3-5 May 1996
Georgetown University, Washington DC
By Victor A. van Bijlert
Since the sixties Bengal studies have been kept alive by the Bengal Studies Association, a loosely knit
group of students and scholars with an interest in Bengal. The association meets every year at a Bengal
Studies conference. This year the conference was very ably organized by Prof. Enayetur Rahim and Dr
Henry Schwarz at Georgetown University, Washington DC. The modern, yet attractive, Inter-Cultural
Center on the campus was chosen as the venue. Almost anybody who is somebody in Bengal studies in
the USA or has a keen interest in Bengal, had come to Washington, with some notable exceptions like
David Kopf. Some participants had come all the way from Bangladesh and West Bengal, while only three
came from Europe (including myself).
As is usual with large conferences, almost all panels were run simultaneously, so that it was necessary to
shift between the two halls in order to follow important papers. The panels reflected major fields of
interest in Bengal Studies: the Bengali diaspora; community building in Britain and the US; sustainable
development in Bengal; identity through Bengali literary canons; Rabindranath Tagore; regional issues;
innovations in development in Bangladesh; Bengali philosophy and psychology; the Islamic identity in
Bengal; folklore; democracy and development; gender studies; tribals; science and technology and urban
space; management, export and rural banking; sovereignty and international bridge-building.
The panel on the Bengali diaspora had some interesting papers on the creation of Bengali magazines, radio
programmes, and the sociology of Bengali food habits in Britain and the US. Ranajit Datta talked about
the radio broadcasts in Bengali from the Voice of America. He claimed that, as the media in the South
Asian countries themselves are controlled by the government, the Voice of America has a large audience,
as it gives news quickly and without bias. Tazeen Murshid (University of North London) spoke about the
assertion of religious identities in Britain and the influence of British minorities' policies which were
creating alienation among minorities. Krishnendu Ray's (Culinary Institute of America) paper dealt with
Bengali immigrants in the US and their Bengali cooking as a reaffirmation of Bengali identity. Identity
through Bengali literary canons inspired papers by such people as Parveen Elias (Catholic University) and
Khwaja Hassan (Allen University) on the state of being-in-between, liminality, and the feeling of being
an outsider respectively, two themes that reflect the problematic of modernity in some contemporary South
Asian novels.
Rama Datta's (Fayetteville State University) paper on the problems of Self dealt with the question how
Tagore reconciled the Buddhist view of Self as a bundle of perceptions to the Vedantic view of a universal
Self as a spiritual substance without dimensions: she argues that Tagore believed the Self transcends itself
in illumination and thus becomes self-less. My own paper dealt with the alleged mystical experiences of
Tagore and claimed these significantly influenced his religious poetry and humanistic/religious world-view.
Suchismita Sen (Pennsylvania State University) discussed Tagore's interest in Bengali folk-rhymes and
their seemingly irrational, dreamlike playfulness. In Tagore's eyes, these rhymes reflected feminine
creativity and spontaneity.
At an energetic round table on how to teach about Bengal across the disciplines many new approaches
to teaching in a multi-disciplinary mode were discussed. The participants had brought summaries of their
courses on Bengal. The books they prescribe range from literary texts in translations, original primary
sources, sociological analyses, to works on economic and political history. Rachel McDermott's course
(Barnard College) is intended to give students a comprehensive view of the Bengal Renaissance. Judith
Walsh (State University of New York) teaches convergences of cultures in the nineteenth century,
comparing East India with Japan. She is especially interested in the way Bengali urban women outwardly
wished to emulate the British. Tim Bryson (Harvard University) teaches on 'how to construct the Other'
from the perspective of the work of Edward Said, Ronald Inden, and the Subaltern Studies. Clinton Seely
(University of Chicago) teaches Bengali language and literature (he is especially known for his exemplary
study on the Bengali poet Jibanananda Das). Carolyne Wright (Harvard University) - known for her
translations of Taslima Nasrin's poetry into English - teaches Bengali poetry by showing the original in
transcription along with a literal translation. She encourages students to make their own poem out this
material. As the discussion moved around the theme of translations, it was suggested that many important
Bengali texts of the literary canon were not yet available in good translations. A case in point is
Bankimchandra's novel Anandamath.
Islamic identity
A special panel was devoted to the Islamic identity of Bengal. Richard Eaton (University of Arizona) gave
the historical background to this panel by developing his moving frontier theory for the Islamization of
East Bengal between the fifteenth and the seventeenth century in more detail. He preferred to see this
phenomenon as a complex process of continuous renegotiation than as a monolithic 'lava-flow'. Between
the sixteenth and the eighteenth century, Bengal became important because of its rice cultivation. The
sultans of Bengal developed a particular Bengali style of culture. He called Bengal geographically a cul-
de-sac and compared it with the sultanates in the Deccan. The latter were in the centre of the Islamic
world, unlike Bengal. In the context of contemporary Bangladeshi politics, Enayetur Rahim (Georgetown
University) spoke on the Islamic fundamentalism of the Jamat. Rahim argued that Bangladeshi nationalism
was based on secularism, but there is no clear concept of what secularism means, either in the Islamic
world, or even in the West. Making a controversial statement, Rahim claimed that it is difficult to be
Muslim and secular. In this connection he referred to Turkey. In Bangladesh the Jamat is a violent
organization, well-organized, tightly knit and with good access to the mosques, unlike other parties.
