Department of History

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://ir.nbu.ac.in/handle/123456789/3711

The Department of History was established in the year 1964, just two years after the foundation of this University. The history of this department is indeed decked with the contribution of many academicians, teachers, research scholars, students, non-teaching members, and others. In 1965, with the initiative of Professor Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, the then Head of the Department, a University level museum, primarily intended for collecting, preserving, and exhibiting objects of Indian art and antiquity, was founded and named after Akshaya Kumar Maitreya, the famous historian of the colonial period. It is one of the very few History departments of our state which in its syllabus has well-delineated specializations pertaining to the ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary periods. For more than five decades, this department has produced able students, researchers, teachers, and a number of academicians who have received acclamation from every nook and corner of the country. Now the department offers Post Graduate, M.Phil. and Ph.D. courses, besides, giving NET/SET coaching, remedial classes. The department also conducts Study Tour every year for the fourth semester Post Graduate students. It also received various seminar and research grants from UGC, ICSSR, etc. time to time. Significantly, it publishes a peer-reviewed and UGC approved journal, known as Karatoya. The Department has organized a number of special lecture programmes by eminent historians and academicians. From the year 2019, the department has also initiated a monthly Faculty Lecture Programme with a view of sharing the research orientations of the in-house faculty members.

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Author: search.filters.author.Sarkar, Tahiti

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Developments in Tobacco in the Princely State of Cooch Behar
    (University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Debnath, Tapas; Sarkar, Tahiti
    Tobacco was a very popular intoxication content in colonial Bengal. Though several countries imposed certain restrictions on the use of tobacco, the colonial period became a mark on the growth of tobacco consumption and trade. Due to the growing demands, there was a need to improve quality and quantity of tobacco in India. A number of scientific approaches were suggested and adopted for the improvement of quality and quantity of tobacco. Princely states of Cooch Behar took keen interest in this matter. The main aim was to make the tobacco trade of Cooch Behar a profitable one. The Commissioners of Cooch Behar and Maharaja Nripendra Narayan had taken various experimental measures for the improvement of tobacco. A modern farm was established for that purpose. Prince Gojendra Narayan was also interested in tobacco cultivation. Victor Nityendra Narayan, visited famous tobacco growing countries. Though the investment and efforts on these experiments were much, the success rate was not satisfactory. There was always a fluctuation in the quantity, quality and rate of the tobacco in Cooch Behar mainly owing to rainfall and hailstorms.
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    Commercial cash crop and the development of capitalist economy: A study of colonial tea plantations in Darjeeling hills
    (University of North Bengal, 2018-03) Sarkar, Tahiti
    The present study focuses primarily on the development of Darjeeling hills as a region of tea plantation since the beginning of the mid-nineteenth century. The development of tea plantation ushered in infusion of colonial capital, which completely altered the existing feudal economy. Darjeeling’s potential and possibilities as a zone of tea cultivation had attracted the immediate attention of the EIC officials who sought to transform the almost uninhabited forested tract of Darjeeling into a tea region. Large tracts of virgin forest and grasslands were cleared by British Planters and cultivated with tea. In establishing and cultivating their estates it was apparent that the planters were initially able to secure labor from the neighboring Nepal hills. In fact, tea as commercial plantation in Darjeeling since early fifties of the nineteenth century had been a sheer coincidence which was taken place as a part of larger imperial project. Since then tea continued to be the backbone of the economy of Darjeeling hills. The expansion of tea industry in Darjeeling had fundamentally altered the nature of political economy of Darjeeling hills and that too at the cost of forests, ecology and environment in particular. The colonially induced expanding tea plantation lovably called ‘imperial cash crop’, owned and engineered by the British planters under the patronage of British East India Company gave rise to an insular economy hitherto unknown by the indigenous people lived in so far on tradition based subsistence economy. The substantial quantum of profits accrued from Darjeeling tea used to be siphoned out to Europe and tea labourers had to be kept satisfied with wages only. Such a situation gave rise to a kind of dependent development economy in Darjeeling under the aegis of new technology transformation. In this way, as a part of grand imperial political project, Darjeeling hill was drawn into the world capitalist system.
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    Exploring Roots of Ethnic Convergence of the Indigenous and the Exogenous Hill People: A Historical Study of Colonial Darjeeling
    (University of North Bengal, 2017-03) Sarkar, Tahiti
    The Article posits that the mid-nineteenth to mid- twentieth century colonial material imperatives had congealed impacts on the indigenous people and the exogenous hill people settled in colonial Darjeeling. The study explores how the dialectics of such transformations gave rise to ethnocide of the indigenous population at the one end, and strong ethnic consolidation of the hill populations on the other. The idea of 'Other' being different from the people living in the plains was purposefully injected in the minds of the hill people by the colonizers which produced synergic effects. Throughout the colonial period, Darjeeling was administered differently. This idea of separate administration injected aspiration in the minds of the hill people who consolidated under a single umbrella of Nepali language as the lingua franca of the majority hill people. The hill people preferred Gorkha ethnic consolidation in place of Nepali to distinguish them from Nepalis of Nepal. The Article establishes that such ethnic consolidation has had its deep-seated roots in the nature of colonial governability.
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    Understanding the Transformation of Colonial Darjeeling Hills Through the Study of South Asian Environmental History
    (University of North Bengal, 2016-03) Sarkar, Tahiti
    While initiating the search for o causal relation between human society and nature, scholars have been able to establish environmental history as an enticing field of academic enquiry. Within the general historiographical discourse on environmental history, two broad trends seem discernable: the American tradition and the French tradition. While the former thrusts upon the dialectics of environmental destruction/ degradation and conservation, with a focus on 'deep' ecology observing nature as possessing intrinsic value in itself which alone entitles it to be preserved and 'shallow' ecology, emphasizing preservation of nature because of its potential as a 'resource' for the use of humansthe latter, represented by the Annales School of France, contradicts the American tradition of perennial changes occurring in the environment. The Annalists attempted to explain social and economic changes in an environmental setting that was subject to slow pace of observable change or no change.
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