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The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 took 10 million lives. The British East India Company's (EIC) extraction of resources and imposition of brutal tax policies in Bengal exacerbated the disaster. By exploring the intersections of corporate interests, colonialism, and biopolitics, this paper provides a new perspective on the Bengal famine of 1770 by introducing and visualizing it through a unique theoretical framework—corporate colonial biopolitics. Adopting Michel Foucault's notion of biopolitics, my focus is primarily on the corporate colonial biopolitical strategies enforced by the Company, which led to dispossession, violence, and resource extraction exploiting Bengal's landscape and impeding the region's progress and development. The essay unveils the racist policies and profit-driven principles of the EIC and how they prioritized generating revenues, financing its military, and exporting food grain even at the peak of the famine. I point out how the EIC systematically dismantled the Indian agricultural system, fueling deindustrialization in India and ultimately making the region vulnerable to famines. The Bengal famine of 1770 remains unexplored by geographers despite being the first colonial famine in India. One of the primary objectives of this paper is to bridge this gap by shedding light on the geographical dimensions of this pivotal historical catastrophe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about a particular construction of nationalism at the hands of Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848–1909), the well-known exponent of 'economic nationalism', in colonial Bengal from 1870 onwards till his death in 1909. In this construction of nationalism, which today scholars would best describe as 'cultural nationalism', the categories 'Hindu' and 'national' converged and became conflated. Through a discussion of Dutt's 'literary patriotism', the paper seeks to answer why it was so in the case of someone like R C Dutt, and what implications we can draw from this regarding our understanding of colonial Indian nationalism and its origins. With reference to Dutt, Sudhir Chandra pointed out that the neat distinction that we draw between 'economic nationalism' and 'cultural nationalism' is fallacious. The paper reiterates and reinforces this argument by showing how cultural and political nationalisms were enmeshed together in the case of R C Dutt. Furthermore, the glorious past that Dutt reconstructed through his literary patriotism could not but be a Hindu past; he was not a vilifier of Muslims, but somehow he shelved the question of the place of Muslims in his construction of Indian nationhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a long history of starvation, including reports dated back to antiquity. Despite exceptional scientific developments, starvation still exists today. The medical aspects of starvation were well established in the twentieth century, particularly following studies related to the 1943–1944 Bengal famine in India and starved prisoners of war and survivors of World War 2. The refeeding of the starved victims provided disappointing results. Nevertheless, those studies eventually led to the development of a new branch of research in medicine and to the definition of what is now known as refeeding syndrome. This paper briefly reviews the history and groundwork that led to today's understanding of starvation and refeeding, with a particular emphasis on the observations from studies on starved Holocaust survivors and prisoners of war after World War 2. The relevance of these studies for modern times is briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The epistemic question about what constitutes religious belief in non-Western contexts is addressed here through the ontology of sonic experience. I demonstrate that religious beliefs are habitually ingrained as long-sustaining visceral memories, when afforded by sensory—for instance, aural—affects. Bengal's peculiar devotional milieu constructs a prototype of oppositions. On one end is the urban, classical, martial goddess, Durga, with elite histories of acquiring a high Brahmanical form, and whose autumnal rituals are based on scriptural rules, caste hierarchies, and distance among the devotees and deity. On the other end is the rural, indigenous, non-classical, peasant god, Shiva, whose spring-time worship celebrating primordial death and regeneration is based on intensely embodied and communitarian principles of identity among the caste-equal bodies of devotee men, and even their god. Based on immersive ethnographic analyses, the paper argues that these dual psychological ends of the regional sacred cosmos are made vividly real through differential perceptive experiences of percussion sounds (ubiquitous in these festivities), their varied tempos, textures, volumes, and rhythm modulations. Through phenomenological deep listening, I describe stark styles of making and playing the sacred membranophone drum, dhak, which embodies distinct rhythm styles, relationships with rituals, and psychophysical effects on the devotional ensembles. I show how the bodies of devotees, dhak players (dhakis), deities, and even the dhak, become tied to the tonalities of the drum, which is taught through generations of deft learning among dhakis, to sound distinctly when echoed for Durga and Shiva. The