Putting the Rafts out to Sea: Talking of Bera Bhashan in Bengal

Bera (raft) bhasan (sending out) is a ritual linking two societies and two landscapes: the maritime and the agrarian. After the monsoon, palm or plantain rafts are placed on the river to placate the gods. The bera bhasan that is practiced today is an amalgam of earlier practices of two communities-the Islamic and the Hindu. Arab merchants introduced this practice into Bengal when they prayed for safe passage at sea before venturing out. Similarly Hindu peasants would observe a variant of Bera Bhasan called sedo on the last day of pous or January, whereby they would placate the rain and river gods by setting out small rafts on water. On these flowers, sweets and lamps were placed to ensure a good harvest the following year. Therefore two worlds came together in this practice, the maritime and the rural, signifying two kinds of activity, mercantile and agrarian. In seventeenth-century Mughal Bengal it developed from a folk belief into a community practice. In eighteenth-century Nawabi Bengal it was co-opted by the state as pageantry and it is now a state-sponsored enterprise linking the Hindu and Muslim communities

Dadabhai Naoroji – from economic nationalism to political nationalism

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) was among the leading Indian nationalist leaders who aroused the feeling of economic nationalism and propagated for it. The most instrumental in this regard had been his theory of drain. The paper studies this theory and its role in awakening the desire and movement to achieve economic nationalism. It also examines the stages through, which Dadabhai passed from economic nationalism to political nationalism or the self-rule which was his final call. The paper will conclude with a remark that economic nationalism and political nationalism are complementary and supplementary to each other and none will be realized in true sense of the word without the achievement of other.Economic Nationalism; Political Nationalism; Drain theory; Dadabhai Naorogy; Sir Syed ahmad Khan; Indian Economic Thought

Shiite buildings of Awadh : characteristics and nomenclature

The region of Awadh (also known in older British sources as Oudh or Oude), located in northern India and now constituting a part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, for several centuries has remained one of the largest and most significant Shiite centres in the Subcontinent. A particularly important role in shaping its cultural tradition was played by the Shiite dynasty of Nishapuri nawabs, which ruled the Awadh between 1722 and 1858. The cultural and religious heritage of the Shiites manifests itself, among other things, in the architecture of the region, abounding especially in buildings erected in connection with the mourning celebrations of the month of Muharram, commemorating the martyrdom and death of Imam Al-Husayn. Imambaras (assembly halls) and rauzas (mausoleums), dozens of which we find in Lucknow, the capital of historical Awadh, and in other localities of the region and thanks to which this part of the Subcontinent enjoys a unique character and colour, are characterized not only by specific Indo-Muslim architectural syncretism, but also by multi-source nomenclature. The names of the structures derive freely both from the indigenous languages, like Hindi and Urdu, and from the linguistic adstratum – mostly Persian and to some extent Arabic. The article aims at description and categorization of the main types of religious Shiite structures found in Awadh, as well as at characterization of their names

Between Qasbas and Cities: Language Shifts and Literary Continuities in North India in the Long Eighteenth Century

The cultural memory of Awadh is almost exclusively identified with Urdu poetry and courtesan culture, and already in the colonial period it came to stand as the epitome of the “last phase of Oriental culture” (‘Abdul Halim Sharar). But if instead of taking a retrospective, nostalgic view we approach literary culture in Awadh prospectively and multilingually and broaden our lens to consider not just the capitals, Faizabad and Lucknow, but also the qasbas (small towns), the small rural courts, the nearby growing city of Banaras, and the colonial capital of Calcutta, a different set of literary dynamics and shifts comes into view. The prevalent image of Awadh as identified with Urdu and Lucknow is not wrong, of course, but it does obscure the other stories, trajectories, and languages. This essay considers some of them. A multilingual and prospective approach helps us consider the circulation of literary tastes across the colonial divide and recognize the production of forgetfulness and ignorance that accompanied modern narratives of languages and literary histories, both colonial and Indian, and that made a host of texts “homeless” (Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi)

Ethnic Conflict in Pakistan: The Case of MQM

It has been argued that the current scholarship on ethnicity is focused on the rise of ethnonationalism, without incorporating the possibility and the nature of decline in its scope and intensity. An absolute majority of such movements have indeeded been contained in the postwar era. There is no reason to believe that this trend will reverse in near future. In this context, one can point to Pakistan, Baloch and Sindhi nationalist movements within Pakistan. Our discussion of the rise of the mohajir movement in this paper provides clear indicators of the potential determinants of its decline. It is significant that it is the state at the non-policy level which created a situation of ethnic explosion in urban Sindh. Various macro-level explosive issues revolving around conflicts between politicians and army, federalist and provincial forces, Islamist and secularist elements and, externally, India and Pakistan seriously circumscribed the state’s capacity and will to persue micro-level issues such as urban planning educational and manpower strategies, rural-urban and inter provincial migration and investment in mental infrastructure in general. The abdication of policy by the state rendered it inactive and irrelevent. This ‘residual’ state was represented by officials at the bottom level who controlled a vast number of transactional activities outside the purview of law. Ethnicity emerged as the new source of definition and categorisation of interests and identity formation as the state defaulted on various counts such as citizen orientations, legal protection and security of life and property. In other words, it was not too much of the (Jacobin) state, as primordialists would have us believe, but rather too little of it which produced the mohajir ethnic consciousness. We can maintain that the process of nativisation of mohajir is the product of multiple locational and transactional activities which do not necessarily reflect state policies.

Fremde Könige im Kontext der römischen Provinzialverwaltung in der Zeit der späten Republik

Der Aufsatz sucht aufzuzeigen, welche Rolle provinznahe Könige und Klientelfürsten (vornehmlich im Osten) als Helfer und Informanten im Rahmen der republikanischen Provinzialverwaltung spielten und weshalb sie immer stärker als Schuldner in den Würgegriff römischer Finanzinteressen gerieten. Der zweite Teil verfolgt die politischen Konsequenzen dieser Konstellation: Der Senat verlor trotz verschiedener Gegenmaßnahmen seine Kontrolle über die Außen- und Reichspolitik an mächtige Adlige und Politiker, die immer selbstherrlicher Könige ein- oder absetzten und sich mit Hilfe ihrer auswärtigen Freunde eine exklusive Klientel abhängiger Helfer schufen.This paper aims at uncovering in what way kings and client princes on the border of Roman provinces, especially in the East, served as aides and informants to the republican provincial government and how they became increasingly indebted, falling into the clutches of Roman financial interests. In a second step, the political consequences of these constellations are tracked: Despite a number of countermeasures, the Senate gradually lost control over foreign affairs to powerful aristocrats and politicians. These were soon able to install and remove kings at will and with the help of foreign allies built up a personal clientele of subordinate aides

THE TANKS OF SOUTH INDIA (A POTENTIAL FOR FUTURE EXPANSION IN IRRIGATION)

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,