and has carefully, systematically dissected each of them, and disproved them. What is left is only the clear dating of the expansion of the Muslim population, which he assigns to as late as the Mughal period, an astounding assertion, contrary to everything that we had held earlier - certainly contrary to what I believed before reading this wholly persuasive book.
Since you have read the book, the question arises - what exactly is it that I seek to convey to you?
First, that it is a refutation of various chauvinist views that we have read here. Ironically, it shatters the illusions of both Muslim chauvinists, that the population was due to mass migration, that the Muslims of Bengal are really migrants who immigrated en masse, and the Hindu chauvinists, who claim variously that this population came into being due to the threat of violence, or that they are all former Hindus and Buddhists who converted due to either, slightingly, a desire to get out of the oppressed status as non-Muslims that they occupied, or, on the lines of the Ambedkar/Dalit argument, that they sought Social Liberation (my view till now).
All of us who advocated this, that or the other are now sitting here with egg on our faces, some of us, who have just read the book, with a happy smile under the yolk.
Second, that it is no longer a question of a long-standing composite Muslim Bengali culture, a view that was put forward so earnestly and sincerely by various sections, the @
asad71 and @
khair_ctg view among others, if I understood them correctly. Far from being long-standing, this was as late as the 16th century, perhaps later, and is after the Mughal conquest of Bengal. It is after the shift eastwards of the main channel of the Ganga eastwards, and the consequent opening up of vast forest areas for exploitation and conversion to agricultural, and the directly linked sudden expansion of the population under conditions of greater security and prosperity.
Third, that one of us, and I shall not name the individual, lands up with, not egg, but some other yellow and in that particular case vile-smelling substance on the face.
Eaton proves decisively, and that is the reason for my extensive citations, that there was nothing like a composite Bengalo-Persian cultural composite which was built up in the centuries that passed between Bakhtiyar Khalji and the partitions of Bengal.
Every citation, every paragraph of his book makes it very clear that it was the original culture and language that prevailed over the invaders, and that what remained, before the Mughal intervention, was a largely traditional and native tradition of kingship and rule, overlaid by the necessities of Islamic rule, the striking of coins and reading of the khutba, the legal system, in some aspects, and the influences at the very top, at the level of the Sultan himself, other than during the interregnum, if I may call it that, of Ganesh and his son. The Husain Shahis apparently were content to rule, and to allow some aspects of the earlier traditions of kingship to return, rather than stick to the straight and narrow path recommended by the Sufi savants.
Fourth, I believe that there are chauvinists here, of both sides, and I am wholly ready to believe, based on your remarks in your latest post, that you are not one of them. I also agree with you that the work is brilliant, nothing short of that, and has entirely converted me to this point of view. Your assertion that other south Asian histories - you mention Hindu, but I beg to draw your attention to this being a general malaise, not leaving out the Christians (Europeans) or Muslims (Indian, Persian, Turkish, Arabic) - were either biased, or plain incompetent or simply lacked any sense of context about how events unfolded, and about the intimate connection at some points of time between Central Asia and Bengal, are perfectly valid.
Incidentally, I read those parts with a sense of disbelief and a dawning enlightenment, as having thrown clear and lucid light on some aspects that were simply not making sense without this connection having existed.
If these views are yours, you are clearly an unbiased observer and analyst, perhaps even an historian by education, and also clearly not a chauvinist, at least not here , not now. I have no reason to doubt your statement that you hold these views.
I sincerely hope that this will set to rest the concept that what is being advocated in this thread is justified by tradition and past practice.
What remains is the path that the people of Bangladesh set for themselves in future, as a sovereign, independent nation. If they set themselves to reminding themselves of their membership of the Islamic community by changing the script in which Bengali is written, it is their sovereign desire, and good luck to them. There is nothing that anyone else can or should say. That, however, will be decided outside this forum. If such a debate arises, I, for one, shall watch it from the galleries with the keenest academic interest and no personal concern or emotional involvement, as being, ultimately, none of my business.
I hope that this will make my own position clear, and also the reason for such extensive citation. Far from my correcting gaps in your knowledge, this is an acknowledgement that gaps in my own knowledge have been corrected. However, it also puts to rest the canard that Bengalo-Persian culture prevailed in the centuries past. Instead, it makes it clear that it was at best restricted to the very short Mughal rule over Bengal, and throws new light on the Bengal Renaissance, correcting the impression that it was an entirely innovative, Eurocentric breakthrough and also the impression that it was a Bengali Hindu revenge on the Muslim elite, taken under cover of British patronage.
I think Eaton has put this argument in its place. There is no need to spend time uselessly arguing over this obvious fallacy or to indulge in this sort of fantasising:
Poppycock.
