History - Publications

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Browsing History - Publications by Author "Mukherjee, Rila"
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    A dynamic eastern Indian ocean
    ( 2011-01-01) Mukherjee, Rila
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    Ambivalent engagements: The Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean world
    ( 2017-02-01) Mukherjee, Rila
    This article investigates the role played by the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean world. It argues that formulations that suggest the Bay's encounters were ambivalent and sporadic until c.1000 - when there was a trade revolution - and see it as a latecomer in the Indian Ocean world, are wrong. Examples from commerce and cultural flows reveal the Bay world as an active participant in the Indian Ocean world from early times and debunk the notion of passivity.
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    Civilizational linkages in the bay of bengal region until 1800
    ( 2019-10-16) Mukherjee, Rila
    This chapter discusses a temporal inconsistency depending on the Bay sector falling under scrutiny. Chakravarti’s ‘pull’ is apparent in seventh century South Asia, while Lieberman sees it occurring between the tenth and sixteenth centuries in mainland Southeast Asia. An age of commerce and a commercial revolution are seen in both the ninth and eleventh centuries; linked to new polities emerging in the tenth-eleventh centuries. The chapter describes three radical phase transitions: one from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, another in the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries and a third in the eighteenth century. The tenth-eleventh centuries saw a period of transition in the Indian Ocean as new powers emerged to assume control over the major centres of contemporary civilization: the Fatimids in Egypt; the Cholas in southern India; and the Songs in China. The Bay of Bengal always had strong Asian connections, but was a latecomer in the western Indian Ocean world, although its southern segment had participated in Roman.
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    Contested authenticities
    ( 2004-12-01) Mukherjee, Rila
    The image of the past is redefined by communities within a particular cultural context. The future of the past does not flow to a fixed end-point; on the contrary it betrays an anxious and continuous negotiation with the present. The past therefore becomes an invention suited to immediate concerns. In a multicultural country such as India the past lends itself to many interpretations: examples discussed in this miniature article are the visionary geography of Garhwal, the reinvention of the Vailankanni myth and the propagation of the Somnath agenda. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd.
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    Partition(s) and Bengal
    ( 2010-07-01) Mukherjee, Rila
    This paper looks at partition theory as regards South Asia and claims that the Bengal partition differed significantly from the Punjab model. It argues that the Punjab partition cannot be seen as a universal model. Moreover, the paper does not regard the partition of 1947 as the sole partition in Bengal, but looks at Bengal's partition history as part of a process starting in 1905 and culminating in 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Finally, the paper emphasizes regionalism as an important component of the Bengal partitions. The paper pays attention to the physical map of partition: the delta, its rivers, ports and cities and their respective hinterlands all have their 'own' histories which were reoriented after the partition of 1947. Moreover, a new geographical and political category, the enclaves that emerged post-1947, is also studied. Today, soon after the signing of the New Delhi-Dhaka bilateral agreement, this revisiting of Bengal's partition history, and the physical map of the two Bengals, is especially significant. © 2010 IUP.
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    People, Places, and Mobility: The Strange History of Prester John across the Indian Ocean
    ( 2018-01-01) Mukherjee, Rila
    The worlds of Central Asia and the Indian Ocean have been seen as discrete, seemingly unconnected except by way of the vertical silk roads descending through feeder routes into port cities situated along the Indian Ocean and its many seas, gulfs, and bays. Before Central Asia lost historical centrality and was regarded increasingly as a blank space on the map, it was a dynamic region. The Indian Ocean world with its spice, cotton, and silk routes was more known, having entered European geographical knowledge - and fantasy - from antiquity. The two worlds - terrestrial and oceanic - have been seen as diametrically opposed, with historiography privileging the latter. This essay links the two worlds by evoking people, places, and mobility through the legend of Prester John, a mysterious Christian monarch and putative ally against Muslims.
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    Q & amp;A with Patrick Manning
    ( 2019-01-01) Mukherjee, Rila
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    Ramkrishna mukherjee - I
    ( 2016-09-24) Mukherjee, Rila
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    Revisiting Michael Pearson's Indian Ocean Littoral
    ( 2017-01-01) Mukherjee, Rila
    This essay rethinks Pearson's formulation of littoral society in two essays he wrote in 1985 and 2006. While the first made a case for coastal history, the second continued the theme into the littoral, the strip between land and sea. Pearson foregrounded the universality of a clearly discernible littoral culture on coastlines along and across the Indian Ocean. This translated consequently into a shared history and a common heritage across the ocean's diverse shores. At a time when maritime historians were writing what were essentially land-based histories on ocean spaces, Pearson's social history of the littoral over a longue duree was a significant intervention.
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    Routes into the present
    ( 2016-01-01) Mukherjee, Rila
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    Strange riches: Bengal in the mercantile map of South Asia
    ( 2006-01-01) Mukherjee, Rila
    This book attempts to understand the commercial and social history of erstwhile Bengal in terms of its links with it neighbouring countries in the northern region of the Bay of Bengal. It touches upon the key issues in both maritime and territorial history such as the early medieval trade revolution and its impact on the borders of Bengal.The discussion focusses on Southeast Bengal - the most economically developed area of Bengal in terms of transport networks, agriculture, artisan products and trade. Most of this area underwent two major transformations in the twentieth century: once as a result of the formation of East Pakistan in 1947 and a second time after the formation of Bangladesh in 1971. The volume concludes with certain major issues of concern between India and Bangladesh at the turn of the twenty-first century.
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    Studying the Asian Ocean-Sea
    ( 2020-09-01) Mukherjee, Rila
    This article urges a rethinking of South Asian cosmography to counter our notion of seascapes lying outside notions of sovereignty, territoriality and technologies of control. While seas have emerged as central to economic and political security for most of the worlds’ states, this is seen as a comparatively new phenomenon because South Asia’s territoriality has always been seen as land-based. The emphasis on the modern has resulted in a neglect of South Asia’s rich tradition of maritime expressiveness and generates a ‘maritime blindness’ affecting policy formulation, despite works on seafaring which trace diverse maritime perceptions from Pali and Sanskrit literature, sculptures, coins, paintings and epigraphy. This article claims that waterscapes were not absent in Asian ideas of territoriality, but differentiating between awareness in literary expressions of political selfhood wherein rulers saw the sea as boundary or even space of overlordship, and actual instances of ordering and controlling maritime spaces is important. By contrast, China’s example as keeper of meticulous records pertaining to maritime matters shows attempts at actively controlling maritime spaces and provides new ways of reading South Asian perceptions of the sea.
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    The Global Early Modern
    ( 2021-01-01) Mukherjee, Rila
    This essay, investigating India's history within the "global early modern"from 1500 to 1800, distinguishes between the "early modern"and the "global early modern."While the latter label is more inclusive, I conclude that changes visible in earlier periods were more radical, enabling India to participate meaningfully in the "global Middle Ages."India showed ambivalence in negotiating the "global early modern."
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    The Indian Ocean: Historians Writing History
    ( 2013-01-01) Mukherjee, Rila
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    Thinking about Time
    ( 2016-01-01) Akita, Shigeru ; Mukherjee, Rila
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    Tribute Issue: Remembering Ji-Hyung Cho
    ( 2015-01-01) Mukherjee, Rila
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    Ways of Seeing, Strategies of Writing
    ( 2015-01-01) Mukherjee, Rila