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Papers by Dipanjan Mazumder
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 2017
Defining slavery, Richard Eaton in his introduction to ‘Slavery and South Asian History’ writes t... more Defining slavery, Richard Eaton in his introduction to ‘Slavery and South Asian History’ writes that it is the “condition of uprooted outsiders, impoverished insiders, - or the descendants of either, serving persons and institutions on which they are dependent.” This nuanced reading opens up the possibilities of exploring forced migrations as part of the debate on slavery in South Asian historiography. Between the eleventh and the thirteenth century, as Andre Wink estimates roughly ten percent of the population of Inner and Central Asia moved into Hindustan in a variety of capacities both as freemen and as bandagan. While certain global models have tried to account for this migration, the general categorization of migrations in the pre sixteenth century as ‘voluntary’ seems problematic in light of evocative descriptions of social death.
This article argues for an expansion of the paradigm of ‘middle passage’ to premodern South Asian history by interrogating the formulaic narratives of passage of the loyal banda across spatial and cultural frontiers in metropolitan accounts of the ‘free’ men of the pen as well as their own poignant expressions of alienation. The refashioning of the pasts and passages of loyal bandagan turned Sultans, often involved a complete dissimulation of the violent episodes of social death in passage for these royal bodies. However some of these chroniclers themselves were victims of violent uprooting and alienation. There was thus a remarkable congruency between the stories untold for their patrons and the stories lived by them.
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 2016
https://www.sahapedia.org/the-fortress-of-daulatabad
Conference Presentations by Dipanjan Mazumder
I write of a time shortly before the fateful encounter between Calcutta and it’s alleged colonial... more I write of a time shortly before the fateful encounter between Calcutta and it’s alleged colonial founder Job Charnock on the banks of the Hooghly in lower Bengal. The heydays of the port of Hooghly had come to pass as groups of indigenous merchants as well as European trading companies were moving downstream to the village of Calcutta. The year is 1686 with Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707), the Mughal emperor at the helm of an apogee of Mughal imperial expansion in South Asia, as a certain Krishnaram Das, a kayastha (belonging to the scribal castes) from Nimta, adjacent to the burgeoning site of Calcutta was composing his third narrative poem, the Raymangal. This essay critically reads the Raymangal in this imaginaire at the intersections of cultural-political authority of the Mughal Empire as well as new mercantile interests in the late seventeenth century Bengal.
“Marginality arises from a comprehensive association between writing, state, history and religion... more “Marginality arises from a comprehensive association between writing, state, history and religion.”— Shail Mayaram, Against History, Against State (2003).
The cultural frontiers of ‘us-hood’ articulated in the Sultanate Persian chronicles often disparaged deracines, social menials and other marginalized groups. Zia Barani’s choicest invectives, “the lowest and the basest of the base and low born” were directed to these social outcasts who were often attached with sultanate elites by varying ties of service. These included socially menial military personnel like Afghans as also a new crop of diglossic secretaries (Ratan, Bhiran, Samaras, Dharas and Kannu) and scribal groups increasingly filling the ranks of the Persian chancery in course of the 13th -14th centuries. The maulazadagan (sons of freed Balbani slaves) also were equally but selectively subjected to sarcasm. One group that had for a considerable period been at the receiving end of metropolitan histories was the Khokhars. Occupying a frontier space the Khokhars were infamously labeled as rebels, highway robbers, in the Persian chronicles. Beginning from Muizz al-Din Muhammad, Sultans like Qutb al-Din, Illtutmish and Balban have been credited with Ghaza against the Khokhars, but the narratives take a curious turn when one Ghazi Malik Tughluq marching from Dipalpur to Delhi to uproot apostasy and infidelity from the metropole was assisted in his endeavor by the much maligned group. In this paper we try to locate shifts in the identities of the Khokhars as they negotiated their movement not only from the frontier to the metropole in and out marginality but from beings the objects of Ghaza to its subjects.
Book Reviews by Dipanjan Mazumder
The Medieval History Journal, 2023
How did the Mughal state appear to its subjects? Generations of colonial and post-colonial schola... more How did the Mughal state appear to its subjects? Generations of colonial and post-colonial scholars have looked for answers in the impressive paper records of the Mughal empire. One particularly influential idea in the field sees the Mughal empire as an extractive state with well-defined laws and a centralised bureaucracy. Farhat Hasan, in his bold new book, peels back the layers of fixity in the paper archives to unveil an early modern performative public sphere where the state participated with multiple social forces to uphold a moral economy in a fast-changing world of commerce, urbanisation, and political culture. Paper, Performance, and the State demonstrates that there is no straightforward correspondence between paper bureaucracy, literate traditions of law and history, and actual governance. For example, sometime in the late eighteenth century, one Shah Badar was asked to demonstrate the falsity of the allegations made by Sadullah, a resident of the subah of Awadh in present day North India. Sadullah claimed to possess documents signed by Shah Badar acknowledging a loan and a property held in rent from the former. Shah Badar, however, claimed that these documents were forgeries. While Sadullah approached the Qazi for a resolution, Shah Badar went to the panches, or local headmen of the qasba, to challenge the allegations. In a spectacular demonstration of his innocence before a crowd of witnesses comprising the local notables-the mufti, the qazis, and the panches-Shah Badar brought over his sons, publicly swore on their lives and destroyed the papers that he claimed were forgeries. The details of the trial, including Shah Badar's performance, was duly recorded in an istishhad (declarative legal document) and signed by 60 witnesses on 21 October 1776. Among other similar sources used in the book, this ishtishhad bears testimony of 'scribal orality' or the coexistence of literacy with non-verbal communication and performances. Hasan persuasively argues that the written word did not enjoy 'semantic autonomy' in the
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 2017
Defining slavery, Richard Eaton in his introduction to ‘Slavery and South Asian History’ writes t... more Defining slavery, Richard Eaton in his introduction to ‘Slavery and South Asian History’ writes that it is the “condition of uprooted outsiders, impoverished insiders, - or the descendants of either, serving persons and institutions on which they are dependent.” This nuanced reading opens up the possibilities of exploring forced migrations as part of the debate on slavery in South Asian historiography. Between the eleventh and the thirteenth century, as Andre Wink estimates roughly ten percent of the population of Inner and Central Asia moved into Hindustan in a variety of capacities both as freemen and as bandagan. While certain global models have tried to account for this migration, the general categorization of migrations in the pre sixteenth century as ‘voluntary’ seems problematic in light of evocative descriptions of social death.
