This article was downloaded by: [Ams/Murcia Humanity]On: 16 October 2014, At: 04:34Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

World ArchaeologyPublication details, including instructions for authorsand subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwar20

Community boundary,secularized religion andimagined past in Bangladesh:Archaeology and historiographyof unequal encounterSwadhin SenPublished online: 15 Feb 2012.

To cite this article: Swadhin Sen (2002) Community boundary, secularized religion andimagined past in Bangladesh: Archaeology and historiography of unequal encounter,World Archaeology, 34:2, 346-362, DOI: 10.1080/0043824022000007143

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0043824022000007143

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and viewsexpressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of theContent should not be relied upon and should be independently verified withprimary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of theContent.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is

expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

Community boundary, secularizedreligion and imagined past inBangladesh: archaeology andhistoriography of unequal encounter

Swadhin Sen

Abstract

The past, as constructed by the modern power of colonialism and nationalism, has essentialized theideals of nation-state through the process of homogenizing the polysemous identities of non-Western societies and religions. The power of this imagined past is particularly manifested in theinstitutionalization of the disciplines of archaeology and history, and has acted to �x communitarianboundaries within the conditions and structures of inequality. The analysis of the part played byarchaeological narratives in this process of �xation within the domain of nation-state has not evenbeen initiated in the context of Bangladesh. This paper examines the conditions and processes inand by which the secularized notion of religion and representations of the past have been persuadedand coerced to invoke the ‘pure’ ideals of nation while simultaneously subordinating other notionsof collective identity.

Keywords

Modern power; nation-state; colonialist archaeology; nationalist archaeology; secularized religion;Bangladesh.

The lawyer asked Kamalakanta, ‘What jati are you?’

K: Am I a jati?Lawyer: What jati do you belong to?K: To the Hindu jati.Lawyer: Oh, come now! What varna?K: A very very dark varna.Lawyer: What the hell is going on here! Why did I have to call a witness like this? Isay do you have jat?K: Who can take it from me?

The magistrate saw that the lawyer was getting nowhere. He said, ‘You know there are

World Archaeology Vol. 34(2): 346–362 Community Archaeology© 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online

DOI: 10.1080/004382402200000714 3

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

many kinds of jati among the Hindus, such as Brahman, Kayastha, Kaibarta. Which oneof these jati do you belong to?’

K: My lord! All this is the lawyer’s fault! He can see I have the sacred thread aroundmy neck I have said my name is Chakrabarti. How I am to know that he will still notbe able to deduce that I am a Brahman?

The Magistrate wrote, ‘Caste: Brahman’(Kamalakanter Jabanbandi, by Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, trans. by and cited

in Chatterjee (1999: 220))

The notion of community is ambiguous and problematic in the sociopolitical narrativesof Bangladesh. This is particularly due to the hegemonic hangover of colonial and post-colonial modernizing transmutations and modi�cations. In any discussion – academic,political, developmental, religious – the idea and expression of community identity oftenembodies contradictions and incoherence. The ways boundaries and identities areinvoked, rapidly shift, slide, and overlap. As a result, the principles by which solidarity issought are articulated, in the conditioning structures and processes, in different trajec-tories. These ambiguous contradictions, I claim, derive from the careful and selectiveconstructions of dominant modern ideologies about the past, community and religion.

This crisis of identity is conspicuous in the politico-religious discourse of the nation-state.The ‘modern’ and ‘liberal’ nation-state expresses deep concerns over issues of communalviolence, both religious and ethnic. It tries to negotiate these issues through its disciplininginstitutions, including the army, bureaucracy, constitution, education, police, law, but aboveall through the institutionalized practices of archaeology and history. The political discourse,when it comes to terms with the voting system of liberal democracy, usually makes recourseto religious and ethnocentric representations, symbols, practices and words. I would like tomake explicit that these manifestations of differences are not coincidental, nor can they canbe homogenized by simply labelling them as political misuse by a few fundamentalistsections of society. I think this ambiguity is the historical outcome of the violent impositionand hegemonic appropriation of a Western liberalist secularization thesis within the idealsof a post-colonial ‘modern’ nation-state. The historical processes and structures of imposi-tion and appropriation within the unequal power relations of modernity with its ‘�exiblestrategy’ (see Mackey 1999: 17) are the central issues of this paper.

The historicity of this identity crisis is shown in the above extract from a novel writtenin the colonial period. The central �gure Kamalakanta here mocks the rational logic ofcolonial knowledge that tries to govern everything it faces in other cultures in its ownterms. The way modern power tries to dominate and hegemonize creates enormous prob-lems for determining the identity of jati, which can be glossed in English as ‘community’.But, crucially, jati and community are not synonymous. Since colonial powers constructedand institutionalized differences and ambiguity within the narratives of jati, and samaj andsampraday (the English translation of all the three is community), I argue that anydiscussion on community and archaeology must begin with an understanding of colonial-ism, not as a particular moment of experience in the past, but as a discourse of the unequalpower encounter between the ‘West’ and ‘non-West’. In this paper I shall try to show howthe colonial inequalities in power generated different principles of solidarity and different

Community boundary, secularized religion and imagined past in Bangladesh 347

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

notions of religiosity among different collectives. Each collective has sought their auth-ority and validity by constructing the past in their own terms and through institutionaliz-ing the systematic discourses of archaeology and history.

The constructive power of colonialism can be seen in the institutionalization of thecommunity itself. Older forms of community were forced, persuaded, coerced and disci-plinized into a modern and secular community of nation. In my opinion, religion, in a pecu-liarly secularized and modernized form, has emerged as the most important location for thestruggle and confrontation of national collective identity. In the last two decades, the Subal-tern Studies Group and many others have made signi�cant contributions to understandingthe colonial power relations of unequal encounters and their multi-dimensional modeswithin the discursive domain of religion (see Bhadra and Chattopadhyay 1998; Guha 1982a,1982b, 1983a). But, in Bangladesh, archaeologists have not yet attempted to understand theprocesses by which the boundaries of identity within the space of community are eliminated,as well as concurrently rede�ned, by the discursive powers of modern western categories.

