Global Sixties and the Making of Bangladesh
BY SUBHO BASU | 5 Mar 2024 | 6:00 PM Gulf Standard Time (3:00 PM CET)
This talk explored the origins of the mass uprising of 1969 and the liberation war of 1971 that led to the formation of Bangladesh.
It argued that the revolution of 1969 and the national liberation struggle of 1971 were informed by the 'global sixties' that transformed the political landscape of Pakistan and facilitated the birth of Bangladesh. Departing from the typical understanding of Bangladesh as a product of Indo-Pakistani diplomatic and military rivalry, it narrates how Bengali nationalists resisted the processes of internal colonization by the Pakistani military-bureaucratic regime to fashion their own nation.
The presentation details how this process of resistance and nation-formation drew on contemporaneous decolonization movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America while also being shaped by the Cold War rivalries between the USA, USSR, and China.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Subho Basu is an Associate Professor of History and Classical Studies at McGill University, Canada. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.
Basu is the author of two books: Does Class Matter? Colonial Capital and Workers’ Resistance in Bengal (1890-1937), published by Oxford University Press in 2004 as a part of the South Asia Series sponsored by SOAS, University of London; and Intimation of Revolution: Global Sixties and the Making of Bangladesh, published by Cambridge University Press in 2023.
In addition, he has co-authored with Ali Riaz, Paradise Lost? State Failure in Nepal (Lexington Books, 2007) and co-edited with Crispin Bates, Rethinking Indian Political Institutions (Anthem Press, 2005).