Dissecting a nation's history
Afsan Chowdhury is appreciative of a new work on Bangladesh
Willem Van Schendel's A History of Bangladesh is an introductory book on a subject that is quite possibly the best of its kind. It is hugely informative, scholarly in its foundation and yet an eminently readable book. Through this book the writer has filled a gap that has been there since Bangladesh came into being. Bangladesh historiography may have an impressive number of books in its list but not all are impressive. Often they are emotional narratives with little authenticity or are academic works, mostly doctoral dissertations, not attuned to the reading public. But this book, based on proper and extensive academic research, reads as breezily as a work of light fiction. One learns as one is entertained. This is how history books should be written. Each section deals in some details looking at the major phases of our history. 'The Long View' section deals with the geography, ethnography, multiple and moving frontiers of the land and its people as they have influenced history. Discussing the Bengal delta as a crossroads of cultures and the role of trade and other interactions in its cultural construction, Van Schendel writes, "..Openness was an essential feature of the delta, adding a constant stream of goods to the economy and acting as a boon to local industries. Bengal's population was mobile and participated in overseas trade in various roles..the openness of the delta also exposed the population to many different cultural influences and new ideas" (p 46). This section dealing with the foundational history of Bangladesh is probably the most interesting part of the book because it discusses issues not found elsewhere in standard available books. WVS describes the many trade systems and practices, the many people who visited Bengal and how all together formed the mosaic that has produced so much of the historical contours of today. The historian examines the past through the agrarian, state, religious and linguistic frontiers that have led to its multiple identities. He says, "… diverse and often opposing cultural strains produced a recognizable regional culture in the eastern Bengal delta … unlike the surrounding population, most inhabitants of the active delta came to define themselves as both Muslims and Bengalis…" ( p 38). In the section titled 'Colonial Encounters', the author looks at the history of eastern Bengal from the Mughal Empire to the British Empire and the subsequent events of the 1947 partition that threw up new states. He explains how the Mughal submission brought devastation and ruin to the area but also economic growth at the later stages. Bengal was described by some officials as a "hell full of bread." It not only brought commerce to the zone but Dhaka became the centre of activities, a trend that has had profound consequences on our history. The colonial Brits were economic experimenters who were not happy just in taking Bengal's wealth but wanted to increase and extract its wealth further. Not only was the introduction of the Permanent Settlement, which produced the final version of the zamindary system, an economic project but one which generated a variety of cultural constructs many of which as remnants still influence our mind. They also developed commercialized agriculture significantly. It was not new in Bengal but the British were more organized and more ruthless in ensuring that. WVS' simple but evocative description of the 1947 partition as it affected the common person is insightful. Instead of ranting on the evils of communalism and how everyone was a brother but suddenly became enemies, he explains how the situation came to such a pass, politically and socially. The context is set by the reality of emerging new states bent on achieving their goals at all costs. Van Schendel writes, "For the first time in its history, the Bengal delta was encased in a modern international border, a phenomenon that its inhabitants had no previous experience of whatsoever" (p100). Yet it was not the management of geographical borders that became the most difficult one but the people, caught in old lands and new states. Population transfer and production of refugees were also different in the area as no immediate transfer took place but one which was a much 'slower, longer and complicated process" (p101). Moving on to the language movement of 1952 in 'Becoming East Pakistan', the author writes, "What made 1952 a defining moment was that it marked a sharp psychological rupture. For many in the Bengal delta it signified a shattering of the dream of Pakistan and the beginning of a new political project, still hazy and fully supported by only a few: the search for a secular alternative to the communal idiom of Pakistan and for an autonomy that the delta had last experienced in pre-Mughal times" (p 114). It would seem that there is a sense of historical continuity of the political struggle and its link to geography that began so long ago. Mentioning in an earlier chapter that that 'geography was destiny' for many, it brings out one historical root of our statehood of later years. However, it wasn't the only reality and nor should it be read as a determinist trend though history. After all, Bengal could have survived intact in 1947, Pakistan could have been a successful experiment and so on. But neither can one deny a link that goes back over time in a series of overlapping trends that together have pushed forward the history of this people. Part four is titled 'War and the Birth of Bangladesh', in which the author manages to put across all the important facts and positions of that event without burdening the reader. He also remains even-handed in doing so. Schendel writes about the nature of nationalism with great insight and without sentimentality: "the new nationalism was distinctly deltaic. It was limited to East Bengal /Bangladesh, the region where the Bengali-Muslim identity was most salient. Certainly, deep currents of empathy connected Bengalis in Bangladesh with their counterparts in India, but Bangladeshi nationalism did not envisage reunification. Some Indian observers underestimated the strength of this feeling of 'separate Bengaliness'. Insufficiently aware of how East Bengalis remembered 'colonial social arrangements', how the Pakistan experience had molded the identity and how they felt that the Bengali cultural centre of gravity had shifted eastwards. These observers were taken aback when their tentative suggestions of more intimate ties with India met with firm rebuttals" (p183-184). Yet the problems of the new state were obvious from the start even though it was supposed to be a new imagination of an ancient aspiration. It was a state beset with the problems political and social. While it could and did overlook the issue of the human rights of the Biharis, putting them into unbelievable misery as a continuous ethnic punishment for the community's support to Pakistan, the moderate anti-Leftist government found it more difficult to deal with the task of administratively managing the new state. If the various opposition political groups were dealt with effectively, the famine of 1974 wasn't which came atop the crushing mal-governance of early Bangladesh. "Awami League rule soon turned out to be a case of party over nation… Mujib was aware of the 'blatant abuse of power and corrupt practices of his party people but always the party loyalist, did nothing to stop them" (p 179) Describing the post-1975 situation which saw the rise of single party rule followed by military rule, WVS writes, " Bangladesh's long cherished dream of popular democracy had first turned into a nightmare of civilian autocracy and now into military rule" ( p 182) The final section, 'Independent Bangladesh', deals with contemporary issues such as the roots of military dictatorship, the identity controversy Bengali or Bangladeshi or Muslims- the CHT war, remembering the liberation war, development polices, the rise of NGOs, population and food production boom, transnational linkages, new economic sectors and so on. Each section deals not only with the transitional facts of nationhood but also the ancient strands of history that exert pressure on the present. In the final chapter, 'A national culture', Van Schendel makes an observation on the emergence of the new hero who was a symbol of the transition. He writes, "The new cultural model was self consciously nouveau riche; clothes had to be flashy, jewellery chunky, houses and their interiors ostentatious. The new cultural hero was no longer the delicate poet, the demure homemaker, or the idealistic student activist. Now it was the streetwise rowdy, the mostan or mustan" ( P 252) Schendel's conclusion is insightful and optimistic despite its struggles. "Today's inhabitants of the Bengal delta cope - often magnificently - by bringing into play a flexible, upbeat resilience that is one of the region's most valuable historical legacies. If you were to read one book to understand Bangladesh and its history, this would be it. it. (Willem Van Schendel is professor of Modern Asian History at the University of Amsterdam. He has written several books on Bengal and Bangladesh).
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