Difference in memory

Comparative Studies in Society and History

Volumn 48, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 139-168

  Sarkar, Mahua ^a  

^a BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

MEMORY; PERCEPTION; THEORETICAL STUDY;

EID: 33644999449     PISSN: 00104175     EISSN: 14752999     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0010417506000065     Document Type: Review

References (118)

1. Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), 182.
2. Popular Memory Group, "Popular Memory: Theory, Politics, Method," in The Oral History Reader, ed. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (London: Routlege, 1998), 75-86.
3. Ranajit Guha, Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997).
4. Ann L. Stoler and Karen Strassler, "Castings for the Colonial," Comparative Studies in Society and History 42 (Jan. 2000), 7-8.
5. Stoler and Strassler call this the "hydraulic model," in which memory is treated as "a repository of alternative histories and subaltern truths" (Stoler and Strassler, "Castings," 7).
6. Popular Memory Group 1998, 78.
7. See also Luisa Passerini, "Work Ideology and Consensus under Italian Fascism," in The Oral History Reader, ed. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (London: Routlege, 1998), 53-62.
8. Stoler and Strassler, "Castings," 4.
9. Passerini, "Work Ideology," 53-62.
10. Joan W. Scott, "The Evidence of Experience," Critical Inquiry 17 (Summer 1991), 777-78.
11. Michel Foucault, "Truth and Power," interview with Alessandro Fontana and Pasquale Pasquino, in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings, 1972-1977, ed. Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 117.
12. Also see Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), 104-25.
13. See also Stoler and Strassler, "Castings," 4-48.
14. Stoler and Strassler of course caution against reducing "acts of remembering... to transparencies about the making of the self" ("Castings," 8-9).
15. I have used pseudonyms for all the interviewees, with the exception of the late Begum Sufia Kamal, a well-known and respected literary figure in both Bangladesh and West Bengal.
16. The meetings with Nusrat Begum, which took place in her office in old Dhaka, were exceptions to this rule. Also, I met with Purnima Ganguly, Chaitali Bose, and Angana Mitra only once at a gathering at Jahan Ara Begum's house.
17. While I do not read the Arabic script of written Urdu, I have a working knowledge of the language in its everyday spoken form, which overlaps to a certain extent with commonly used Hindi. My first language is Bengali, and I also understand some Sanskrit.
18. M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, trans. C. Emerson and M. Holoquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981)
19. Tzvetan Todorov, Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogic Principle (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 56
20. Bruce Mannheim and Dennis Tedlock, "Introduction," in The Dialogic Emergence of Culture, ed. D. Tedlock and B. Mannheim (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 1-32.
21. I did not use the tape recorder for my short meetings with Nusreen Begum and Nandita Sinha. The description of my interactions with Purnima Ganguly, Chaitali Bose, and Angana Mitra at Jahan Ara Begum's house is based entirely on my notes taken on the evening of the meeting.
22. "Jihad" here means holy war.
23. Hunter's work was not representative of the situation of Muslims outside of East Bengal, but the administration used his work as such. Aparna Basu, The Growth of Education and Political Development in India, 1898-1920 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1974).
24. Rafiuddin Ahmed, The Bengal Muslims, 1871-1906: The Quest for Identity (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988).
25. Ibid., 95.
26. Ibid., 113-15.
27. For a recent discussion of the Hindu communal offensive against Muslims in the 1920s, see Pradip Kumar Datta, Carving Blocs: Communal Ideology in Early Twentieth-Century Bengal (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1999), esp. 148-237.
28. See also Paola Bacchetta, "Communal Property/Sexual Property: On Representations of Muslim Women in a Hindu Nationalist Discourse," in Forging Identities: Gender, Communities and the State, ed. Zoya Hassan (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1994), 193.
29. Mahua Sarkar, "Muslim Women and the Politics of (In)visibility in Late Colonial Bengal," Journal of Historical Sociology 14, 2 (June 2001), 226-50.
30. The formal end of colonial rule in India.
