Sekhar Bandyopadhyay


Sekhar Bandyopadhyay is an Indian historian and a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi. Bandyopadhyay is known for his research on the Dalit caste of Bengal.

Life

Bandyopadhyay was born to Nanigopal Bandyopadhyay, a professor of Bengali and Pratima Bandyopadhyay. Bandyopadhyay earned his B.A. degree in History at Presidency College and an M.A. degree at the University of Calcutta. He was awarded a doctorate at the University of Calcutta. His doctoral advisor was Professor Amales Tripathi.He is married to Srilekha Bandyopadhyay and lives in Wellington with his wife.

Career

Bandyopadhyay is Emeritus Professor at Victoria University of Wellington and was the founding director of the New Zealand India Research Institute. He has also taught at the Ramakrishna Mission Residential College, Narendrapur, University of Kalyani, and the University of Calcutta. Bandyopadhyay was the first recipient of the Charles Wallace Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Centre for South Asian Studies, SOAS University of London. He has also held visiting fellowships at the University of Chicago, National University of Singapore, International Institute for Asian Studies, Curtin University, Australian National University and Rabindra Bharati University. From 2009 to 2010, Bandyopadhyay served as the President of the New Zealand Asian Studies Society and currently co-edits its journal, the New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies.
In 2009, Bandyopadhyay was awarded the Rabindra Smriti Puraskar, given by the Government of West Bengal, for his monograph Decolonisation in South Asia: Meanings of Freedom in Post-Independence Bengal 1947-52. Bandyopadhyay has been a recipient of a Marsden grant of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Since 2021, the Sekhar Bandyopadhyay Prize has been awarded annually by the Department of History at Victoria University of Wellington to the student submitting the best essay or thesis on an aspect of Indian history or the history of colonialism or nationalism. The award 'acknowledges and celebrates the distinguished career of Professor Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, Professor of History at Victoria University of Wellington'.

Awards

Select works

Monographs

Burma To-day: Economic Development and Political Control since 1962 Caste, Politics and the Raj: Bengal 1872–1937 Caste, Protest and Identity in Colonial India: The Namasudras of Bengal, 1872–1947 Caste, Culture and Hegemony: Social Dominance in Colonial Bengal From Plassey to Partition and After: A History of Modern India Decolonization in South Asia: Meanings of Freedom in Post-independence West Bengal, 1947–52
  • ''Caste and Partition in Bengal: The Story of Dalit Refugees, 1946–1961''

Edited collections

Bengal: Rethinking History. Essays in Historiography Nationalist Movement in India: A Reader India in New Zealand: Local Identities, Global Relations
  • ''Decolonization and Politics of Transition in South Asia''

Co-edited collections

Caste and Communal Politics in South Asia Bengal: Communities, Development and States People of India: West Bengal, 2 volumes China, India and the End of Development Models Globalization and Challenges of Development in Contemporary India Religion and Modernity in India Calcutta: The Stormy Decades Indians and the Antipodes: Networks, Boundaries and Circulation
  • ''Caste in Bengal: Histories of Hierarchy, Exclusion and Resistance''

Books in Bengali

Ashtadas Sataker Mughal Sankat O Adhunik Itihas Chinta Jati, Varna O Bangali Samaj

Journal articles

  • "Caste, Nation and Modernity: Indian Nationalism's Unresolved Dilemma", The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, 48, pp. 5–24.
  • "India-New Zealand Relations in the New Century: A Historical Narrative of Changing Perceptions and Shifting Priorities", India Quarterly, 69, pp. 317–333.
  • "Rabindranath Tagore, Indian Nation and Its Outcasts", Harvard Asia Quarterly, 15, pp. 28–33.
  • "Partition and the Ruptures in Dalit Identity Politics in Bengal", Asian Studies Review, 33, pp. 455–467.
  • "A History of Small Numbers: Indians in New Zealand, c.1890s–1990s", New Zealand Journal of History, 43, pp. 150–168.
  • "Freedom and its Enemies: Politics of Transition in West Bengal, 1947–1949", South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, XXIX, pp. 43–68.
  • "Transfer of Power and the Crisis of Dalit Politics in India, 1945-47", Modern Asian Studies, 34, pp. 893–942.
  • "Protest and Accommodation: Two Caste Movements in Eastern and Northern Bengal, c1872–1937", The Indian Historical Review, XIV, pp. 219–33.
  • "Caste in the Perception of the Raj: A Note on the Evolution of Colonial Sociology of Bengal", Bengal Past and Present, CIV, Parts I–II, pp. 56–80.
  • "Caste, Class and Census: Aspects of Social Mobility in Bengal under the Raj, 1872-1931", The Calcutta Historical Journal, V, pp. 93–128.

Book chapters

  • "Caste and Politics in Bengal: Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century", in Sabyasachi Bhattacharya Comprehensive History of Modern Bengal 1700–1950, Volume III, Kolkata: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 2019, pp. 338–386.
  • "Indian Unity and the Caste Question: Nationalist Readings of History" in S. Bhattacharya Rethinking the Cultural Unity of India, Kolkata: Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, 2015, pp. 324–354.
  • "Does Caste Matter in Bengal? Examining the Myth of Bengali Exceptionalism", in M.N. Chakraborty Being Bengali: At home and in the World, London and New York: Routledge, 2014, pp. 32–47.
  • "Caste, Class and Culture in Colonial India", in S. Z. H. Zafri Recording the Progress of Indian History: Symposia Papers of the Indian History Congress 1992–2010, Delhi: Primus Books, 2012, pp. 225–239.
  • "The Minorities in Post-Partition West Bengal: The Riots of 1950" in Abhijit Dasgupta et.al Minorities and the State: Changing Social and Political Landscape of Bengal, New Delhi, Sage Publications, 2011, pp. 3–17.
  • "Caste, Widow-Remarriage, and the Reform of Popular Culture in Colonial Bengal", in Sumit Sarkar and Tanika Sarkar Women and Social Reform in Modern India: A Reader, Volume II, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007, pp. 100–117.
  • "Eighteen-Fifty-Seven and Its Many Histories", in 1857: Essays from Economic and Political Weekly, Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2007, pp. 1–22.
  • "From Subjects to Citizens: Reactions to Colonial Rule and the Changing Political Culture of Calcutta in the mid-nineteenth century", in Michael Wilding and Mabel Lee Society and Culture: Essays in Honour of S.N. Mukherjee, New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 1997, pp. 9–31.
  • "Popular Religion and Social Mobility in Colonial Bengal: The Matua Sect and the Namasudras", in Rajat K. Ray Mind, Body and Society: Life and Mentality in Colonial Bengal, Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 152–192.