Abstract:

This essay uses the lens of the Bengali Śākta Pūjās—public annual festivals to Durgā, Kālī, and Jagaddhātrī—as a means of illustrating the history of English-Indian relations in miniature during the entire period of British rule in Bengal, from the mid-eighteenth century until 1947 and beyond. Each period surveyed— the late eighteenth century to the 1830s, the 1830s to 1857, 1858 through the First Partition of Bengal to World War I, the 1920s to Independence, and the 1950s to today—juxtaposes British and Indian views of and approaches to the Pūjās and situates those views and approaches within the larger context of the prestige market, colonialism, nationalism, communalism, and party politics.

Author: Rachel Fell McDermott