31. Muslims, who opposed the formation of Pakistan.
32. Park Circus was popular among the growing body of middle and upper middle class Muslim professionals in the 1930s and 1940s. Many of the women I interviewed still live in Park Circus; others spent at least some years in this area.
33. No equivalent term existed for Hindus. Nationalist Muslims were concerned not only with political unity with Hindus, but also with maintaining their own cultural and religious difference.
34. See Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992), 258-59.
35. Term used to refer to educated middle class Bengalis in general, but more likely to Hindus.
36. The riots from 16-20 August 1946.
37. Leela Bannerjee was the principal of Victoria School at that time. Jahan Ara describes her as "a very educated and accomplished woman in those days."
38. Personal communication, Calcutta, 1996.
39. Personal communication, Meherunnessa Begum, Calcutta, 1996.
40. For a more detailed treatment of the themes discussed in this paper see Mahua Sarkar, Visible Histories/Disappearing Women (forthcoming, Duke University Press).
41. The phrase could translate as either "they were brought by someone," or simply "they had arrived." I use "appeared" to reflect the ambiguity in the Bengali phrase.
42. An area south of Park Circus.
43. An area southwest of Park Circus.
44. See, Anita Inder Singh, The Origins of the Partition of India: 1936-1947 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), 181-87
45. Mushirul Hasan, Nationalism and Communal Politics in India, 1885-1930 (Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 1994)
46. David Page, Prelude to Partition: The Indian Muslims and the Imperial System of Control, 1920-1932 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999).
47. See also Datta, Carving Blocs.
48. League resolution of 29 July 1946, 138-39
49. quoted in Singh, The Origins, 181.
50. Hindu dominated but also represented non-League and nationalist Muslims, and other minorities such as the Sikhs and the Christians.
51. Report of the Commissioners of Police on the Disturbances of 16-20 August (Calcutta, 1946),
52. quoted in Richard Lambert, Hindu-Muslim Riots (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1951), 170.
53. Singh, The Origins, 182-83.
54. Ibid., ix.
55. The question of Bengali identity may be more complicated in Bangladesh today than my analysis reflects. However, my current concerns are with colonial Bengal and postcolonial India. I feel neither qualified nor inclined to address the issue of identity politics-presumably around issues of adequate Bengali-ness - in contemporary Bangladesh. Suffice it to say, all of the women I spoke to in Bangladesh have families who have lived in one or another part of undivided Bengal for at least several generations, and that, at least in their conversations with me, they neither claimed nor betrayed (with one exception whom I do not quote here) other forms of ethnic identification.
56. A veiling gown worn in public by women who observe purdah.
57. A major train station in the heart of Calcutta.
58. An uncovered four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage. Samsad Bengali-English Dictionary (Calcutta: Shishu Sahitya Samsad, 1995).
59. Qazi Nazrul Islam was one of the most respected Bengali poet-writers of the twentieth century.
60. Nusrat Begum, Dhaka, 1996
61. Ibid.
62. A well known Muslim intellectual and reformer who started a school for Muslim girls in Calcutta in 1911. Samsun Nahar Mahmud, Rokeya Jibani (Dhaka: Sahitya Prakash, 1996[1937]), 7.
63. Nusrat Begum, Dhaka, 1996.
64. A college for Muslim women established in 1939 in Calcutta by Fazlul Huq, the head of the Bengal ministry at that time. Shaheen Akhtar and Moushumi Bhowmik, eds. Zenana Mehfil: Bangali Musakman Lekhikader Nirbachita Rachana, 1904-1938 (Calcutta: Stree, 1998)
65. Sonia Nishat Amin, The World of Muslim Women in Colonial Bengal, 1876-1939 (New York: Leiden, 1996).
66. For a discussion of effects of purdah on women, see Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein, "Borka," in Matichur 1 (Calcuttta, 1905), 47-53,
67. repr. in Begum Rokeya Rachanabali, ed. Abdul Quadir, 2d ed. (Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1984).
68. Nusrat's father edited an important periodical for Muslim women.
69. Literally "family." It can also mean "wife."
70. Nazrul Islam.
71. This is the Bengali equivalent of the Urdu word purdah. Literally, it means curtain or veil, but it is used to refer to the observance of seclusion.
72. Joan Scott, "The Evidence of Experience," 775.
