Bengal studies

বাংলা একাডেমি আয়োজিত একুশে বক্তৃতামালায় আজ ২০ ফেব্রুয়ারি ২০১৮ বিকাল ৪টায় "বাংলাদেশের হাজার বছরের ইতিহাস: বহুত্ববাদ এবং স্বাধীন বাংলাদেশের চার রাষ্ট্রনীতি" বিষয়ে প্রবন্ধ উপস্থাপন করেছি। আলোচক হিসেবে উপস্থিত ছিলেন আমার শিক্ষক অধ্যাপক সৈয়দ আনোয়ার হোসেন। সভাপতিত্ব করেছেন বাংলা একাডেমির মহাপরিচালক শামসুজ্জামান খান।

যে-বিষয়ে প্রবন্ধ পড়েছি তার ব্যাখ্যা-বিশ্লেষণের রয়েছে বহুমাত্রিকতা, রয়েছে তাত্ত্বিক বিতর্ক। আমার নিজস্ব ক্ষুদ্র চিন্তা ও উপলব্ধির ভিত্তিতে আলোচনার সুচনা করেছি। বেশ কিছুদিন ধরেই বিষয়টি নিয়ে পড়ালেখা করছিলাম, ভাবছিলাম এবং একটু একটু করে লিখছিলাম। চিন্তার অনেক খোরাক রয়েছে এখানে।

বিষয়টি নিয়ে যেকোনো আলোচনা-সমালোচনা, তর্ক-বিতর্ক, মত এবং ভিন্ন-মত জানতে ও বুঝতে চাই। কারো কাছে এ বিষয়ের কোনো গ্রন্থ বা প্রবন্ধ সম্পর্কে তথ্য থাকলে অনুগ্রহ করে আমাকে জানাবেন। প্রবন্ধের একটি খসড়া কোনো রকমে তৈরি করেছি। আপনার সহযোগিতা আমার এ-বিষয়ক চিন্তা-কে আরো কিছুটা পরিণত করতে পারে।

প্রবন্ধটির খসড়া তৈরিতে নিরলসভাবে সাহায্য করেছে আমার ছাত্র হাবিবুল্লাহ মিলন, আলমগির, আনিকা, সামিলা এবং আমার ছোট ভাই ইতিহাস সমিতির সাইদুর। তাদের জন্যে শুভেচছা আর ভালবাসা।<3

This paper focuses on the geographical factors in cultural aspects of early Bengal from the 5th to the 13th centuries CE. In South Asian history, this period has been considered as the time when significant socio-cultural transformations took place and regions in the subcontinent were moulded into distinct contours. These changes and dynamics lead to the socio-cultural formations of the later age. Bengal was one of these geographical regions where distinct geographical features played a role to make it a 'cultural territory' in the given chronological bracket. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to bring together the variety of data available in the sources and to highlight the contributions of geography in aspects of socio-cultural trends in early Bengal.

'Bengal' is more of a historical entity than a clearly defined territorial or regional entity. This paper is an attempt to indicate a separate 'unit' within  Bengal in geographical terms and identify the factors that create the difference. By using ancient available sources the paper illustrate how this geographical 'Bengal' gradually developed as historical-geographical sub-units or sub-regions where separate territorial consciousness started making the separate politics and polity in the ancient period. The paper revisited some of these territorial sub-units to shed lights with an indication that Southeast Bengal gradually transformed into an individual 'entity' in terms of distinct political and cultural ethos, geographical connectivity and trade and commercial linkages with the lands beyond her territory.

Babon Gaji is a curious god. He is avowedly a Muslim, and the icons that represent him seek to capture his 'Muslim-ness' conspicuously in their attire, not to mention the name itself (Gaji = Ghazi = Muslim warrior-monk) and local lore. Yet he is worshipped by Brahmin Hindu priests who are equally conspicuous in flaunting their Hindu-Brahmin identity. There are no stories about the Gaji ever having been a Hindu or having had anything more than an intellectual interest in Hinduism. He remains, thus, in his afterlife a Muslim; yet, he receives worship through Brahmin priests. Both Hindus and Muslims come to him in large numbers today, in search of a cure for their afflictions. Local accounts place the origins of his shrine at Tajpur, South 24 Parganahs a little over 100 years ago, yet, no account of either the cult or the shrine - to the best of my knowledge - exists in the colonial archive. Neither are there any known written accounts outside the colonial archive that are more than a couple of decades old. For the historian of colonial medicine in the region, therefore, the Gaji presents a difficult challenge.

