Department of History
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Item Open Access Violation, resistance and repression : a study of crime, public disorder and control in colonial North Bengal (1864-1947)(University of North Bengal, 2023) Barman, Tushar Kanti; Bhattacharya, Dahlia; Khasnobish, Sudip'The concept or crime. criminality and public disorder and its control during colonial rule is one of the most debated issues chat added a new dimension to the arena of social histor~,. Crime is a social phenomenon and the simple definition or crime is that it is an action punishable by criminal law. No behavior or action can be ,iudged as crime without the legal provision or punishment. But it is di mcult to understand what the historical definition of crime in colonial India was. as the rulers who codified the criminality of Indians to all kinds of prejudices· against the people whom they ruled. Hence. the legal inspection of crime and criminality in colonial lndia was effectively a colonial construction. Similarly. the term ·public disorder' resulting from group actions. violating legal norms which are closely related to the concept of crime as traditionally understood. Therefore, public disorder is a situation in which public order is violated or threatened. Hereafter. widespread violent clashes between n,vo or more groups. such as communal riots. peasant's agitation. labour unrest. political violenc;c etc. would pose grave threats to public order. In the colonial discourse every widespread violent activity were treated as public disorder but for the Indians it ww, a survival or protest against the colonial oppressor. I lowcver, since the days of British inception. Northern Bengal had shown diverse forms of crime ranging from dacoity or gang robbery Lo (')ett_ offences. In North Bengal number of notorious gang dacoites has been found who were involved in land as well as river dacoities accompanied by murders. In fact. it was an unavoidable and direct outcome of the Company's terrible fiscal policy along with money-lenders who frequently charged exorbitant rates or interest. Hereafter, some of them had ,ioined in crime by accident. !'iOmc for poverty and some for rncre curiosity and some people also joined to help the poor and needy. On the contrary, couple of references and o11icial accounts show that, the crirninals of this region usually came from the lower ordel' of the society and they have been involved in various forms of crime. Dacoity wa~ hereditary. and the nolorious gang concealed themselves among the heterogeneous class. Among them a group of tribes like Choto B!,agrya M11chi, llh11r, Pa/war Dusadh, Pasi. ( 'hai11 ,\tlallah Sandars and Mallahs were considered by the British authority as 'dangerous' community and they came under the Criminal Tribes /\ct. They were involved in dacoities. burglaries. thefls and river crimes mainly. It was impossible for the police to trace them out. Most or the suspect. could easily escape away to adjacent dense forest and neighboring State. Similarly. crime related to property. skirmishes due to civil dispute. forgery, will ful murder out of suspicion remained high during this period in North Bt:ngal. This system victimized even women. There have been lots of instances wh<.!re women were abused. abducted and harassed in many ways. The civil disputes relating to crops and personal vendetta led Lo affray. Murder also rose due to personal disputes and fraud. Murder or the children and prostitutes for the sake of ornaments was also a widespread crime in some districts of North Bengal. In regards to the public order problem. 1he major issues of public disorder which rocked Northern part of Bengal were agrarian unrest, tea garden workers agitation. tailway workers unrest etc. which the historians have called survival or protest crimes. A class of educated intellectual citizens came forward against this British exploitation and oppression of the regime that was able to spread the form of British exploitation lO the masses in every canopy. Among the public order issues most important were the Rangpur Rebell ion, Indigo Revolt, Chatrishu movement. tea garden workers unrest e1c. Furthermore, affray and riots. rai lway industrial workers unrest was a particular type of violent collective ··offences'·, attended with or without loss of I ite, against person or persons. widespread in the countryside in the phase of colonial rule. It was usually an open shadow of violence between two armed parties over a variety of rural disputes. Although the colonial government did nor attach much irnportance to such criminal activity in the early stages. they gradually became alarmed as the level of crime increased. Because 1·he main target of the criminals was the English merchants. indigo factories. or the Zamindrrs, .lotedars and moneylenders who were loyal to the British government. So, all this crime and criminals threatened the colonial administration. To curb the crime and to establish peace in the second half of the nineteenth century the colonial government took various administrative measures in the districts of North Bengal. The British government was determined to put down offl!nces against property. individuul life and ensure public safety to create a politic.al and administrative environment conducive to trade and investment and to maximize revenue extraction. Therefore. it became an objective necessity from the colonial viewpoint Lo codify the law. create a colonial police force as a legitimate instrument of coercion. reform of the court of justice from tor to bottom and renovale the rudimentary prison network that enabled the devices of control to prevent crime and to force the law and order in this portion of the country. 