In this paper, most importantly, I shall address the status of religion in relation to thediscursive spaces of regularization and normalization by modern western power in thehistorical process of �xing community identity, considering in particular the domains ofjati, samaj and sampraday. In this context, selected data from ethnographic surveysconducted by the author and students from the Department of Archaeology, Jahangirna-gar University, will be discussed.

Ground of understanding

Contextualizing jati, samaj and sampraday

Jati, samaj and sampraday are different aspects of, or ways of representing, collective soli-darity. The invocation of collective solidarity through these notions is contextuallyde�ned. The collective represented is principally determined by an eternal bond ofkinship – not by individual will. Chatterjee (1999: 221) has shown how in a dictionary‘compiled according to European models so as to conform to the “modern” forms ofknowledge’, six distinct senses of jati have been included, among which ‘nation’ is one.Etymologically, the word jati comes from Öjan (to originate, to be born) and it is a nounthat literally means ‘birth’ or ‘origin’. When someone talks of krishak samaj (peasantsociety) it does not simply refer to a professional collectivity. The identity of this samajdepends largely on the context in which it is invoked. For example, in the organizingprocedure of a rebellion, the selfhood of the krishak samaj might be invoked accordingto the religion/caste/territoriality/symbol or a combination of these, depending on thenature of the power against and within which it is structured. The same could be said forthe identity of sahebdhani sampraday, where identity is constructed by following aparticular guru/rituals/cosmology/material, or symbolic practice/protest against a particu-lar dominant sect or within dominant power structures, or by a combination of these.

Past and present: archaeology and the nation-state

In 1947, after almost 200 years of colonial domination, India was partitioned into twoseparate independent states. The use of the terms ‘independence’ and ‘partition’ is very

348 Swadhin Sen

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

signi�cant here. In the con�icts and negotiations among dominant ‘liberal’ or ‘secular’narratives of independence the religious connotation was more or less explicit. The ‘inde-pendent’ modern states of Pakistan and India were born out of dubious compromises tocon�icts among religious (and secular) collectives, principally of the Hindus, the Muslimsand the colonial state. Although shadowed under the discourse of the nation-state, theperiod of independence was marked by severe communal riots between Hindus andMuslims, and between Muslims and Sikhs. Two of the largest states of colonial India,Bengal and Punjab, were partitioned on the basis of communal majoritarian territoriality.The eastern part of Bengal was rede�ned as East Pakistan. Very soon after ‘independence’the struggle between the two principal collective identities or nations, Pakistani andBangali, became overt, and in 1971, after nine months of freedom struggle, the state ofBangladesh emerged. Throughout these processes of destruction and assertion, religiousand ethnic identities were the central theme of reference. The invocation of religiousidentity was countered and negated through the secularized politico-cultural terms ofBangali nationhood. Moreover, after 1975 the identity of the Bangladeshi nation, as acounter to the Bangali nation, was propagated by a democratized military junta on thegrounds of liberalized ethnic and religious discourses. Bangali nationalism is a Hindu onethat not only negates the ideals of Muslim identity but also other ‘minority’ ‘tribal’ iden-tities within the state of Bangladesh.

Throughout this long period of struggle, from the colonial period until now, archae-ology and history have played a signi�cant role in constructing the ambiguity and con�ictsin which these nationalistic discourses are based. Both of these disciplines, in an inter-connected way, have helped institutionalize the narratives of nation-state as the only validand pure form of identity. Presently, state laws and regulations are being implemented bythe Department of Archaeology, a directorate under the Ministry of Culture, and by theNational Museum, an autonomous body with direct links to the same ministry. All fourpublic universities and many government and non-government colleges have a history andan Islamic history department, though there is an intrinsic imbalance of academic powerand status. Only one university has a department of archaeology and this particular quan-ti�ed position gives this department authority (and as well as oppositions) in the produc-tion of knowledge. A few non-government organizations, like the Asiatic Society ofBangladesh, the Barendra Research Society and the International Centre for the Studyof Bengal Art (ICSBA), are taking an active role in the struggle to invoke an authori-tarian, ambiguous and ambitious national identity against and in relation to the identitiesof jati, samaj and sampraday.

Archaeology and identity: introduction to a process of colonialist and nationalistconstruction

Sarkar (1997) and Chatterjee (1999) have provided a vivid explanation for how the inter-dependence of discourses of colonial power, nationalistic identity, religion and past havebeen established through the systematization of the disciplines of history and archaeology.The Western conception of ‘unilinear progression of time’ was inscribed onto the pre-colonial Indian conception of cyclic and concrete time. The superiority of Western civiliz-ation and the essentiality of the colonial civilizing project were very carefully constructed

Community boundary, secularized religion and imagined past in Bangladesh 349

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

using explicit identi�cation with an ‘ancient’ ‘Hindu-Buddhist’ past, and its subsequentdegradation in the following ‘medieval’ ‘Muslim’ period. These clear ‘religious’ but‘modern’ connotations were used to establish the legality and legitimacy of Western idealsof state introduced by the colonial powers. This was done by constructing the past in sucha way that the ‘golden ages’ of the ‘ancient’ period were characterized by a centralizedstate apparatus. This state apparatus, in that remote past, was achieved when Indianscame in contact with the more ‘developed’ Aryan (and European) cultures. That is why,I say, these narratives of past suggest colonial power is redemptive.