আলোচ্য প্রবন্ধটি ইতোপূর্বে এশিয়াটিক সোসাইটি, বাংলাদেশ কর্তৃক প্রকাশিত প্রবন্ধটির পরিমার্জিত ও পরিবর্ধিত বাংলা রূপ। বাংলাদেশের উত্তরপশ্চিমাঞ্চলে পরিচালিত প্রত্নতাত্ত্বিক গবেষণার একটি অতি সংক্ষেপিত পরিচয় এই প্রবন্ধে পাওয়া যাবে। বাংলায় লিখিত হওয়ার কারণে পরিভাষা এবং গঠনের দিক থেকে ভিন্নতা যেমন রয়েছে তেমনি ইংরেজি সংস্করণে অনুল্লেখিত বেশ কিছু প্রসঙ্গ এখানে সংযোজিত হয়েছে। প্রত্নতাত্ত্বিক জরিপ ও মাঠকর্ম ভিত্তিক গবেষণার পরিবেশন বাংলাভাষায় এখনো বিরল।

This paper looks at Vidyasagar's programme for widow marriage while also discussing his campaign against Kulin Brahmin polygamy, child marriage and prostitution – some of the evils that plagued nineteenth-century Bengali society. Vidyasagar's diligent effort for the legalisation of widow marriage ultimately paid off in 1856 as the British colonial administrators drafted widow marriage into law. The two tracts that Vidyasagar published in 1856 in favour of widow marriage have been looked into some detail as well as opposition to his programme from none other than Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, arguably the greatest Bengali novelist till date. Statistically speaking, not many widows married under the Hindu Widow's Remarriage Act, making the Act, according to some critics, almost a dead letter. However, whether statistics alone does justice to the long-term impact Vidyasagar's movement has had on Bengal's social and intellectual life is also discussed.

The literary history of Bengal is characterized by a multilingual ecology that nurtured the development of Middle Bengali literature. It is around the turn of the second millennium, during the Pāla period (c. 8th–12th century), that eastern South Asia became a major region for the production of literary texts in Sanskrit and Apabhramsha. Early on, Bengal developed a distinct literary identity within the Sanskrit tradition and, despite abrupt political transitions and the fragmentation of the landscape of literary patronage, fundamental aspects of the literary culture of Pāla Bengal were transmitted during later periods. It was during the Sultanate period, from the 14th century onward that courtly milieus began to cultivate Middle Bengali. This patronage was mostly provided by uppercaste Hindu dignitaries and (in the case of lyric poetry at least) by the Sultans themselves. During the period ranging from the 15th to the early 19th centuries, vernacular literature can be divided into two broad categories: short narrative forms called padas or gītas (songs), which were often composed in an idiom derived from songs by the Old Maithili poet Vidyāpati (c. 1370–1460); and long narrative forms in Middle Bengali called pā̃cālīs, which are characterized by the alternation of the prosodic forms called paẏār and tripadī and the occasional insertion of songs.
These poetic forms are the principal markers of the literary identity of Bengal and eastern South Asia (including Assam, Orissa, and Arakan). The Ḥusayn Shāhī period (1433–1486) contributed to the consolidation and expansion eastward of vernacular literary practices. Then, the political landscape became fragmented, and the multiplication of centers of literary production occurred. This fragmentation fostered the formation of new, locally grounded literary trends. These could involve the cultivation of specific genres, the propounding of various religious doctrines and ritual practices, the fashioning of new idioms fostered by either dialectal resources, classical idioms such as Sanskrit or Persian, and other vernacular poetic traditions (Maithili, Avadhi, Hindustani). The late Mughal and early colonial periods witnessed the making of new trends, characterized by a radical modification of the lexical component of the Middle Bengali idiom (i.e., Dobhāṣī), or the recourse to scripts other than Bengali (e.g., Sylhet Nagari/ Kaithi, Arabic). The making of such new trends often implied changes in the way that authors interacted with Sanskrit, Persian, and other vernacular traditions. For instance, Persian played as crucial a role as Sanskrit in the various trajectories that Middle Bengali poetry took. On the one hand, Persian in Bengal had a history distinct from that of Bengali; on the other hand, it constituted a major traditional model for Bengali authors and, at times, Persianate education replaced the one based on Sanskrit as the default way to access literacy.
Even if Middle Bengali poetic forms continued to be used in the context of various traditional performances, the making of a new literary language in the 19th century, the adoption of Western genres, and the development of prose and Western prosodic forms occasioned a radical break with premodern literary practices. From the second half of the 19th century, with the notable exception of some ritual and sectarian texts, access to the ancient literature of Bengal began to be mediated by philological analysis and textual criticism.
Keywords: Bengal, Bengali, Brajabuli, Sanskrit, Persian, Avadhi, Urdu, multilingualism, lyric poetry, narrative poetry
Full version available at: http://asianhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277727-e-39

