In the 19th century, a Bengali Shudra widow had outwitted The British East India Company & protected the #Ganga as a #commons for fishing rights, using Anglo-Saxon #capitalism’s potent weapon — private property. My story on Rani Rashmoni.
thehindu.com/society/the-sh…
I have grown up with this understanding that Bengali's are bad at business, we are somehow too intellectual & idealistic to survive the rough & tumble world of commerce. Poppycock! If you study 19th century Bengali capitalists, they amassed huge wealth & power through trade.
Rani Rashmoni thrived in an upper caste male dominated world of commerce with a strong moral compass. Her philanthropy was legendary. She was deeply empathetic of the plight of the underprivileged - the only landlord of her time who actively divested from indigo cultivation.
She was an exact opposite to the Tagore's. The Carr-Tagore company profited immensely from the indigo trade, in spite of the horrors inflicted on farmers. It is believed that Rabindranath Tagore had some his grandfathers indigo trade documents burnt to protect the family legacy.
Reproducing a photo of the iron pillar to which the chains that Rashmoni used to barricade the Hooghly was tethered. Ghosh, G. P. (1960). Rajeshwari Rasmoni (1st ed.). Jogmaya Prakashani.
Just a clarification here, Samaresh Basu's #Ganga was originally published in the magazine Janmabhoomi in 1957. It was published as a separate book in 1974, which I have cited. Thanks to @senarijit for flagging the issue with the dates with me. Much appreciated.
To clarify, nowhere do I mention Rashmoni is forgotten. She enjoyed a permanent place in the lives of the subaltern & the TV serial has brought her home to millions. The article critiques her marginalization from historical narratives, where UC men are given priority.
The article is an effort to bring her history to a wider, pan-Indian audience.

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More from @amitangshu

18 Jun
"the concept of “#decolonizing” is being circulated, thrown around, & even abused by many individuals who hijacked it without having direct experience & connection to what many decolonial thinkers call the “colonial wound”.Fascinating piece from Louis Yako counterpunch.org/2021/04/09/dec…
"I think it is absurd to have many privileged and institutionalized Western professors who have no firsthand experience with the colonial wound to give us lectures, workshops, or write about decolonizing this or that matter."
"The colonized, slowly but surely, become at once the dagger and the wound to themselves. We come to such a place where we cooperate with the dagger against our own wounds."
Read 5 tweets
11 Jan
I have never used #WhatsApp, ever. I always saw it to be an invasive & privacy violating tool. In #India, that translated into being called "Luddite" & an anti-social. I watched it being made mandatory for office groups, housing societies, public services & vendors. 1/1
My resident housing society secretary recently shouted at me for not being on #WhatsApp. I didn't realise it was mandatory, I told him. "If everyone is on it then what's your problem?" He hollered 2/2
But that's what everyone did. Joined a platform unthinkingly, because it was "convenient" and those who were trying to think things through were made an object of frustration and ridicule. 3/3
Read 8 tweets
9 Jul 20
"Anustup"/ "অনুষ্টুপ" is a 54 year old independent #Bengali literary & cultural journal (ISSN: 0974-2697). It is now officially recognized by @ugc_india on their list of approved journals. Scholars publishing in #Bangla/#বাংলা pls consider subscribing & publishing. cc @maitreesh
Regional language journals are dying across #India. Anustup doesn't even have a decent website because it doesn't have resources. It will only sustain if more people subscribe to it. Please write to Anustup at anustuppotrika@gmail.com
And the list of people who have published in this journal will surprise you. It includes (late) Ritwick Ghatak, (late) Hemango Biswas, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Arindam Chakrabarti, Partha Chatterjee, Maitreesh Ghatak, and many others. So do engage!
Read 5 tweets
20 Nov 19
1/1 I have been a regular at many Geographical Society talks in recent years in Edinburgh. And I find them to be fascinating & very informative. But there are some issues which I has been niggling me & I have to put them out. Caveat: #Thread.
1/2. Though speakers end up traveling to the majority world, there is rarely any discussion on how these former Anglo European colonies dealt with years of systematic loot and oppression. For example, in today’s talk with a legendary photographer, he said & I quote:
1/3. “Of course there was no Pakistan then. There was only India. And you know we were running India then”. He was talking about his trip to Karakoram. He just papered over UKs role in dividing the subcontinent & what horrors unfolded, which we are still living with.
Read 10 tweets
11 Jun 18
Though I am really glad that #arsenic contamination of #groundwater in India, and specially #WestBengal is getting the attention it deserves, there is a major issue that needs wider discussion.
There is a simplistic argument that arsenic naturally occurs in the #Gangetic belt, the author uses the term “#geological curse”. If this is the case, why is heavy #arsenic contamination being reported from #Jharkhand and #Chattisgarh in Central India?
A possible answer to that may be traced to this MIT paper that was published in @NatureGeosci on #anthropogenic influence on #groundwater #arsenic contamination in #Bangladesh nature.com/articles/ngeo6…
Read 8 tweets

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