-operatively in all patients diagnosed with EP according to the pre designed schedule after obtaining informed verbal consent. The data was analysed using statistical formula as applicable. During this period we noted 62 cases diagnosed having ectopic pregnancy intra-operatively. The mean, standard deviation along with the p value were calculated by using SPSS 16.0 software. Results: The mean age of study population was 28.53 years, most of them were Hindus. Nearly two thirds of women were in 18 to 30 years age-group. Every four out of fi ve study subjects were from the lower or lower middle socio-economic class. Right side of the tube was affected in 59.2% patients. The occurrence of ectopic among different religion, social class, period of gestation, gravida, last child birth was signifi cant (p<0.05). Signifi cant risk factors associated with ectopic pregnancy were as follows: past history of miscarriage, use of oral contraceptive pill, pelvic and or abdominal surgery, pelvic-infl ammatory disease, infertility, ectopic pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, use of intrauterine contraceptive devices, OCP use at the time of the present conception. Conclusions: The results pointed an increase in number of EP cases among middle aged women, Hindus, lower socio economic class, multigravida, more than four weeks of gestation suggesting that its importance as a public health problem had not diminished in these intervening years. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ajms.v6i2.10625 Asian Journal of Medical Sciences Vol.6(2) 2015 25-29

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

25

Das, Basudevlal. "The Bajanama Inscription of Jagatasena." Academic Voices: A Multidisciplinary Journal 2 (June 30, 2013): 1–4. http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/av.v2i1.8276.

Full text

Abstract:

The Sena dynasty was established in Nepal after its downfall in Bengal. The Senas were orthodox Hindus. The kingdom of Makawanpur was ruled by the kings of Sena dynasty. Janakpur was situated within its territory. The condition of Janaki Temple Monastery of Janakpur became pitiable and the monk called the king for the betterment of the monastery. But the state was unable to do, so the Bajanama, a kind of desistance paper, was given in 1733 AD. This paper is written to thirough lights on the matters of economic condition of the state, the official language which is a mixed form of Hindi, Bhojpuri and Urdu words and the writing of script Nagari. Academic Voices, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2012, Pages 1-4 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/av.v2i1.8276

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

26

Rumi, Emili. "Muslim Education in Murshidabad, a Bengal District during 1704-1947: A Review." IRA-International Journal of Management & Social Sciences (ISSN 2455-2267) 11, no. 3 (July 18, 2018): 128. http://dx.doi.org/10.21013/jmss.v11.n3.p3.

Full text

Abstract:

The historic city of Murshidabad-the earstwhile nawabi capital –a city founded in the year 1704 by Murshid Quli Khan, the Mughal diwan of Bengal. In 1704 Murshid Quli Khan transferred the capital of Bengal from Dhaka to Murshidabad and named the city after his name .The town is situated on the left bank of river Bhagirathi. It is the northern most district of the Presidency Division of West Bengal and lies between 23 o 43’ and 24 o 52’ north latitude and 87 0 49’ and 88 0 44’ east longitude . Under the Nawabs Murshidabad’s glory reached to the highest peak in almost all arenas. As a trading centre Murshidabad became famous. Many scholars came here and settled and they mixed with the local people freely and there developed a cosmopolitan culture. According o Sushil Chaudhury ‘‘It was a golden day of Murshidabad under the Nawabs’’. By the middle of the 18th century Murshidabad became one of the greatest centre of culture and education as the nawabs were the patrons of learned persons. But after the battle of Plassey the scenario of Murshidabad started changing .With the establishment of the British power we see gradual decline of its culture and education. Many of the British policies directly affected Murshidabad such as the shifting of court to Calcutta, introduction of permanent settlement, introduction of western education and declaration of English as the official language instead of Persian. Murshidabad is the only district of West Bengal where Muslims outnumbered the Hindus since 1901 and formed the majority community. Presently this district is a backward district of West Bengal .When we enquire the causes of this backwardness we find education as one of the major causes. The present paper is a modest attempt to analyse the educational progress in Murshidabad under the Nawabs and also under the British. The paper will also enquire the causes of educational backwardness of this district.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

27

BASU, SUBHO. "The Paradox of Peasant Worker: Re-conceptualizing workers’ politics in Bengal 1890–1939." Modern Asian Studies 42, no. 1 (January 2008): 47–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x0700279x.

