Table Of Contenta comprehensive history of
modern bengal
1700–1950
A Comprehensive History of
modern bengal
1700–1950
volume ii
edited by
sabyasachi bhattacharya
the asiatic society
1 Park Street q Kolkata 1 6
in association with
PRIMUS BOOKS
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PATNA RANCHI VARANASI
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First published 2020
ISBN: 978-93-89901-95-5 (hardback)
Published by Primus Books in association with The Asiatic Society
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Foreword xi
Introduction xiii
1. Caste in Bengal as Reflected in the Census,
1881–1951
ajit kumar danda 1
2. The Fate of Labour-Intensive Industries
under Colonialism
amiya kumar bagchi 21
3. Landed Proprietorship and the Evolution of Land
Legislation in Colonial Bengal
nariaki nakazato 44
4. Agrarian Relations and Peasant Economy in Bengal,
1793–1920
arun bandopadhyay 69
5. Rammohan Ray (Rammohun Roy) and His Times
bruce carlisle robertson 117
6. The Era of Vidyasagar
brian a. hatcher 150
7. Derozio, Young Bengal, and the Making of
Modern India, 1831–1861
rosinka chaudhuri 185
8. Hinduism under Interpretative Stress: A View from
Nineteenth-Century Bengal
amiya prosad sen 212
vi A Comprehensive History of Modern Bengal
9. Understanding Bengali Muslims through Literature,
1850–1947
amit dey 271
10. The Revolt of 1857 in Bengal: Events, Anxieties,
and Ambiguities
subhas ranjan chakraborty 308
11. ‘Hindu Law’: Invention of a Tradition and Legal
Modernity in India
nandini bhattacharyya-panda 356
12. The Idea of Justice and Evolution of the
Calcutta High Court, 1862–1915
mahua sarkar 382
13. The Nineteenth-Century Bengali Middle Class
prasanta ray 419
14. The Evolution of Bengali Language and Literature
in the Nineteenth Century
pabitra sarkar 483
15. Asiatic Society and its Project of the ‘Science’ of
‘Man’ in the Late Nineteenth-early Twentieth
Century: An Ambivalent Space
bishnupriya basak 558
16. Demographic Trends in Western Bengal, 1881–1951
saswata ghosh and gorky chakraborty 583
17. Development of Calcutta as a Commercial Metropolis
in the Nineteenth Century
kaustubh mani sengupta 629
18. Human-Tiger Conflict in the Forests of Bengal:
A Case Study of the Sundarbans
ranjan chakrabarti 659
19. Medicine and Public Health in Modern Bengal,
1850–1950
sujata mukherjee 697
Contents vii
20. The Development of Journalism and Public Opinion
in Bengal, 1818–1910
swapan basu 737
21. Changing Hindu Women: Bengal in the Long
Nineteenth Century
tanika sarkar 804
22. Some Aspects of Popular Culture in Colonial Bengal
sumanta banerjee 841
23. Banking and the Credit System in Bengal in the
Nineteenth Century
abhik r. ray 870
Brief Bibliographic References on Bengal History,
1967–2017
amiya kumar baul 895
Editor and Contributors 929
Index 935
List of Illustrations
plates
18.1 The Royal Bengal Tiger 668
B.1 Transliteration Method, Journal of the Asiatic Society 896
B.2 Transliteration Method, Journal of the Asiatic Society 897
maps
18.1 Historical map showing colonial Sundarbans 686
18.2 The Sundarbans today (the bold dotted line dividing
the land area is the international border between
West Bengal [Indian] and Bangladesh Sundarbans) 687
figures
16.1 Inter-district variation of selected population
statistics in western Bengal 586
16.2 District-wise sex ratio (female population per
1000 male population)—1881, 1921, and 1951,
Western Bengal 587
16.3 Inter-district variation of percentage of rural and
urban population 588
16.4 District-wise variation of population density,
1881–1951 urban population 590
16.5 District-wise population density, 1881–1951,
except Calcutta 591
16.6 Age-sex pyramids of western Bengal, 1901–51 594
16.7 Dependency ratio of western Bengal, 1901–51 595
16.8 Inter-district variation of age-sex composition,
1901–51 596
16.9 Inter-district variation of CWR 599
