‘History and Heritage’: Reading Bengal in a series

Even at this moment when Google is under threat of being taken over by Artificial Intelligence and you may search for anything online, the necessity of printed books is still there, especially when it comes to enlightening oneself with the history and heritage of a country or region, which is a broad subject requiring multiple books and sources.

History and Heritage, is one such series of seven books by Dr Abdul Latif, on the history of Bengal, that sheds a clear light on the land and the people, the language and literature, lifestyle and culture, and economy and administration of Bengal from the BC period of human settlement to the birth of Bangladesh in 1971.

Now, readers may ask why this series when numerous works of literature are there to fill in on these issues? While sources are there, many are in a scattered form, as Dr Latif mentions in his preface to the series. "After my retirement from service in November 2013, I took an interest in educating myself in the history of Bengal and Bangladesh per se…but when I began reading, I found the source materials so elaborate and scattered that for a common reader, it is difficult to collect, read, and comprehend", he noted. This very reason prompted Dr Latif to pen down the series—to furnish the common readers with practical and handy work on the selected aspects of the history of Bengal.

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He also admits that this series is a methodical assimilation of secondary materials supplemented by primary information. The primary data in the first three books includes oral history collected through interviews with well-informed elderly people and his observations on matters particularly relevant to the period after the 1940s.

This series is written in an all-in-one format, where the author himself took the pain in assimilating all the secondary text materials, including published books, journals, online and unpublished materials with proper references so that anyone—academician or the general reader—interested in exploring deeper may find a way to proceed further. 

The History and Heritage series has chronologically been sectioned as follows: Land and People of Bengal, Language and Literature of Bengal, Lifestyle and Culture of Bengal, Ancient and Medieval Bengal, Bengal during British Rule, East Bengal as East Pakistan and Road to Bangladesh, and Independent Bangladesh. Unfortunately, the seventh book in the series (Independent Bangladesh) has not seen the light, as the author's current physical condition will not allow him to continue with it. Yet, the prospective readers of this series, I think, will never be disappointed.

The first volume of the series, titled Land and People of Bengal primarily documents the history of selected geographic aspects of Bengal, such as geologic formation and physiographic regions, climatic conditions, human settlements and formation of the Bengali race, early civilisation and archaeological sites, the spread of Indian and Abrahamic religions in Bengal, and the development of education, health, transportation and communication systems as markers of civilisation, described in historical perspective. Besides the dominant religions in Bengal, the readers will find a detailed overview of the world's major religions and an extensive knowledge of Bengal and human settlement in the Indian subcontinent, along with the transition that happened later on.

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Notably, the third one in the series Lifestyle and Culture of Bengal, as the title suggests, records lifestyles (dwellings, food habits, garments, marriage customs, festivities, etc.), art, architecture, performing arts (in dance circus, magic, jatra, theatre, films, and music), veteran artistes and performers. One of the interesting things I found in this book is whether you are aged or young, this book must make you nostalgic with its description of folk games like "Kanmachhi", "Ekka-dokka", "Openti Bioscope", "Dariyanbanda", and so on. Music lovers may take a journey with the author from Ustad Alauddin Khan to Sachin Dev Burman to Runa Laila, while art fanatics can travel from Abanindranath Tagore to Zainul Abedin to SM Sultan to Shahabuddin Ahmed, and the list goes on.

The last two books, Bengal During British Rule and East Bengal as East Pakistan and Road to Bangladesh, portray Bengal in the colonial period, recording resistance movements and revolts, nationalism, repressive administrative policies along with power imbalance and economic disparity in both periods, ending with the birth of independent Bangladesh.

Last but not least, these books will make you a little aware of the economic and administrative system in ancient and medieval times we are less acquainted with—as the author touched upon them along the political history.

One issue that needs the attention of the prospective readers is that, due to the lack of matching information between Bangladesh and West Bengal, mainly relevant to the post-Partition period, the author was compelled to present the issues relating to Bangladesh only and has to be satisfied with the elaboration thereof.

The author—who invested his valuable time and hard work in the series—Dr Abdul Latif taught Economics at the University of Dhaka in early 1975. Later, he worked at different research institutes like the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) and Inclusive Finance and Development (InM) and established himself as an economist. Not being a historian in the true sense, Dr Latif took on the task to document the history of Bengal for researchers, academicians, students of higher studies, and general readers. All the books in the series are written in lucid language, and the narrative flows smoothly, and the collection has already gained access to the world's largest and most prestigious libraries like The Library of Congress (LOC) in Washington, DC and the British Library of London.

Mohin Uddin Mizan is a publication and communication professional at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Ministry of Planning. A translator and former journalist at national dailies, Mohin used to write short stories, poems, op-eds and book reviews in national English dailies and online platforms at home and abroad. He can be reached at [email protected].