1 Ience, imprisonment and development of prisons as a penal institution under the British Raj were a significant addition in the criminal justice system of colonial North 81.:ngal as well as India. Thus. the history of crime. public disorder and its control in colon.ial North Bengal clearly emerges as a significant area of study. I Ience, the objet:Live of Lhe study is divided into some crucial themes. Firstly, viewing crime as an ingredient of social history, the study dealt with the evolution of crime and criminals from the backdrop of socio-economic and regional diversity anu the nature of colonial policies and exploitations. Similarly, lhe study intends to seek the rapiJ devdopmenL of tea and railway industry and modernization of economy and the relationship between crime and industrialization and crime and scarcity. Secondly. the study also intends to bring out certain unexplored facts of the major issues of public order problems which rocked No1thern part of Bengal as a form of colonial discourse i.e. • Public Disorder'. The study tries to analyze their causes in brief and main focus lies with the violent activities of the common people and how the colonial authorities approach to tackle such disorders and the responses of the colonial administration and its changing perceptions regarding crime and public order issues. Thirdly. the study is to provide an analysis of historical trends of the various institutions that has been used by colonial Government in the forms of control mechanism like police. Court. Jai I etc .. and how through this method of control their surveillance gesture was being fulfilled.Item Open Access An archaeological study of the district of Murshidabad in pre-muslim period(University of North Bengal, 2023) Banerjee, Mousumi; Sarkar, Bijoy KumarThe title of the Ph.D. work is ‘An Archaeological Study of the District of Murshidabad in pre-Muslim period’. The work is actually based on the scholar’s day to day field survey of Murshidabad District on the religious icons and the non-religious sculptures, epigraphy, numismatics and the architectural fragments which are lying in the fields of this district as well as preserved in the different museums, police stations and the block offices of the district. The present thesis is divided into seven chapters. The chapters contain the main archaeological sources which help us to reconstruct the history of the pre-Muslim period of this district. The scholar tries to high light the documents that are available and the archaeological materials and tries to analyze them. Archaeologically Murshidabad is a resourceful zone. River Bhagirathi equally divides the district into two parts. The western part of the district is Radha (earliest land formation, prominently the part of Uttara Radha) and the land on the eastern part of the river is known as the Bagri (later land formation). Maximum source material is collected from that region. In our surveying period we found the numbers of the fragmentary part of the artifacts are scattered in this area, basically we are surprised that the huge number of temple ruins are lying in different regions but not a single standing temple are seen in our study period. Huge numbers of Brahmanical icons basically Vishnu images of different variety are noticed in this region. Not only Vishnu we find Surya, Saiva images, and the few numbers of Buddhist and the Jaina images are found in this region. All the images are discussed elaborately. Sometimes we find the artifacts of our study period in the Bagri region because of the change of the course of the main river Bhagirathi The details of the chapterization are discussed in this paragraph. Chapter I is the Introduction. Here we discussed in details the location of the district in the present West Bengal map. The historical background of this study area, the river which flows through this district mainly the Bhagirathi River and geographical division of the district. Chapter II discussed the iconography which is detail documented and the analytical discussion the icons which is discovered this district in different ways or the icons which are displayed in different museums. The 3rd chapter covered the non-religious sculpture which is sub divided into the human figures, animal figures, and the sculptural designs. In Chapter IV is discussed the architectural remains in Murshidabad district which contain mainly the temple ruins, scattered on the different archaeological sites of this district or displayed in different museums. In Chapter V is discussed the epigraphy which is detail discussion the inscriptions depicted on the land grants, the seal sealings, icons and the coins or sometimes in the temple ruins. Here we try to discuss how the inscription is used to reconstruct the regional history. The chapter VI is on numismatics. Here we discuss in details of the coins of pre-Muslim period and we discuss the coins which are mainly recovered in this district and at present displayed or preserved in different museums. We noticed huge number of coins from the different sites of this region. We discussed here the coins which is discovered recently. We observe the coin hoard of Ahiron under Jangipur sub-division. The numbers of Gupta gold coins have been discovered from this region. The Chapter VII is conclusion. Here we discuss in detail the further work which the scholars can undertake.Item Open Access Mangars in Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling District : a socio-economic and cultural perspective (19th-20th Century)(University of North Bengal, 2023) Mangar, Asudha; Sarkar, Bijoy KimarThe Kiratas, one of the living representatives of the primitive non- Aryans race, construct a wide scope for making of historical study of their culture and civilization. According to G.P. Singh, the present scenario reflects that they are widely scattered and divided. In ancient times the “North Eastern, North Western, Central and Deccan regions” were the cradles of the Kirata culture. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee has observed that the original Mongoloid incomers were a very primitive people, being mostly hunters and food-gatherers who also used caves for habitation. The Tibetans, according to a late Buddhist tradition, are said to have entered their country during the life-time of Buddha- about the middle of the 1st millennium B.C. They may have been preceded by earlier tribes who formed the nucleus or basis of the ‘Himalayan’ Mongoloids of Nepal, speaking languages like Newari, Lepcha, Magar and Gurung and the ‘pronominalised’ languages like Dhimal, Khambu, Kanawari and others. The speakers of the ‘pronominalised’ dialects probably represent the earliest waves: and the Newars, Lepchas, Magars, Gurungs, etc., represent late arrivals. The Himalayan groups of Indo- Mongoloids were thus probably the first to be established in India, and settled in Nepal, and pushed as far west as Garhwal and Kumaon, and further to the west; but they have remained largely in a very primitive state: except Newars. The Magars or Mangars, one of the aborigines of Sikkim and Nepal, belong to the Kirata community of the Eastern Himalayas. They are one of the oldest tribes of Sikkim. Rajesh Verma has reasonably stated that the Kiratis include Rai, Limbu, Gurung, Mangar and Tamang tribe of Sikkim. According to Suman Raj Timsina, the Mangars, Limbus and Lepcha are the earliest settlers of ancient Sikkim. Iman Singh Chemjong has stated that a place called Shin in the northern part of the Himalayas was the original home of the Mangars, The Magars are described by Hamilton (1819) as a Himalayan Tribe “Wallowing in all the ancient abominations of the mountaineers”, and found anywhere in the Himalayan region. John Dalton Hooker, who conducted a scientific exploration in Sikkim in 1848-49, has mentioned that “Mangars, a tribe now confined to Nepal west of Arun, are the aborigines of Sikkim, whence they were driven by the Lepchas westward into the country of the Limboos and by this latter further west (Nepal) still. They are said to have been savages and not of Tibetan origin and are now converted to Hindooism.” H.H. Risley, while dealing with the ‘History of Sikkim and its Rules’ also mentioned about the rule of the Magar kings or chiefs in Sikkim. J.R. Subba, opines that the Mangars inhabited and ruled at least some parts of Sikkim before establishment of ‘The Greater Sikkim.’ Through “Lho- Mon- Tsong Sum” Tripatite Treaty it is evident that the Mangar Chiefs opposed the supremacy of the Bhutia rulers and formation of ‘The Greater Sikkim,’ and were crushed by the force and the chief, disappeared, or killed. The History of Mangars is shrouded in mystery after their dispersion from Sikkim, however the settlement of Mangar in Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri is evident in the 19th century through different historical records. In the 20th century, the identity aspirations and sense of identity have offered a new dimension to the assertiveness of the ethnic groups and similarly to this community. Consequently, several associations were formed to preserve the traditional, cultural rites, ritual, and ceremonies of Mangar namely, Magar Samaj Darjeeling, 1939, Mangar Sewa Samaj, 1984, which was renamed as Mangar Lafa Sangh Kurseong in 1990 followed by Dooars Mangar Lafa Sangh, 1995. At the end of 20th century, a unanimous effort for the foundation of one unified body were initiated. The formation of All India Mangar Association or Akhil Bharatiya Mangar Sangh in 2002 at Kalimpong was the outcome and efforts of Mangars to strengthen their demand for gratification of ‘Tribal Status’ of Mangars based on the features laid down by the Government of India, i.e., ▪ They possess an old dialect and language. ▪ They have their traditional language and scripts. ▪ They have a traditional dress code distinct from others ▪ The rituals and customs are unique which do not resemble with others. The history and culture of the Aryans have been extensively dealt by different scholars but the description of the non-Aryans or the aboriginal tribes still hold obscurity either it is about their contribution to the primitive history of India or facts of their origin in the Indian sub- continent. Hence, the dissertation attempts to find the history of Mangars, their origin, settlement, Socio- Economic, and Cultural perspective in the districts of Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling in the 19th to 20th century.Item Open Access Study of some aspects of the history of Kamata-Koch Bihar(University of North Bengal, 1985) Guha Roy, Shyamal Chandra; Bhattacharya, P K.; Sarkar, JadunathItem Open Access Traditional games, sports and amusements in twentieth-century North Bengal: historical perspective(University of North Bengal, 2021) Roy, Badal; Lama, SudashItem Open Access Nashya Sheikh community of North Bengal in the twentieth century : study of the socio-economic and political transformations(University of North Bengal, 2021) Islam, Md. Nabiul; Sarkar, Bijoy KumarItem Open Access Industry, trade and commerce in early medieval bengal: a historical investigation(University of North Bengal, 2020) Datta, Abhijit; Lama, Sudash,Item Open Access Studying urbanism: the spatial, physical and bodily manifestations in the administrative towns of provincial Bengal 1957- c.1857(University of North Bengal, 2020) Roy, Varun Kumar; Ghosh, AnandagopalItem Open Access Demography, economy and political tensions: study of Darjeeling Hills (1907-2007)(University of North Bengal, 2020) Mandal, Chanchal,; Bhattacharya, Dahlia,Item Open Access Study on the archaeological sites of Malda, Dakshindinajpur and Uttar Dinajpur: linking archaeology with geography, society, economy and polity in the changing prespective (C.3rd century B. C. to 12th century AD)(University of North Bengal, 2019) Adhikary, Sanat Kumar ,; Bagchi, Anita,