A Handbook of West Bengal


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Village of Painters


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Highlights the state's rich cultural and natural landscapes and attractions with fifty-seven photographs in a week-at-a-glance format.




Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta


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What happens when a distant colonial power tries to tame an unfamiliar terrain in the world's largest tidal delta? This history of dramatic ecological changes in the Bengal Delta from 1760 to 1920 involves land, water and humans, tracing the stories and struggles that link them together. Pushing beyond narratives of environmental decline, Bhattacharyya argues that 'property-thinking', a governing tool critical in making land and water discrete categories of bureaucratic and legal management, was at the heart of colonial urbanization and the technologies behind the draining of Calcutta. The story of ecological change is narrated alongside emergent practices of land speculation and transformation in colonial law. Bhattacharyya demonstrates how this history continues to shape our built environments with devastating consequences, as shown in the Bay of Bengal's receding coastline.




Blood Island


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'When the house of history is on fire, journalists are often the first-responders, pulling victims away from the flames. Deep Halder is one of them.' - Amitava KumarIn 1978, around 1.5 lakh Hindu refugees, mostly belonging to the lower castes, settled in Marichjhapi an island in the Sundarbans, in West Bengal. By May 1979, the island was cleared of all refugees by Jyoti Basu's Left Front government. Most of the refugees were sent back to the central India camps they came from, but there were many deaths: of diseases, malnutrition resulting from an economic blockade, as well as from violence unleashed by the police on the orders of the government. Some of the refugees who survived Marichjhapi say the number of those who lost their lives could be as high as 10,000, while the-then government officials maintain that there were less than ten victims.How does an entire island population disappear? How does one unearth the truth and the details of one of the worst atrocities of post-Independent India? Journalist Deep Halder reconstructs the buried history of the 1979 massacres through his interviews with survivors, erstwhile reporters, government officials and activists with a rare combination of courage, conscientiousness and empathy.




Know Your State West Bengal


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West Bengal is one of the eastern states in India. Bengal is known as Gauda or Vanga an ancient Sanskrit Literature also it’s a land of worshipping God. West Bengal is India’s 6 th largest state in terms of economic size further it has 12 growth Centers for medium and large scale industries. West Bengal is the 2 nd largest tea growing in India. General knowledge of West Bengal is essential for various competitive examinations and especially for the students who are appearing for West Bengal Public Service commission (WBPSC) and other state level examinations The current edition of ‘Know Your State – West Bengal’ gives the detailed study of History, Geography, Economy, Polity, Art & Culture, Center and State government welfare schemes and Current Affairs of West Bengal. A systematic Chapter wise study will mark improvement in the performance of the students, moreover Tables, boxes and figures gives better representation for memorizing the main points. MCQs have been provided at the end of each chapter that helps in understanding and preparing the subject at the exam point-of-view level. This book comes a quick, relevant and easy route for achieving in the examination. TABLE OF CONTENT West Bengal : Basic Information, Ancient History of West Bengal, Medieval History of West Bengal, Modern History and Popular Movements in West Bengal, Geographical Features and Climate of West Bengal, Climate and Soils of West Bengal, Drainage System of West Bengal, Natural Vegetation of West Bengal, National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries, Agriculture and Irrigation in West Bengal, Animal Husbandry in West Bengal, Industries of West Bengal, Minerals and Energy Resources in West Bengal, Transport System of West Bengal, Communication in West Bengal, Administrative Set-Up of West Bengal, West Bengal Judiciary, Local Self Government in West Bengal, District Profile of West Bengal, Tourism in West Bengal, Music and Dance of West Bengal, Bengali Cinema, Bengali Theatre, Language and Literature of West Bengal, Fairs and Festivals of West Bengal, Education and Health in West Bengal, Castes and Tribes of West Bengal, Sports of West Bengal, Awards and Honours of West Bengal, Great Personalities of West Bengal, Social and Welfare Schemes of West Bengal, Demographic Profile of West Bengal, Current Affairs




Gangster State


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Crossing the Bay of Bengal


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The Indian Ocean was global long before the Atlantic, and today the countries bordering the Bay of Bengal—India, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia—are home to one in four people on Earth. Crossing the Bay of Bengal places this region at the heart of world history for the first time. Integrating human and environmental history, and mining a wealth of sources, Sunil Amrith gives a revelatory and stirring new account of the Bay and those who have inhabited it. For centuries the Bay of Bengal served as a maritime highway between India and China, and then as a battleground for European empires, all while being shaped by the monsoons and by human migration. Imperial powers in the nineteenth century, abetted by the force of capital and the power of steam, reconfigured the Bay in their quest for coffee, rice, and rubber. Millions of Indian migrants crossed the sea, bound by debt or spurred by drought, and filled with ambition. Booming port cities like Singapore and Penang became the most culturally diverse societies of their time. By the 1930s, however, economic, political, and environmental pressures began to erode the Bay’s centuries-old patterns of interconnection. Today, rising waters leave the Bay of Bengal’s shores especially vulnerable to climate change, at the same time that its location makes it central to struggles over Asia’s future. Amrith’s evocative and compelling narrative of the region’s pasts offers insights critical to understanding and confronting the many challenges facing Asia in the decades ahead.







West Bengal under the Left


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This book makes a critical analysis of West Bengal's Left Front regime (1977-2011) and explores the causes of its collapse under three sgments; inquiry into issues of political management; evaluation of various policy initiatives; and examination of development in civil society. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in South Asia.




Beyond Kolkata


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This book examines the politics behind, and the socio-economic and ecological repercussions of, the making of a new township, variously called New Town, Megacity or Jyoti Basu Nagar, in Rajarhat near Kolkata. Conceived by the West Bengal state government in the mid-1990s, in pandering to the vision of urban planners of creating a hi-tech town beyond an unruly, crowded Kolkata, and feeding the hunger of realtors and developers, the city is built on the foundations of coercive, even violent, land acquisition, state largesse and corruption — and at the cost of erasing a self-sufficient subsistence economy and despoiling a fragile environment. Yet, after its completion and departure of construction labour, the new town appears as a necropolis, a ghost city, that belies its promised image of an urban utopia, even as the displaced locals lead a precarious, mobile existence as ‘transit labour’, engaged in odd and informal jobs. Written on the basis of intensive fieldwork, government documents, court records, and chronicles of public protests, this book broadly analyses the politics and economics of urbanisation in the age of post-colonial capitalism, particularly the paradoxical combination of neoliberal and primitive modes of capital accumulation upon which the global emergence of ‘new towns’ is based. Departing from the dominant styles of urban studies that focus on cultural or spatial analysis of cities, the authors show the links between changes in space, technology, political economy, class composition, and forms of urban politics which give concrete shape to a city. It will immensely interest those in sociology, political science, economics, development studies, urban studies, policy and governance studies, and history.