To all who subscribe to the view that Indian History should be looked at from Indian perspectives which is the essence of Suchintan School of Thought.

This book emerges out of lectures and proceedings of a seminar held under the auspices of Suchintan on February 16, 2015. The theme of the seminar was the same as the title of the book. Its aim was to bring to the attention of readers some leading problems that beset India in course of the last few centuries of her history. India is a plural society and the multiplicity of race, ethnicity, language, religion, customs, creeds and faith had never allowed India to be free of problems. How from time to time India resolved her problems forms the real essence of Indian history. Here in this book we present some penetrating insights into some problems that had raised debates in Indian history. Our aim is not to present any judgment as fi nal. Suchintan is an academic and cultural body. Its function is to promote research. Research means investigation and investigation leads to exploration of facts. Truth latent in facts yields information and information coagulates into knowledge. The ultimate of knowledge is wisdom. Wisdom is the spirit of civilization for civilization is born as a response to challenges of history. We believe in this simple syllogism and the essays in this book are directed to uphold this view of history.

The book starts with the essay titled ‘The Renaissance Debate’. This debate relates to the so called Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth century. The term Renaissance was made current in the nineteenth century when Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (May 25, 1818–August 8, 1897) wrote his famous book The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860). Taking cue from Burckhardt Amit Sen (this was the pseudonym of Professor Susobhan Chandra Sarkar) wrote his book Notes on Bengal Renaissance which was revised later in a book titled On the Bengal Renaissance and was published not in any pseudonym but in his own name as Professor Susobhan Sarkar himself. In 1985 his son Sumit Sarkar wrote his book A Critique of Colonial India where he considered the concept of Renaissance as a ‘false consciousness’. In the present book Professor Chittabrata Palit revives the debate and tries to revitalize it.

In the second essay in the book Aparajita Dhar critically analyses the different issues involved in women’s movement in India in the colonial period. Dr. Dhar has amply shown that women’s questions in the nineteenth century arose out of male search for ‘new women’. A civil society had come up in the city of Calcutta and in other district towns. In keeping with the ethos of the new society the outlook and gender demands of the males also changed. In these changed circumstances the issues of women’s movement assumed a new dimension. But the issues related to this movement did not acquire a political poignancy because until 1917 the Indian National Congress not being very sure of itself did not take up the women’s question within its reform agenda.

In the third essay in this book Dr. Md. Shah Noorur Rahaman discusses the nature of Hindu-Muslim relations in India both in the pre-colonial and colonial period. Communal relations form one of the most staple but delicate subjects in Indian history. It is worth studying as to how a plural society which India happens to be balanced its communal situations in its body politic and survived the revolutions of time maintaining its inner cohesion in communal adjustments. Dr. Rahaman’s dictum presented at the end of his paper that ‘a scientifi c or an authoritative historian should not be swayed by any communal, chauvinistic or racial prejudices’ seems to be the most valid proposition in the entire historiography of communal relations in India.

In the fourth essay in this book Dr. Hitendra Patel tries to analyse the intrinsic relations between history and literature because both deal with what may be called the collective memory of a society. Dr. Patel’s basic thrust is to give literature the same treatment as we accord to history as a source of information relating to knowing the past. In its outer form Dr. Patel’s paper deals with the creation of a tribal state Jharkhand. But internally its dimensions are different. Focussing on a novel it relates itself to the question ‘whether there is an exclusive or unique history of tribals separating it from other people possible.’ The paper is indeed penetrating but at the end the question remains unresolved whether it is really possible to rhyme in history imagination with facts as is done in literature.

In the fifth essay Bimal Kumar Mondal studies the Naxalite movement in India—its challenges and issues. Rarely one will fi nd the central stories of this movement within a short span as is available in the present paper. The Naxalite movement was a sudden outburst and the Indian state was unprepared for it. Dr. Mondal gives a poetic presentation of this phenomenon thus: “The Naxalbari uprising was like a premeditated throw of a pebble bringing forth a series of ripples in the otherwise still water stagnating over years.” The shake-up in the agraian world and the reactions of the state to it provide the moving balance of two antithetical forces in history. For the first time an in-depth study of the matter has been presented here in a small span with a lucid style of reading that would facilitate readers’ interset in the subject. Conceptualizing the right to food in India is the subject of the fifth essay presented in the book by Professor Ranjit Sen. Right to food is a very modern topic because in the absence of food there grows hunger and hunger breeds revolution. What is signifi cant in the essay is the assimilation of all current debates in the subject. Professor Sen is known for introducing new and topical subjects in historical research. Here we see him excavating new grounds for new resources of learning and bringing out-ofnormal issues in historical debates.

In the sixth essay in the book an in-depth study has been made of the Muslim community in Bengal in the second half of the nineteenth century. This has been done by Prasanta Mandal who has for sometimes past been studying the various aspects of Asiatic Islam in its Indian context, particularly as it was available in Bengal in the colonial period. Basing on census reports tries to discover the social confi gurations of the Bengal Muslims. With a fi rm grip on statistics he allows qualitative statements and simple generalizations dissolve under dataspecifi c approach to the study.

In the seventh essay in the book attempts have been made to understand colonialism in terms of its post-colonial challenges. The essay provides a masterly assimilations of all debates in the subject and brings to light the evolution of an approach to history which otherwise seems to be a riddle to historians and political scientists. What is signifi cant in the essay is its clarity as well as its sweep over a vast panorama of socio-politico-cultural thought that has kept generations of scholars wonder-struck at the mass of learning a body of thinkers could maintain at its command.

In the eight and final essay in the book one will fi nd a short discourse on tolerance in Indian society and the role of education in the propagation of it. The importance of the essay is that it relates to issues in Modern India and are very relevant to our efforts to shape and reshape a society where plural adjustments are falling short of their required aims. Our civilizational heritages and modern values have been reconciled to create a new morality geared to tolerance.

Contents

Introduction : The Renaissance Debate
Women’s Movement in Colonial India: Issues and Challenges
Problems of Studying Hindu-Muslim Relations in Pre-Colonial and Colonial India
‘Tribalisation’ of Indigenous Communities, History, Collective Memory, Literature and the Political Present: A Preliminary Discussion
The Naxalite’s Challenge in the Indian Customary System
Conceptualizing Right to Food in India: A Historical Perspective
Population, Classifi cation and Confl ict among the Muslims of Bengal in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
Understanding Colonialism: The Postcolonial Challenge and Beyond
Tolerance and Indian Society: Role of Education in Post-Independence India