I finished reading both books of the author Jadabeswar Bhattacharjee that I have gotten through a common friend who is from Kolkata and loves promoting the landscape of Bengali people, especially Hindus, from various viewpoints. I first started with The West Bengal Saga and then shifted to the paperback of The Alternative Narrative. Both books are non-fiction, compiled articles written by the author that might have published at various sources.

Being an outsider, I had no preconceived notion about the state – West Bengal. All my life I tried decoding why it is called West Bengal when it is in the Eastern part of India. Anyway, I may visit the state as a tourist and thought to have some knowledge from an author who sees everything through critic’s lens.

Since the book is like reading through a panelist’s commentary through articles, in brief, for any readers looking for a quick review? This book delivers far more information than I could possibly digest through a single reading. I strongly recommend it. It’s written in such a way that, even if you aren’t looking to hike a Himalaya’s worth of details, the books can still be skimmed through, and the chapters are organized and titled such that it’s easy to find and reference them for info on a specific time-period, and both books include index pages if you’re looking for more specific mentions.

At leisure I go from one chapter to another, dissecting the chapters so as what I could gather from the politically disturbed picture of West Bengal. Yet Jadabeswar Bhattacharjee is not at all an exaggeration. He can be termed as a writer acquainted with the modern and contemporary history of WB – his historical mentions stretches all the way from the archaeological and mythological prehistory of the Bengal region and people, to the chaotic years of partition towards 2021 election, culminating in the killing of the state’s spirit in the heat of 1947 partition by Muslim League people and the cabinet of Indian National Congress. The author laments whosoever tried damaging the state mortally – communists, Bangladeshi refugees, Islamists, Congress, and intellectual Hindu Bengalis settling abroad with their selfish horizons.

I would say that the level of detail in the book becomes finer and finer up to the very end, when it begins to summarize extremely complicated events that, I suspect, are still highly controversial (if not highly classified) in many of the relevant countries. This is not to say it’s a direct and unvarying progression – certain periods are relatively glossed over, and others are given more detail due to their prominence in Bengali history. There are also a number of very enlightening digressions from the progress along the timeline to focus in on relevant cultural phenomena and figures that saved an influenced the tenacity of Bengali mass.

I should again note that, due to general lack of prior knowledge, a great many of the names, places and events found in this history I had never heard of, or had heard of but was only vaguely aware of. As such, it was extremely helpful to have the digressions and the elaborations on the importance of the various literary and political periods, cultural developments, religious movements and influences, etc. However, many of these names will likely remain indistinct to me, until such time as I’ve built up further awareness of the geography and political history of the state.

In terms of writing style, I found it avoided being dry or dull, even when dealing with relatively mundane information, and to clearly and concisely relate the information throughout the books. Although I am likely much less able to detect nuances of biases and perspectives that may be present in the work, simply from approaching it as an outsider mostly unfamiliar with the events in question, it appears to me as though Jadabeswar Bhattacharjee has taken care to avoid falling into politically partisan posturing, for which I am grateful as I am finding that seems lamentably common in South Asian history and politics….can make it very difficult to get a strong and accurate picture of what actually happened or is happening, and can also be difficult to detect when unfamiliar with the nuances and perspectives at play when the bias isn’t blatant. So, I’m pleased to find this seems to have been written with an eye towards impartiality.

The author also provides a great deal of scathing and damning insight into and information on the role of the British in India, both in their deliberate and almost-total dismantling of Bengal’s economy to fuel their own industrial revolution and rise to global empire, and in their manipulations of the native population groups to privilege and/or disenfranchise various groups at various times, in their interests of attempting to keep India (and Bengal) divided against itself and to attempt to create loyal and pliable social classes.

The book also seems quite well-sourced and appears to be drawn from a mixture of both outside and native perspectives, as well as conflicting viewpoints which were often discussed and elaborated on in-books. I also noted when looking up at the author that he held positions in the Indian government services with postings at more than one stations. I would assume the man had both direct and indirect personal knowledge about the history and happenings in the state.