Calcutta

The discourse of untouchability has received much academic attention in post-colonial India from sociologists like M.N. Srinivas to Gopal Guru in the recent past. Guru, unlike his predecessors, has tried to develop a space for interrogation of different theoretical concepts from the viewpoint of the category ‗dalit‘. In one of his works, he proposes the need for the development of an archaeological framework for the study of the phenomenon of untouchability. Saying that, he mentions that such a study can only take place where untouchability is not openly practiced (unlike in rural areas where untouchables have to mark their body and spaces they inhabit). Following Guru‘s initial steps, I shall try to formulate the archaeology of untouchability in a modern urban space like Calcutta.

Today we tend to see India as the largest democracy on the subcontinent of Asia and our natural ally along with our other democratic ally, Great Britain. India and the independent countries that were created out of the British Raj, namely, Pakistan and Bangladesh (but not Burma, Myanmar today) are members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. But this present-day understanding fails to take into account the history of empire and ethnicity that antedates World War Two. Modern India is the product of two empires that preceded India’s independence, the Mughal Empire and the British Raj. The Moghuls consolidated Islam first introduced by Arab traders into a population that formerly had been primarily Hindu with offshoot of Buddhism. The Raj consolidated the various major linguistic groups (Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, and Tamil) along with numerous minor languages into a single political system and eventually into three nations: primarily Hindu India, mainly Buddhist Burma, and largely Muslim Pakistan (with Bengali-speaking Bangladesh becoming independent from Urdu-speaking Pakistan).

Both the British American colonies and India were settled by Europeans under a similar system of joint-stock companies: the Virginia Company and Massachusetts Bay Company in the case of America and the British East India Company in the case of India. The East India Company established its own army with native recruits and obtained the right to tax the native peoples of India. To run the bureaucracy, it established, the company established schools to train an elite native population. While some company employees married Indian women and adopted India culture, Christian missionaries sought to anglicize the Hindu population and stamp out such traditions as female infanticide and sati (the tradition of widows committing suicide on their husband’s funeral pyres). However, the British made exceptions in the case of the princely states ruled by minority maharajas, who tended to exploit their native population.

In both British North America and India, the corporate structure of government was replaced by royal government in the early eighteenth century in North America and in the mid-nineteenth century in India. The United States gained its independence from Britain during the American Revolution, and ever since it has been a champion of anti-colonialism while buildings its own territorial empire. At a time in the nineteenth century when the United States was expanding from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts, Great Britain was building an even greater overseas, colonial empire with India as the “Jewel in the Crown.”

In order to defend its ‘Jewel in the Crown”, Britain acquired Burma as shield against the French in Indochina, came in conflict with Tsarist Russia in what has been called the “Great Game,” secured the shortest route to India by way of the Suez Canal by establishing a protectorate over Egypt and so-called mandates under the League of Nations in the Middle East (Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq). After World War Two with the dismantling of the British Empire, the United States replaced Britain as a world power. But we have inherited a world created by previous empires that have conquered and consolidated various ethnic minorities into multi-ethnic nations not of their making. In this modern world, despite our becoming a world power, we must not lose sight of the principle of self-determination on which our nation is based.

Now a day number of patients of Hemorrhagic Stroke, diseases causing physical damage and even death, are increasing very rapidly. Considering growth rate of the patients of Hemorrhagic Stroke it has been considered as one of the thrust areas of investigation in medical sciences. Investigators from other areas, not directly associated with medical practices, are also trying to explain causes of Hemorrhagic Stroke from their stand point. Here authors tried to visualize the problem Hemorrhagic Stroke from mathematical point of view.

ABSTRACT This article takes a deep look into the heart and soul of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and sheds light on her mystical communion with God. It discusses the Saint's impressive private vow of 1942, her momentous inspiration or 'call within a call' of 1946, and her long and painful experience of interior darkness.

Deep in the heart of a city lies its guarded secrets—amidst winding alleys, behind curtained and shuttered windows, underneath the thick cobwebs of time, like a forgotten jewel, ready to be rediscovered, reemerging from the folds of time, to sparkle and dazzle once again. Such are the secrets that Calcutta nurtures and most of them are little known. Being a colonial city, Calcutta has had its share of colonial architecture in the form of buildings, schools, theatres, markets, churches and so on. The churches were mostly modelled on the European architectural styles and they range from the Portuguese to the Greek Orthodox Church. But what makes these churches undoubtedly beautiful, is their stained glass windows. Stained glasses are not just confined to the churches but are seen in some synagogues and mosques as well. The local Bengalis drew inspiration from such artistry and most of the old heritage mansions of the affluent rich have colourful glass decorations over their doors or windows.

The paper wishes to address one of the key themes of the volume—the representation of the self and the other. The theme will be studied in the backdrop of the forced migration from East Bengal (present Bangladesh) to West Bengal (in India) following the vivisection of British India into two nation-states—India and Pakistan—in 1947. The event triggered off large-scale cross-border migration on the Bengal and Punjab sector in India, with as the surging tide of uprooted mass lashing the shores of these two states. Concentrating on the Bengal side, the paper will try to capture the many-faceted representations of the migrants through the lens of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’; the guest and the host, i.e. the local people of West Bengal and the migrants from across the border. Culling information from Government documents, autobiographies, oral interviews and memoirs, the paper will focus on how each perceived the other and whether more than half a century and subsequent generations later such perceptions have undergone any change.The representation of the ‘Bangals’, as the Bengali Hindus from East Pakistan are popularly referred to as by the ‘Ghatis’ (Bengali Hindus of West Bengal), in the latter’s psyche, too, is multi-faceted—sympathy towards the migrants, at being uprooted from their ancestral home, antagonism at being ‘the Government’s favored son’ in terms of job reservations and financial help which in turn fostered the feeling of ‘outsiders infringing on our rights, occupying our lands and making life miserable for us.’ Coming towards the other end of the spectrum—how did the migrants view themselves? Did they, too, consider themselves as unjust victims of the political power-play? Did they, too, view the Government as the benevolent patriarch and accept the help offered to them without so much of a whimper? Did they view the local people as cold and indifferent? In other words did they subscribe to the representations of the Government and the locals or did they construct an identity of their own? These are some of the aspects of representation of forced displacement of the Bengali Hindus from across the international border, which have been dealt with in the course of this paper.

The article is devoted to the practical of preparation the unknown story of the Russian Muslims to Islamic Congress, which was held in the fall of 1923 in Calcutta, India. Based on previously unpublished archival material, the author draws a conclusion about the interests of a group of national-religious elite of the Volga-Ural Turks, and the reasons why these and similar ambitions could not be realized.