My mother's family are from Kushtia - part of Hindu majority Nadia district of Bengal. However, it fell on the wrong side of a river that was ruled as the border. They would linger for years in East Pakistan till religious persecution finally forced them seek refuge in India 1/n
My mother's grand-father Mohini Mohan Chakravarti had set up a textile mill as far of the 1905 Swadeshi movement. By 1947, it was one of the largest mills in India. It is now "enemy property" 2/n
An uncle revisited the place just after it was liberated in 1971. Their bungalows were full bodies of those tortured to death by the Pak army. We must never forget 3/n

#PartitionHorrorRemembranceDay
Here is the advert announcing Mohini Mills IPO/Public offer in 1919.

(as an aside, the Bengali reputation of being poor at business is very recent. Bengalis were famed for their business acumen from ancient times to early 20th century)

4/n

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More from @sanjeevsanyal

15 Aug
On the occasion of #IndependenceDay I also visited a college established by my great grandfather Nalinaksha Sanyal in Karimpur, Nadia. Met the enthusiastic faculty and inspected the facilities. 1/n
Then I visited Dhoradaha, the ancestral village of Nalinaksha Sanyal and saw a school that he established in name of his father Radhakanta. Also visited his home, part of which has survived. 2/n
The area is perhaps 300 km from Kolkata but there are no decent highways that go to Karimpur. So it is long drive, but a beautiful rural setting once you get there.
Read 5 tweets
15 Aug
To commemorate #IndependenceDay I am at the ancestral home of Basanta Biswas, the revolutionary who threw the bomb on Viceroy Hardinge in 1912. This house was built by his grandfather Digamber Biswas who had led the Indigo Revolt of 1859 1/n
This place is in a remote village in Nadia, and did not have a road till well into 20th century. The access to the house was by a rivulet. A branch of the Biswas family still loves here but the house is crumbling. 2/n
There is a small memorial to Basanta Biswas at the spot he was born. This section of the house fell down decades ago, so it is now open. 3/n
Read 4 tweets
16 May
A very interesting article on implications of the airborne nature of #COVID19. Ensuring ventilation in enclosed spaces may matter more than any other measure we are taking. 1/n

wired.com/story/the-teen…
This is why adding UV filters (incidentally very cheap) to central A/c systems and discouraging enclosed space congregation is important. May explain why Covid spiked in winter in cold countries and in summer here, and shows no seasonality on the equator (Brazil). 2/n
More research needed but this has important implications for what activities can be opened up quickly and what cannot. Also, how the high risk activities need to be redesigned. A/c of metro systems should be the single biggest focus in cities. 3/n
Read 11 tweets
7 Mar
I am glad that Africa too is waking up to its systematic depiction as a place that needs to be "saved" by the West through some overt/covert colonization. Always remember that the East India Company's brutalities in India was justified by "left-liberals" from JS Mill to Marx
Always be suspicious of Tarzans & Janes (or Phantoms) offering to protect you. They basically want to treat you as animals without agency..... and will extract a very high price by keeping you dependent
Since many people are tweeting about how Marx shed tears for colonial India. Well, he thought the colonial destruction of Indian civilization was a good thing as it paved the way for his "revolution"
Read 5 tweets
19 Feb
Early 20th century Bengalis were strongly inspired by Shivaji's resistance to foreign rule. Aurobindo ends an imaginary conversation between Shivaji & Jai Singh thus:

"I undermined an empire and it has not been rebuilt. I created a nation and it has not yet perished."

1/n
Rabindranath Tagore too wrote a poem celebrating Chhatrapati #Shivaji 's resistance to the Mughals.

The first stanza of the poem reads thus:
Similarly Swami Vivekananda was a great admirer of Shivaji and considered him among greatest kings of India. 3/n
Read 5 tweets
27 Jan
Even as we roll out the vaccines worldwide, Covid19 is putting up a tough rearguard. Everyone knows about dire situation in US, but second wave in Canada is killing 167/day & death rate is still rising (population adjusted, that is equivalent to 6k+ deaths/day for India). 1/n
Several SE Asian countries had so far managed to keep the pandemic under control, but Indonesia & Malaysia have seen very big jumps in recent weeks (although still not in European levels of infection) 2/n
The most unexpected is the sharp increase in UAE where vaccination is progressing well. With 3.6k new cases/day, it is Asia's hotspot on per capita basis (India equivalent would be 4.9 lakh/day). 3/n
Read 4 tweets

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