73. Also see Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
74. Women who observe strict purdah/parda, or seclusion.
75. Other discourses brought, directly or indirectly, into the time and space of our own. Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Language and Art (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980)
76. Mannheim and Tedlock, "Introduction," 16.
77. The figures for Muslim participation in schools were higher: In 1931-1932 it was 49.9 percent of total number of boys in primary and secondary schools, and 56.5 percent of total number of girls in primary schools. However, most of the students were concentrated in primary schools, dwindling to 16.8 percent for boys and a mere 1.6 percent for girls by class X (i.e., class 10). Report of the Moslem Education Advisory Committee, Government of Bengal (Alipore, Bengal: Bengal Government Press, 1934), 26-29; 52-53; 110-11.
78. For a discussion of chakri and its effects on the bhadralok in the nineteenth century, see Sumit Sarkar, "'Kaliyuga,' 'Chakri' and 'Bhakti': Ramkrishna and His Times," Economic and Political Weekly (18 July 1992), 1543-66.
79. Unit of weight equal to 180 grains. Samsad Bengali-English Dictionary (Calcutta: Shishu Sahitya Samsad, 1995).
80. One end of the sari or shari.
81. Meherunnessa Begum, Calcutta, 1996.
82. Nusreen Begum, Calcutta, 1996.
83. It was typical of the Calcutta middle and upper classes to rent a house in hill stations for vacations.
84. Here, Jahan Ara is referring to poorer Muslims who moved into the area after independence, often from the neighbouring state of Bihar.
85. Jahan Ara Begum, Calcutta, 1996.
86. A district in West Bengal.
87. The men of the Khan family.
88. Districts in East Bengal, now Bangladesh.
89. Month of Ramzan or Ramadan.
90. Rice cooked with meat.
91. In this case jat refers to caste. Eating beef is forbidden by Hinduism. Brahmins, members of the highest caste, are supposed to be vegetarian. For a discussion of the various uses of the word jat or jati in most Indian languages, see Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 166.
92. Jahan Ara Begum, Calcutta, 1996.
93. The well-known reformist family of the Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Thakur (Tagore).
94. Jahan Ara mentions the book Jashore-Khulnar Itikatha, probably, Satis Chandra Mitra, Yasohara-Khulnara Itihasa [The History of Jasore-Khulna vol. I & II, 3rd edition, Calcutta, 1963-1965]. She also mentions Sunil Gangopadhyay, a noted contemporary Bengali writer-novelist, who mentions this incident in an essay.
95. Jahan Ara Begum, Calcutta, 1996.
96. Alessandro Portelli, "What Makes Oral History Different," in The Oral History Reader, Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, eds. (London: Routlege, 1998), 68.
97. Literally "small folk," or poor or working people.
98. Derogatory terms used to refer to Muslims, usually converts.
99. The Educated, typically propertied, middle class, or gentry.
100. I consider it to be a purifier.
101. Begum Sufia Kamal, personal communication, Dhaka, 1996.
102. A wrap worn around the waist by men in parts of South and Southeast Asia.
103. Zohra Sultana, Calcutta, 1996.
104. Jahan Ara Begum, Calcutta, 2000.
105. Mahua Sarkar, "'Community' and 'Nation': Groping for Alternative Narratives." Economic and Political Weekly (27 Dec. 2003), 5335-37.
106. The names are all Hindu as were the women present. I have changed the names to preserve their privacy. Angana Mitra came a little later, so she was not present during some of the conversation recounted below.
107. I use "Jahan" as her pet name.
108. "I don't know," in Bengali.
109. Purnima Ganguly, Calcutta, Aug. 2000.
110. Sufia Kamal, Dhaka, 1996
111. Shafinaz Hossein, Dhaka, 1996.
112. I am referring here specifically to conversations with three women, Ila Chatterjee, Mala Sengupta, and Nandita Sinha, in Calcutta in 1996, although expressions of similar sentiments about Muslims are common among Hindu women in contemporary Calcutta.
113. A pilgrimage to Mecca.
114. The call to prayer, which is repeated five times each day, about fifteen minutes before the time of the specific namaaz (prayer).
115. Evening prayer, lasting until twilight fades.
116. That is, water that accumulates with heavy rain on the streets of Calcutta.
117. A similar incident had taken place during my first meeting with Meherunnessa Begum.
118. Jahan Ara has often commented on her comfort in expressing her strong faith in Islam in the presence of Hindus who are themselves religious. She feels that they understand and respect her religiosity, as she does theirs.