Although the colonial project of archaeology and history aimed for greater ‘surveil-lance’ and ‘control’ over the various forms of jati, samaj and sampraday, ironically thenationalist struggle started by appropriating the same Western ideals of state andprogress. Struggle for a ‘sovereign territory’ relating to a national selfhood was primarilybased on a ‘mythical’ and ‘�ctitious’ construction of past. Communal (religious/sectar-ian/ethnic/caste-related) identities were deconstructed through selective appropriation ofcolonial ‘facts’. Brahmanical Hindu ideals were overtly or covertly interwoven into thenarratives of ‘secular’ Indian and Bangali national solidarity (Chatterjee 1999; Sarkar1997). In this process, a colonial rastra (state) and its modernity were placed in opposi-tion to the imagined high caste, masculine, autonomous domain of Bharotiyo (Indian)samaj. Paradoxically, this imagined domain was ‘nostalgic’, as well as modern, in the wayit was represented as equivalent to, or an inspiration for, Indian nationhood.

In the subsequent construction of Pakistani nationalistic ideals and ‘secular’ Bangalinational identity archaeological and historical narratives were constructed in order toundermine the Western and Indian construction of Muslim tyranny in the ‘medieval’period. The ‘syncretic’ initiatives of the Independent Sultans were highlighted throughdetailed analyses of coins and epigraphs. The ‘progressive’ outlook of the Muslim Sultansand the Mughal emperor Akbar were the principal areas of archaeological interest. Theproposed religious ‘tolerance’ and ‘statesmanship’ of these leaders replicated the ‘Hindu-Buddhist golden age’. In the same way, in the period after 1971, the historical and archaeo-logical narratives of appropriation and rejection have been used to propagate the idealsof nation within the auspices of the modern state. By essentializing a particular notion of‘modern’ religion and negating others, religious identity has been made the most import-ant locus for constructing similarities and differences.

Throughout the last two decades, archaeology has been under the jurisdiction of asingle legitimate modern institution, the state, which acts (or refrains from acting) withinthe same modes of constructive and amalgamating power relations present between thenation and other fragmented ‘impure’ collectives. However, there are some markeddifferences between the present state of archaeological research and those of the colonialand early nationalistic phases, in the conditions and processes they employ for �xingdifferent communitarian boundaries. If a line is drawn between practice in the �eld andinterpretation in written form, present contributions of archaeology to historiographycould be identi�ed as very different from those of the past. The meticulously detailed and‘scienti�cally’ reasoned methods of forceful (and persuasive) construction and re-construction of the past perpetually followed by the colonialists and nationalists within adiffusionist paradigm are absent now in both of�cial and non-of�cial practice. Presentpractice is burdened with institutionalized corruption, destruction and violence to the pastand its representations. For determining the boundary of the nation and for asserting the

350 Swadhin Sen

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

power of this boundary, the dominant thematic features of colonial and nationalistic para-digms are being reproduced in the texts, very often without the sort of ‘rationalization’provided in the the earlier nationalistic culture-historical approach (see Sen (2001) for abrief analysis of state-oriented archaeological research in present Bangladesh). With fewexceptions, research papers published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh;Pratnatattva, the journal of the Department of Archaeology, Jahangirnagar University;Journal of Bengal Art published from the International Centre for the Study of BengalArt (ICSBA); and very rare, slim and late publications of the Department of Archaeology(Miah and Musa 2001; Miah 2000; Alam and Miah 1999; Hossain et al. 1995; Ali and Bhat-tacharjee 1986; Ahmed 1979) present the same spirit of disseminating older myths of‘glory’ and ‘tolerance’ in uncritical ways.

It might be useful to cite a few examples from the recent domain of archaeological prac-tice. Historian-archaeologists like A. K. M. Shahnawaz have tried to oppose the view of someolder nationalist historians (e.g. Ramesh Chandra Majumder) that Muslim rulers in India,particularly in Bengal, massively destroyed the Hindu temples, and thereafter built mosqueswith the dismantled pieces (Shahnawaz 1999: 162). Using archaeological sources, such ascoins, sculpture and epigraphs that use Hindu-Buddhist symbols, Shahnawaz has argued thatduring the Sultanate regime the reuse of stone panels with Hindu motifs or sculptured Hindudeities in mosques and tombs of monarchs and saints, and the use of Sanskrit scripts in stoneinscriptions of the same period, clearly disproves earlier opinions. Rather than supportingthe assumption of the ‘conservatism’ and ‘fanaticism’ of the Muslim sultans (and religioustension of that samaj), the evidence for their appropriation of the ideals and symbols of otherreligious communities demonstrates their tolerant and liberal visions. It is thereforesuggested that the samaj of that time was marked by communal harmony (Shahnawaz 1999:111–87). The use of ‘Hindu’ sculptured panels on the plinth of the central shrine of SompuraMahavihara has been analysed in the same way, suggesting that the borrowing of these motifsfrom other jati or dharma illustrates the ‘secular’ ideals of the Pala dynasty.

These processes of secularizing archaeological narratives, I must say, assume thatcommunal tension expresses itself only in the form of destruction, and appropriation indicates the syncretic progressive nature of rulers. Thereafter, by substantiating de-contextualized archaeological materials, they state that the rulers’ psychology was also theyardstick for measuring the character of the whole samaj. That is why this evidence alsoindicates the mutual tolerance of rival sects in the past, especially in the ‘Medieval’ periodwhich some Indian nationalist and secular intellectuals identify as a time of destruction ofrival religious symbols by Muslims (Majumder 1966: 77). This apoliticized thesis deliber-ately ignores the inequalities in power relations between two or more communities, inwhich a later one is trying to penetrate into the older structures of the former dominantideals of community. On the contrary, the appropriation of rival symbols and represen-tations might explicitly portray that the rivalry and con�ict was right there, or there wouldhave been no need to amalgamate contrasting religious symbols into the representationnot only of religious identity but also of authority and dominance over other jati.

