BENGAL HISTORY WEEK 17-26 OCTOBER 2015 Brick Lane Circle’s is organising its Sixth Annual Bengal History Week during 17-26 October 2015, which aims to help generate greater levels of interest on the learning of the history of Bengal. affected an estimated 1.5 to 3 5.45pm - Contested Histories million people in every part of and Nationalisms: The Crisis undivided Bengal, with far-reaching effects on the neighbouring areas. of Contemporary Bangladesh Shanjukta is an early career By Professor Mushtaq Khan researcher in agrarian history with an interest in colonial and contemporary history of South Asia. The political economy of FREE ENTRY! She completed her doctoral thesis developing countries is ALL WELCOME! on ‘agricultural knowledge characterized by the clientelist transfers’ from SOAS, with a organization of politics. This Saturday, 17 October 2015, fellowship from the Association of perspective gives us a theoretical 2.30-8pm. Brady Arts Centre 196 Commonwealth Universities. model of a clientelist political Hanbury St, London E1 5HU settlement as a framework for 4.15pm - The Last Raja of analysing the interaction between West Pakistan A HALF DAY CONFERENCE politics and economics in ON MAJOR EVENTS, ISSUES developing countries. AND STRUGGLES This paper looks at the emergence 2.45 pm - Changing Meanings of Bangladesh out of two violent of Rice - Famine, Food partitions in 1947 and 1971 through Campaign and Cultural this lens to address a number of Response to Politics of puzzles. Why did these particular Poverty: Bengal 1945-59 nationalisms emerge when they did when there was no prior history of Bengali Muslim nationalism in this area before the 1930s? Why did the achievement of the most religiously and ethnically homogenous state in South Asia By Priyajit Debsarkar not result in stability in 1971? And The Last Raja of West Pakistan is what is the source of the persistent An image of the Bengal Famine by primarily about the role, policies, failure of modern Bangladeshi politics and decisions of Raja Tridiv Zainul Abedin political parties to achieve credible Roy, the monarch of the Chakma elections? tribe of Chittagong area, now By Shanjukta Ghosh. located in Bangladesh. Covering Professor Mushtaq Khan teaches the period beginning with his This paper is concerned with the coronation as king in 1953 up to the economics at SOAS, who material life of rural and urban independence of Bangladesh in completed his undergraduate Bengal focusing on the production 1971-72 this book evaluates his studies in Philosophy, Politics and and consumption of rice, crisis in decision to stay loyal to Pakistan till Economics at the University of the systems of exchange and the end and contextualizes the Oxford and then studied PhD in distribution, knowledge and political relationship between East Economics at Cambridge. meaning that link these together and West Pakistan at that time. Previously he taught at the during the most distressing period of Bengal famine and the Second Priyajit Debsarkar is a political universities of both Oxford and World War experiences. The analyst with special interest in the Cambridge. Information on his famine of 1943 was the last major geo-political history of Bangladesh. research interests are available on historical event of horrific deaths He studied at the University of http://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff312 resulting from starvation and London and currently works and 46.php. hunger-related diseases that lives in London. Sunday 18 October 2015, Monday 19 October 2015, Tuesday 20 October 2015, 2.30-4.30pm. Lab 5, 6.30-8.30pm. Lab 2&3, 6.30-8.30pm. Lab 1A, Idea Store Whitechapel, 321 Idea Store Whitechapel, 321 Idea Store Whitechapel, 321 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1BU Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1BU. Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1BU. Michael Madhusudan Dutt: The Rise and Fall of the British-Islamic Identity: Third- The people's playwright Portuguese in Mughal Bengal Generation Bangladeshis from East London The Holy Rosary Church, Dhaka, built by the Portuguese in 1677. By Robert Ivermee Almost 500 years have passed since the first Portuguese voyage to the Bay to Bengal. In this seminar, historian Robert Ivermee uncovers the lost history of the Portuguese presence in Bengal By Dr Aminul Hoque during the reigns of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan on the Mughal How does it feel to be constructed as By Sharmeen Haque throne, tracing the foundation, the violent, terrorist, un-British flourishing and decline of the 'other'? To be a minority in a majority Portuguese settlement of Hugli on Michael Madhusudan Dutta was a situation, to have no sense of the river of the same name. He belonging, to be popular 19th-century Bengali poet explores the experiences of voiceless, marginalised and and dramatist. He was born in Portuguese merchants and invisible? Sagordari on the bank of missionaries – among the earliest Kopotaksho River, a village in Europeans to encounter