There is a dearth of literature about fi scal marksmanship beyond total revenue expenditures and defi cits at the central or state level. It is of utmost importance to elicit a debate on the budgetary discipline around micro variables. These micro-level deviations result in macro-level errors in budget forecasting. The article explores state-level fi scal marksmanship in the context of medical and public health expenditure over the period—2002 to 2017. The deviations in capital health spending are high compared to those in revenue health spending. This may have an impact on the improvement in health over the long term.
Field Notes from a Waterborne Land: Bengal Beyond the Bhadralokby Parimal Bhattacharya, New Delhi: HarperCollins India, 2022; pp 312, `499 (paperback).
Miya poetry is a genre of poems written by Bengal-origin Muslims that highlight the angst of a community that has struggled hard to integrate and assimilate with the larger Axamiya society. In this paper I argue that an analysis of Miya poetry must be placed within the larger context of identity contestation of Bengal-origin Muslims. Accordingly, Miya poetry seeks to stabilise the contested identity of this community by reappropriating the stigmatised social identity of Miya.
Indian Genre Fiction: Pasts and Future Histories edited by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Aakriti Mandhwani, Anwesha Maity, New York and Oxon: Routledge, 2019;
pp xii + 211, `750.
Adventure Comics and Youth Culture in India by Raminder Kaur and Saif Eqbal, New York and Oxon: Routledge, 2019; pp xiv + 225, `995.
Much of the scholarship on Bangladesh’s founding places it within a narrative of repetition. It either repeats the partitions of 1905 or 1947 or the creation of India and Pakistan as postcolonial states. This paper argues instead for the novelty of Bangladesh’s creation against the postcolonial state, suggesting that it opened up a new history at the global level in which decolonisation was replaced by civil war as the founding narrative for new states.
In the 1940s, Bengali Muslim intellectuals sought to find a new autonomy in a comprehensive break with the texts and language of the Hindu-dominated literature of the “Bengal Renaissance.” But within a few years of Pakistan’s founding, a new generation argued that disavowing the past was not libe
This paper examines the history of largely understudied women’s rights activists in the early years of East Pakistan. While they collided with West Pakistani activists—and the central state—on matters of culture, identity, and political and economic issues, they actively cooperated with West Pakistani counterparts to fight gender discrimination and to demand reform in women’s rights from the state.
A reading of 1969, the momentous year of protests against Ayub Khan’s dictatorship in East Pakistan is offered, going beyond the popular tropes of inevitability and loss. The moments when Bengali nationalism exceeded its own expectations by making michhil or procession its main focus are identified. A rumination on Dhaka, which found its present cultural and political identity through the upheaval of the 1960s is presented.
The idea of swadhinata (which translates as both freedom and independence), along with a novel conception of liberation (mukti), animated the founding discourse of Bangladesh in 1971. This paper explores how these ideas, and their longer histories, jostled together to shape the promise of Bangladesh’s founding. It also reflects on how the conflictual promise of 1971 underwrote the political history of post-independence Bangladesh.
A critical understanding of space requires an engagement with the material processes that constitute it, as well as the way it is represented in works of art and literature. Moreover, understanding spatiality is also crucial for comprehending how class is constituted. In this regard, this paper explores how, between the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the bourgeoisie in Assam conceived and represented space. The discussion is based on Lakshminath Bezbaroa’s play Jaymati (1915) and Rasna (Birinchi) Barua’s (1959) novel Seuji Patar Kahini (The Story of the Green Leaves).