Another important feature of this prevailing nationalistic archaeological practice inBangladesh is the of�cial perception of the archaeological record through astructural/non-structural opposition. This opposition is related to the mode of represen-tation in the construction of nationalistic ideology. A careful re-reading of texts on thehistory and archaeology of the post-independence period suggests that monumental

Community boundary, secularized religion and imagined past in Bangladesh 351

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

archaeological relics visible on the surface (i.e. mosques, temples, etc.) have been givenmore prominence in academic research than sub-surface features. Even when excavationis carried out to reveal sub-surface features, preference is given to sites with prominentstructures or to the unveiling of structures, rather than to other features and forms ofevidence from the same spatial context. This is done by following a very peculiar methodof vertical excavation that destroys everything except intact walls of structures. In thismanner, representation of a monumental ancestry is easily formulated by producingdetailed measurements of the structures and meticulous dynastic genealogies based onuncritical readings of epigraphic and numismatic data.

This mode is exempli�ed by the fact that most of the monuments of archaeological inter-est are primarily ‘religious’ in character. By reproducing and representing these monu-ments through protection, restoration and conservation, it becomes easy for governmentarchaeologists and élite practitioners to veil the failure of the state and élite academics touse proper methods of analysis and interpretation or to follow ‘Western’-devised methodsof conservation and restoration. This particular mode of representation creates a stereo-typical glorious past by selectively implementing present state laws and regulations regard-ing the protection and conservation of archaeological remains. It is noteworthy that theselaws have remained unchanged since the colonial period. This process of engagement withthe past is contributing very actively and successfully to maintaining the hegemony anddomination of the nation-state through presenting and disseminating the myth of a ‘hybrid’glorious national past as evidenced in religious archaeological materials (see Shahnawaz1999; Hasan 1980, 1989; Karim 1985; Michell 1984). Although the ‘medieval’ period is givenpreference by academics, being �exible the state power also contributes extensively to theexcavation and restoration of Buddhist monuments. The ‘syncretic’ and ‘secular’ identityof a ‘religion’-oriented majoritarian narrative is thus retained.

Furthermore, the ideology of capital with its uneven distribution in the context of glob-alizing a developing ‘Third World’ nation-state is working in the �eld of archaeologicalpractice with the moral ‘protection of world heritage’. Transnational agencies likeUNESCO provide the only legitimate authority for determining what should be protectedwithin the category of heritage of global human jati, and how these categories should beconserved following the ICOMOS charters. These charters epitomize the role of modernpower in universalizing the modes, as constructed by the West, to represent the past insuch a way that the past is retained and con�ned as a distant and discrete territory, not asa part of the continuum of valorized time and space (see Metcalf 1997: 12–25).

In Bangladesh, two sites, Sompura Mahavihara and Saithgumbad Mosque, arepresently undergoing scrupulous conservation as global heritage sites. In these cases,although the universal ethics of protection and conservation have been accepted asauthentic norms, the modi�cations and distortions in the structures carried out by theauthorized agents doing this job (e.g. department and museums) clearly violate theseethics. This is because, since colonial intervention, Western universalization has createdso many contradictions within the hegemonized post-colonial state institutions that theyhave become incapable of following the prescribed universalized norms. The bureaucraticcorruption, inef�ciency and contradictions of post-colonial administrative power in any‘Third World’ state illustrate this phenomenon, and modern power just laughs at thesecontradictions and incapability, as it wants them to be like this.

352 Swadhin Sen

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

Theorizing collective identity

Collectiveness under the derivative discourse of modern power

If we try to understand the dilemma of Kamalakanta presented at the beginning of thispaper, and the complexities involved in de�ning and using the terms jati, samaj andsampraday discussed in the previous section, we can �nd hints as to how homogenizationand contestation within the social space of modern nation-state power relations havetransformed the very notion of community into an indeterminate and ambiguous entity.

The contextually determined construction of jati, samaj and sampraday stands incontrast to the modern mode, although many of its connotations are incorporated in itsdiscursive domain. Sudipta Kaviraj (1992: 20–5) has analysed some very important aspectsof modernist and pre-colonial paradigms of imagined communities. He identi�ed pre-colonial forms of community as ‘fuzzy’. These are ‘groups to which one does not have tomake an interest-actuated decision to belong’. Following Toennies’ sense, he identi�edthis form as gemeinschaften . In contrast, the new form of community where solidarity isbased on a convergence of individual interest is called gesellschaften. Kaviraj (1992: 26)has also shown that these earlier communities had fuzzy boundaries because their collec-tive identities were not territorially based, and that later forms of community depend ona representation of primordiality derived from earlier forms.

The assumption of the rastra/samaj opposition and an autonomous domain of samaj by theBangale nationalist archaeologists and historiographers were nothing but the act of appro-priating primordiality in order to assert greater hegemonic capability. The borrowed andtransplanted variety of community principles introduced con�icting and interconnectedprocesses of unequal power relations between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft associations;between ‘constant perfectibility of rational actions’, and ‘the repetitiveness of traditional acts’(Weber 1947: 136–7, cited in Kaviraj 1992: 21). These processes of contestation between thetwo forms of communities were explicitly expressed in the processes of constructing the past.

In understanding the structuring processes of these interconnections and transform-ations, the totality and complexity of the jurisdiction of modern power and the nation-state should come into the question. Clearly, the mode of the power is related to theepistemology of modern nation-states with �xed territorial boundaries. Asad’s words areof vital importance here:

For although boundaries may not be �xed for ever, the process by which their �xing,maintenance, and alteration occur – by which they are transcended or transgressed –are continuous facts of . . . political power. [The disputes over boundary �xing] indicatethat political and military power is able to redraw boundaries in the face of oppositionor defend those boundaries effectively. All such disputes presuppose the process ofboundary �xing.

(Asad 2000: 6–7)

Secularized religion and the dilemma of non-western modern-liberal identity

I don’t know whether Kamalakanta would have understood the above point or not. If hedid, he would also have understood that efforts to �x the boundary of his jat were alsoattempts to assert his religious identity.

