Towards a contingent high Muslim political history of Bengal, 1937–1947

Abstract

High Muslim political history in Bengal's last colonial decade remains an understudied topic in regional history, where disproportionate attention has been paid to Hindus and Congress politics. The significant but little work that exists, hints to the possibility of how it can challenge nation-centered histories of partition and independence. This historiographical essay surveys the literature on Bengali Muslims between 1937 and 1947. It pays particular attention to recent works that have studied Bengali Muslim peasants, culture, identity, Islam and communalism, and the prevalence of “contingent” history in these scholarly works. These works have inadvertently touched on high Muslim political history and underscored its potential for contributing to the study of India's independence and partition history in addition to political, Islamic, regional and national histories, secular thought in India and even global religious ideology and practice. While these new works allow us to reimagine high Muslim political history, close analysis also reveals how the literature simultaneously shows strains of lopsided research, underscoring the need for correction.