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  Historical roots of social politics

  Afsan Chowdhury | Updated at 06:50pm on October 14, 2021

  MAULANA Bhashani is one of the most charismatic and enigmatic figures of Bangladesh’s political history. Many want to claim him as their own but he...

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  Of death, state and history

  by Afsan Chowdhury | Updated at 12:00am on August 15, 2021

  THE politics of the quest for a state and politics after its establishment are two different journeys. In one, Sheikh Mujib was the most dramatic...

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  Farewell, Mohiuddin bhai!

  Afsan Chowdhury | Updated at 12:00am on June 24, 2021

  WHEN you forget when you first met certain people, it means you have known them long enough. I have tried to remember our first encounter...

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  Peasant resistances and class alliances

  Afsan Chowdhury | Updated at 12:00am on March 26, 2021

  EXPLAINING Bangladesh is difficult unless contextualised in several of the class struggles that had been on throughout history. To this is added the appropriation of...

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  The rise and fall of urban middle class

  Afsan Chowdhury | Updated at 02:24am on February 21, 2021

  HISTORY is built around alliances amongst classes, groups and communities. Each of these segments has its own characteristics and alliance formation. These identities are cross-cutting...

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  Invader states, indigenous state

  Afsan Chowdhury | Updated at 12:35am on December 16, 2020

  OF THE three states that emerged out of colonial rule, the history of two states — India and Pakistan — is rooted in invading others....

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  Modernism’s politics of interpretation

  by Afsan Chowdhury | Updated at 12:00am on August 15, 2020

  BANGLADESH’S politics and the resultant interpretation of the same suffers from a major problem: using a borrowed lenses to look at it. This is particularly...

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  1947-71: Was Pakistan a ‘false’ state?

  by Afsan Chowdhury | Updated at 01:30am on March 26, 2020

  THE analytical problem troubling the history of both Pakistan at birth and Bangladesh in being is that it takes colonial interpretations and narratives of state...

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  Sheikh Mujib: Class, community and decolonising historical analysis

  Afsan Chowdhury | Updated at 12:00am on March 17, 2020

  CONCEPTUALISING an independent Bangladesh struggle located in socio-economic realities expressed through both class conflicts and class alliance is not common in historical research...

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  Class conflicts in a remittance-economy state

  by Afsan Chowdhury | Updated at 12:10am on February 21, 2020

  ALL history hitherto known is one of seeking class advantages through various alliances and combinations. These alliances are formed in response to challenges posed to...