Community boundary, secularized religion and imagined past in Bangladesh 353

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

Many Western scholars have wanted to visualize nationalism as secularized religion orto present the view that religion is used, in the form of symbols, practices, words andrepresentation, to invoke nationalistic sentiments (Geertz 1983; Bellah 1970; Jacob 1992a,1992b, cited in Asad 1999: 183–4). Asad has provided a very substantive analysis on thehistorical relationships of religion, nation-state and secularism (Asad 1999). Here, incontrast, he argued that the views of these Western scholars overlook the historical andcontextual form of concepts. He presented the urgency of considering ‘the origin of theprocess referred to as secularization’ in order to understand the relationship betweenreligion and nationalism (ibid.: 184–6). Being in agreement with Asad’s opinion, I wouldlike to point out that the incoherence and contradictions involved in evoking nation asthe most ‘pure’ form of community have their roots in various concepts imposed andimported from the religious traditions that are accepted by the enlightened intellectualsas being compatible with modernity, speci�cally, with modern social public space. Inaddition, the idea of the secular had a particular role in regulating the commercial,military and colonizing expansion of Europe and generated extreme incoherence in itshegemonic derivation in the narratives of non-Western nation-states .

The concept of the secular is not then opposed to religion; rather, the two concepts areinterlinked within the history of Europe. The history of nationalistic ideals aboutcommunity and past in India and their representation as secular and modern must beviewed within this framework of elucidation. The invocation of religion (and samaj) as anautonomous domain in nationalistic expression is nothing but a hegemonic effort to main-tain the internal coherence and authority of the doctrines. But, being located in theunequal encounter, these efforts are destined to construct more incoherence, differencesand con�icts, for instance, in the claims to the past.

Furthermore, Western forms of liberal state and its ideals have always had a problemnegotiating religion if the history of these ideals in Europe is taken into account. Religion,in Judaeo-Christian terms, was con�ned to the private space of individual belief, an inter-nal personal discourse, while the state and its legislative apparatus were constructed assecular, conveying equal rights to all irrespective of religion. All individuals are publiclyexpected to behave rationally and minimize their individual interests in accord with theinterests of the state. In this way, secularized Judaeo-Christianity was seen as compatiblewith secular public space. Thus, according to Asad:

belief has now become a purely inner, private state of mind, a particular state of minddetached from everyday practices. But although it is in this sense ‘internal’ belief hasalso become the object of systematic discourse, such that the system of statements aboutbelief is now held to constitute the essence of ‘religion’, a construction that makes itpossible to compare and evaluate different ‘religions’. These systematic statements,these texts are now the real public forms of ‘religion’.

(Asad 1996: 9)

On the basis of these belief-statements it is possible for modern power to comparereligions and proclaim which belief is rational or irrational, true or false and to act inprescribing the path of progress and a happy and predictable future for everybody. Theplurality and unity of differences in ‘modern’, ‘secular’ and ‘progressive’ nation-state aresought by that universalizing Western discourse where there are, on the one hand, the

354 Swadhin Sen

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

private and apolitical beliefs of individuals and, on the other hand, the secular interestsof citizens which can be publicly maximized and minimized by the state and its institutions.

It is a well-established fact that to ensure the uninterrupted �ow of multi-corporatecapital, nation-states promote notions of equality, freedom and justice at the individuallevel. But the historic contradictions of coercive and persuasive modernity in the unequalencounter with non-Western societies arrange modi�cations and recon�gurations in theincorporation of these same modern ideals. The recon�gurations are brought about bythe modern sense of tradition where tradition is constructed in opposition to progress,and constitutes a distinct developmental stage of history. In this complex process, the pasthas been recon�gured using a selective re-enactment and amalgamation of religioustraditions. Religion is taken as separate from politics. The search for any solidarity beyondthe authority of secularized religion (privatized and also de-privatized according to theconditions of modern public space) is considered contrary to the ideology of progress (anddevelopment).

Survey results: towards a counter-way of looking at the past, religion andcollectiveness

Surveys were conducted in selected regions where considerable quantities of archaeo-logical sites are found. The objective of the surveys was to understand and interpretpeople’s perceptions of the past in relation to local archaeological remains. The surveyareas were: Barobazar of Jhenaidah district, Sitakot Vihara area of Dinajpur district,Savar of Dhaka district, Bhandaria of Pirozpur district and Birampur of Dinajpur district(Fig. 1). In Barobazar, 194 people were interviewed. In Savar and Bhandaria it was �fty,and in Sitakot Vihara and Birampur the numbers were �fteen and twenty-�ve respec-tively. The survey at Barobazar was conducted in 1995–6 by a team of seven students asa part of their regular course work for third year (honours) at the Department of Archae-ology, Jahangirnagar University. They are Roksana Afroz, Rifat Reza, Kaosar Soheli,Na�s Ahmed, Sammi Ataur, Taslimunahar and Rabeya Sultana. The other surveys werealso conducted by students of the Department of Archaeology, Jahangirnagar University.They are Umme Habiba Lipi, Afroza Khan Mita, Ayesha Aktar Milon, Nazmus Sakeb,Syfur Rahman Polin and Nurul Kabir Rony.

Our survey �ndings indicate that in people’s perceptions of archaeological remainswere sometimes understood in ways directly opposed to the liberal state ideals of past andarchaeological practice. Hitherto problematized politico-religious standards and theirinnate contradictions, which have been appropriated by Bangladesh as a modern(ex)colonial state, often have a reciprocal relationship with popular perception. What ismost signi�cant in the results is the place of religion in communitarian identi�cation andimagination of the past. Most of the sample population identi�ed themselves with thearchaeological materials in religious terms that are not understandable in terms of secularrepresentations of religion. For example, legends and myths were the only way peopleconceived of the past and its signatures.

