2010/01/01 by Iftekhar Iqbal · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East #Anthropological Studies and Insights #South Asian Studies and Conflicts #Peasant #Colonialism #Historiography #Bengali #Nationalism #Subaltern #Politics #BENGAL #Resistance (ecology) #Injustice #Gender studies #Agency (philosophy) #Power (physics) #Revolutionary movement #History #Political science #Sociology #Social science #Law #Philosophy #Ecology #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1057/9780230289819_4
openalex publication_date 2010/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the famous nineteenth-century Bengali polemicist, contended that the Bengalis lacked the physical as well as the mental stamina necessary to rise up against British colonial power in India. But he also argued that even if the Bengalis were weak and unfit, they could still emerge politically successful by employing inner strength of mind, or bahubal, which consisted of the qualities of initiative, unity, courage and perseverance. 1 Bankim proved himself correct. As Ranajit Guha has shown, the vigorous anti-colonial movement of the bhadralok in the early twentieth century reflected the fact that the Bengali nation had at last acquired the quality of bahubal. 2 However, the recent peasantization of the historiography of colonial Bengal raises issues with the categorical limit of Bankim’s bahubal. The restoration of peasant agency tells that the peasantry already possessed the chemistry of bahubal for which Bankim was waiting in the emerging nationalist frame. This was poignantly represented in the Faraizi movement, which forms the subject matter of this chapter. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.