Commentary > Recovering Sylhet
7 COMMENTS
  • Soheil Ahmed

    Even at a cursory glance, Dutta’s intellectual courage and integrity shine forth.

    Penetrating and cogent commentary . . . hope to get more of that.

    Cheers,

    Soheil

  • Debashis De

    Your article was very informative and insightful. I am writing a novel which has Sylhet referendum as its main event. I am interested to read the articles you have mentioned which I am quoting below.
    How can I get those articles?
    I shall be grateful, if you help me to get them.
    Thank you
    Debashis Deb
    drdebashisdeb@gmail.com

    The articles are the following:

    J B Bhattacharjee’s Sylhet: Myth of a Referendum (1989) was among the first works to focus on Assam as the third site of Partition. At the time, his was a voice in wilderness. More scholarship on Sylhet finally emerged after 2000, with Anindita Dasgupta’s Denial and Resistance (2001) and Remembering Sylhet (2008), Bidyut Chakrabarty’s The ‘hut’ and the ‘axe’ (2002) and The Partition of Bengal and Assam (2004), and Nabanipa Bhattacharjee’s Unburdening Partition (2009). Scholarly interest has increased further with several relevant articles published in the last few years.

  • Gaurav Deb

    Very informative article. Sylhet was an important administration center of East India, the history of Shillong is incomplete without Sylhet. With the lack of attention to this region the rich culture of Sylheti’s is losing ground.

  • Mohammad Fasih-Ul Islam

    Thank you for the history though it hasn’t covered how Assami Muslims suffered loss due to the displacement. One of the victims was my paternal grandfather. He was one of the first class officersliving in Shillong during the British period.

    Our forefathers had to leave their place and all their belongings. Some Hindus captured our properties there.

  • Bishwanath Dutta Choudhury

    The effects of partition were borne not only by the people living in Sylhet at that time but by their descendants after shifting and it has been very correctly pointed out that it continues in some form or the other even to this day. The Sylheti Hindu descendants are found unsure of and searching for a community identity which they can proudly declare and it is definitely difficult when you have had no touch with the soul and the soil of your origins! Sad but true!

  • Dahlia Bhattacharjee

    I thank Himal Southasian and Binayak Dutta for this lovely read.. As a sylheti, I always had this question,”why is there no mention of our partion history in academic discourses?” I really hope to do something in this direction someday.. Cheers!!!

  • Neha Dhar

    Could not be captured better… The sylheti community (or whatever is left of it) owns it to you… Thank you for sharing this… God Bless

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