Barobazar is a thirteenth- to fourteenth-century city where several mosques have beenunearthed and restored. In addition, the Government Department of Archaeology has

Community boundary, secularized religion and imagined past in Bangladesh 355

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

356 Swadhin Sen

Figure 1 Location of the survey areas and sites mentioned.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

located many mounds in the area. Most of the Muslim people interviewed described theorigin and destruction of the mosques in the following way. ‘Once upon a time Khan JahanAli, a saint, built these mosques after receiving divine command. But he failed to followthe command to erect twelve mosques in just one night and for this violation of the divin-ity the mosques collapsed soon after their erection.’ Another narrative suggests that themosques were demolished during a later period by Hindu kings.

In contrast, Hindu people interviewed believed the ruins were not originally mosques,but Hindu temples, which were destroyed and rebuilt as mosques by Muslims, and thestate – which is an Islamic one – now tries to authenticate these ruins as mosques. Thesurveys also revealed that no one was able to describe the ruins in terms of ‘scienti�c’,‘modern’ archaeology and history. However, many people expressed extreme pride athaving those ‘very old’ heritages in their locality.

Secular élitist discourse would identify the perceptions of the people interviewed as‘fanatic’, ‘communal’ and ‘sectarian’ and as manifestations of the ‘ignorance’ of the subal-tern, especially of peasant communities. But some historians, including Bhadra (1983,1989), Bhadra and Chattopadhyay (1998), Chatterjee (1982, 1983) Guha (1983a, 1983b,1983c), Hardiman (1984), Pandey (1982) and Sen (1987), have questioned such construc-tions of the peasant consciousness. They have called for a new understanding of the subal-tern consciousness in which the fragments of the nation are not constructed as passiveagents. In their view, the subaltern communities contest, appropriate and reject élitistmodernist discourse, and relate to the past in their own terms, sometimes quite indepen-dently from (but in response to) the élitist agency. Thus, peasant and other minoritycommunities and sects of India have shown greater resistance to colonialist and capitalisttransformations, and have time and again devised new modes of power relations to copewith continuous shifts and changes. Meanwhile, élitist narratives have continually under-mined subaltern agency either by labelling their insurgency as ‘reactionary’, ‘criminal’ and‘barbarous’ or by appropriating their achievements into the narratives of individualisticand nationalistic agency.

Bhadra (1989) and Sen (1987) have shown that religion has a very important role toplay in structuring this agency. Bhadra (1994: 2–4) has pointed out that in modern usagethe synonym of religion in Bangla is dharma and in Arabic it is din. Dharma and Din-e-Islam cannot be perfect without reference to the adab or dharma or the code of conductof different persons according to their position in the jati or samaj. The principles ofcollective solidarity rapidly shift and change according to the conditions in which soli-darity is invoked, and according to various complexly interwoven ideas and symbols ofdharma and adab (Bhadra 1989, 1994; Sarkar 1997; Dube 1992; Pandey 1983). Theidenti�cation of collective solidarity is demonstrated through various myths and legendsin the subaltern domain. These are identi�ed by liberal social scientists and historians asinadequate and are considered biased compared to scienti�c historical facts. But theseare more narratives of contestation than of fact. Moreover, they can be a source of thesigns of élitist construction of subaltern activities. Claims to the past, and narrativeswhich conceive and express these claims, can provide alternative historiographies, whichselectively appropriate archaeological facts from élitist history (see Sarkar 1997: 33–4 forsome examples). For example, the structure and process of élitist appropriation could bepresented in the way that the unequal relations of modern power were negotiated by a

Community boundary, secularized religion and imagined past in Bangladesh 357

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

�ow of many sectarian movements in seventeenth- to eighteenth-century Bengal. Thesemovements, mainly politico-religious in nature, had totally different epistemologies,worldviews and embodied practices. The resistance of these movements to the violentdomination of institutionalized religious doctrines of the colonial state gained massivepopularity among subalterns, both Hindus and Muslims. The élitist and statist narrativesof Bangladesh, as was observed earlier in narratives of Independent Sultanate andSu�sm, appropriated these discourses very selectively as ‘syncretic’ by asserting ‘a mythof communal harmony’ under a tolerant nation-state. They do this by idealizing thesemovements as the achievement of individuals with supernatural genius. By homogeniz-ing the internal con�icts of the jati and varna, by normalizing the contest of power andprotest, by essentializing the collective gurubad into individual belief, by ignoringinterpretation of their embodied practice and, thus, by con�ning these movements toprivate space, they make claim to a past framed in totally liberalist and secularist terms.

Until now, the same people who seem totally ignorant of the ‘true’ signi�cance of anarchaeological relic and who seem to speak in the voice of intolerant, violent and fanaticindividuals, have identi�ed themselves to many archaeological mounds by calling themmazar or dargah (burial of a religious saint or leader in Islam) or peerer than (place of areligious saint or leader in Islam). They put offerings at these places irrespective ofreligious (or communal) difference. These principles of identi�cation were noticed in allplaces where surveys were conducted. It should be noted that the above terms of theiridenti�cation are closely related to the worldview of sectarian movements and Su�sm.This alternative identi�cation of archaeological sites also acts as a protection becausenobody damages or vandalizes these places except in those circumstances where the moti-vation is extreme individual interest aided by secular, modern laws and regulationsregarding land and property.

This picture might change drastically. At another archaeological site in Dinajpur, that ismarked by a seventh–eighth-century Buddhist monastery named Sitakot Vihara, localpeople, most of whom are are Muslim, tend to view the ruins restored by the governmentdepartment as a Hindu temple where female dancers once performed. Being unable toidentify themselves with that Hindu-Buddhist past, people are vandalizing the remains eventhough the laws of a secular state protect it. Peasants living around a ninth–tenth-centuryBuddhist monastic complex in Savar assert that there is no need for a Hindu(?) temple ina Muslim state; therefore, the remains of Harishchandra Rajar Bari Vihara and Stupa shouldbe dismantled. In contrast, in Bhandaria, local people are taking initiatives to protect a smallseventeenth–eighteenth-century mosque, not protected by state law, from riverbank erosionby using bamboo and corrugated iron sheets. Similarly in Barobazar, local peasants haverevealed the plinth of a �fteenth–sixteenth-century mosque named Cherag Dani Mosqueand reconstructed it in their own way. Ethically and methodologically these restorationprocedures do not conform to the ICOMOS charters or state laws. What do these examplessuggest? How should they be interpreted when established discourses present the myth ofcommunal harmony as natural, when these sites underpin the pure identity of the subalterncommunity propagated by the nation-state, and when these acts are identi�ed by establisheddiscourses as the results of the political use of dharma and its in�uence on the ignorantcultures of impure ‘communities’? In what ways have perceptions of the past changed andwhat are the processes and conditions of those changes?

