āĻŦā§āĻ°āĻžāĻ¤ā§āĻ¯ āĻŦāĻā§āĻā§ āĻ¸āĻ¨āĻžāĻ¤āĻ¨ā§ āĻā§āĻ¸āĻĒā§āĻāĻŋāĻ¯āĻŧāĻž by DebaprasadBandyopadhyay Via Flickr: shorturl.at/FmxCe This work is a deliberate act of counter-propaganda â a sustained, repetitive, and self-consciously plagiaristic agit-prop by two melancholy Kolkata Bandyopadhyays who describe themselves as residents of a ânon-nation.â Written in a deliberately hybrid register that mixes formal Sadhu Bangla with colloquial Chalit, code-switching, Sanskrit citation, and street humour, the text performs its own central argument: that the imposition of linguistic and cultural uniformity is itself a form of violence. The bookâs governing question is the political and civilisational fate of Bengali identity under Hindutvaâs ascendant national project. The argument unfolds across seven chapters and proceeds on several interlocking planes. It opens by mapping the deep genealogy of anti-Bengal prejudice within Brahmanical Sanskrit literature â from the ášgveda and Aitareya Äraášyaka to the BaudhÄyana DharmasÅĢtra â showing how the term vÄyaášsi (birds, creatures of unstable motion) was deployed to mark the peoples of Bengal and the eastern territories as ritually impure, geographically ungovernable, and socially excludable. This ancient ideology of exclusion is read as the structural antecedent of contemporary Hindutvaâs hostility toward Bengal. The book then interrogates the ideological apparatus of nationalism itself. The concepts of mÄtrĖĨbhÅĢmi (motherland) and mÄtrĖĨbhÄášŖÄ (mother tongue) are traced to their origins in Christian ecclesiastical vocabulary â adopted into Bengali and Indian nationalist discourse during the colonial period â rather than to any ancient Sanskritic or âSanatanâ tradition. Through a close reading of Bankimchandraâs âBande Mataramâ and Rabindranathâs Ghare Baire â particularly the counter-nationalist voice of Nikhilesh â the authors argue that the nationalist invocation of the âmotherâ is a manufactured intoxication (nesha) that substitutes enchantment for genuine political freedom. The category of âHinduâ identity is subjected to rigorous historical disaggregation. Drawing on Rajataraáš giášÄĢ, Chola-period inscriptions, and the long record of Shaiva-Vaishnava conflict, the book demonstrates that the âone religion, one nationâ claim of the Sangh Parivar has no historical foundation: what existed was a complex, internally contested plurality of sects, practices, and cosmologies â a plurality that colonial administration and contemporary Hindutva alike have violently flattened. A substantial chapter examines the political economy of language. Griersonâs own admission of the impossibility of distinguishing language from dialect is mobilised to expose the census-driven erasure of Odia, Assamese, and other eastern linguistic identities in the service of a Hindi-dominated national demography. The historical construction of Bengali geographic identity â from Pundra, Gauda, and Banga through the Mughal Suba-e-Bangla to the colonial Bengal Presidency â is traced to show that âBengalâ itself is a layered historical formation rather than an eternal essence. The chapter ends with a detailed empirical treatment of what the authors call the carabeef paradox: the coexistence of cow-vigilante violence and lynching with Indiaâs status as the worldâs largest exporter of bovine meat under Hindutva governance â complete with data on the Allana Groupâs political donations and the corporate structures behind the trade. The critique of Bengali identity is turned inward as well. Drawing on Nirad C. Chaudhuriâs ÄtmaghÄtÄĢ BÄáš ÄlÄĢ while contesting his Eurocentric prescription, the authors indict the Bengali bhadralokâs chronic self-deception, selective memory, and hypocritical Islamophobia â the same community that produced Derozio, Vidyasagar, and Nazrul now reaches for saffron affiliation or comfortable silence. The book closes with a rereading of the Sanskrit tarpaáša (ancestral water-offering) ritual as a philosophical statement of radical solidarity â one that extends water and recognition even to enemies, to serpents, to trees, to the dispossessed. The âIâ (ayam) is asked to journey toward âweâ (vayam), a movement the authors align with the Bantu concept of ubuntu. The final aspiration, voiced through Nazim Hikmet, John Lennon, Juan RamÃŗn JimÊnez, and Carl Sagan, is not for a better nation but for the dissolution of the nation-statist form itself â a trans-planetary, non-violent dwelling in the (other-than-)human species-condition, from Kolkata to the pale blue dot.