This article argues for an expansion of the paradigm of ‘middle passage’ to premodern South Asian history by interrogating the formulaic narratives of passage of the loyal banda across spatial and cultural frontiers in metropolitan accounts of the ‘free’ men of the pen as well as their own poignant expressions of alienation. The refashioning of the pasts and passages of loyal bandagan turned Sultans, often involved a complete dissimulation of the violent episodes of social death in passage for these royal bodies. However some of these chroniclers themselves were victims of violent uprooting and alienation. There was thus a remarkable congruency between the stories untold for their patrons and the stories lived by them.
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 2016
https://www.sahapedia.org/the-fortress-of-daulatabad
I write of a time shortly before the fateful encounter between Calcutta and it’s alleged colonial... more I write of a time shortly before the fateful encounter between Calcutta and it’s alleged colonial founder Job Charnock on the banks of the Hooghly in lower Bengal. The heydays of the port of Hooghly had come to pass as groups of indigenous merchants as well as European trading companies were moving downstream to the village of Calcutta. The year is 1686 with Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707), the Mughal emperor at the helm of an apogee of Mughal imperial expansion in South Asia, as a certain Krishnaram Das, a kayastha (belonging to the scribal castes) from Nimta, adjacent to the burgeoning site of Calcutta was composing his third narrative poem, the Raymangal. This essay critically reads the Raymangal in this imaginaire at the intersections of cultural-political authority of the Mughal Empire as well as new mercantile interests in the late seventeenth century Bengal.
“Marginality arises from a comprehensive association between writing, state, history and religion... more “Marginality arises from a comprehensive association between writing, state, history and religion.”— Shail Mayaram, Against History, Against State (2003).
The cultural frontiers of ‘us-hood’ articulated in the Sultanate Persian chronicles often disparaged deracines, social menials and other marginalized groups. Zia Barani’s choicest invectives, “the lowest and the basest of the base and low born” were directed to these social outcasts who were often attached with sultanate elites by varying ties of service. These included socially menial military personnel like Afghans as also a new crop of diglossic secretaries (Ratan, Bhiran, Samaras, Dharas and Kannu) and scribal groups increasingly filling the ranks of the Persian chancery in course of the 13th -14th centuries. The maulazadagan (sons of freed Balbani slaves) also were equally but selectively subjected to sarcasm. One group that had for a considerable period been at the receiving end of metropolitan histories was the Khokhars. Occupying a frontier space the Khokhars were infamously labeled as rebels, highway robbers, in the Persian chronicles. Beginning from Muizz al-Din Muhammad, Sultans like Qutb al-Din, Illtutmish and Balban have been credited with Ghaza against the Khokhars, but the narratives take a curious turn when one Ghazi Malik Tughluq marching from Dipalpur to Delhi to uproot apostasy and infidelity from the metropole was assisted in his endeavor by the much maligned group. In this paper we try to locate shifts in the identities of the Khokhars as they negotiated their movement not only from the frontier to the metropole in and out marginality but from beings the objects of Ghaza to its subjects.
The Medieval History Journal, 2023
How did the Mughal state appear to its subjects? Generations of colonial and post-colonial schola... more How did the Mughal state appear to its subjects? Generations of colonial and post-colonial scholars have looked for answers in the impressive paper records of the Mughal empire. One particularly influential idea in the field sees the Mughal empire as an extractive state with well-defined laws and a centralised bureaucracy. Farhat Hasan, in his bold new book, peels back the layers of fixity in the paper archives to unveil an early modern performative public sphere where the state participated with multiple social forces to uphold a moral economy in a fast-changing world of commerce, urbanisation, and political culture. Paper, Performance, and the State demonstrates that there is no straightforward correspondence between paper bureaucracy, literate traditions of law and history, and actual governance. For example, sometime in the late eighteenth century, one Shah Badar was asked to demonstrate the falsity of the allegations made by Sadullah, a resident of the subah of Awadh in present day North India. Sadullah claimed to possess documents signed by Shah Badar acknowledging a loan and a property held in rent from the former. Shah Badar, however, claimed that these documents were forgeries. While Sadullah approached the Qazi for a resolution, Shah Badar went to the panches, or local headmen of the qasba, to challenge the allegations. In a spectacular demonstration of his innocence before a crowd of witnesses comprising the local notables-the mufti, the qazis, and the panches-Shah Badar brought over his sons, publicly swore on their lives and destroyed the papers that he claimed were forgeries. The details of the trial, including Shah Badar's performance, was duly recorded in an istishhad (declarative legal document) and signed by 60 witnesses on 21 October 1776. Among other similar sources used in the book, this ishtishhad bears testimony of 'scribal orality' or the coexistence of literacy with non-verbal communication and performances. Hasan persuasively argues that the written word did not enjoy 'semantic autonomy' in the