Community and Nation: Essays on Identity and Politics in Eastern India

Papiya Ghosh, an avid researcher of the history of colonial and modern India, had an endearing presence among her fellow historians and the academic community. Bringing together for the first time essays written over the last three decades, this book showcases her analytical insights, nuanced understanding, and empirical rigour. Community and Nation is a tribute to the versatility and intensity of a committed historian whose efforts helped put Bihar on the national and international academic map. This posthumous volume of the author’s best-known essays focuses on the history of Bihar from 1920s to independence. The first six chapters delineate aspects of identity, perceptions, and political articulations of Muslims integrating developments in colonial Bihar. The last four chapters explore complexities associated with those who were forced to leave their homes, such as the exodus of Bihari Muslims to Dacca after the 1946 riots. The author’s work shows the diversities within a stereotypical and homogenized conception of ‘Muslim politics’. By focusing on Bihar and not exclusively on ‘high’ politics, she weaves together the projection of ideas and visions with the shifts, changes, and interactions that marked the intricate relationship between ‘community’ and ‘nation’ in Colonial Bihar. This book will interest scholars, teachers, and students of modern Indian history, sociology, politics, Third World and Dalit studies, particularly those interested in community identity and minority politics.