358 Swadhin Sen

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

An interesting example of discrepancy and consent, manifested by the conditions thatare both propagated and de�ed by the institutionalized power of the nation-state andreligion, might be the mazar of Sultan Mahisawar at Mahasthan. This renowned archaeo-logical site of Pundravardhana features a huge citadel (see Rahman 2000 for detail onMahasthan). Mahisawar is described in unof�cial local history as the peer by whom theHindu king of Mahasthan, Raja Parasuram, was defeated. Subsequently, Islam was estab-lished on this land and Mahisawar was entombed on the southern boundary wall andpossibly on one of the main gateways of the citadel. A very large complex of contem-porary buildings now stands there. Of�cial archaeologists often identify the place under-neath the present mazar as a very important archaeological site. Yet protection andexcavation of this place have not yet been initiated or even proposed by the state insti-tutions because they fear the possibility of protest. This particular location is, however,not the subject of any vandalism. In contrast, many other parts of this very prominent‘national heritage’ site of Bangladesh are being severely damaged and eroded by the localpeople, peasants and employees of the Department of Archaeology, in spite of it beingprotected under state law. The mazar, therefore, becomes an ideologically contested land-scape of the secular nation-state and the local communities. The state has the legislationenabling it to acquire any important archaeological site and to protect its past. But itrefrains from acting in case this results in loss of votes from the majority Muslimcommunity.

A very different situation is found at the mazar of Lalan Fakir at Kustia. Lalan Fakirwas the prominent founder of an insurgent subaltern sect in eighteenth-century Bengal,and the site is acclaimed in narratives of the national culture as part of the identity of‘syncrecity’ of the glorious past. In 1965 it was transformed into a modern tomb by thegovernment who claimed they were seeking to protect the ‘heritage and history’ of thenation, even though the sectarian narrative strictly prohibits erection of any ‘closed’ spaceupon the burial ground. In 2000, several further buildings were constructed on the site bystate institutions, which, despite the protests of activists and the members of the sect,vigorously pronounced they were protecting the ‘sectarian culture’ from annihilation.

These two examples indicate the multiplicity of the processes and structures of domi-nation and resistance incorporated into the narrative of the interplay of power, past andreligion under a modern-liberal nation-state. This interplay is concerned above all with�xing communitarian boundaries. I want to suggest that the most essential and signi�cantaspect of these processes of �xing in Bangladesh is the multi-valent space of the ideals ofsecularized religion with its private/public construction. Here we cannot explain thecircumstances where religion has a public expression, which cannot be rationalized ordebated in the modernist terms and conditions of public space. Neither can it be inter-preted as the political use (or misuse) of Islam (or dharma) in the domain of subaltern orstate, nor, as many anthropologists have tried to do, by constructing some acceptedmodernist norms and categories of a ‘universally acceptable account of a living tradition’(see Asad 1986).

Archaeological sites and records are considered an inseparable part of public space.They are regarded either as the location of nationalistic agency or as the space of con�ict-ing principles of communitarian agency and identity structured within many differentunderstandings of religion. At the same time, they become the publicly contested space

Community boundary, secularized religion and imagined past in Bangladesh 359

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

between both. Here both agents act (or do not act) in terms of religious representation,statement, practice and symbols. Therefore, the understanding of the entire process of theagency of modern power, in relation to the past and its records in Bangladesh, needs theformulation of a new kind of discourse of religion and collective identity.

Acknowledgements

I am very much indebted to Rahnuma Ahmed and Yvonne Marshall for their invaluablecritical commentary on my earlier draft. I am also grateful to Moshfeka Begum, WahidPalash, Shuvo Sen, Manosh Chowdhury, Mashrur Ahmed, Alamgir Hossain, PrasantaMridha, Ziaul Bashar, Abul Kalam Shamsuddin, Uzaal Kumar Ray, Bazlur Rahman,Syed Md. Kamrul Ahsan. I should like especially to acknowledge my idol and friend, Jean-Yves Breuil, being my quintessential source of inspiration. I thank, above all, my belovedstudents who have provided assistance with different aspects of this paper and have beenmy source of activism in efforts to ‘shine on like a crazy diamond’.

Department of Archaeology, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh

References

Bangla sources

Bhadra, G. 1983. Mughal Yuge Krishi-Arthoniti O Krishak Bidroha. Kolikata: Subarnarekha.

Bhadra, G. 1994. Iman O Nishan: Unish Shatake Banglar Krishak Chaitonyer ek adhay. Kolkata:Subarnarekha.

Bhadra, G. and Chattopadhyay, P. 1998. Nimnabarger Itihas. Kolkata: Ananda, pp. 22–46.

Majumder, R. C. 1966. Hindu Musalman Sanskriter Samanway. Kamala Baktritamala. Calcutta:Calcutta University.

Sahnawaz, A. K. M. 1999. Mudray O Shilalipite Madhyayuger Banglar Samaj O Sanskrite. Dhaka:Bangla Academy.

English language sources

Ahmed, N. (ed.) 1979. Bangladesh Archaeology (No. 1). Dhaka: Directorate of Archaeology andMuseums, Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

Alam, M. S. and Miah, A. H. 1999. Excavation at Ananda Vihara, Mainamati, Comilla 1979–82.Dhaka: Department of Archaeology, Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Government of People’sRepublic of Bangladesh.

