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Oigitill l UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
HISTORY
and
THE PRESENT
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01gt'1edb UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
HISTORY
and
T H E PRESENT
Edited by
PARTHA CHATTERJEE
and
ANJAN GHOSH
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Contents
..
Preface
Vil
. Notes on Contributors
VIII
1 Inuoduction: History and the Present
PARTHA CHATTERJEE 1
2 On Retelling the Muslim Conquest of North India
24
SHAHID AMIN
3 Mythicising the White Man: Colonialism and Fantasy
in a Folk Tradition
44
SUNOAR KAALI
4 The Endangered Yakshi: Careers of an Ancient Art
Object in Modern India
TAPATI GUHA-THAKURTA 71
5 Genealogy, History and the Law: The Case of the
R.ajamala
108
INDRANI CHATTERJEE
6 Village Histories: Coalescing the Past and Present
144
NANDINI SUNDAR
7 The Two Pasts of Nasser's Peasants: Political Memories
and Everyday Life in an Egyptian Village
183
REEM SAAD
8 Writing the Riot: Between the Historiography and
Ethnography of Communal Violence in India
209
DEEPAK MEHTA
9 Re-Presenting Pasts: Santals in Nineteenth-century
Bengal
242
PRATHAMA BANERJEE
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Plates
(berween pp. 86 and 87)
1. The 'Didarganj Yakshi' (polished sandsconc, c.3rd century BC),
Patna Museum.
2. The 'Patna Yakshas' (sandstone, c.3rd century BC), Collection:
Indian Museum, Calcutta.
3. The constructed gateway and balustrade of the Bharhut stupa (red
sandstone, c.2nd century BC), in the opening Archaeological Gal
lery of the Indian Museum, Calcutta.
4. Bull and Lion pillar capitals of the Asokan columns at Rampurva,
Bihar (polished sandstone, 3rd century BC)-thc animal figures arc
seen removed off the top of the columns, still standing on site prior
to their removal to the Indian Museum, Calcutta.
5a. The 'Bcsnagar Yakshi' (sandstone, c.2nd century BC) standing on
SltC.
5b. The 'Bcsnagar Yakshi', as she now stands in the Entrance Hall of
the Indian Museum, Calcucra.
6. The 'Sudarshana Yakshi' from the railing pillars of the Bharhut
stupa (red sandstone, c.2nd century BC).
7. The 'Bhutcsvara Ya kshis', railing pillar sculptures from the Bhutc
svara temple site, Mathura (red sandstone, 2nd century AD).
8. 'Salabhanjika' figure (from Sonkh, near Mathura, red sandstone,
c.lst century AO), Government Museum, Mathura.
9. Figure of a woman from one of the temples of the Khajuraho com
plex (sandstone, c.11 th century AD}.
10. Lakshmi showering milk from her breast (red sandstone, Mathura,
2nd century AD), National Museum, New Delhi.
11. Woman wciting a letter (sandstone, Khajuraho, c. lOth century AD),
Indian Museum, Calcutta.
12. 'The Didarganj Yakshi', as she appears in the frontispiece of Pramod
Chandra's exhibition catalogue, The SC"U/pture ofI ndia, 3000 B. C-
1300 A.D.).
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Preface
he essays in this volume were presented in earlier versions and
discussed at a conference at the Centre for Studies in Social
Sciences, Calcutta, in February 1999. We are immensely grateful
to the Sephis programme of Amsterdam for its generous financial
support to the conference as well as the preparation of this volume.
It is a rare occasion to have historians from other countries of the
South interact with and interrogate the work ofS outh Asian historians
in South Asia: the Sephis support made this possible. We are also
grateful to Mahmood Mamdani, Dilip Menon and Tanika Sarkar,
who participated in the Calcutta conference but whose papers unfonu
nately could not be included in this volume.
The essays published here went through several drafts and revisions:
we are especially grateful to Gautam Bhadra, Pradip Bose, Kaushik
Ghosh and T apati Guha-Thakuna who wrote detailed comments on
one or more of the essays.
Dr P.S. Datta and Susanta Ghosh were extremely generous in ex
tending their warm hospitality to conference participants: our sincere
thanks to them. The staff oft he Centre for Studies in Social Sciences,
Calcutta, helped in numerous ways to facilitate the conference and
this volume: we thank them all.
Most of those present at the conference remarked on the unusual
verve and energy that flowed through the discussions, distinguished
in particular by the presence of an outstanding group of younger
historians and anthropologists. We hope this volume will contribute
in an equally engaged way to the ongoing debates on this vital topic:
history's relationship with the present.
PARTHA CHATTERJEE
ANJAN GHOSH
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Notes on Contributors
is Professor of History at the University of Delhi. He
SHAHID AMIN
is an editorial board member of Subalurn Studies and the author of
Event, Metaphor, Mnnory: Chauri Chaura 1922-1992(0UP, 1995).
is Fellow in History at the Centre for Studies
PRATHAMA BANERJEE
in Social Sciences, Calcutta.
is the Raoul WallenbcrgAssistant Professor in
INDRANI CHATIERJEE
Human Rights in the History Department of Rutgers, the State Uni
versity ofN ew Jersey, USA. She is the author Gmdn, Slavery and Law
in Colonial India (OUP, 1999).
is Professor of Political Science and Director
PARTHA CHATTERJEE
oft he Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. He is the author
of The Nation and Its Fragmmts(Princeton, 1993), and A Princely lm
of
portor? The KumarofBhawal andt he Secret History Indian Nationalism
(Permanent Black and Princeton Univcrsiry Press, 2002).
is Fellow in Political Science at the Centre for Studies
ANJAN GHOSH
in Social Sciences, Calcutta.
is Fellow in History at the Centre for Stu
TAPAT! GUHA·THAKURTA
dies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. She is the author of The Malting of
a New 'Indian' Art (Cambridge, 1992).
teaches Tamil language and literature at American
SUNDAR KMLI
College, Madurai.
is a Reader in Sociology, University of Delhi, and
DEEPAK MEHTA
the author of Work, Ritual Biography: A Muslim Community in North
India (OUP, 1997).
is on the Research Faculty ofT he Social Research Center,
REEM SM D
The American Universi"ty in Cairo, Egypt.
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