Alamgir Sirajuddin (Chittagong University) spoke on Islamic family law. In Bangladesh an official
commission was set up to make recommendations concerning Islamic family law. The majority of the
commission consisted of modernists who argued that the law can be interpreted according to the demands
of the times. A conservative minority point of view believed that the law is fixed for all time. Whoever
tries to interpret it, commits heresy. The recommendations of the commission were subsequently whittled
down in a conservative direction. Sirajuddin contended that Islamic family law in Bangladesh, Pakistan,
and India was more conservative than in countries like Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Kuwait, and Jordan.
The panel on Gender Studies had some notable speakers: Asfia Duja (Dhaka University), Roushan Jahan
(Women for Women), Jock Mclane (Northwestern University), and Carolyne Wright (Harvard University).
Duja asserted that although women's education had opened up opportunities for women in Bangladesh,
especially in the better-paid professions, there is still discrimination, abuse, and violence perpetrated
against women, for instance at home. Duja emphasized that more study of the social attitudes toward
women is needed. Also, we need more studies on what happens to women in the market situation and in
religious institutions. Jock McLane spoke on male gender and Hindu nationalism. His thesis was that
communal Hindu nationalists were and are seeking to regain their lost manhood in order to protect the
honour of their women. Roushan Jahan discussed the ideas of the feminist Bengali writer Lokeya Hasawat
Husein, who proposed women's rights more radically in her writing than most late nineteenth-century
male social reformers in Bengal. These reformers wanted to educate women in order that they might better
fulfill their culturally prescribed role, prescribed by males! Lokeya wanted to liberate woman completely.
Carolyne Wright raised the issue of Taslima Nasrin and how the latter wished to present herself to the
West. The overall impression was that Nasrin has a habit of making blunt statements and saying what her
Western audiences want to hear, especially on the alleged oppressive character of Islam. In an intervention
in the discussion Farida Majid said Taslima Nasrin lacked the genuine scholarship and cultural refinement
to be able to state anything seriously about Islamic culture or anything else. Taslima is the product of a
Westernized education and knows nothing about real Islam.
In the panel on Women, Peasants and Tribals: Marginal Subjects in Bengali Culture, Robbins Burling
(University of Michigan) talked about the Garos in the far east of Bengal and their view of Bengali settlers
in the region. Burling asserted that the Bengalis behaved in an almost colonial fashion: they thought they
were bringing the light of civilization to the Garos. The latter wanted to neither become Bengalis, nor
Muslims, nor Hindus, so they opted for Christianity. This gives them a distinct identity. Julie Pal
(Georgetown University) discussed the gender relations in the Bengali novel Rain through the
Night by Buddhadev Bose (translated into English by Clinton Seely). The main female character, the
middle-class Malati, rebels against the role prescribed by her husband. She does this by starting a love-
affair with a lower-class man. Sangeeta Ray (University of Maryland) talked about Bankimchandraþs
Hindu nationalism and the role of women in his later works. Women are the fiercest warriors in his
novels. They sometimes act the role of women, sometimes they also act the part of the man. In order to
construct Hindu nationalism, Bankim had to generate a Hindu masculinity which rejects all direct
relationships with women so that the land itself becomes the mistress. Henry Schwarz (Georgetown
University) devoted his paper to criminal tribes in Bengal. In the nineteenth century, British colonial
policy prescribed that wandering tribes which refused to settle could be regarded as criminal, to be either
shot on sight or punished in other ways. Some British colonial anthropologists claimed to have been able
to recognize criminal tribes from their physical appearance. Even today wandering, non-settled tribes are
regarded by þcommon senseþ to be criminal.
The last panel was on Management, Export, and Rural Banking. The most notable speakers - all originally
from Bangladesh - were Kabir Hassan (University of New Orleans), Sirajul Alam Khan (University of
Wisconsin-Oshkosh) and Zillur Khan (do.). Hassan's paper was a reaction on the economic situation of
Bangladesh. The volatile exchange rates after the 1970s had a positive impact on the economy according
to some, while others thought they had had a negative influence. In order to measure the influence, Hassan
proposed introducing more variables. Since 1983 the export of traditional goods such as jute has declined,
but the manufacture of finished products has increased. What is being exported now is not raw goods but
in fact the labour that went into the making of these finished products. Hassan recommends diversifying
the export. The well-known Bangladeshi political activist, Bangladeshi nationalist, and former freedom-
fighter Sirajul Alam Khan began his presentation with a personal note. He had been put in jail by the
Bangladeshi government in 1992 for his expressed belief in regional cooperation between the two Bengals.
The government of Bangladesh apparently thought Khan had said he wished to reunite the two Bengals
politically, which he had never suggested. The Indian government had also been unhappy with him for
the same reasons. What he suggested in his actual paper was that regional economic cooperation could
cut across the political boundaries of nation-states. He presented the audience with a map of South Asia
and the areas he thought could cooperate viably. Despite his Bangladeshi nationalism he believed modern
nation-states would have to turn with greater insistency to regional cooperation. In his paper, Zillur Khan
endorsed this view and believed to have seen enough signs in South Asia that politicians and high civil
servants were realizing the need for meaningful dialogue and cooperation.
General observation
A regional conference such as this one is a rewarding and important event. Its passionately intellectual
and yet friendly ambiance also offered ample opportunity to discuss our respective interests informally
with colleagues from elsewhere. This was also possible during the remarkable banquet that was arranged
on the evening of the second day of the conference. Prof. Ainslie T. Embree (Columbia University) had
been invited to give the keynote address in which he stressed the dynamism of modern South Asian
countries. Personally I very much benefited from long conversations during and after the conference with
Farida Majid, Richard Eaton, Andre Wink (not a participant), and Clinton Seely. Prof. Enayetur Rahim
has promised that the papers will be published soon in Dhaka.