Ali, M. and Bhattacharjee, S. B. 1986. Archaeological Survey Report, Bogra District. Dhaka: Direc-torate of Archaeology and Museums, Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Government of People’sRepublic of Bangladesh.

Asad, T. 1986. The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. Occasional Paper Series. Washington, DC:Center for Arab Studies, Georgetown University.

360 Swadhin Sen

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

Asad, T. 1996. Modern power and the recon�guration of religious traditions. (An interview withTalal Asad by Sabah Mahmood). SEHR 5(1): 1–13 (Internet edn).

Asad, T. 1999. Religion, nation-state, secularism. In Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europeand Asia (eds P. van der Veer and H. Lehman). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,pp. 178–96.

Asad, T. 2000. What Do Human Rights Do? An Anthropological Enquiry, Internet edn. New York:Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bellah, R. 1970. Civil religion in America. In Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in Post-TraditionalWorld. New York: Harper & Row.

Bhadra, G. 1989. The mentality of subalternity: Kantanama or Rajdharma. In Subaltern Studies VI:Writings on South Asian History and Society (ed. R. Guha). Delhi: Oxford University Press,pp. 54–91.

Chatterjee, P. 1982. Agrarian relations and communalism in Bengal, 1926–1935. In Subaltern StudiesI: Writings on South Asian History and Society (ed. R. Guha). Delhi: Oxford University Press,pp. 9–38.

Chatterjee, P. 1983. More on modes of power and peasantry. In Subaltern Studies II: Writings onSouth Asian History and Society (ed. R. Guha). Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–8.

Chatterjee, P. 1999. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. In ParthaChatterjee Omnibus. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Dube, S. 1992. Myths, symbols and community: Satnampanth of Chhattisgarh. In Subaltern StudiesVII: Writings on South Asian History and Society (eds P. Chatterjee and G. Pandey). Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press, pp. 121–58.

Geertz, C. 1983. Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: BasicBooks.

Guha, R. (ed.) 1982a. Subaltern Studies I: Writings on South Asian History and Society. Delhi:Oxford University Press.

Guha, R. 1982b. On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India. In Subaltern Studies I:Writings on South Asian History and Society (ed. R. Guha). Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Guha, R. (ed.) 1983a. Subaltern Studies II: Writings on South Asian History and Society. Delhi:Oxford University Press.

Guha, R. 1983b. The prose of counter insurgency. In Subaltern Studies II: Writings on South AsianHistory and Society (ed. R. Guha). Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Guha, R. 1983c. Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India. Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press.

Hardiman, D. 1984. Peasant Nationalists of Gujrat. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Hasan, P. 1989. Sultanate mosques and continuity in Bengal architecture. Muqarnas, 6: 58–74.

Hasan, S. M. 1980. Muslim Monuments of Bangladesh, 2nd edn. Dacca: Islamic Foundation,Bangladesh.

Hossain, M. M., Dewan, T. A., Akbar, M. S., Ahmed, M. R. and Bashar, M. M. A. 1995. Archaeo-logical Survey Report of Greater Dinajpur District. Dhaka: Department of Archaeology, Ministryof Cultural Affairs, Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

Jacob, M. C. 1992a. Living the Enlightenment: Free Masonry and Politics in Eighteenth-CenturyEurope. New York: Oxford University Press.

Jacob, M. C. 1992b. Private belief in public temples: the religiosity of the eighteenth century. SocialResearch, 59: 59–84.

Community boundary, secularized religion and imagined past in Bangladesh 361

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4

Karim, A. 1985. Social History of the Muslims in Bengal down to A. D. 1338, 2nd edn. Chittagong:Baitus-sharaf Islamic Research Institute.

Kaviraj, S. 1992. Imaginary institutions in India. In Subaltern Studies VII: Writings on South AsianHistory and Society (eds P. Chatterjee and G. Pandey). Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–39.

Mackey, E. 1999. The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada.London: Routledge.

Metcalf, T. R. 1997. Past and present: towards an aesthetic of colonialism. In Paradigms of IndianArchitecture: Space and Time in Representation and Design (ed. G. H. R. Tilloston). Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press, pp. 13–25.

Miah, M. A. H. 2000. Archaeological Survey Report of Greater Faridpur District. Dhaka: Depart-ment of Archaeology, Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Government of People’s Republic ofBangladesh.

Miah, M. A. H. and Musa, M. A. 2001. A Preliminary Report on Excavations at Halud Vihara,Naogaon . Dhaka: Department of Archaeology, Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Government ofPeople’s Republic of Bangladesh.

Michell, G. (ed.) 1984. The Islamic Heritage of Bengal. Paris: UNESCO.

Pandey, G. 1982. Peasant revolt and Indian nationalism: The Peasant Movement in Awadh,1919–1922. In Subaltern Studies I: Writings on South Asian History and Society (ed. R. Guha). Delhi:Oxford University Press, pp. 143–97.

Pandey, G. 1983. Rallying round the cow: sectarian strife in the Bhojpuri Region, c. 1888–1917. InSubaltern Studies II: Writings on South Asian History and Society (ed. R. Guha). Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press, pp. 60–129.

Rahman, S. S. M. 2000. Archaeological Investigation in Bogra District (From Early Historic to EarlyMedieval Period). Dhaka: The International Centre for the Study of Bengal Art.

Sarkar, S. 1997. The many worlds of Indian history. In Writing Social History. New Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press, pp. 1–49.

Sen, A. 1987. Subaltern studies: capital, class and community. In Subaltern Studies V: Writings onSouth Asian History and Society (ed. R. Guha). Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 203–35.

Sen, S. 2001. Problematizing ethnoarchaeological practice in Bangladesh: a critical understandingfrom the periphery. Pratnatattva, 7: 1–11.

Weber, M. 1947. Theory of Social and Economic Organisation. New York: The Free Press.

362 Swadhin Sen

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Am

s/M

urci

a H

uman

ity]

at 0

4:34

16

Oct

ober

201

4