paper's main argument is that these dhak sounds, which have remained a conceptual oversight in literature, not only aid in, but indeed, enable the experience of and belief in Bengal's divergent deities. It is through such empowering sensory sedimentations of the different sounds of the same percussion, that people recognize, remember, and maintain the region's devotional dialectic and complex religious lifeworld. In essence, the body's powerful experiences of drum sounds make religious belief palpable and possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The great Kolkata Cyclone of 5 October 1864 is still felt in the hearts of people in Bengal after 158 years. Almost every year, the inhabitants of Bengal are frequently threatened by various types of cyclones. In the last three centuries, from 1737 to 2021, the people of Bengal have witnessed more than one hundred fifty cyclones, tornadoes, and typhoons. Cyclones that occurred in the Bay of Bengal in October of 1737, 1864, 1874, 1876, and 1942 were severe and caused great loss of life and property. But the Kolkata Cyclone on the 5 October 1864 was one of the deadliest cyclones of Bengal. It was also one of the most destructive cyclones in the world. The devastation of the cyclone was terrible. It appeared that the total loss of life by the cyclone in Bengal actually reported by competent authorities was not more than sixty thousand. The loss of life in the Bengal had been partially ascertained. This paper is a case study of a natural calamity that swept over the Bengal on 5 October 1864 with reference to broader questions relating to climate and human settlement. The most striking part of the description is the human casualties. Finally, it shows how the effects of this natural calamity devastated thousands of lives in then-Bengal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to analyze the recent phenomenon of the development of a Matri Sena (literally, an 'Army of Holy Women') among the Matua sect of West Bengal, India. Historically known to have suffered caste-based untouchability and forced migration due to communal conflict, the Matua community's current political motivations surround the issue of 'refugeehood' and Indian citizenship. Given this background, the emergence of the Matri Sena as a complex identity among a religion–caste–gender–nation nexus is oriented towards bipartite objectives: one, to actualize the gender-egalitarian ethos that informs Matua religious foundations, and two, to claim legal citizenship status for its community members precisely through a new gendered ideology. We argue that the women gurus of the Matri Sena are able to realize their religious/political aims by fashioning themselves as mothers of an ideal family, community, and by extension, the nation. In deploying their specific gendered ideological constructions, they enact their new roles as influencers in both private and public Matua lives. In such renderings, the woman guru's mother-figure emerges as a political subject through crucial engagements with Matua religiosity on one hand, and dominant Hindu nationalist discourses on the other. In this article, we critically analyze ways in which the Matri Sena constructs a new maternal notion of religio-political power, and how such power furthers both collective Matua aspirations and contemporary national imaginations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the Bengal Basin, the most important sedimentary basin in the world that supports ~200 million people, is primarily focused on its geologic evolution and anthropogenic effects, yet the basin is poorly studied in terms of geomorphic response to tectonic activity. The eastern part of the Bengal Basin is characterized by the Chittagong Tripura Fold Belt (CTFB) and the Indo‐Burman Range (IBR), which have structurally deformed into a series of mostly compressional fold and thrust belts including strike–slip faults because of the ongoing subduction‐related convergence between the Eurasian Plate and the Indian Plate. A network of river channels incising through thick sedimentary rocks and crossing and/or flowing parallel to this fold and thrust Belt. The active tectonic deformation caused by the structures and ongoing compression‐related activity remains enigmatic due to the sparse dataset, thick vegetation cover, outcrop paucity, and the Basin's complex geology. In this paper, we investigate river response to ongoing tectonics in the CTFB and western IBR by analysing channel geomorphic metrics (ksn, χ, and knickpoints) coupled with river profile forms derived from 30 m resolution NASADEM. Our results reveal (1) several convex and double‐concave reaches of major rivers and their tributaries that primarily indicate the transient state of the rivers; (2) a total of 219 upstream propagating knickpoints including distinct knickzones in profile reaches, suggesting river profile adjustment; (3) two different ksn zones in the CTFB and IBR with high ksn zone to the east and low ksn zone to the west, where ksn values range from 0 to 4905. These zones are thought to be associated with the differential uplift rate of the two east‐dipping thrust fault systems, the Kaladan Fault and Chittagong Cox's Bazar Fault (CCF); and (4) the χ‐ map (values ranging from 0.47 to 19,631.75) shows an occasional transient state of drainage divides where divides are migrating to the east, west, and north‐east, and χ versus elevation plots