Elite Conflict in a Plural Society- Twentieth Century Bengal

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This is not an exhaustive (nor, I hope, an exhausting) study of Bengal politics in this century. My main concern has been with institutional politics, particularly the politics of the legislature, and I have concentrated on the decade and a half, 1912 to 1917, which witnessed crucial developments in communal relations. An introductory chapter provides an outline of events leading to the reunification of Bengal in 1911, and an epilogue carries the story down to the partition of 1947, but no special claim of originality is made for these sections. The research extended over a seven-year period, including three visits to India and Pakistan, and one to the United Kingdom. The sources were both written and oral. I interviewed approximately fifty old politicians and administrators, among them Maulvi Fazlul Huq, Dr B. C. Roy, Hemendra Prasad Ghose, Sir Percival Griffiths, B. P. Singh Roy, Maulana Akram Khan, Sir Khwawja Nazimuddin, Professor N. K. Bose, and Nawab Khan Bahadur Musharruf Husain. The interviews were invaluable for the insights which they gave into personality, and they often suggested profitable new lines of enquiry. Where possible, however, I did not rely upon them for facts, always attempting to document any details I was given. Consequently the reader will find relatively few references to these interviews in footnotes.

The most important documentary sources For the research were the official records of the Government of Bengal and the Government of India. Their main depositories are the West Bengal Government Record Office, Calcutta, and the National Archives of India, New Delhi. The East Pakistan Government Record Office, Dacca, has duplicates of some of the pre-partition records of the Government of Bengal, and it also has files concerning Eastern Bengal Districts unavailable in Calcutta. Among the provincial Government's records are the Reports on Native Papers in Bengal, weekly compilations of political and social comment from the vernacular and English-language press, prepared by the British administration to keep its officers informed of current opinion.

Translated into English from a variety of languages, arranged by subject and indexed, this is an invaluable research source.

Complete files of even the leading Bengal newspapers and periodicals are difficult to find. The National Library of India, Calcutta, and the India Office Library, London, have the most extensive holdings. The West Bengal Secretariat Library, tile Indian Association, and the British Indian Association have much good material, and fragmentary files of smaller publications can be unearthed by a search through libraries in the Calcutta suburbs and mufussiI towns. For more than sixty years before his death in 1963, Hemendm Prasad Chose, a Calcutta journalist and politician, maintained books of press clippings, with his personal comments penned in the margins. I am greatly indebted to him for giving me access to these.

Among my other documentary sources, the following were the most important:

• Indian Association proceedings, Indian Association office, Bow Bazar, Calcutta

• British Indian Association proceedings and correspondence, British Indian Association office, British Indian Street, Calcutta

• C. F. Andrews papers, Rabindm Sadana, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan

• Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru papers, National Library of India, Calcutta

• Satya Kinkar Sahana Vinyavinode diaries, Ananda Kutir, Kenduadihi, Bankura

• Facial Huq speeches, 466 page typescript collection in possession of Azizul Fuq, Dacca

Of the relevant published materials, the National Library of India, Calcutta, the West Bengal Secretariat Library, Calcutta, and the India Office Library, London, have the best collections. I extend my sincere thanks for the assistance rendered me by the directors, librarians, keepers of records, and other officers of the various depositories in which I worked. A note on my system of transliteration might be helpful. When using words which arc frequently heard in Indian English (e.g., zamindar, mufussil, pandal) and which would be less easily recognised by the reader if they were transliterated strictly according to their Bengali form, I have used evil. I consider their most common English spelling and have left them unitalicised.

For all other Bengali words I have employed a regular though simplified scheme of transliteration, with only one diacritical mark to distinguish long 'al from short `al (e.g., hartal). In spelling Indian personal names I have consistently adhered to the form used by the individual himself when signing in Roman script. My research was made possible by financial assistance Bone the following institutions: Australian National University, American Council of Learned Societies, Social Science Research Council, Rackham School of Graduate Studies and Center for South and South-East Asian Studies of the University of Michigan, and American Institute of Indian Studies.

I have many individuals to thank for their help and succour during the years of the book's gestation. My heaviest debt of gratitude is to my wife, Jenni, who was involved with every stage of its production, as unpaid research assistant, unpaid typist, unrelenting critic, and constant companion. In India my way Was always smoothed by Dr Ajita Ranjan Mukherjea, formerly Secretary of the Bengal Legislature, scholar and friend of scholarship. The study would have been impossible without his help. In Canberra I was extremely fortunate to have the guidance and enthusiasm of Professor Anthony Low and Dr Bruce Graham, my doctoral supervisors, and the cheerful companionship of Dr Peter Reeves, whose experience made easier my early days as a raw recruit to South Asian studies. In America. I have benefitted from the advice of Robert I. Crane, Duke University, Stephen Hay, University of California Santa Barbara, and Warren M. Gunderson, City College of New York, who were all so generous as to give time to the reading and criticism of my drafts. For their research assistance I am indebted to Mrs Nancy Van Loo Mate, Mr Niranjan Sen Gupta, and Mr Michael Pearson, and for her cartography to Miss Karen Ewing, Department of Geography, University of Michigan.

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