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BAYEZID KHAN
LECTURER
DEVELOPMENT STUDIES DISCIPLINE
KHULNA UNIVERSITY
KHULNA
 TOPIC
THE LONG VIEW
COURSE TITLE
BANGLADESH STUDIES

COURSE NO. DS-1103

 You may wonder why a book about Bangladesh should begin with
the Himalayas. The reason is without Himalayas , Bangladesh
would not exist. Bangladesh is the Himalayas, flattended out. Every
spring mountain snow melts and the icy water sweeps along
particles of the soils.
The mighty Ganges that flows eastwards through India enters
western Bangladesh where it is known as Padma. On the northern
side of the Himalayas an equally majestic river , the Brahmaputra ,
forms in Tibet. Meghna enters Bangladesh from the east side. But
the majestic river are not the only source of water. Other 2 vital
source of water is (1) Rainwater & (2) Seawater.
These three forms of water ; river , rain and sea give Bangladesh a
natural Janus face.

A LAND OF WATER AND SILT

A LAND OF WATER AND SILT

1. Summer floods are a way of life about 20

percent of the country is inundated every
summer , mainly as a result of rainfall .Usually
the big rivers reach their peak flows at different
times but if they peak together, they will breach
their banks and inundate the floodplain.
2. A river flows through its channel for many year,
it becomes shallower because of silt deposits.

3. Although most floods are caused by rainfall and

inundatior in deltaic rivers , they may also result
from flash-floods after heavy rain in the hills,
pushing their way through the delta , or by tidal
storm surges.
4.From the viewpoint of human life, flooding has
had both positive and negative effects. Annual
floods constantly replenish some of the most fertile
soils on earth. Rich silt has always allowed
luxuriant natural vegetation and made early and
successful agriculture possible. But the
uncontrolled nature of floods, and the certainty of
severe inundation every ten years or so.
5. The unstable geological structures underlying
Bangladesh generate frequent earthquakes because
the Himalayas and the Bangladesh hills are fold
belts resulting from these collisions.

6. In the 1780s an earthquake and floods forced the

Brahmaputra river into a new channel, wiping out
villages.
7. Bangladeshi villages have been described as elusive, they are
not clustered around a central square, protected by defensive
walls. So they should remember that 'Be prepared for floods!
Save your life and possessions by seeking a high shelter'.

8. Experts on climate change predict that Bangladesh will be one

of the countries most severely affected by rising sea levels
resulting from global warming. On the other hand, in a world
increasingly concerned about water scarcities, Bangladesh's
abundance of fresh water could be turned into a critical resource.
JUNGLE, FIELDS ,CITIES AND STATES
 For hundreds of thousands of years , the fertile
delta was covered by dense rainforests and
wetlands, an environment of high diversity.in the
last few centuries however , what had been one of
the decline of the Bengalian rain forest was
directly related to the success of one of its
denizens: man . Human beings have been
roaming the forest and rivers of Bangladesh
richest wildlife areas of the world.
 The basis for añy claims about prehistoric humans in bangla is
slim.on the other hand,there is the environment of the floodplains
with their frequent inundations and a humid tropical clate both
perticularly unkind to material remains of human settelment
 The eastern hills of Bangladesh and the western plateaux give the
best clues to the early inhabitants of the region.here stones,pebbles
and pertified wood were available
 Cultivation of plants and domestication of animal occurred well
before1,500BCE.A crucial shift occured when agriculture evolved
from shifting cultivation to irrigate rice cultivation on permanent
fields.this type of agriculture so productive that population expanded
 Originally a swamp plant,rice is extremly well
suited to the ecology of bangladesh.Generation of
cultivators selected and adapted rice to suit their
needs.
 Early on a pattern of land use developed in which
the highest delta lands were resarved for
homesteads.slightly lower grounds were used to
grow rice seedlings and vegetables.and middling
and low lands took rice
In the fifth century BCE, led to urban centre
maritime trade and Bengal's first sizable states
occured the success of rice-based agriculture .
Wari-Bateswar was a major administrative
centre on the banks of Brahmaputra river from
there archeologists discovered many elements
through excavating . Many artists and artisans
in Bangladesh have used to terracotta to
provide us with the liveliest information about
everyday life in Bangladesh.

