TY - BOOK AU - Gupta,Swarupa TI - Notions of nationhood in Bengal: perspectives on Samaj, c. 1867-1905 T2 - Brill eBook titles 2009 SN - 9789047429586 AV - DS485.B49 G853 2009 U1 - 954/.14035 22 PY - 2009/// CY - Boston PB - Brill KW - Bengal (India) KW - Autonomy and independence movements KW - History KW - 19th century KW - Intellectual life N1 - Includes bibliographical references and index; Preliminary Material; S. Gupta --; Introduction; S. Gupta --; Chapter One. Nationalist Ideologues, Ideas And Their Dissemination; S. Gupta --; Chapter Two. Recreating A Jati; S. Gupta --; Chapter Three. Samaj And Perspectives On Unity; S. Gupta --; Chapter Four. Caste, Class And Internal ‘Others’: ‘Lower Orders’ In Bengal; S. Gupta --; Chapter Five. Contiguous Ethnicities; S. Gupta --; Chapter Six. Sub-Regional ‘Essences’ And The Regional Self; S. Gupta --; Chapter Seven. From Region To Nation: The Idea Of India; S. Gupta --; Conclusion; S. Gupta --; Bibliography; S. Gupta --; Glossary; S. Gupta --; Index; S. Gupta; Available to subscribing member institutions only N2 - This book reopens the debate on colonial nationalisms, going beyond ‘derivative’, ‘borrowed’, political and modernist paradigms. It introduces the conceptual category of samaj to demonstrate how indigenous socio-cultural origins in Bengal interacted with late-colonial discourses to produce the notion of a nation. Samaj (a historical society and an idea-in-practice) was a site for reconfiguring antecedents and negotiating fragmentation. Drawing on indigenous sources, this study shows how caste, class, ethnicity, region and community were refracted to conceptualise wider unities. The mapping of cultural continuities through change facilitates a more nuanced investigation of the ontology of nationhood, seeing it as related to, but more than political nationalism. It outlines a fresh paradigm for recalibrating postcolonial identities, offering interpretive strategies to mediate fragmentation UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004176140.i-414 ER -