The creation of the image is thus a powerful poetic means, and we should not be astonished by the major role it plays in poetry of creation.
Pierre Reverdy, 1918
The Proposed paper comprehend, align and communicate between subaltern experiences and power of expressivity. Subaltern experience has been extensively studied through the lenses of hegemony, social hierarchy and oppression. Here, the focus will be on the often-overlooked lived-experience of the marginal, and the power of the aesthetic imagination emerging from this perspective. The exploration of Adwaita Mallabarman’s Titas Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Named Titas) would help trace the self-driven journey of the author to assert the power that lies hidden within the marginal identities.
Image is a plain for associations of ideas, where two or more realities may co-relate cerebrally. Thus, ‘image’ is always in flux, intermediation. This quality makes it a medium onto which the perception of the marginal may be sketched. This identification of aesthetic ‘patterns’ may lead to a renewed sense of societal structure beyond hegemonic dictation. In other words, the lived-experience of the subaltern can open up new aesthetic possibility, which in turn acts as a position of power for the community.
Some prominent examples of this parallel image creations to be explored are – (i) anti-perspectival form of description (layering of one clear image with another); (ii) subject-object fusion (the distinction between the subject and object merged or interchanged); (iii) the narrative flow is not guided by a ‘story’, but by a natural flow of gaze (this often leads to the story being stalled for a long period of time. The importance is given on experiencing the space and the people, not following a narrative to the end); (iv) the lack of metaphor; (v) creative imagination of the unseen.
The method to be followed here are threefold - collection of key images from the primary text, visiting scholarly literature for theoretical context in order to read the images collected from the primary text and finally revisiting the primary source again, as texts of possible imaginings of the subaltern and open a discussion about the politics of aesthetics.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s re-reading of Derrida into subaltern question and consequetive exploration of subaltern world is possibly the most important reference for this paper. Another reference for this paper is Standpoint (an achieved collective consciousness) Theory, by which there is an acknowledgement of the marginal existence not only as a position of acute awareness of societal structures, but also the perspective of the marginalized is rendered crucial to study a better, less distorted version of the world order. Rancière’s Phrase Image and Latour’s idea of Knowledge-Construction would also be important reference.
The chequered history of subaltern in Bengal, and the general perception of “lacuna” that is attached with this identity position together does not allow us to accept the position of power that lay within the identity. This paper aspires to take a step ahead in that direction by studying a position of knowledge-creation.

This article will examine how a social group of Western-educated ‘natives’
sought to revamp an ‘authentic’ identity for themselves that defended the
charges of ‘over-assimilation’ by condemning the drinking habits of middle-class Bengalis in the late nineteenth century. This study will engage with some riveting civil society debates in the Anglo-Indian public sphere, which open up new vistas on the degeneration of ‘elite’ values that was interpreted as a fallout of ‘Western modernity.’
It aims to look at the drinking habits of a particular class
of Bengalis and the public debates revolving around the question of alcohol consumption as an ‘immoral’ practice. This study seeks to break new ground by looking closely at the debates and agitations on the subject in nineteenth-century Bengal taking into account both the administration and the activists, an area that has until now only been referred to in passing in scholarly studies on the temperance movement in India.