exhibiting disequilibrium state of the rivers suggesting that these drainage basins are likely adjusting with tectonic activities. Thus, our empirical observation suggests that the major rivers and their tributaries are in a transient state related to the region's overall ongoing tectonics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: Given the rise in stray and imported dogs in Egypt over the past 5 years, it is surprising that no report of Brucella canis infection in dogs or humans has been documented in Egypt's published papers. This study aimed to detect the presence of antibodies against the rough (B. canis) and smooth Brucellae among dogs in Egypt and to characterize the Brucella species circulating in dogs. Materials and Methods: Blood samples (n = 449) were collected from owned and stray dogs in the Greater Cairo region (n = 309) and Damietta governorate (n = 140). The apparent, true, and total seroprevalence of canine brucellosis caused by B. canis infection were calculated using the 2-mercaptoethanol tube agglutination test (2-ME TAT) and rapid slide agglutination test (RSAT). We used the rose Bengal test (RBT) and the buffered acidified plate antigen test (BAPAT) to check the serum samples from dogs for the presence of antibodies against smooth Brucellae. Three polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays - Bruce-ladder PCR, B. canis species-specific PCR (BcSS-PCR), and Abortus Melitensis Ovis Suis (AMOS)-PCR - were used to determine the Brucella species in the buffy coats of the serologically positive dogs. Results: The overall apparent and true prevalence of B. canis infection in dogs were estimated to be 3.8% and 13.2%. The estimated true prevalence in stray dogs (15%) was higher than in owned dogs (12.5%). The BAPAT and the RBT using smooth antigens revealed that 11 (2.4%) and 9 (2%) were positive. Bruce-ladder PCR targeting eryC, ABC, and Polysaccharide deacetylase genes was able to identify B. canis in nine out of 17 buffy coat samples. AMOS-PCR identified the eight undetermined Brucella species by Bruce-ladder PCR as Brucella abortus (n = 4) and Brucella melitensis (n = 4). To exclude the presence of Brucella suis, a one-step species-specific BcSS-PCR was performed and specifically amplified all B. canis DNA (n = 9) the same as did the Bruce-ladder PCR. Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of B. canis detection in dogs in Egypt. Molecular identification of B. abortus and B. melitensis in the Egyptian canines highlights the role of stray dogs in brucellosis remerging in Brucellosis-free dairy farms. Brucella canis infection can be diagnosed specifically with the one-step BcSS-PCR. The obtained results set-an-alarm to the veterinary authorities to launch plans to control this disease in dogs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tea industry is a labour-intensive industry. The distinct form of production relation in the tea industry not only established itself but also established a social system for the tea workers (Bhowmik, 1980). The tea industry has reproduced poverty and disadvantage position for workers generation after generation and succeeded in perpetuating a downward spiral. (Gothoskar, 2012). After trade liberalisation and introduction of globalisation in tea business, the surplus labour force in tea industry were left with limited work and no other resources. This surplus labour force is absorbed in different areas as precarious labour. The paper tries to explore different aspects of precariousness of tea workers and how the tea industry is acting as a reservoir for such precariat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural anthropologists acknowledge the primacy of the spectator's gaze in assigning hierarchical space to performances within the public sphere. Equations of power and transactions between agents of performance and the consumer or between the language of the entitled spectator and subject performers determine the category assigned to a given performance: folk or elite, classic or popular, high or subaltern. The late eighteenth - early nineteenth century in Bengal was a period of political and social transition and of realignment along religious, spatial and intellectual lines. The birth and growth of the metropolitan urban centre (Calcutta), an increasing presence of European residents of both genders in Calcutta and Bengal and the shift of power and influence from Muslim military aristocracy to an European merchant company (The British East India Company), meant that traditional indigenous performances were often thrown open for commentary and judgment to an audience who were largely outsiders and to whom the nuances of language, caste, class, region, ritual signification were matters of academic interest only occasioning descriptive commentaries on the practices in an alien country. In the travelogues and memoirs of Maria Nugent or Fanny Parkes, for instance, rituals, customs or performances were viewed as exemplifying the picturesque 'otherness' of an alien race. This paper will focus on evidences within British colonial writings of the early nineteenth century describing what appeared to observers as performances, with which they attempt to conceptualize the native 'other' as a cultural trope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the nature and understandings of history, or itihasa/Purana, in eighteenth-century India using two Mangalkabya narratives. These