http://reposit.library.du.ac.bd:8080/xmlui/xmlui/handle/123456789/26 2026-04-07T01:56:39Z 2026-04-07T01:56:39Z Abul Kawser, Mohammad http://reposit.library.du.ac.bd:8080/xmlui/xmlui/handle/123456789/4784 2026-03-02T08:00:28Z 2026-03-02T00:00:00Z

Sanitation, Health and Identity Formation in Colonial Eastern Bengal (1905-1911) Abul Kawser, Mohammad This thesis examines how identities in colonial Eastern Bengal were formed, interlinked with sanitation, health, and education during 1905–1911, a period marked by the brief partition of Bengal and significant administrative, social, and educational reforms. Drawing on diverse archival records, contemporary newspapers and periodicals, and scholarly works, this study investigates how colonial intervention in education and public health helped colonial rulers to consolidate authority as well as create a sense of self and social belonging among the locals. The first chapter demonstrates, through a review of the works of notable researchers, that these studies have explored identity creation in Bengal from political, social, economic, and spiritual viewpoints. Nonetheless, the interplay between identity formation in Eastern Bengal and sanitation and health has not been examined. Studies on colonial medicine predominantly concentrate on several facets of public health, while identity is comparatively underemphasised. A review of identity literature indicates that researchers in this domain mostly address the theoretical dimensions of identity. This study was justified by the intention to investigate identity formation in colonial Eastern Bengal in relation to sanitation and health. The second chapter examined the origin of racial hierarchy that spread to India, establishing the ideological underpinnings of colonial administration. The British rulers further used the civilizational differences between Hindus and Muslims to keep discrimination going and protect colonial control against unified protests. The chapter illustrates that with the partition of Bengal, the inhabitants of Eastern Bengal afforded the opportunity to thrive intellectually and challenge discrimination based on the idea of equality among all humans. It gave up a new way to look at how identity was formed xii in colonial Eastern Bengal, extending beyond the much explored political, cultural, and religious aspects of identity. The subsequent chapters focus on the government initiatives in the sanitary and health sectors, including expansion of drainage, water supply, conservancy measures, introduction of quinine, experimental treatments for cholera and leprosy, expansion of medical facilities, training of hospital assistants and sanitary inspectors, and the promotion of hygienic practices among local communities. These measures were intimately linked to changes in education, including making curricula more democratic and less racially biased, and giving Muslim and female students more chances to work at Dacca Medical School. The thesis posits that the examination of these changes collectively reveals that colonial reforms enabled the emergence of novel professional, civic, and communal identities, hence cultivating confidence, competence, and a sense of engagement in modernity among traditionally marginalised people. Finally, this study highlights the ambivalence of colonial modernity: reforms were both instruments of control and vehicles for empowerment, creating new forms of identity—professional, hygienic, and civic—that were actively appropriated by local populations to negotiate status, authority, and social belonging in a rapidly changing world. This study concentrated only on a brief but critical period of time, when sanitation and medicine became the language of modernity in Eastern Bengal. This helped Muslims, Hindus, and women all get positions as professionals, citizens, and civic actors who work for the well-being of the community. The identities it created were fragile, contested, and incomplete, but they were actual changes in how people saw themselves and their social status. It reminds us that health wasn't only xiii about getting rid of disease; it was also about who you were, who you could become, and how a community could imagine itself in a rapidly changing world. This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

2026-03-02T00:00:00Z হোসেন, আবু মো: দেলোয়ার http://reposit.library.du.ac.bd:8080/xmlui/xmlui/handle/123456789/4669 2025-06-22T09:50:46Z 2025-06-22T00:00:00Z

বাংলাদেশ - পাকিস্তান সম্পর্ক, ১৯৭১-১৯৮১ হোসেন, আবু মো: দেলোয়ার ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে পিএইচডি ডিগ্রীর জন্য উপস্থাপিত অভিসন্দর্ভ।

2025-06-22T00:00:00Z Ahmed, A. B. M. Samsuddin http://reposit.library.du.ac.bd:8080/xmlui/xmlui/handle/123456789/4098 2025-04-15T07:33:21Z 2025-04-15T00:00:00Z