Full text

Abstract:

AbstractThis essay explores labor politics in Bengal in the period between 1890 and 1939. It investigates numerous supposed paradoxes in labor politics such as the coexistence of intense industrial action marked by workers’ solidarity and communal rioting between Hindus and Muslims, labor militancy and weak formal trade union organization. In existing historiography, these paradoxes are explained through a catch all phrase ‘peasant worker’—a concept that perceives Indian workers as not fully divorced from rural society and thus were susceptible to fragmentary pulls of natal ties that acted as a break on the emergence of class consciousness. In contradistinction to such historiography this paper argues that religion, language and region did not always act as a break on workers’ ability to unite. It demonstrates that workers’ politics was informed and influenced by notions of customary rights based on mutuality of shared interests at workplaces. When workers perceived that management violated such customary rights, they formed alliances among themselves and engaged in militant industrial action. In such circumstances, workers’ natal ties assisted in producing solidarities. By drawing upon Chandavarkar's works, this essay accords importance to the contingency of politics in the making and unmaking of alliances among workers and thus argues that in different political circumstances religious or other forms of natal ties acquired different meanings to different groups of workers.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

28

Alam, Sarwar. "Sufism Without Boundaries: Pluralism, Coexistence, and Interfaith Dialogue in Bangladesh." Comparative Islamic Studies 9, no. 1 (September 30, 2015): 67–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/cis.v9i1.26765.

Full text

Abstract:

Most scholars believe that the majority of the population of Bangladesh embraced Islam through the influence of the Sufis (mystics, holy men). A large majority of Bangladeshi Muslims perceives Sufis as sources of their spiritual wisdom and guidance, viewing Sufi khanqahs [hospices] and dargahs [mausoleums] to be the nerve centers of Muslim society. It has been argued that the greatest achievement of the Sufis of Bengal is the “growth of cordiality and unity between the Hindus and the Muslims.” Yet, Sufism is a contested phenomenon in Bangladesh. Islamic reform movements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries preached against some Sufi rituals and practices, and Sufism as a whole. This article analyzes how the concept of “Bangalee Nationalism” emerges, among others, from various Sufi ideologies that recognize the authenticity of another’s faith. This article will also analyze how these traditions have hitherto been engaged in establishing a pluralistic society as well as in developing a culture of tolerance and interfaith dialogue.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

29

Bayly, C. A. "South Asia and the ‘Great Divergence’." Itinerario 24, no. 3-4 (November 2000): 89–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0165115300014510.

Full text

Abstract:

Indian nationalism was born out of the notion that India's poverty and backwardness was not a natural result of technical inferiority or inefficient use of resources, but that it was a consequence of colonial rule. Even before the development of scientific nationalist economics in the 1890s, the moralists of Young Bengal had called for a protectionist ‘national political economy’ on the lines advocated by Friedrich List in Germany, whom they had read as early as 1850. Bholanath Chandra asserted in 1873 that India had once been the greatest textile producer in the world and had initiated the industrial revolution. By 1970,.he predicted, Britain would be eclipsed by the United States and by India as the greatest industrial producers. This would be brought about by rigorous protectionism and by the growth of what he called ‘moral hostility’ to the consumption of foreign goods which had even polluted the materials used in the making of the sacred threads of orthodox Hindus. This emphasis on the culture of consumption and the structure of external economic relations was central to different varieties of Indian nationalist thought as they developed from Dadhabhai Naoroji through to Mahatma Gandhi.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

30

Hatcher, Brian A. "Pedagogy for Religion: Missionary Education and the Fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal. By Parna Sengupta. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. Pp. x + 211. Cloth, $65.00; paper, $26.95." Religious Studies Review 39, no. 2 (June 2013): 129. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/rsr.12043_12.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

31

BASU, SUBHO. "The Dialectics of Resistance: Colonial Geography, Bengali Literati and the Racial Mapping of Indian Identity." Modern Asian Studies 44, no. 1 (November 6, 2009): 53–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x09990060.

