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Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947. By JOYA CHATTERJI. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. xviii, 303 pp. $59.95 (cloth).
This is an important book and a very good one. Its focus is the dramatic reversal of roles by the Hindu bhadralok from the first to the second partition of Bengal. Those nationalist opponents of the 1905 partition became communalist proponents of a second partition in the 1940s.
Chatterji is courageous. For one thing, by writing "elite" history she has placed herself directly in the line of fire of the Subaltern brigade. Her numerous and judicious references to their peasant studies may afford her some protection, but her use of the much disputed term bhadralok as her central category is bound to invoke their ire. To shield herself, she insists she is not following in the footsteps of any of us earlier historians of the bhadralok, though frankly I see no substantial difference in her definition of the term from the one I gave thirty years ago. Of course, I think she's got it right!
Criticism from fellow academics, however, may be the least of her worries. In West Bengal, cultural and political history are subjects of fierce popular debate, and woe betide any who would...