A Scholarly Compendium

A Comprehensive History of Modern Bengal: 1700-1950 edited by the late Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, an institution in his own right, covers a formidable range of themes. The articles contained in these volumes deal with a diverse array of issues. They deal with, among others, ecology, economy, science, military history, environment, politics, society, social movements, labour, class formation, culture in its multidimensional forms encompassing literature, theatre and art, though an article on the evolution of cinema in Modern Bengal is strangely absent. Indeed, it is a significant gap in a collection which is otherwise very well organized. Similarly, the volumes contain nothing on Anglo-Indians, a community which contributed certain distinct cultural traits to the cultural world of late colonial Calcutta, particularly in the field of music. For the Anglo-Indian community has a signal contribution to Bengal’s tryst with western music beginning from the later decades of the 19th century.

The Anglo-Indian influence was a very late colonial period phenomenon, some would argue it was a postcolonial phenomenon and it imparted certain specific and original flavour to the cultural milieu of 20th century Calcutta. The bigger surprise is that there is not even a single contribution devoted to the hill people of Bengal. They have shared a tenuous relation with the majority Bengali community ever since their inclusion in the administrative unit of colonial Bengal in the second half of the 19th century.