Bengal – This seminar examines these Keshabpur Upazila, Jessore (now and considers how the Portuguese complex issues through an in Bangladesh). set a precedent for later Dutch, ethnographic account of the lives and English and French colonialism in multifaceted identities of six British- The paper will explore Michael’s the province. born third-generation Bangladeshis two farces (Buro saliker ghare ron from East London. Do they see and Eki ki bole Sabhatya) and how Dr Robert Ivermee is a global themselves as Bangladeshi, British, these farces, unlike his better Muslim, Londoners, none of these or intellectual historian with a known works, for example, a fusion of them all? Their stories are Meghnad Bodh, are very much particular interest in British powerful, clear and unsettling, works about everyday people - imperialism and modern South Asia charting their journeys from invisibility farmers, prostitutes, porters, from the eighteenth century to the to visibility and from the periphery to the core of British social life. servants. present day. Major focuses of his research include secularism, Dr Aminul Hoque MBE is a lecturer in Sharmeen will also relate this to ideologies of empire; and the the Educational Studies Department, how Dutt was in many ways a very interconnected histories of Britain Goldsmiths, University of London, contemporary figure with his mixed and its former colonies. His first and a visiting lecturer at London religious backgrounds and two Metropolitan University. foreign wives. book traced a history of the concept He gained his doctorate from of secularism in nineteenth century Goldsmiths in 2011, and his in-depth Sharmeen Haque is currently India through debates on Muslim ethnographic research for it forms the working on a Masters Dissertation education. He is currently working basis of his book British-Islamic on one of Michael Madhusudan on a history of Portuguese, Mughal, Identity: Third-Generation Bangladeshis from East London, Dutt's farces (Buro saliker ghare Dutch, French and English published by IOE Press, Trentham ron), at the School of Oriental and colonialisms in Bengal. He works at Books (2015). You can follow Aminul African Studies (SOAS). SOAS, University of London. on Twitter @BrIslam2015. Wednesday 21 October 2015, Thursday 22 October 2015, Friday 23 October 2015, 6.30- 6.30-8.30pm. Lab 1A, 6.30-8.30pm. Lab 6, 8.30pm. Venue to be confirmed Idea Store Whitechapel, 321 Idea Store Whitechapel, 321 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1BU Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1BU The Guardian & Times coverage of the late President Gandhi and Bengal? Whatever Happened to the Ziaur Rahman’s life East India Company? (1971-1981) Gandhi in Noakhali, 1946 President Ziaur Rahman & Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, Gazipur (1981) By Ehtasham Haque By Roger Williams The late President Ziaur Rahman London’s Lost Global Giant: In Ziaur Rahman (1936 – 1981) is best known for his role in declaring the Tagore hosts Gandhi and wife Search of the East India Kasturba at Santiniketan in 1940 Company has just been published. independence of Bangladesh, and for It is a small book about the his service as the president of By William Rhind Company’s legacy in London — Bangladesh from 1977 to 1981. As the founder of the Bangladesh where to see it, and what material Nationalist Party (BNP), which In 1946 the Noakhali region of and cultural effects it has had on dominates the politics of Bangladesh current day Bangladesh the city. experienced serious communal along with the Awami League, his riots. Mohandas Gandhi camped in legacy remains hugely relevant to the Noakhali for four months and LONDON'S LOST GLOBAL recent history of Bangladesh and as toured the district in a mission to GIANT: In Search of the East India well as today’s politics. This restore peace and communal Company is the final part of THE presentation will strive to understand harmony LONDON TRILOGY, which he has Ziaur Rahman’s life through been researching and Bangladesh’s national life from 1971 William has been Outreach Worker photographing since returning to to 1981 in the ight of the coverage by at the Gandhi Foundation London after two decades in the (www.gandhifoundation.org) since British newspapers The Guardian December 2013 and prior to that wilderness of the Weald. and The Times. was on their executive committee for five years. He has degrees in The author raises a fascinating Ehtasham holds an MA in History and Law from the question: how could a leviathan Management from Westminster universities of Glasgow and such as the East India Company - Business School; Post Graduate London. at its height handling more than half Diploma in Law and Community the world's shipping, with its own leadership from SOAS, University It was through his father being born of London and a BA Honours in in India that he developed an 200l000-strong army - have interest in that country and disappeared, as it seems, without International Relations from London therefore Gandhi.