Product Overview
Bounded in the north by the Himalayan heights, in the east by the ever-flowing Brahmaputra, in the south by the deep blue Bay of Bengal, and in the west by the call of red laterite soil lies our deeply loved land of Bangladesh, a region shaped over thousands of years through interactions and tensions among diverse communities that forged its settlements, economy, language, and culture; Bengal’s tantric traditions and folk deities remained close to the people, while the rigid, divisive structures of Vedic India were repeatedly challenged—at times by Jain and Buddhist traditions, at others by the Vaishnava humanism of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu—where cultures of hatred yielded to love, Sufi ideas took lasting root over religious fundamentalism, and yet, like a hidden crack in Behula’s bridal chamber, Brahmanical structures also found entry, eventually obscuring the harmony of Bengal and the Bengali people behind walls of division; seizing this fracture, British colonial rulers fostered an atmosphere of hatred, pushing a people forged through countless struggles into crisis, so that the very Bengal which witnessed the first sparks of the Sepoy Revolt, resisted the partition of Bengal, and set supreme examples of sacrifice in the national revolutionary movement began to retreat—raising the question of whether this decline was temporary—an inquiry this historically grounded book pursues across six chapters, urging readers to reflect deeply on Bengal and the Bengali people, and to rediscover, with tenderness, a renewed love for their collective identity.
Product Overview
Bounded in the north by the Himalayan heights, in the east by the ever-flowing Brahmaputra, in the south by the deep blue Bay of Bengal, and in the west by the call of red laterite soil lies our deeply loved land of Bangladesh, a region shaped over thousands of years through interactions and tensions among diverse communities that forged its settlements, economy, language, and culture; Bengal’s tantric traditions and folk deities remained close to the people, while the rigid, divisive structures of Vedic India were repeatedly challenged—at times by Jain and Buddhist traditions, at others by the Vaishnava humanism of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu—where cultures of hatred yielded to love, Sufi ideas took lasting root over religious fundamentalism, and yet, like a hidden crack in Behula’s bridal chamber, Brahmanical structures also found entry, eventually obscuring the harmony of Bengal and the Bengali people behind walls of division; seizing this fracture, British colonial rulers fostered an atmosphere of hatred, pushing a people forged through countless struggles into crisis, so that the very Bengal which witnessed the first sparks of the Sepoy Revolt, resisted the partition of Bengal, and set supreme examples of sacrifice in the national revolutionary movement began to retreat—raising the question of whether this decline was temporary—an inquiry this historically grounded book pursues across six chapters, urging readers to reflect deeply on Bengal and the Bengali people, and to rediscover, with tenderness, a renewed love for their collective identity.
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