materials belong to a large genre of performance narratives, usually devoted to eulogizing various deities, that were produced in Bengal for several centuries. The paper illustrates how a "traditional" genre such as the Mangalkabya was effectively used to articulate contingent political and cultural preoccupations. The narratives studied here show that the historical experiences and contexts mirrored in them were derived from Mughal rule over Bengal and large parts of India during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The paper seeks to historicize and contextualize the shifts noticeable in these narratives and to engage with the notion that premodern, precolonial India lacked a sense of history molded by contemporary material and cultural imperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a tool both for research and for structuring community-level interaction, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is now well embedded in development practice. This paper, however, argues that in order to play an enabling role towards community action, facilitators need to offer much more than the traditional PRA approach. Based on work with groups of women and of men in North Bengal, the paper describes how local politics and facilitators' strategies interact and complicate the use of PRA-like planning approaches. The article stresses the need for effective and long-term facilitation strategies that take into account organisational, methodological, and contextual considerations, and argues that organisations need to invest far more in ensuring the quality of facilitators than is generally the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is conceived as an examination of the textual sources of the Tantric Vaiṣṇava tradition in its regional context and of the way in which vernacular Bengali and Sanskrit functioned as two factors determining the development and shape of the particular medieval esoteric tradition. The complicated history of the Bengali culture amalgam, which determines the special character of this region, takes on a crucial meaning here as pan-Indian Brahmanical and Sanskrit culture is juxtaposed on many levels with regional culture. The interactions between the regional and the pan-Indian as well as between the vernacular and Sanskrit seem to be a very complex problem with dynamic nets of interactions, functioning synchronically on multiple levels. The examination of this matter is proceeded by a general overview of the previous scholarship on the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perhaps [transgression] is like a flash of lightning in the night which, from the beginning of time, gives a dense and black intensity to the night it denies, which lights up the night from the inside, from top to bottom, yet owes to the dark the stark clarity of its manifestation, its harrowing and poised singularity." — Michel Foucault (Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews). Gajan is a Bengali festival which is a combination of Foucauldian concept of multidirectional functioning of power structure, transgression and Bakhtinian concept of Carnival. This festival gives the subaltern masses the power of subverting every establishment, institutions of superstructures, order of hierarchy, and every form of classification possible- in terms of gender, caste, race, dialect, religion and law. It invokes the surreal state of mind were all barriers that separate the rational from the irrational collapses, leading to a random state of mind. It is the liberation of the libido, trapped desire for the 'Other' and an open display of the Freudian 'unconscious'. Gajan generally deals with the liberation of two kinds of marginalized groups: the namasudra (the caste of untouchables) and women. It portrays a woman who can be angry, thirsty, ferocious, warrior like almost giving men an 'anti-penis envy'. The aim of my paper is to deconstruct the fertility rites an its association with the castration complex, the various fissures and silences in the mythmaking of Gajan, its rites evolving gradually as a taboo, the issue of transgenderism, the eruption of the unconscious, its gradual marginalization and disappearance from a psychoanalytical, political anthropological matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines themes related to cooking, food, nutrition, and the relationship between dietary practice and health in late-nineteenth century and early-twentieth century Bengal, and argues that food and cuisine represented a vibrant site on which a complex rhetorical struggle between colonialism and nationalism was played out. Insofar as they carried symbolic meanings and 'civilisational attributes', cooking and eating transcended their functionality and became cultural practices, with a strong ideological-pedagogical content. The Bengali/Indian kitchen, so strongly reviled in European colonialist discourses as a veritable purgatory, became a critically important symbolic space in the emerging ideology of domesticity during the colonial period. The gastronomic excesses of gluttonous British officials--crucial in asserting the physical superiority of a 'masculine' Raj--became an object of ridicule in Bengali culinary texts, signifying the grossness of a materialistic . The cooking and eating of food thus became deeply implicated in the cultural politics of bhadralok nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]