A brief on the Armenians of Dhaka: Regardless of the absence of any definitive chronicle on the advent of the Armenians in Bengal, particularly to Dhaka, historians today unanimously agree that the Armenians started to arrive in Bengal, from the late 17th century onwards. It was the lure of trade and commerce which attracted them to come here during the Mughal, Nawabi and the colonial periods – Company and the British Raj. Towards the end of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb's reign, Job Charnok of the East India Company, the founder of Calcutta, is said to have enlisted the services of the hardy and industrious Armenians, then newly arrived migrants to Bengal.
The provenance of the early presence of Armenians in Dhaka is borne by the fact that there are two known existing old graves of Armenians dated between 1714 and 1795, within the premises of the historic Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Rosary at Tejgaon, built in 1677. The earliest Armenians in Dhaka settled in Tejgaon. There was once a small ruined wooden Armenian chapel in Armanitola over which the Armenian Apostolic Church of the Holy Resurrection, was built later in 1781. The site on which the Church stands today, was once part of an old cemetery. This property was owned by an Armenian called Agha Catachik Minassian (Minas), who donated the land for building of the church. The mortal remains of his wife Sophie, who died in Dhaka in 1764, lie interred inside the church.
The Armenians initially traded in rawhides, salt, spices, precious stones, saltpetre, calico and indigo. Later they prospered in the 19th century as the foremost pioneers of the lucrative jute industry in Dhaka and Narayanganj, setting up mechanised factories dealing in jute and cotton textiles, thereby, becoming manufactures and retailers, initiated steam navigation businesses, dealt in wholesale trading in essential commodities, were the first to establish and operate super-shops which sold  luxury European goods, and set up small shops including thrift stores, confectionaries and boarding houses (hotels). By the early 19th century quite a few had speculated wisely and invested capital in land, becoming wealthy zamindars (landholders), and notable philanthropists.
They once wielded great influence in Dhaka society, especially in the 19th and early 20th centuries as notable zamindars, merchants, financiers, philanthropists, institution builders (Pogose school and Dhaka Bank) and  as community leaders of the civil society in local politics (municipal bodies), art and culture (horse racing, club). In Dhaka, many of them lived in the Armenian quarters in Armanitola or elsewhere in Old Dhaka, in beautiful garden houses in Ramna, Fulbaria, Motijheel and in palatial mansions along the banks of the river Buriganga in Dhaka, as can be seen from the alluringly picturesque booklet, "Panorama of Dacca", 1840.
The Harneys are a notable Armenian family of 19th to mid-20th century Dhaka. My friend Macquir Harney, a successful hotelier in Dhaka, is a fourth generation direct descendant from his great-grandfather. This compelling story thus begins with the great-grandfather of Macquir, named William Harney (1830-1901), who was born in Belfast, Ireland, and came to Dhaka probably in the late 1840s. What actually impelled the young man to come to India (Bengal) is not clear, except to assume that he had travelled all the way to try his luck.

However, not long after his arrival in Dhaka, he volunteered and fought on behalf of the East India Company in the short-lived, abortive rebellion of the native sepoys of the Company at the historic Lalbagh fort in Dhaka in November 1857, following the failed Indian Rebellion of May 1857, in upper India starting in Meerut and ending with the fall of Mughal Delhi in September 1857. There is also a dearth of information on his life and times spent in Dhaka, besides that he married a lady named Heripsima (1843-1893) and raised a family. The older generation of the Harneys have all passed away. Sadly, they have not left behind any family chronicle. However, William along with his son Thomas William are credited for introducing the hackney-carriage – a four-wheel, horse-drawn covered carriage driven by a coachman (garwan) – to the streets of Dhaka, as an efficient mode of public transport. William died in Dhaka in 1901, and lies buried in the Armenian Churchyard along with his wife and eldest son. He and his wife had two sons: William Harney Jr (1863-1891) and Thomas William Harney (1872-1952), who was Macquir's grandfather.
Thomas William Harney seemed to have done well in life, and became wealthy enough to eventually acquire a sizeable zamindari estate in Dhaka and Bhola. He was liked by Nawab Sir Salimullah of Dhaka, for his social refinement. He charmed the Nawab with his fluency in Farsi and Urdu. Thomas built two large houses in old Dhaka. The first one still stands today in a dilapidated condition at Harney Street, Armanitola. The second house, also an old one, can be visited at 64, Sarat Chandra Chakravarti road, in Mahuthtolly. This house was once known locally as the "Saab Kuthi" (Saheb Bari).
Thomas had also built a garden-house in Padma Pukur, some 122 miles south-west of Dhaka. He established The Dacca Cotton Mills in Postagola, Old Dhaka, nearby the river Buriganga. The land of the factory was leased from a Hindu family.
The abolition of the zamindari in 1950 in East Bengal (Bangladesh), saw a steady decline in the fortunes of the Harneys. The zamindari estate in Bhola was lost and so was the property at Padma Pukur. After the Indo-Pak war of 1965, the Harneys' cotton mill at Postagola, which was originally leased from a Hindu family, was acquired by the then Pakistan government as enemy property, since the Hindu owner of the land suddenly decided to leave for India permanently. On their deaths, Charles and Irene were buried at the Narinda cemetery in Wari.
Over the years, almost all the Harneys have emigrated overseas, having left Dhaka and Chittagong for good. They now live in Kolkata, Australia, USA and Canada.