Full text

Abstract:

AbstractThrough a study of hitherto unexplored geography textbooks written in Bengali between 1845 and 1880, this paper traces the evolution of a geographic information system related to ethnicity, race, and space. This geographic information system impacted the mentality of emerging educated elites in colonial India who studied in the newly established colonial schools and played a critical role in developing and articulating ideas of the territorial nation-state and the rights of citizenship in India. The Bengali Hindu literati believed that the higher location of India in such a constructed hierarchy of civilizations could strengthen their claims to rights of citizenship and self-government. These nineteenth century geography textbooks asserted clearly that high caste Hindus constituted the core ethnicity of colonial Indian society and all others were resident outsiders. This knowledge system, rooted in geography/ethnicity/race/space, and related to the hierarchy of civilizations, informed the Bengali intelligentsia's notion of core ethnicity in the future nation-state in India with Hindu elites at its ethnic core.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

32

SEN, UDITI. "The Myths Refugees Live By: Memory and history in the making of Bengali refugee identity." Modern Asian Studies 48, no. 1 (May 9, 2013): 37–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x12000613.

Full text

Abstract:

AbstractWithin the popular memory of the partition of India, the division of Bengal continues to evoke themes of political rupture, social tragedy, and nostalgia. The refugees or, more broadly speaking, Hindu migrants from East Bengal, are often the central agents of such narratives. This paper explores how the scholarship on East Bengali refugees portrays them either as hapless and passive victims of the regime of rehabilitation, which was designed to integrate refugees into the socio-economic fabric of India, or eulogizes them as heroic protagonists who successfully battled overwhelming adversity to wrest resettlement from a reluctant state. This split image of the Bengali refugee as both victim and victor obscures the complex nature of refugee agency. Through a case-study of the foundation and development of Bijoygarh colony, an illegal settlement of refugee-squatters on the outskirts of Calcutta, this paper will argue that refugee agency in post-partition West Bengal was inevitably moulded by social status and cultural capital. However, the collective memory of the establishment of squatters’ colonies systematically ignores the role of caste and class affiliations in fracturing the refugee experience. Instead, it retells the refugees’ quest for rehabilitation along the mythic trope of heroic and masculine struggle. This paper interrogates refugee reminiscences to illuminate their erasures and silences, delineating the mythic structure common to both popular and academic refugee histories and exploring its significance in constructing a specific cultural identity for Bengali refugees.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

33

ROY, HAIMANTI. "A Partition of Contingency? Public Discourse in Bengal, 1946–1947." Modern Asian Studies 43, no. 6 (February 18, 2009): 1355–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x08003788.

Full text

Abstract:

AbstractThe historiography on the Partition of Bengal has tended to see it as a culmination of long-term trends of Hindu and Muslim communalism within the province. This essay offers a counter-narrative to the ‘inevitability’ of the Partition by focusing on Bengali public discourse in the months leading up to the Partition. The possibility of a division generated a large-scale debate amongst the educated in Bengal and they articulated their views by sending numerous letters to leading newspapers, district political and civic organizations and sometimes published pamphlets for local consumption. A critical examination of these public debates for and against Partition reveals the countdown to August 1947 as a period of multiple possibilities. Rather than being pre-determined, the stands for a separate or a United Bengal were contingent in nature. Understanding the genesis provides the starting point and the necessary corrective to evaluate India's path to post-colonial nationhood.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

34

Kumar, Nita. "Parna Sengupta . Pedagogy for Religion: Missionary Education and the Fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal . Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 2011. Pp. x, 211. Cloth $65.00, paper $18.95." American Historical Review 117, no. 3 (June 2012): 838–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/ahr.117.3.838.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

35

Barik, Anamitra, Rajesh Kumar Rai, and Abhijit Chowdhury. "Tobacco use and self-reported morbidity among rural Indian adults." Primary Health Care Research & Development 17, no. 05 (April 21, 2016): 514–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s146342361600013x.