THE EMERGENCE OF URBAN LIFE

By the third century BCE. centres was
well established in the Bengal flood
plains. Early records show that
Mohastangarh in the district of Bogra
was an important urban centre when
the Mourya empire dominated North
India.
Inthe tenth century prakrita
BCE.

language from which Bengali

language developed . Early
terracotta plaques demonstrate
the use of clay as a sophisticated
expression of urban culture.
Languages of the Indo-European family
begun to spread only from about the forth
centre BCE and today these older language
families are still represented in Bangladesh .
Sanskritic learning may not have begun to
spread widely in Bengal till towards the end
of the eleventh century but it had focused
scholarly attention by the rich literature in
that language . Archeologists of Bengal had
often been motivated to show that Bengal
was not an uncivilized place and had proven
"high culture" at later times.
In the fifth century BCE. Sanskritic and
non-sanskritic worldviews met ,
clashed and intermingled . Even
today the clash between them can be
observed in Bangladesh culture . New
approaches to archeology and
scientific excavations with detailed
attention are showing that there us
still a world to discover here.
During the following centuries large towns would develop along major rivers
rather than on the exposed sea cost. The fortunes of those towns were
linked to the whims of the deltaic rivers: whenever a river moved course
and the port silted up, the town would decline. An early victim was
tamralipti , one of the India’s largest ports and possibly the chief trade
emporium of the wide area between China and Alaxandria. The case of
Lakhnauti-Gaur also demonstrates the vicissitudes of riverside urbanization.

Like all riverside cities in the history of Bangladesh, Gaur felt the power of
the river to give prosperity or to take it away. During its heyday, Gaur was
settled and abandoned several times. When the river moved away, it was
not only an economic disaster, but also a health disaster, as swamps formed
and malaria and other fevers broke out. Today, the river flows about fifteen
kilometers from Gaur’s ruins, which stretch over an area thirty by six
kilometers and include monumental gates, fortifications, palaces, mosques,
bridges, causeways, canals, loading platforms and underground sewers.
Part of the ruins lie in Bangladesh and part across the border in India.

THE RISE AND FALL OF STATES

The rise and fall of Gaur was just one episode in the delta’s long
history of flexible urbanization. The early history of state
formation in the Bengal delta can be described as a continual
emergence and decline of local and regional polities that only
occasionally became integrated into large realms. It is often
unclear how firm such integration was, how it affected local power
holders and what it meant for the population at large.
The actual power of the rulers over the agricultural population is
difficult to access. According to Sheena Panja, the impressive
monuments that rulers such as Pala dynasty constructed in the
floodplains were actually signs of weakness.
Fragmented though the archaeological record for the Bengal delta
is, it shows a pattern that runs through the entire history of the
region: the delta’s socio-economic and political development
rarely conformed to an all-South-Asia or even a north-Indian
model.

THE RISE AND FALL OF STATES

* The long view
A Region of Multiple frontiers
* In this chapter we encounter 4 more frontiers. All of them
historically moving in an easterly direction.

1.
1. THE
THE AGRARIAN
AGRARIAN FRONTIER
FRONTIER

2.
2. THE
THE STATE
STATE FRONTIER
FRONTIER

3.
3. THE
THE RELIGIOUS
RELIGIOUS FRONTIER
FRONTIER

4.
4. THE
THE LANGUAGE
LANGUAGE FRONTIER
FRONTIER
*This frontier divides cultivators of irrigated fields from shifting
cultivators and the forest. In the delta embanked fields irrigated
by monsoon rainwater and worked by ploughs appeared at least
2500 years ago. Since then this form of crop production has been
expanding gradually across the lowlands at the expense of an
older system of hole cultivation on temporary plots. Today the
latter system is still found in Bangladesh. But is restricted to hill
terrain where irrigated fields can not be maintained. The spread of
irrigated agriculture was slow and uneven because establishing it
requires much labour. Cultivators had to clear the forest, level the
ground and construct field embankments and irrigation channels.