This paper focuses on one of the least studied areas – the geographical factors in the 'syncretistic tradition' of early Bengal. A comprehensive study on this issue is yet to be conducted. The proposed study is a preliminary attempt to do so.

From Niharranjan Ray to Mamtajur Rahman Tarafdar all have agreed on the preponderance of pre-Vedic/non-Brahmanic legacy in the culture of the people of the deltaic Bengal. The belated arrival of the brahmanical orthodoxy in ‘Bengal’ should be attributed to the far distance of her location from the entry route of the brahmanical inflow and the distinct geographical environment. The brahmanical orthodoxy has taken more than one thousand years to enter into ‘Bengal’. This relatively late-Brahmanization in Bengal had strengthened and entrenched the pre-Vedic/non-Brahmanic culture in the 'region' on the one hand and on the other the local inhabitants have found a kind of ‘mental attitude’ of accepting very little of external elements without renouncing their own individualities. Niharranjan Ray mentioned that ‘Bengal’ has been much less brahmanised than central Gangetic India: the mind of central Gangetic India was, to a large extent, ill-disposed to change, whereas that was not at all true of ‘Bengal’. The people of the Bengal delta did not really swim with the current, when defeat was inevitable, but sought to compromise in the working out of a synthesis.

The initial stage of the process of ‘brahmanical way of accommodating local culture’ in Bengal took place between 4th century BCE and 4th century CE, which continued in the next two centuries. The brahmanical influence is naturally expected to become weaker on its long eastward journey. ‘Bengal’ received it at a stage when its pre-Vedic legacy found opportunity of becoming firm and the ‘personality’ of the land got imbibed with it. The characteristic socio-religious and cultural attitudes of the people of the land of early Bengal which can be said to be typically Bengali are, no doubt, the result of the fusion of the incoming elements of culture with the indigenous elements, which acted as the moderating factors. 

In the religious culture of early ‘Bengal’, the 'syncretistic tradition' had definite, far-reaching and more profound effect. Brahmanism, Buddhism and Islam in ‘Bengal’ imbibed local characteristics of pre-Vedic/ pre-Puranic origin and thereby attained a character quite different from its original/fundamental character. Bengal’s continuous association with the non-brahmanic goddesses is attested to by vernacular evidence as far back as it goes, but cannot take us beyond the beginning of the 2nd millennium CE. Thus, the role of ‘brahmanical assimilative process’ in the making of the regional cultures cannot be ignored.

All these factors need to be examined further in an elaborate manner. Therefore, I would like to attempt an investigation as to how and in what scale the 'syncretistic tradition’ and the 'assimilative process’ influenced and moulded the socio-religious life of Bengal in the early period and contributed in the making of a distinct religious culture which bears a definite stamp of this deltaic land.

Even after nearly two hundred years of British rule over Bengal, the industrial development of the province remained pitiful. Various causes such as lack of enterprise and industrial aptitude among the people, shyness of capital, want of skilled manpower, smallness of market, underdeveloped communication system, religious and social structure, lack of sufficient raw materials, uneconomic outlook of the people, etc. have been held to be responsible for the poor industrial performance of the province. However, most of these alleged inhibiting factors were not altogether irremovable ills. Armed with unlimited power, the state by undertaking a positive role could not only remove hindrances to industrial development, but also through appropriate policy decisions promote its cause.

The pioneering role of the state in the industrialisation of the West and Japan are shining examples in this direction. This was exactly what the people of India also demanded from the state. They piously hoped that by the joint cooperation of the Government and the people, there appears to be no reason why India, with all its natural advantages, should not reach equal, if not a higher standard among the manufacturing nations of the world. But were their expectations fulfilled? Did the government (government at all levels) pay heed to the needs and potential of industrial, development? If so, how large was their participation? This paper is an attempt to bring forth the amount and degree of state endeavours in resolving the basic problems of Bengal's industrialisation.

The paper is divided into five sections. Policy measures pertaining to tariff questions, stores purchase, the question of capital supply and enterprise are discussed in the first four sections, and the fifth is a general survey of the industrial activities of the government during the period under review.