Full text

Abstract:

AimTo measure the prevalence of self-reported morbidity and its associated factors among adults (aged ⩾15 years) in a select rural Indian population.BackgroundSelf-reporting of smoking has been validated as population-based surveys using self-reported data provide reasonably consistent estimates of smoking prevalence, and are generally considered to be sufficiently accurate for tracking the general pattern of morbidity associated with tobacco use in populations. However, to gauge the true disease burden using self-reported morbidity data requires cautious interpretation.MethodsDuring 2010–2011, a cross-sectional survey was conducted under the banner of the Health and Demographic Surveillance System, Birbhum, an initiative of the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of West Bengal, India. With over 93.6% response rate from the population living in 12 300 households, this study uses the responses from 16 354 individuals: 8012 smokers, and 8333 smokeless tobacco users. Smokers and smokeless tobacco users were asked whether they have developed any morbidity symptoms due to smoking, or smokeless tobacco use. Bivariate, as well as multivariate logistic regression analyses were deployed to attain the study objective.FindingsOver 20% of smokers and over 9% of smokeless tobacco users reported any morbidity. Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) estimated using logistic regression shows that women are less likely to report any morbidity attributable to smoking (OR: 0.69; CI: 0.54–0.87), and more likely to report any morbidity due to smokeless tobacco use (OR: 1.68; CI: 1.36–2.09). Non-Hindus have higher odds, whereas the wealthiest respondents have lower odds of reporting any morbidity. With a culturally appropriate intervention to change behaviour, youth (both men and women) could be targeted with comprehensive tobacco cessation assistance programmes. A focussed intervention could be designed for unprocessed tobacco users to curb hazardous effects of tobacco use.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

36

Saha, Ranjana. "Milk, ‘Race’ and Nation: Medical Advice on Breastfeeding in Colonial Bengal." South Asia Research 37, no. 2 (June 13, 2017): 147–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0262728017700186.

Full text

Abstract:

This article analyses medical opinion about nursing of infants by memsahibs and dais as well as the Bengali-Hindu bhadramahila as the ‘immature’ child-mother and the ‘mature’, ‘goddess-like’ mother in the tropical environment of nineteenth and early twentieth century Bengal. It shows how the nature of lactation, breast milk and breastfeeding are socially constructed and become central to medical advice on motherhood and childcare aimed at regenerating community, ‘racial’ and/or national health, including manly vigour for imperial, colonial and nationalist purposes. In colonial Bengal, the topic of breastfeeding surfaces as crucial to understanding colonial and nationalist, medical and medico-legal representations of maternal and child health constituted by gendered, racialised, classed and caste-ridden, biological/cultural and pure/polluting traits, often considered transferable through milk and blood.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

37

Banerji, Chitrita. "The Propitiatory Meal." Gastronomica 3, no. 1 (2003): 82–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2003.3.1.82.