THE AGRARIAN FRONTIER

Even more labour was needed to keep irrigated agriculture
running. If successful , however, it was capable of
permanently supporting dense populations. The urban
centres of early Bangladesh could develop only after
irrigated agriculture had established itself and had begun
producing sufficient food not only for the cultivators
themselves but also for emerging classes of non cultivating
consumers.
Bangladesh’s agrarian system had been based on an
expansionary dynamic , the moving frontier was necessary
to support a gradually growing population. Bangladeshi
cultivators unable to reclaim new fields , sought to combat
looming stagnation by means of two strategies.

1. AGRIRIAN EVOLUTION

2. SELF RESCUE BY MIGRATION

* A second frontier in the bengal delta was that between states and
other forms of rules. It was such alliances that dominated the
sense , occasionally punctuated by the emergence of large states.
Sometimes such large states were able to incorporate small
stateless and chiefdoms but they were unable to “climb the hills”
. The state frontier did not close till well after the establishment
of the colonial state, largely as a result of the British fighting
their way into the hills and annexing them to their colony.
Today the forms of state rule here continue to differ from those
in the plains. In a sense the frontier still lives on the
administrative arrangements of the Chittagong hill tracks. Where
the Bangladesh state continues to uphold regional regulation and
political forms originating in the colonial period.

*THE STATE FRONTIER

 A third frontier was the one separating inhabitants with different religious visions.
The early history of religious identities in Bangladesh is still poorly understood.
In the Bengal delta, some traditions ,- now known as Buddhism, Jainism, and
Hinduism –appear to have coexisted for centuries as part of the eastward
expansion of sanskritic culture. Early Chinese pilgrims described cities in
Bangladesh as places of religious learning. For example, Xuanzang, also known as
Hiuen Tsiang – visited Samatata in Eastern Bangladesh in around 640 CE. In his
words.
In sixteenth century, Islam came to be associated with state-recognised control of
reclaimed land , the expansion of wet-rice cultivation and literacy. The new village
mosques and shrines began to coalesce, creating a completely new blend of
Bengali and Islamic worldview.

THE RELIGIOUS FRONTIER

 The state/ religious/agriculture frontier was also linked to language change.
Today the country is often equated with Bengali language– Bangladesh means
“Country of Bengalis”.
In terms of language the history of Bangladesh is clearly one of the
multilingualism.

Garo :- In central Bangladesh ( Dhaka , Mymensingh )

Khasi :- In the north-east ( Sylhet )
Arakanes :- In the south ( potuakhali , Chittagong )
koch:- In the north ( Rangpur and Dinajpur )

The spread of Bengali as a dominant language of the region took centuries.

Bangladeshis today easily recognise each other’s regional roots.

THE LANGUAGE FRONTIER

 MULTIPLE IDENTITIES
The complexity of analysing Bangladesh culture is very essential . Let me give
two examples:

First , Gender Relation:

IN contemporary Bangladesh , there is much evidence that many women live
very choice –restricted lives but this is not the entire story . More importantly,
the region’s literature has produced a number of female characters who are far
from downtrodden.


My second example,
The Religious Frontier ,which contrast between monotheistic Islam and
polytheistic Hinduism.

On the other hand , many Bauls form a small community but their music is
remarkably popular in Bangladesh.

In conclution Bengali Identity came late for large communities.Bengali and

Muslim did creat a perpetual cultural expression.
THE DELTA AS A CROSSROADS
 The population of the Bengal delta has always been
remarkable mobile . For as far back we can construct,
it was integrated into networks of long distance,
trade, pilgrims, political alliance, cultural exchange
and travel. In the delta, water transport was far more
important than transport over. Bengal was a country
of boat and waterways. The most ancient maritime
exports from Bengal appear to have been cassia
spikenard, aloe wood(from Himalayas) , silk fabrics
(from china) etc. chines trade brought gold silver,
porcelain, satin and silks etc.
 THE DELTA AS A CROSS ROAD

 Openness was an essential feature of the delta,

adding a constant stream of goods to the
economy and acting as a boon to local
industries. Bengal's population was mobile and
participated in overseas trade in various roles :
as merchants, as sailors and as producers of
export products such as rice , textiles and ships.
Last but not the least , the openness of the delta
also exposed the population to many cultural
influences and new ideas.
THANK YOU