The first part of this paper outlines an approach to the study of structuralism in general (and linguistic structuralism in particular) as part of world history. The second part presents a case study of the work of Loharam Shiroratna, a grammarian in nineteenth century Bengal rooted in Paninian theory and practice. There is also an intermediate section that embeds part two in the framework set up in part one.

বাংলা Bhati Region or low-lying area washed and flooded by rivers and ebb-tides. The name 'Bhati region' has been derived from the Bangla words 'Bhata' or 'Bhati'. Bangladesh is a riverine country. The larger rivers like the Ganges and Brahmaputra and their innumerable tributaries have flowed over the whole of eastern and southern Bengal; as a consequence, most of the areas in this region remain flooded for more than half of the year. This is why researchers have identified various parts of Bengal as Bhati. Towards the end of the Sultani era and the time when Mughal rule was established in Bengal, the bara-bhuiyans of Bengal built up resistance against the Mughals. The Bhati region of Bengal can also be identified by the written references in Mughal courts and the descriptions of the Europeans. The English traveller ralph fitch reached the place called tandah in 1586 and from there he toured sripur, VikramApurA and Sonargaon region. The information provided by him was very reliable. He presented a documentary picture of the Bhati region. According to him, the Bara-Bhuiyans could resist the Mughal onslaughts for a long time as the area was surrounded by rivers and canals. james grant included Hijli, Jessore and Bakerganj in the Bhati region. henry blochmann ferdinand identified the whole area between Hoogly and the Meghna River as Bhati. These imply that there were confusions regarding the identification of the Bhati region due to confusing claims made by British civil servants and historians.

Muhammad Mansuruddin (31 January 1904 – 19 September 1987) has been regarded as the founding father of Bengali folklore collection and research. He was famous for a huge collection of age-old folk songs, mostly anthologised in thirteen volumes under the title Haramoni. In recognition of his lifelong contribution to folklore collection and research, the Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, India awarded him honorary D.Litt. degree in 1987. Mansuruddin had his baptism in writing at a very early stage of his life. Although collection of folklore remains his monumental work, he also wrote literary essays and fiction all through his life. In 1952 he worked as editor of monthly literary Mah-e Nau for about six months (on deputation from government service). He spent fifty to sixty years in collecting Ethnic and traditional festival Songs from rural Bengal. He transcribed those without caring for lexical accuracy. He took down as he heard from the mouth of the singers. He also collected songs of Lalon Fakir and wrote on him. Also, in 1974, he translated some songs of Lalon Fakir for the international audience. A mentor of outstanding calibre Prof. Mansuruddin encouraged younger folklorists to follow international technic and methodology of folklore. At the same time he advised folklore researchers to travel to the rural areas to look for their context it. Apart from Haramoni (ÔnvivgwYÕ), his notable collection were Lalon Fakir-er Gaan : Songs of Lalan Fakir, published in 1948, Lalan Geetika (Ôjvjb MxwZKvÕ) published subsequently and Folksongs of Lalan Shah in English rendering was published in 1974. Introduction of different volumes of Haramoni are revealing and educative. A literary biographer, Prof. Mansuruddin wrote a biography of prophet Muhammad titled Hazrat Muhammader Jiboni O Sadhona, and his other contribution in this genre include Hazrat Shah Waliullah, Harun Rashid and Iraner Kobi. His books for children included Bokami (1952), Thokami (1958) and Mushkil Ahsan (1958). He compiled a dictionary of Bengali idioms under the title Hashir Ovidhan in 1957.

The paper focuses on one of the ‘popular’ academic discourses of ‘Indianisation’, ‘Hinduisation’ or ‘Sanskritisation’ of Southeast Asia. Indian intelligentsia developed all these counter-hegemonic academic notions against the colonial construction that India, in her early days, was ‘uncivilised land of savagery’ and the British came to this land with a mission of civilizing India. But the approaches of the ‘nationalist’ scholars ultimately boasted up the ‘cultural imperialism’ of India over Southeast Asia. And, the megalomaniac notion of Pax Britannica became a counter-hegemonic Pax Indica. Thus, the paper sheds light on the academic ‘scramble’ over the issue of designating Southeast Asia as an ‘extended sphere of influence’ or ‘cultural colony’ of either India or China and offers reinterpretation of early connectivity issues and cultural interactions between these regions by using geographic lens with special reference to the geographical-cultural territory of Bengal.