Full text

Abstract:

This article is an analysis of the varied ways in which the meal has been used as a tool for appeasement and propitiation in Bengali Hindu society from ancient times. Bengal is a region that is naturally fertile and yet is often subjected to the fearsome destruction of floods and cyclones. The uncertainty of life has always been palpable here. The numerous rivers that make the region a delta also made Bengal the last hinterland of Aryan exploration and settlement in ancient times. Pre-Aryan inhabitants, whom historians describe as proto-Australoid, subscribed to animistic beliefs, which blurred the line between this world and the next. Their funerary practices involved serving food to supernatural creatures who inhabited the earth. In such a region, the imposition of the Hindu caste system, which attributed preeminence to the Brahmins and the males, further increased the sense of vulnerability on the part of a large section of the population'women and members of the lower castes. Mythic notions of food as something with which to appease a dangerous creature eventually translated into the social custom of serving carefully prepared meals to gods, Brahmins, males and other beings with power and superiority. The article presents examples from mythology, religious texts, literature and even film, to illustrate this custom. Widows were particularly vulnerable in Bengali Hindu society. They were not allowed to remarry and also blamed for the death of their husbands. The rituals and deprivations of a widow's life provide the most poignant instances of appeasement through food. One of the best-known rituals of propitiation is the Bengali feast of Jamaishashthi, when the son-in-law is invited by his wife's family and served an elaborate multi-course meal. He is also given expensive gifts. The purpose of the ritual was to ensure that he treats his wife well and protects her from being treated too abusively by his mother and sisters. The practice has survived in modern times even though it has lost much of its potent significance.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

38

Al Masum, Md Abdullah. "BENGALI MUSLIM WOMEN IN “ZENANA” EDUCATION SYSTEM: A HISTORICAL STUDY IN THE BRITISH PERIOD." Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 54, no. 2 (December 31, 2015): 11–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.46568/jssh.v54i2.66.

Full text

Abstract:

During the British period, there were different kinds of education system to make the retreated women society of Bengal into a leading class. “Zenana” education is one of its education processes. The word, “Zenana” derives from Persian and means “Harem” or inside the household. So, the education system of those women who live in Harem is called “Zenana” education system. Generally, the introduction of home education for the Bengali women began from the middle ages. But the “Zenana” education is the alternate form of the instruction of concealed women which was different from the existing home education system. This cultural education was initiated by the Christian Missionaries in the earlier part of nineteenth century. Later on, the Hindu society of Bengal also took part in it. But neither the opportunity nor the eagerness of taking Zenana Education continued among the Muslim women for a long time. “Dhaka Muslim Friendship Congress” which was established in 1883 started bringing into practice the “Zenana Education” among Muslim women. Later on the British government began patronizing the Zenana education for the Muslim women alongside the Hindu. The present paper examines the rise and development of Zenana education in the Muslim women society in Bengal from 1883 to 1933 on the basis of contemporary official, demo-official source materials. In addition, this paper will brief the reason of abolition of Zenana education system in 1933.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

39

Khatiwada, Som Prasad. "SACRAMENT AS A CULTURAL TRAIT IN RAJVAMSHI COMMUNITY OF NEPAL." Researcher: A Research Journal of Culture and Society 3, no. 3 (October 31, 2018): 13–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/researcher.v3i3.21547.

Full text

Abstract:

Rajvamshi is a local ethnic cultural group of eastern low land Nepal. Their traditional villages are scattered mainly in Morang and Jhapa districts. However, they reside in different provinces of West Bengal India also. They are said Rajvamshis as the children of royal family. Their ancestors used to rule in this region centering Kuchvihar of West Bengal in medieval period. They follow Hinduism. Therefore, their sacraments are related with Hindu social organization. They perform different kinds of sacraments. However, they practice more in three cycle of the life. They are naming, marriage and death ceremony. Naming sacrament is done at the sixth day of a child birth. In the same way marriage is another sacrament, which is done after the age of 14. Child marriage, widow marriage and remarriage are also accepted in the society. They perform death ceremony after the death of a person. This ceremony is also performed in the basis of Hindu system. Bengali Brahmin becomes the priests to perform death sacraments. Shradha and Tarpana is also done in the name of dead person in this community.Researcher: A Research Journal of Culture and SocietyVol. 3, No. 3, January 2018, Page: 13-32

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

40

Sarkar, Abhishek. "Shakespeare, "Macbeth" and the Hindu Nationalism of Nineteenth-Century Bengal." Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance 13, no. 28 (April 22, 2016): 117–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/mstap-2016-0009.