Bengal uner the rule of the early iliyas shahi dynasty Ahmed, A. B. M. Samsuddin This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

2025-04-15T00:00:00Z HASAN, SAHIDUL http://reposit.library.du.ac.bd:8080/xmlui/xmlui/handle/123456789/3473 2024-11-20T06:05:43Z 2024-11-20T00:00:00Z

The Making and Remaking of Geo-political and Cultural Units in Bengal (13th to 18th Centuries) HASAN, SAHIDUL This research work deals with multi-dimensional factors - manmade and natural- that acted as catalysts in the making and remaking of geo-political and cultural units in Bengal in six centuries (c.1200-1800 CE) using coins, epigraphs and structural remains as primary sources. It presents a description of the geographical features of this land to prepare the spatial setting- location, land formation, climate and the dynamic role in their formation and growth. In the pre-thirteenth century phase, the janapadas originated from people living here and gradually turned into political entities like Pundra-Varendra, Gaur, Rarh, Vanga, Samatata and Harikela. The last three entities remained out of the political domain of the Pala rulers (c. 764-1166 CE) and developed as separate geo political entities. This thesis has proposed a few corrections in the political history of Bengal based mainly on numismatic evidence. Fresh reading of the only gold coin of Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah records his independent authority in Sonargaon in 734 AH/1333 CE. This challenges all the earlier calculations of the reign period of this ruler. This study makes an intervention in the current historiography of Bengal and proposes 205 (1333 to 1538 CE) years of Independent Sultanate instead of 200 (1338-1358 CE) years, widely accepted so far. Additionally, this study claims that Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud Shah, first ruler of the Later Ilyas Shahi dynasty expressed his political sovereignty in the year of 832 AH/1428 CE. In Chapter Four it has been shown that in between thirteenth to mid-sixteenth century seven geo-political units grew in Bengal. Among these Lakhnauti, Pandua and XIII Gaur were the three capital cities or administrative headquarters which grew on the northern Pleistocene land (West Bengal, India). In this phase Sonargaon was the first independent political entity in the eastern and southeastern part of the delta (presently Bangladesh). An analysis of archaeological findings of the last four decades prove that Khalifatabad (Bagerhat) and Mahmudabad (Jhinaidaha) were two political units characterized as urban settlements inhabited by a significant number of people believing in Islam. These three urban settlements - Sonargaon, Khalifatabad and Mahmudabad - grew in the deltaic land where rivers made and unmade the human settlements in the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries. Following this argument this thesis suggests a revision of Richard M. Eaton’s proposition regarding the spread and popularity of Islam in deltaic land. The last chapter presents a critical analysis on the Mughal capitals in Bengal. Among them Jahangirnagar and Murshidabad grew by the side of two big rivers - the Buriganga and the Bhagirathi. In the seventeenth-eighteenth century Mughal settlements as well as residential areas grew and expanded on the river banks where the Mughal elites of the province and the incoming European communities preferred to set up their own residential and commercial complexes to suit mainly their commercial interest. This thesis presents that in the eighteenth century (1703-1797 CE) 24 edifices were constructed in Jahangirnagar under the Naib Nazims. Thus the current thesis has challenged the earlier scholarship where it was widely accepted that with the shift of the diwani office to Murshidabad the growth and development of the city was checked, population gradually thinned and the physical growth of the city staggered. This monograph shows that the majority of the geo-political and cultural units of Bengal - Gaur, Tanda, Akbarnagar, Pandua, Satgaon and Murshidabad - grew on the XIV bank of the Ganges and its tributaries - the Padma and the Bhagirathi. Khalifatabad, Mahmudabad, Jahangirnagar were located beside two big rivers of the Delta. This thesis ends with a proposal that during this period rivers became an important means of transportation, prosperity, power and sovereignty. They played the most vital and dominant role in the rise, growth and in shaping the political centres of Bengal. Thesis Submitted to the University of Dhaka for the Award of the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY.

2024-11-20T00:00:00Z