Full text

Abstract:

The essay examines a Bengali adaptation of Macbeth, namely Rudrapal Natak (published 1874) by Haralal Ray, juxtaposing it with differently accented commentaries on the play arising from the English-educated elites of 19th Bengal, and relating the play to the complex phenomenon of Hindu nationalism. This play remarkably translocates the mythos and ethos of Shakespeare’s original onto a Hindu field of signifiers, reformulating Shakespeare’s Witches as bhairavis (female hermits of a Tantric cult) who indulge unchallenged in ghastly rituals. It also tries to associate the gratuitous violence of the play with the fanciful yearning for a martial ideal of nation-building that formed a strand of the Hindu revivalist imaginary. If the depiction of the Witch-figures in Rudrapal undercuts the evocation of a monolithic and urbane Hindu sensibility that would be consistent with colonial modernity, the celebration of their violence may be read as an effort to emphasize the inclusivity (as well as autonomy) of the Hindu tradition and to defy the homogenizing expectations of Western enlightenment

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

41

Kalam, Mir Azad, Archana Mishra, Saptamita Pal, and Subho Roy. "Culture and Demography: A Micro Level Study Between Two Communities Residing in the City of Kolkata, West Bengal." Oriental Anthropologist: A Bi-annual International Journal of the Science of Man 20, no. 1 (April 11, 2020): 49–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0972558x20913701.

Full text

Abstract:

We aimed to study the demographic patterns of two contrasting communities, namely Bengali Hindu and Bihari Hindu groups, residing in adjacent clusters in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal. The former were the original inhabitants of Kolkata and the latter were a migrant group from the state of Bihar. We collected data from 164 ever-married females (Bengali [84] and Bihari [80]). Data on household information, demographic variables, and marital distance and preferences were collected using a well-tested schedule/questionnaire from ever-married females of both the groups. Some in-depth interviews were conducted on the participants to get information on the reasons for sex preference in childbirth, preference in selecting mates, determining the age at marriage, and so on. Results showed that both the groups differ with respect to sex ratio and child sex ratio, marital preference, marriage distance, and fertility. It appeared from the study that despite the physical proximity between these two groups, their demographic traits differed sharply. We concluded from this study that the differences in demographic traits between these two groups may be attributed to contrasting cultural attributes of these two communities.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

42

Dasgupta, Doyel, Baidyanath Pal, and Subha Ray. "Factors that discriminate age at menopause: A study of Bengali Hindu women of West Bengal." American Journal of Human Biology 27, no. 5 (March 7, 2015): 710–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.22698.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

43

Bose, Kaushik, Arnab Ghosh, Sabyasachi Roy, and Somnath Gangopadhyay. "The relationship of age, body mass index and waist circumference with blood pressure in Bengalee Hindu male jute mill workers of Belur, West Bengal , India." Anthropologischer Anzeiger 63, no. 2 (May 23, 2005): 205–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1127/anthranz/63/2005/205.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

44

Samanta, Suchitra. "The “Self-Animal” and Divine Digestion: Goat Sacrifice to the Goddess Kālī in Bengal." Journal of Asian Studies 53, no. 3 (August 1994): 779–803. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2059730.

Full text

Abstract:

Kālī, the Hindu goddess ‘Time,’ is a ubiquitous presence in contemporary rural and urban Bengali life and occupies a historic place as Calcutta's patron deity. Her prototypes go back to pre-Vedic India (Kinsley 1977:90; MacKenzie-Brown 1985:111). Kālī was incorporated into the orthodox Hindu textual tradition in the myths of the Devī-Māhātmya, or Candī, as this sixth-century A.D. text is known in Bengal. She subsequently became the chief divinity as Female Principle (Śakti, ‘Force’, ‘Creatrix’) in the esoteric Sākta Tantra cult, which was especially prevalent in eastern India around the sixteenth century. By the seventeenth century, Kālī's worship moved to the public sphere. The Kālī saints Rāmaprasāda (eighteenth century) and Rāmakrsna (late nineteenth century) were especially responsible for popularizing the devotional (bhakti) conception of Kālī as Mother, the prevalent perception of this deity among Bengalis today (Gatwood 1985:174; Kapera n.d.:71; Kinsley 1977:93, 117; Kinsley 1986:116, 125; MacKenzie-Brown 1985:118–19).

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

45

DAS, SHINJINI. "AN IMPERIAL APOSTLE? ST PAUL, PROTESTANT CONVERSION, AND SOUTH ASIAN CHRISTIANITY." Historical Journal 61, no. 1 (June 27, 2017): 103–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x17000024.

Full text

Abstract:

AbstractThis article explores the locally specific (re)construction of a biblical figure, the Apostle St Paul, in India, to unravel the entanglement of religion with British imperial ideology on the one hand, and to understand the dynamics of colonial conversion on the other. Over the nineteenth century, evangelical pamphlets and periodicals heralded St Paul as the ideal missionary, who championed conversion to Christianity but within an imperial context: that of the first-century Roman Mediterranean. Through an examination of missionary discourses, along with a study of Indian (Hindu and Islamic) intellectual engagement with Christianity including Bengali convert narratives, this article studies St Paul as a reference point for understanding the contours of ‘vernacular Christianity’ in nineteenth-century India. Drawing upon colonial Christian publications mainly from Bengal, the article focuses on the multiple reconfigurations of Paul: as a crucial mascot of Anglican Protestantism, as a justification of British imperialism, as an ideological resource for anti-imperial sentiments, and as a theological inspiration for Hindu reform and revivalist organization.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

46

BANERJEE, SANDEEP, and SUBHO BASU. "Secularizing the Sacred, Imagining the Nation-Space: The Himalaya in Bengali travelogues, 1856–1901." Modern Asian Studies 49, no. 3 (September 29, 2014): 609–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x13000589.

Full text

Abstract:

AbstractThis article examines changing conceptions of the Himalaya in nineteenth-century Bengali travelogues from that of a sacred space to a spatial metaphor of a putative nation-space. It examines sections of Devendranath Tagore's autobiography, written around 1856–58, before discussing the travelogues of Jaladhar Sen and Ramananda Bharati from the closing years of the nineteenth century. The article argues that for Tagore the mountains are the ‘holy lands of Brahma’, while Sen and Bharati depict the Himalaya with a political slant and secularize the space of Hindu sacred geography. It contends that this process of secularization posits Hinduism as the civil religion of India. The article further argues that the later writers make a distinction between the idea of a ‘homeland’ and a ‘nation’. Unlike in Europe, where the ideas of homeland and nation overlap, these writers imagined the Indian nation-space as one that encompassed diverse ethno-linguistic homelands. It contends that the putative nation-space articulates the hegemony of the Anglo-vernacular middle classes, that is, English educated, upper caste, male Hindus where women, non-Hindus, and the labouring classes are marginalized.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

47

Ghosh, Arnab. "Discriminant analysis by anthropometric measures in elderly Bengalee Hindus of Calcutta, India." Anthropologischer Anzeiger 64, no. 1 (March 24, 2006): 91–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1127/anthranz/64/2006/91.

Full text

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

48

Chatterjee, Ananya. "An Experiential Study of ‘Conditional Agency’ of Bengali Widows with Reference to the Autobiographies of Saradasundari Devi and Rassundari Devi." ENSEMBLE 2, no. 2 (July 25, 2021): 265–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.37948/ensemble-2021-0202-a027.

Full text

Abstract:

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Bengal emerged a new batch of educated widows who were distinguishable from the traditional Bengali Hindu widows because of their remarkable self-consciousness about their peripherality within the social order. The intention of my article is that of disputing the prevalent assumption of the homogeneity of the widowed experience in Bengal society by drawing attention to the heterogeneous individualities resulting from stratifications within these emergent widow populations, owing to different lifestyles, varying degree of access to education, diverse social standings, and various forms of suppression. Rassundari Devi’s Amar Jibon (1876) and Saradasundari Devi’s Atmakatha (1913) are accounts of the experience of widows who were marginalized by society, handed the bare minimum necessities for their existence, and deprived of the pleasures of the traditional experiences of motherhood. I propose the term ‘New Widows’ to highlight how the effects of education modified their individuality in unconventional directions, as reflected in the fictional narratives by Rabindranath Tagore and others. Close attention to the texts shows that the disparity between the aspirations of the New Widow, and her limited reach and frustration results in an acute self-awareness.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

49

Bhatia, Varuni. "The Psychic Chaitanya: Global Occult and Vaishnavism in Fin de Siècle Bengal." Journal of Hindu Studies 13, no. 1 (May 1, 2020): 10–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jhs/hiaa004.

Full text

Abstract:

Abstract This article explores the intersections between Spiritualism, Mesmerism, and Bengali Vaishnavism in fin de siècle Bengal through the experiments in spirit communication conducted by the Ghosh family of Amrita Bazar Patrika Press fame. As a result of these engagements, the Amrita Bazar Patrika group proposed a novel understanding of Krishna Chaitanya/Gauranga (1486–1533) as a psychic who was able to channelize God through his unique powers of mediumship. It contributes to a nascent but growing body of scholarship around the relationship between religious modernity in colonial India and transnational occult networks. The article is written in three parts: part one discusses transnational occult networks crisscrossing Calcutta in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, with a focus on Theosophy and Spiritualism. It explores the initial goodwill between Madame Blavatsky and Sishir Kumar Ghosh, which dissipated later. The second part focuses on the Ghosh family séance, with the aim of parsing out how traditional and popular Bengali ‘ghosts’ were incorporated into a spectrum of occult knowledge about ‘higher’ spirits. This section also brings to light the caste and gender relationships exposed during séances held in the Ghosh family circle. Part three singles out the image of the ‘psychic Chaitanya’ from the pages of the Hindu Spiritual Magazine to bring into focus interactions between Yoga and occult in the context of the development of modern Bengali Vaishnavism.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

50

Kanrar, Priyanka, Nivedita Som, and Subho Roy. "A Study on Body Composition, Blood Pressure and Blood Sugar Levels Among Bengali Hindu and Santals Using Cultural Consonance Model." Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India 70, no. 1 (April 29, 2021): 26–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2277436x211008315.

Full text

Abstract:

We examined how the perception/beliefs towards lifestyle and the actual lifestyle are related to body composition, blood pressure and blood sugar levels among Santals and Hindu caste populations using the cultural consonance model. The study involved 210 individuals (109 Bengali Hindu and 101 Santals), aged 18–50 years living in the city of Howrah, West Bengal, India. Principal component analyses were performed to extract the components from the variables used in perception towards lifestyle. Multiple linear regression analyses and multivariate analysis of covariance were used to understand association of body composition, blood pressure and blood sugar levels with both the perception towards and actual lifestyle and ethnicity, respectively. Results showed that there is a difference between perception towards and actual pattern of lifestyle among the members of two ethnic groups, indicating low cultural consonance. However, both the variables were associated with body composition, blood pressure and blood sugar levels, but not ethnicity, after removing the effects of socio-demographic and lifestyle variables. We conclude that shared knowledge and perception towards healthy lifestyle among individuals, perhaps encoded in own culture, often fail to get translated in actual lifestyle pattern and eventually affect physical health.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Journal articles on the topic 'Hindus of Bengal'

Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles