 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the British Library South Asia Seminar Series which is part of a research and digitization project called Two Centuries of Indian Print. We are very happy to have amongst us today Dr. Shruti Saboor, who's currently an Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Economics and Social Sciences at Brack University in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the National University of Singapore and MA in Cultural Dynamics from Hiroshima University in Japan. She's currently working on her upcoming book, Marriage and Friendship, Social Networks of the Bangladeshi Affluent Middle Class. We are also extremely delighted to have Professor Dina Siddiqui as our Chair today. Professor Siddiqui is a clinical associate professor at New York University. Her research and publications cover a range of issues grounded in the study of gender and Islam in Bangladesh, such as transnational feminist politics, women's work in the readymade government industry, the anthropology of human rights, gender justice and non-state dispute resolution mechanisms. She's the author of Women in Question, Gender and Labor in Bangladeshi Factories and Human Rights in Bangladesh. So about the format of the session today, Dr. Saboor will be speaking to us for about 45 minutes, after which there will be a discussion between Professor Siddiqui and Shruti Saboor for about 15 to 20 minutes, after which we'll open it up for audience questions. So while the talk is going on or during the discussion, if you would like to put in your questions, please use the Q&A box or the chat box to do so, and I will be taking them in order. So without much further ado, I now invite Dr. Shruti Saboor to speak to us today on the formation of the middle class in Bangladesh. Over to you, Shruti. Thank you Priyanka. I'm honored to be here and credit goes to Priyanka and British Library to pick my work and showcase it. Today, I'll be talking about formation of the Metropolitan middle class and in Bangladesh. In 2017, World Economic Forum, Mike Bangladesh, as a potential Asian Tiger, both Asian Development Bank and World Bank report has spoken of a possibility of Bangladesh becoming upper middle class income country in 2021, which is this year. Similar hopes and desires are expressed by Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and they actually projected growth of middle class in the last 10 years between 9% to 20%. The new fund interest in middle class has rarely, however, resulted in a critical analysis of this unstable category. Macroeconomic research almost always presented this class as a homogenous question about its composition and practices and aspiration are hardly ever raised. While the political implication of such questions are never acknowledged, let alone debated. My research attempt to make the section of this class tangible and address some of the concern that I have raised here. And as an ethnography, it is a contribution to empirical and theoretical knowledge of middle class in and from Global South. The research is an outcome of longitudinal study among middle class conducted over four phases since 2005. I've been working both in Bangladesh and in London. I have interviewed 438 people across 80 households and 11 family that I have worked with very intensively, working with their genealogies biographies and, and both located in Bangladesh and in London. I revisited the families in 2018 using family as a unit of analysis helped me to locate transition and transmission of accumulation of capital from one generation to the next. What do I mean by Bangladesh middle class. I suggest that it's a layered complex and diverse class, a group of individual with tertiary level of education, engaging specific profession, sharing a set of core values. These individuals have accumulated different forms of capital, economic, cultural, and social over the generations, enabling them maintain particular lifestyle, while I have often used the term metropolitan middle class to refer to effluent section of the middle class, living in the middle class. I have also found that this effluent metropolitan middle class has been morphing into transnational class. Now today, I'm not going to talk about marriage or the friendship that constitute this constant and expand their network. Rather, I will talk about the origin story. The history of middle class reveals stories of aspirations accumulation and their effect on domestic ideology across various colonial and post colonial social formation. This is also a narrative of oppression and post colonial state formation in which marginal Muslim in colonial India navigated their way through the political field, claiming their share of power and eventually become one of the major elements in creation of Pakistan and later Bangladesh. Finally, this narrative put gender at the center of the class and state formation, the form and the nature of this occupants are ever changing so is their social world. This chapter that I'm presenting from my book is the first chapter. I'm publicly presenting so I hope you will understand and give me the useful feedback. This particular chapter actually takes the plunge into the lives of people who have embodied the history of oppression and sheer resilience for generations. The colonial state formation actually facilitated the class formation and I would like to put a map in front so that's easy easier to see the cartography and the changes. In that formation, the transition from feudal to wage economy in Bengal in 19th and early 20th century instigated the formation of middle class as well as the accompanying social transformation, including in the household structure and domestic ideologies, all of this started with British colonial state reconfiguring the economic judicial administrative system of Bengal producing system where bureaucratic producing assistance that were bureaucratic in nature and capitalism ideology. So the first map is actually, it's done in 1865 so it looked at the earlier, it is one of the earlier map of Hindustan and it's the map of British India. So the time I'm talking about is as pre partition, so early 20th century late 19th century and early 20th century, where the middle class started sharing the late 19th and early 20th century mark the emergence of an interlocking system of colonial rail waterway in eastern Bengal. And what it does is connecting the major trade port with region supplying labor so the Imperial commerce of India T Jude Cole could thrive this massive infrastructure required intricate system of management and regulation to extract every bit of surplus and channel them into the imperial capital system capitalist system. Under the British church, the government become the major employer facilitating specialized branches like engineering medicine, education, postal service railway police and judiciary. With the introduction of a wage economy, then the state become the key facilitator of middle class formation in Bengal. English education become a site of class conflict when the colonial administration changed the language of judiciary from Persian to English, leaving hundreds of Muslims service holders job list. The vacant positions were soon filled up by the English educated Hindu belonging to bottle of class. Now I have a long and detailed discussion on bottle of class and the rise of Georgia which if I have time later, we can talk about the transition, the decline of Zamin Dari and rise of Georgia and how it contributed the kind of class formation that we see now. Despite this, it took the Muslim aristocrat and after Jotar and trader until end of 19th century to embrace English education and participate in the colonial elite social and political realm. The overall growth of his Bengal, the involvement of Muslim in trade and increase in production of price and the price of jute and paddy contributed to the prosperity of Muslim jotars. Slowly but surely children of African jotars and traders attained secondary tertiary education entered the job market. There was only a steady growth of number of Muslims in Mufasa or urban center exploring future education and occupational possibility. The British Raj for its part had been cognizant of emergent Muslim leadership since 1871 and wanted them to organize the community as a separate entity. A special concession in education, employment and even in representation to different bodies were offered to them to deter them from entering into Hindu dominated politics, encouraging them to participate in local government bodies between 1883 to 1882 to 1883. Predictably the kind of affirmative action did not please the Hindu leadership. The ultimate know however, came from Lord person who decided to march north and is Bengal with us some in 1905. So this is the mapping of 1907 which actually shows the how Bengal look like and divided, divided Bengal look like. So the new emerging Muslim middle class and an instrument headed by now up Salim Allah supported this partition wholeheartedly, clearly seeing its potential opportunity for growth in business and administration, which up to then had been dominated by Hindus. Now, the impact of the new electoral created in. So what happens is that the British government would eventually give up in the elite demands and reunite Bengal in 2011. But what it does as a concession is that it actually facilitated the political presentation in legislative councils. And so there's a separate electorate that has been announced where we see the enormous response from the from the Muslim, especially in Muslim who actually took part in this elections. The impact of the new electorate created by 1932 communal The impact of the new electorate created and 1932 communal award followed by the government of India Act in 1935 was favorable for Muslim middle class. Susan Hawk wins the first premiere of wins first premiere as of Bengal as the head of future project party and Muslim League Coalition Ministry in 1937. This. What it does is that it brings the hope to Muslims life and what happens is that he proposes being alternately amendment bill in 1937 50% of quota for Muslim in police recruitment 60% of government appointment and in 38 and reforming the secondary board in 1940 with greater participation of Muslims with a step that one of the other resulted in gradually dismantling Hindu dominance. It's not only that what we see is that the work towards this not only work towards the emancipation of Muslims, but also imagine a new nation where Muslim would have autonomy as full citizen and decide their own fate. The Laha Resolution March 1914 Muslim League formally proposed a separate state for Muslim. In 1946 the Muslim League had gained mass support among the Indian Muslims and all the majority of Muslim constituency's who's in so shade surrounding becomes the chief minister. Will the fire of powder look anguish against the most Muslim and we know the rest of the history that how the communal right was instigated. Since then, and how the transfer of power to place in 1946 and 47 on 14th and 15th of August in 1947. Pakistan in India was born. Meanwhile, the series of communal rights shook the subcontinent. Alliance were drawn and new nation state territories were demarcated. The new year of freedom was heavy with morning. What happens after partition is basically. This is this is the this is what it looked like during the 40s. And this is the colossal movement that we see after partition and they are. And this this what happens is that the spirit of nationalism that turn neighbors into violent enemies. Every nationalist movement hold that possibility partition was well funded, as it was economically beneficial. Business community as well as photo look dominated Congress. Similarly, it made economic sense to Muslim elite and. And now our families of Taka. So Muslim nation state made good profit out of this nation as well partition set emotion, the violent displacement of 20 million Muslims and Hindus from their home. Who even as they cross the new borders to the desired nation were simply abundant to find themselves often leaving life into terrible vulnerabilities. This colossal shift was very classed in nature partition was only advantages for the elite and I've learned middle class who had accumulated enough cultural social and economic capital for resettlement government officials. Were given the option to move to their desired nation after encouraging after encountering communal violence Muslim employee opted for Pakistan, either voluntarily or by threat or persuasion. The civil service was predominantly filled with this migrants. So the migrants incoming migrants actually filled up the civil services. And many of them settled in Dhaka which happened to be the administrative headquarters of capital of East Pakistan. Many of this government officials were later provided with opportunity to buy abundant property or government plots in Dhaka at a minimal price. There was also exchange of properties between East and West Bengal. In spite of catastrophic initiated by partition post colonial nation formation was provided unprecedented opportunities for educated Muslims facilitated the formation of metropolitan middle class in East Pakistan nature in Bangladesh. So Pakistan aspire to be a modern and rapidly in industrialized nation state, but it could not disentangle itself from the colonial bureaucracy, the unstable political forces failed to institutionalize democratic government. This state in happy enabling the civil military bureaucracy to rise the Muslim League failed to contain the fervor of Muslim nationalist unleashed by partition and make use of it and build a democratic Pakistan. Instead they were predictably dictated by the elites despite trying to contain contradictory force like conservative right and progressive emergent middle class within the same party. This experiment didn't hold too long. The absence of entrepreneurial class in East Pakistan and the veteran non Bengali trading families like Adam G Spani Bawani and other to charge of major industries, business and commons. Many of them had successful business in West Bengal Mumbai Barma and other part of undivided India and many had the Muslim League endorsement. The state invited them to set up new banks industries provided them with the land subsidized loan and other privileges. One of the one of the statistics says that the non Bengali business control 2880 garden 93% of large import and trading 670% of the deposit in East Pakistan where in non Bengali banks during this year. 1951 to 54 12 meals paper meals were set up by Pakistani industrial development corporation in collaboration with non Bengali business houses. At the same time, number of salaried officers increased exponentially in West Wing compared to the East Wing of Pakistan, the aspiration for democratic Pakistan soon began to disappear. For the Bengali Muslim middle class, in the face of growing internal colonialism, giving away the anti petty towards the Pakistani state that would eventually lead to the struggle of independence. Student where the first one to voice the against this voice discontentment against this ruling classes where first want to organize themselves resist Pakistan internal colonialism. The is Pakistani army brought left and centers later together, protested against the failure of the state recognized Bangladesh as a state language also initiated movement for provincial autonomy. The state violence and murder of students involved with language movement in 1952 became the blatant projection of the yet another colonial forces. So, this is, and the thing is like if you look at the faces of, of, of course, intentionally I put all the women in the photo but the faces of movement from 1952. In 1969, all the major political formation actually led by the middle class, even though there was a mass uprising that has been, but the leadership was given by the middle class and, and everyone middle class. While only what we see is that there's a, there's a, there's a tension between 1952 onward, there's a massive uprising in 1969. Finally, it throws over to us I can't and replace general yeah, yeah, I can't. The military bureaucratic alliances continue to support the new regime. Yeah, I can't allow political activities to resume and 1970 announced the first general election to be held in that year. And Amalik emerged with the landslide victory winning 160 seats of 1962 seats. So of course this was not very comfortable for for the government. So Amalik for forwarded the draft proposal of regional autonomy to Yahya in 23 March later had already opted for military solution. The Pakistani army cracked down on civilians in on 25 March 1971 and make all this fought valiantly. After nine months of bloody war, the millions of debt along the way Bangladesh secured its independence in on 16 December 1971. It is worth mentioning here that the military bureaucratic alliances facilitated the internal colonialism, while there was mass uprising led by the middle class on both side. The strategies were drawn by elite and the middle classes, whether in East Pakistan or West Pakistan. The strategies of Bangladesh as a nation state played a crucial role in reorganizing the class relationship of this region, rebuilding the political and physical infrastructure from from the wreckage of war. The biggest challenge for the state was to actually salvage the nation from from this rate. The first five year plan was a constitutionally obliged to dismantle the capitalist system income distribution and private ownership of means of production and of actually mercantile or futile forms of production. That was like a lot of big words. The enlarge public sector regret it. Economist engineers doctors professionals and other technocrats and the new planning commission brought together technocrats and bureaucrats to run the state industries along with political leaders. Once again, state became the crucial facilitator in consolidating the power of new middle class, who along with elites largely benefited from the nationalizing the major industries banks insurance agents agencies between 1972 to 75. It was the bureaucracy dominated by the middle class that emerged dominant in vacuum created among the elite. Those who are able to overwhelming monopolize the state apparatus this particular group, not only fashion the new nationalist discourse but also image as a hegemony class, both ideologically and politically. What we see is the chaos and multiple crisis immediate post war era culminated in foundation of one party, one party government, led by Sheikh Mojib and completely nullifying any message of parliamentary democracy. Military Cooper, who was staged to overthrow Mojib government in 1975, Sheikh Mojib and his family were assassinated by the army offices. This marked the end of era of mass nationalization to successive autocratic regime followed in 1975 and 90. The first general Zia's regime came to power and mandated the rapid denationalization and economic and trade liberalization, facilitating the rise of new entrepreneurial class with vested interest. The Cold War politics also played a major role in tectonic shift in occurring in countries internal and US government have long term interest in private capitalists in the investment and formed a natural alliances against the community's block with the newly emerged Bangladesh becoming crucible for this experiments. The neoliberal turn transformed the character of the state while creating space for middle class to align itself, which continued even after throughout the autocratic regime. Around this time, India started to mushroom in order to manage the inflow of aid neoliberal state became manager of transnational capital flow composed of aid and investment. The sector required an army of development professionals that's become a major source of employment for the middle class. The second autocratic regime led by Jose Mohammad Esha came into power and we see there are mega project but a stagnant stagnance in economy. The subsequent democratic government led by Bigam Khalid Zia and Sheikh Hasina also assume leadership to renew a surge of investment by multinational companies and boom in the ready made garments leather tech telecommunication IT and other industries. This expanding private sector further ensure the job for the both working in middle classes and enable the formation of elites consisting of increasing large number of entrepreneurs. So this class formation is fundamentally gendered in process the transformation in the gender role that have occurred modern Bengal have its root in colonial past. They should not only provided the material condition for middle class formation, but also facilitated the transformation of domestic ideologies, the birth of capital based economy realign gender roles and transformed how family and kinship relationship should be perceived. The domestic ideology produced in colonial colonies appeared as a translation of Victorian English bourgeois ideology that marked the capitalist society with distinct sexual division of labor and separation of sphere public the realm of rationality and production private as a realm of morality and consumption. And the thing is, what we see here is that, and in many cases, the subaltern studies work and post colonel studies work. We see that many actually translated into into into popular politics and say that they emulated this, this ethos unquestionably and internalize this ethos and and claiming this ethos which is increasingly stereotyped as a effeminate Babu as opposed to the masculine English man also led to the emergence of new Berman who was expected to more to be modern yet modest idea that even though colonial racism may have provided the material condition for the class formation, as well as the demand for professional and administrative offices to run the state machineries. In reality, all the colonial rulers wanted was sophisticated loyalist enslaved by the similar ideologies. The project I questionably may be embraced by the upper caste Hindu, the later apple of the Muslim in participating in colonial modernist project and their inherent resilience against both caste Hindu Brahmo Babus, and their colonial master help them to fashion their own distinctive domestic ideology. The romantic portrayal of home as the ideal sanctuary, consisting of the man as a master of the house and women as a children as consumer, could never be materialized in the context of Bengali Muslim middle class, rather men and women played complementary role in the domestic realm. This is neither to suggest the absence of hierarchy nor women were advantages position. What it means instead is the marriage as an institution would be potentially facilitate equal partnership, because part of the reason it marriage in among Muslim Muslims where where contract as opposed to segment which is which is for for Hindus. Muslim women does never really aspire to be ideal Victorian passive docile women nor could they fashion a fathom claiming ownership over their husband alone, both men and women were still treated part of the collective in colonial Muslim families. Thus, when men began to move to the Mufasa doesn't matter whether it during the colonial period, or afterwards, their young wives tend to stay back in their own, in their own or husband's ancestral home. There they would be groomed by the material because of the family and only to send to leave with their husbands when they come of age and were capable of running their own household. Sometimes young younger sibling or domestic worker would accompany them so that they would not feel lonely in the new case. Newly married couple might build their nest in the town but they were never alone, nor separated from their extended kinship network. Most men and women are tried to try to tie to their ancestral home by the entitlements of to the property, as well as their obligation to extended came even recently. As the later were entitled to ask for the favor, often seeking temporary refuge in their home to continue their higher education, search for employment or match for the marriage. Under the circumstances, women were fully occupied in managing their household and working to ensure the sustenance of their own children as well as the extended family. At the same time, men of the household were expected to take care of immediate families as well as their extended family members. In early 20th century, there were hardly any affluent urban middle class family. This is what I wanted to show in previous year. The fact is that it's not immediate family and it's not the nuclearization that is bestowed on to middle class, that never happened. Because urban Muslim household without extended family members living with that was unfathomable. This shattered the image of dosality that has been bestowed on Sherry, Portra or respectable women and indeed that the men as a master of their house. The family monogamous companion marriage, companion marriage, however, relieved men and women from mundane role of feudal joint families structure and asserted new kind of autonomy within the family. The assistance of household and extended family members freed up the time for both men and women to work on their selves and forge new social relationship in town. Both men and women not only reached out to the members of their extended families in town but also joined the clubs and the association to familiarize themselves with the locals. Women may bring the money home but women work towards rooting the family in town through simple act as reaching out to the neighbors holding families and office gatherings, generally keeping their social network alive. Women were productive member of the family who had to manage household with limited single income while maneuvering an intricate network of kids and regulating various forms of capital accumulation. And ensuring the product reproduction of the middle class, as I discussed in my other chapters, handful of this educated Muslim middle class women joined the workforce during 1940s and 50s. Not only started joining the workforce but many of them had been also keen, taking part in anti-imperial resistance independent movement, independence movement as well as class and caste based movements for decades. The anti-imperial nationalist movement had multiple ideological influences within which highly influential was left political parties who were more welcoming towards the women. For the subcontinent in 1940s or the era for second world war, famine and independence movement, women organization actually responded to this crisis. Women and organized themselves and responded to the crisis. Similar case happened in 1971. The gendered image of nation corresponded with the colonial middle class domestic ideologies where men represented as the public as the maker of history and protector of the nation while later was in turn iconized as a women mother figure waited to be rescued. This narrative idealized women as subservience denying their active role in rebuilding the nation state after partition or all the mobilizations that led up to liberation war. Partition essentially ravaged the economic and social capital and everything they held dear, yet they persisted. The post-partition influx of elite and middle class Muslim migrants from India found natural allies among the local elite in Dhaka, forming a critical mass and continuing to work towards the social reform. Some of these educated Muslim middle class migrants initiated a women's magazine like Begum, Joshi, Sultana making their mouthpiece. They eventually become the platform to voice discontent protest against the polygamy dowry inequality in property rights. This brave woman responded to every national crisis and carved their place in the history. Muslim women were at the forefront of shielding Hindu families from the violence of communal riot instigated by the proclamation of Hindus, proclamation of Udu as the state language in 1948. The Muslim women league played a crucial role in unifying women during the language movement in 1952 with women leading the procession and demonstration which I showed is procession and demonstration and joining other forces in protecting minorities in the aftermath of riots and ethnic cleansing that engulfed East Pakistan in 1964. Women association held public demonstrations during the Indo-Pak war in 1965, the police attack on the procession of female students in 9 January 1969 was also followed by spontaneous outburst of women revolting against the eye of regime without any political instigation. Women made themselves an inevitable part of the nationalist movement by claiming the public space which paved the way for the women movement and post-independent Bangladesh. Many of these educated middle class women served in the field hospital for the war and supported the freedom fighters and helped with the rehabilitation of women who survived the war. Post-independent Bangladesh was a land of revolutionary possibilities and outburst of feminist energy was channeled towards building the nation of equals. As my interlocutor, I should say we envisioned a new woman who would be independent economically, socially and fight against all forms of oppression, even though this dream was not fully materialized but secondary tertiary education become an integral part of the Muslim middle class identity within two decades of independence, increasing number of professional women found their niche in the class structure. At the same time, the impossibility of middle class household to maintain the cosmopolitan life they aspire to on a single income has meant that women are now increasingly required to become financially independent. This idiom of women's empowerment in neoliberal economy is equated with the greater purchasing power. This does not mean that women have been released from their traditional roles as housewives or custodian of family accumulation. Nor does it mean that family or the state have created an enabling environment where women can engage in both private and public lives with equal ease. Instead, women now have to create the condition within which the family would allow them to work outside while performing the balancing act of maintaining intricate kinship network and other socially assigned roles. The transformation in class and gender role took a very sharp turn which has been infused into the middle class balance system. Thank you. Thank you so much for your paper. I'm sure the audience will have a lot of questions to ask you but before we turn to them, I would like to invite Professor Dina Siddiqi to have a conversation with Shruti. Thank you Priyanka. Thank you. Thank you Shruti. I hope I was in time. I finished on time. I think you did. I think you were perfect in time. Yes, absolutely. You were in time. Yeah. You were totally on time. Thank you so much. Okay. Wow. That's a lot Shruti. Hopes and desires. I will hold on to that middle class hopes and desires and who is the face of the nation are two things I wrote down. Let me begin actually by congratulating you, not just for your wonderful presentation which we're going to talk about in a minute, but because of the broader framing of your intellectual project, which takes on, seems to me, orthodoxies of various kinds, which is only to be expected from you Shruti. I think you're really charting new territory and let me just say I have the honor of reading a longer version of what Shruti presented so much of what I'll say will be on that. First, and I think it's very important you move us away from the tired tropes through which Bangladesh is conventionally studied. It used to be in the old days poverty and overpopulation. Now it's women's empowerment of a new liberal kind or it's religious extremism or it's climate change or it's all together, all of those things. This means that the policy and the academic gaze tends to be on the so called poor, right, we either need to be saved, they need to be upgraded they need to be civilized. So the result of that one of the many outcomes of that is that we have very few studies of the middle classes and what is now Bangladesh, as you pointed out. So I was looking through stuff to compare with, you know, as I was preparing today and there's really not very little very much, although as we were saying everybody, you know, before we started everybody has an opinion on the little classes, but there is very little analytical stuff. What also means this sort of obsession with a certain narrow kind of development and uplift of the so called poor is that classes and analytical and relational category has been really marginalized in studies of Bangladesh and you're trying to bring that in. As far as I can tell, okay, and this is been marginalized because of a certain, you know, to use a short time neoliberalization of knowledge production. We don't talk about class we talk about women and their empowerment, as the women were in a unitary category right. I think, and I will say this, it's very reminded me once more that if cost is an analytical blind spot still for many in study of India, it's class for Bangladesh, we just don't, you know, we don't analyze it even, you know, especially in development stuff and it's nice to be able to talk about papers that don't directly deal with development. Second, and I think again reading your paper reminded me yesterday is that there is actually an enormous literature on the middle classes in Bengal. And it's that hodro look literature, it's there, and it's proliferated and proliferated right. And in fact, the hodro look the middle classes are the central actors and nationalist movements right. They're the ones nationalism and South Asian middle classes, especially the Bengali middle classes are co constitutive in many ways as the literature shows. I was just reading a book review of somebody's book of a book by Sanjay Joshi who talks about middle classes and the first line said, the middle class is the protagonist of modernity. Very interesting, but when we, this entire literature, when we're talking about the Bengali middle class and its understanding of gender, its understanding of religion, its understanding of nation, or its self fashioning self definition, it's implicitly Hindu upper class Bengali, that's being spoken off in the literature, and that's being reproduced therefore, as a truth because it's constructing the category and reinscribing in the scholarship what is hegemonic perhaps in certain kinds of social practices so the subject of history is the Hindu hodro look male or female. What you are doing and I'm going on about this because I really want to locate your project in in a world where you know conventional historiography and anthropology re iterates rather than questions the binaries and assumptions embedded in the making and mobilization of political categories like the middle class. You're actually I mean you don't say all of this at least you say it implicitly it's there. You talk about the obsession with the hodro look which I thought was rather nice very well put. Okay, this is all changing very slowly so it's not as though there isn't anything else. But if you look at the literature again I was trying to prepare for your talk and I was looking at things. So, there is a very important book by Rochana Mojumdar on marriage and modernity. It makes no pretension to talk about anything but the upper classes, but in a sense it becomes representative of, you know, arranged more marriages and how to think about it in, I don't know what you would call it Hindu modernity, right? That's what it ends up being. There is a Meenalini Sena is really quite brilliant book which you refer to, but in the end the book cannot transcend the Bengali Muslim binary, it just doesn't do it, right? Sonia I mean has written a really really important book pulling together it's a beautiful book, but it's recuperative it recuperates the voices, but it doesn't unsettle the larger framework right? Mohua Sharkar is somebody who tries to do all of that and if I was thinking that book has just not had much traction it hasn't had any kind of effect on historiography, feminist historiography in India. I mean maybe in Bangladesh it's important but certainly in India I don't see it being referred to having made a difference. So in relation to Bengali histories Muslims are either erased or spoken off as a derivative, you know, the Muslim awakening happens with a lag. What you are doing, what I think you're doing and it may be implicit, it may be explicit, is you're refusing that epistemic binary in favor of or disbandling it, I don't know, in favor of a much more complex relational understanding of these issues. And as you say at the very beginning, Haudhrilukh class privileges and distinctions, Hindu Haudhrilukh, you don't even have to say Hindu, depended on relied upon claiming cultural superiority over a Muslim other you say that very early on. So you've said the terms of debate. What I really liked about the paper and your came out I hope it came out in your presentation is that you're not then saying I am now going to write a whole history of the Muslim middle class formation that is separate. You're actually entangling things you're folding them in. And that's so important. It's a really important epistemic kind of intervention that I think you're making. You're also disrupt the standard narrative of South Asian middle class formation. And again, it's people got in English education, they had salary jobs, but and I think here the work of Tariq Omar Ali is actually very important. Yesterday I looked at his index he doesn't even have middle class in his index but anyway, the work is important and you have drawn on it in exactly the ways that I thought you would and I looked at it before I even read your paper so we're basically thinking in the same way. But by focusing on these cosmopolitan townships of East Bengal, the Mufassal middle classes and their different relationship they have a very different relationship to Indian nationalism. And you can use the new work you are using the new work that's coming up to make what I think is a very provocative suggestion, which is, I mean it's on page 19 I have it here about helping golly Muslim domesticities and practices were really quite distinct from the what did you call it, these dosilities scattered shattered images of dosility what you're saying is that there's a very different family structure because of Muslim loss because of whatever else family loss. It's something I totally implicitly recognized, even with the photograph I know exactly what you're saying. I think it's fantastic because you're also really rejecting the whole Muslim women were behind in the women were at the front right, you're doing all of that it's fantastic I want to hear more about before I go on I will have to stop just saying good things. I just so was so excited by your paper, which I read this morning by you know not you know what was I saying, I want to know more about the evidence the magazines and things that you have photographs I just showed one photograph. You showed several photographs that I thought were very interesting one is the face of the nation the women marching in 47 and 71 it's that middle class one in marching. We know that but the other picture you showed of photograph you showed of this typical middle class family. I would like to know more about I totally am with you on this, in a sense turning the tables Muslim women were not only not oppressed, they were actually partners with their men in very distinct ways. I'd like to know more about how you're approaching that argument it's such a, it's such a fantastic argument okay. I, how much time have I spent because I have a lot more to say, as usual, but should you have you have five moments. Do you have time to respond to Priyanka, what do you think. Yes, I think you can go on, but we've already got a few questions from the audience I would like to leave around 15 minutes or so for the. Yes, yes, I'll take five more minutes. Okay, just to ask questions about contemporary to ask actual questions right about the I'm about what might be more contemporary issues I really like that you pluralize the middle classes this not a singular social formation, you're showing you show the heterogeneity of it right and it's a, I'm very interested as the middle class is a cultural project which you're doing grounded in these material conditions, and how the middle classes are intimately entangled in are the pressures on the middle classes. Okay, so my first question to you quickly is, can we think about a new versus old middle class when we're talking about contemporary Bangladesh, and I say this thinking about a particular book that I just looked at it's on Pakistan is I've just glanced at it and she also talks in terms of the aspirations and strivings. I was thinking, who does the new middle class who do the middle classes define themselves against in the moment of partition or in the moment of 2001. There was a striving for a certain kind of secular modernity right so the women represent a secular nation, you know, but there's always a very uneasy relationship between gender religion and modernity. Right so there's a newer middle class or middle classes that are the kind that are much less hostile to not religion but to Islam. Okay, and to public piety but they're also there their religious engagement is part of a new middle class aspiration to social model mobility and modernity right so that's one set of questions, which because I think the question of women comes up because there's a struggle there's a middle class struggle over women's bodies and who represents women's bodies so I'm always a little bit interested in this debate where it's okay if women but Bengali women wear jeans, because it's modern but if they wear a borka we've got to be afraid right. This is all coming from a particular idea if embrace of liberal modernity and nostalgia for a time yeah okay anyway so that's the first question the second question is about the anxieties of self representation globally and our middle classes post a shot post 2001 as they become much more global are very invested in how they are seen trans nationally and I remember after 2001 with these rising discourses of terrorism. People were really worried about their sons and daughters access to us visas you know social mobility I mean mobility and travel have become so constitutive of middle class identity so. Anyway, the third thing and what I'm really interested in I'll say this very quickly is. I don't know if you thought about this and maybe you'll think about this in the future, I don't think you're there yet, because you haven't probably done the research but how do working class identities constitute middle class women's identities and I've been going to a lot of talks on this 40 money thing and somehow the issue of slandering through invoking garment workers keeps coming up and as you know I work on garment workers at garment workers there motto. There's a whole middle class sexuality debate on garment workers that we can talk about. But anyway, I think there's a way in which middle class sexuality is still very puritanical. And it's work at the working classes were very morally lacks. Okay, that's a lot of stuff but thank you so much. I really enjoyed doing it this and thank you Priyanka for inviting me to be discussing. Should I take the questions or should I start responding the last person and go on to the questions. I think you can respond to the last questions first and then I'll read out the questions in order to you from the from the audience. Okay. Thank you. So much because I needed that. It is the first stage of my work and it's very important to have have this encouragement as well as the critical interjections at this right at this moment. There are three things that you're right and you saw in my paper which which still needs a little bit of fine tuning but one of the major thing that I think I am writing this book coming from this frustration of not being represented. So that is that is as a as a as a scholar from South Asia that is a political project that I am in. And that has been my political project over the years so I am not here to like dilly-dallying and and sweet talking and and and joining the queue I'm not. I have a political project and project is actually establishing a scholarship from Bangladesh and which represents Bangladesh which is not come. So, so that is that is the first thing that I, we both agree that that that has to be done. And to do that, it's not useful to say that I am doing something novel. I'm building up, building things on on things that has been done before either critically engaging or drawing from their ideas like. So, one of the great books, read recently was actually Joya Joya Chatterjee's book Bengal Divide was very, very refreshing. Mohua's book was very refreshing, and Tarek's book was extremely refreshing because this this is exactly what I was talking about it. It's, I am talking about metropolitan middle class, typically bank, Dhaka middle class, but Dhaka has become Dhaka because Mufassal emerged Dhaka became Dhaka because certain kind of capital was accumulated in Mufassal that made this people come to Dhaka, be in our center, become the actor and the middle class that we are talking about. So the, the accumulation and circulation of capital and and and I'm constantly the reason I'm talking about a particular middle class and it is broad broadly framed, because I can't really it's very it's almost impossible to talk about middle class without talking about the permanent settlement and the the colonial formation that has happened before. So I am kind of how I am dragged by that sometimes but at the same time what I'm trying to do here as you see is like actually refusing this reiteration and also, as I said, it's not anecdote because this is a story of resilience of minority. This is the story the minority Muslim minority, who actually pushed so much that it not only made to two nation, India and Pakistan but also actually help or facilitate to form a nation which suits them, which is, which is secular religious secular whatever however you put it, disentangling those those religious boundaries and and and creating their own. So that is a story that is a unique story if you look at to it, it's a unique story because this this is like a small actress who become like a Jodha who's been like a slab left right and center, all of a sudden like earning and becoming somebody so it talks about the dreams and aspiration and what what you can be as a political actor. So that is there. The two questions that you asked whether I'm talking about older new middle class, I am in a sword because I work with intergenerational data. So my data is as intergenerational so it's it's a story of three to five generations. So I looked into the family histories. So essentially that family history talks about this, not only the middle class of 1920s or 30s or 40s, but of our time. Right to 2021. But I must say that this actually looking to the transnational transnational expansion of middle class and the cosmopolitan middle class and their expansion. And that actually answer your question that it globe how globally middle class are represented what kind of. Now, do I talk about the public party not that much because the I only talk about things that my respondents are helping me to talk about the narrative I'm saying, like, I can engage with other things but the things also it's important because it's such a messy data, because it's not only spanning through three colonial formations but it is also spanning across Bangladesh and London so I have different states of data and it had to make sense. So that is that is something that I am working on. So the anxiety of representation of middle class is, you'd love it because less in Bangladesh but when we look into the migrants, the first generation of migrants who had money. Early, early affluent middle class who moved there and their relationship with the new migrants. It's like, it's called apart. And it's very interesting to compare them with the British middle class because the one the second generation third generation who lived there actually made the mobility so people who are going now, except you are going with the scholarship and settling there and getting a job. You are, you are looked down upon because because you are the newcomer like anywhere else in the world, right. So those are those tensions are seen among my transnational middle class groups, not not I mean there is differences and and the aspirations are very different across the generation as well so I address that. I don't actually deal with the relationship of middle class and working class because I think middle class itself. It's so much of attention. And there's so many things that you have to undo untangle to do your thing. The mess is real. And so I had to chart the territory in a certain fashion so no I don't do that the second part I don't. Thank you. You might find things in the anyway, we'll talk. We can write a paper on that you can write a paper together exactly that's what we'll do. Yes. Thank you so much Dina and she'll be and I think it's time to take the questions of eight of them already. But before I take the questions, I just wanted to raise two points myself. This one, just to add to the list of references, you know, great references that Dina has already mentioned, you know the scholarship. I was thinking of people were these recent article on women and the PIA Airlines during I was in Pakistan that might, I mean it probably doesn't speak directly to your what you are studying but could give you, you know, a certain comparative lens to work with. And my, I had a question, again, building on something which Dina has already asked you about photographs. So, since you're working with, you know, a lot of personal archives and personal collections. Have you found a methodology of looking and reading and studying photographs to kind of tell the story. Or, you know, looking at magazines and periodicals to build up this narrative which you're already doing. So that was my only question. But you can think about it and you know we can speak about it later but I'm ready to respond. So I look into the archives, but I am, I look into the archives of women's writing, which is in Shawgat and in Beckham and all of those. So basically, Zanana Mohals and Mohilla Mohals and later on Beckham and Bichitra. So these are the print I've looked into, but my work heavily depends on the ethnography that I'm doing ethnography in a sense, the family genealogy because that is something I methodologically I want to develop, like intergenerational method that I wanted to develop. Regarding photos, there are family photos that there's a huge archive of family photos, but also I must acknowledge there are certain trepidations in this research is that there are many actors who doesn't want to be revealed. So I can tell their story and it's such a complicated methodological problem and Joy Chattity and I had a discussion and she said, you must pseudonym them. But the thing is, when it's a prime minister, like even if I pseudonym them, if it's a minister, and doing certain things, even if I pseudonym them I can't really totally be discreet about these things. So even the photos are shared, even the accumulation details are shared. So I have this huge data on different forms of accumulation, so property and all of this. Now those things when it's coming to write about book, there are, even though they sign that whatever they have discussed, it's okay to publish but I'm being doubly careful about those things so even the photograph I, except for my own family friend, family members or the immediate friends who like I'm in contact with who are having privy to read my drafts. Other than them, I'm not using the photograph that much. So that is that is there. Thank you. Thank you, Shruti. I will start taking the questions now. The first one is from Nova Ahmed. Thanks for the lovely talk. The secular fight for equality that started. Where do you think it is now. Why couldn't we engage more men into the movements. Thank you, Nova. The men, it's interesting because we, but I don't want to, don't want to not answer that. I think men are also changing and shifting their gazes also changing among the middle classes and there's the changes are apparent. But also I think part of the problem was that women themselves who organized women's movement actually saw women as victims as well. So the thing is like they were the savior and they wanted to be the savior so including men into the discussion is a very new development which needs time and it's pace. And I think we all want to be savior even if we are marginal and the very onus of victimhood on women kind of evaded all the intervention from the men because it's our right, our issue and we will be only talking about it. The allyship is slowly and gradually developing but also there are different forms of allyship. Mujla Purushad could never become Mujla Purushad without the help of mass student organization in different small towns and helping mass and colors being helped by their sons and their niece and nephews. So there's a, even when we talk about movement but we often don't see that there's a class, not only class but family also plays a huge role how we push the causes, how we articulate them, how we narrowed them, how we navigate through the political field. So there has been the cases but also not as much as we would like to see because I think part of the problem lies within our framing of how we want to talk about movement, how we talk about, yeah, that's something. Yeah. Thank you, Shelti. Your next question is from Ishrat Khan. I could not follow the first few minutes of the discussion. Could you please classify the new middle class in Bangladesh again? What features do you think about? Okay. I'll go back to my definition because that's easier. So Ishrat, when I talk about the middle class I actually talk about the layered complex and diverse nature of the middle class. And a group of individuals with tertiary level of education engaged in specific professions and sharing a set of core values, core values including the attitude to the religion, forms of families and others. The individual have accumulated different forms of capital, economic, cultural and social over three generations, enabling them to maintain particular lifestyle. While I have often used the term metropolitan middle class to refer to the affluent section of the middle class living in metropolitan, I have also found that the affluent metropolitan middle class has been morphing into transnational class. So this is the definition that I'm using. Thank you, Shelti. Your next question is from David Loden. Thanks, Shelti. This is great. I'm struck by the dichotomy of origins between earlier rural Mufassil middle class with its jute economy and agrarian context and the later urban educated business professional middle class in Bangladesh. Does this dichotomy of origins describe the middle class in Bangladesh today? It would seem that perhaps it might be relevant for gender issues, particularly if not also for the role of religion in politics. Thank you, David. Thanks for listening to me because I was very scared that all the historians is going to just kill me. So it is, I wouldn't say dichotomy, rather it's one facilitating the other because of the jute economy and the rents, the surplus. Basically, if you look into the my original paper, it is talking about the material conditions of formation of middle class. So these were the absolute material condition that facilitated the class formation. So it was relevant until actually 1970s. It was it was absolutely relevant even to some extent till now. But till 70s, who would be the middle class and who can and cannot attain education, who can and cannot attain mobility was dictated by the surplus that was accumulated really. So that was relevant 60s and 70s. So the urban middle class, the people I'm talking about now are once removed from them, especially my, my interlocutor. So most of them are like by third generation. So if I'm talking about the five, five generations. So by second generation, they're already become like professionals. So they are removed from there, not removed from the land but they're not solely dependent on their land because I've also mentioned that there's a tie with the ancestral land. So I'm still tied with my ancestral land, whether I, I use anything from there, whether it's a trust put in trust or not. But these are something that that we need to remember what kind of accumulations actually facilitated certain kind of formation of and yes, as I responded to the Napa is that there is a difference between first generation, second generation and third generation and their forms of accumulation. So suppose from my grandmother's generation, my grandmother, like she was a single woman raising four kids with single income. So after my grandfather died. And part of the year came from, from what she earned, what her husband's pension, and, and from the landed property, which is not the case for me, I don't get anything I mean, anything from the landed property, even if, if I'm entitled to. So there are different kind of accumulation that is happening over the period of time and how we are managing those. And the reason I'm constantly talking about women because we do not talk enough of women, how they maintain it's even if you're a housewife how you maintain and, and reproduce class in everyday practices and how they are there. And I don't understand when you talk about men as as iron or wage earner, like why, how can you not see women are making sure that he is established in a in a city or town. And I didn't talk about that in, in here but in my paper, I probably mentioned somewhere is that men could only exist in cities because women were there. We have to remember because when we talk about the domestic ideology, this men, the adult men are supposed to be family men and they can't exist without the family so single men. The mobility of single men would be lesser than men with the family and having having wife who could actually maneuver the social network in certain ways, and it doesn't happen only one generation but over the generation so you may hate all the Dadinani's Golpo and the but those has economic value, you may hate your mother's like reiteration of the same story but the story of the struggle actually constitutes what you are today. So this these are for me those are the tangible forms of forms of class that I see in everyday practices. Your next question is from on Nesha Chakraborty. I have a few follow up questions to that of Ishrat. What percentage of Bangladeshi population as a middle class is there an economic delineation of what constitutes the middle class, or would you say it is more a socio political cultural category. What role does past play in defining the Bangladeshi middle class if it at all does. Well, I am not a percentage person, but I also I don't do percentage that much, but I must say, if you look around you will see it's the middle class all over. So whatever beat is the national history beat how you define yourself how you fashion yourself is all defined by not the elite but by the middle class and that has been the longest period of time that has been the case. I think the whole paper revolves around that is that how state facilitates certain kind of class and how they become the hegemony class they, they might be small in numbers, but not in strength. Number, number matters I mean like, but the thing is, it is historically it's proven that subaltern class could not articulate their imagination, where middle class took the lead so the thing is. Yes, we can talk about this, that that house subaltern voices were marginalized because because we were the protagonist of making the nation and the story narrative that that that has to be that one has to be aspire to one had middle classes is is it's physical it's tangible at the same time it's aspirational as well. So this, this is the class who aspire people to become middle class so even if you go to a very elite household, and they will say, I'm a little bit. So we are middle class, because it's not the money that makes the middle class but the value the core value so that's that's why I'm repeatedly saying is it's it's not the three different forms of capital because it's not only money. Because most of the time when you do the percentage, it is equated with the money and the status but the thing is like I'm not only talking about the money and status but I'm also talking about the cultural capital and social capital which is not necessarily always tangible, equitable, all, all the time. So yes. Thank you. Your next question is from Shehzad Arifin. Could you expand on the role that marriage played, especially with respect to Muslim middle class aspirations and accumulation. Thank you Shehzad. You have read this paper so many times of course you would have more questions. But I think that I kind of responded that question because I think. As I said that housewiveship was only part of a job for women in colonial formation so the things like marriage was even more, I mean, more than housewiveship, it was about being productive member of the family, how you regulate and surveil certain kind of accumulations and and so marriage becomes extremely important and especially for the social reproduction of the class. One of the cases not in this chapter but in other chapter I talk about the death of mothers. The moment mothers die, your social network dies and the thing is like you actually lose your social capital. So there are cases there are interesting cases where this family is like. Like, okay, I can't name the names, but this is this is the family who was in the viceroy's executive last viceroy's executive. The family is of course, like, of course extremely powerful educated powerful everybody is educated. The moment the the man of the house dies. The woman was not strong enough to hold the family so hold the family not only suffer the partition, half of the family stays back in India, half of the family moves to Bangladesh, and the people who lives in India. The two, two children, three children to two women and a man. The women could never get married, because they didn't have the social network. And, and, and the women who moved to Bangladesh, it, their elder sister to the mother's role, and they actually automatically availed the social capital the sister had. So they were not really married off they had a very different life trajectories. So these are the, like, I don't know how I can make it even more explicit the marriage marriage makes a breaks breaks middle class. I mean that is absolutely crucial. That's why women are so crucial in not only formation but also reproduction of middle class, or any class, but since I'm looking into middle class. That is something that that I'm talking about. Thanks, Shruti. Your next question is from Navin Moshi. Thank you for a great discussion. You talk about the affluent middle class. Who would you say constitutes a non affluent middle class, and would you consider them to be politically un influential. Thank you Nadine. Again, I think because the heterogeneity I look into affluent middle class and people who have three generations of like three generations of accumulations of different capital people who don't have that would be would be not affluent middle class, or like in cases, or lacking any of those would be less affluent middle class. Suppose, let's put myself into the picture. Right. So I am the whatever I do, I still have the social self tonight of my so social network right. I'm not a person who's also teaching at a Brack University, but parents are, are, are living in a rural area doesn't have the safety net. Right. I mean, she's equally educated. So we are both both working in the same department doing the same thing earning the same amount of money, but how we navigate through the social network becomes very crucial in that case. In that case, I would say if a person lacking in the social. Like, because our cultural capital and economic capital are the same as individuals, but our inherited capital is very different. And in that case, that person who's who's like, if we are in the race would fall back. And, and, and it would be the same case with somebody else with a higher capital than me, who had like five generations of social network education. In most cases, one of the things that education institute is the all the Ivy League colleges, having the brand of Ivy League colleges or, or, or Western educated versus us who are from Asia, right. So it's like Singapore, Singapore, so it's like Oxbridge education, Ivy League education versus people educated in Asia. I may have a PhD, but the things like when you are equating the brand, those brand matters. So the thing is like, Nadine, you would, you would have better social capital than I have. And that matter is as simple as that, because it's, I mean, it sounds very, it is simple, but I don't, I don't know why people don't think about it. It's so simple. It's so, so tangible and so simple. But we often try not to see because that makes us uncomfortable. So the next question is from Shajithi Dasgupta. What are the sources of accumulation for the middle class that you identify after neoliberalism takes off. How does it differ from pre globalization era. Thank you Shajithi. The thing is like my work stops at neoliberal era, because I think we not stops that but yeah, like the discussion kind of stops there because it starts with, it stops at our parents generation. I mean, even though I talk about myself a little, I mean, our generation a little but it stops there. The thing is like accumulation as I said in my earlier discussion is like for for many of us, like, not even, I'm not talking about the millennials but but for our generation who were born in 70s and 80s. We do not have the same kind of security as our parents have, right. Some of them put like a real apartment or a house for our generation. That is something that we have to work on and probably we can have those that kind of savings towards the end of our career, not even that right. Because part of the thing is that our lifestyle has changed over the period of time and what we do is the the kind of accumulations the nature of accumulation also changed the savings doesn't the bonds and the savings doesn't give you the same value as as our parents could I mean our parents would like our grandmother could leave his life on pension but for me that is impossible I can't even leave for five years after my retirement. So that is that that is the reality that we are talking about also we spend a lot we save less we spend a lot. Our accumulation has changed. But I think in terms of social network. And also the cultural capital what kind of investment that we do what kind of education that we want to do for our parents generation. Education from the university would would would suffice but for me. It's not even for my children. It would be even more difficult like where they're getting their education what what kind of education they're getting equally in in social network that we talk about, because our previously parents generation social network would entail their professional circle, if they're involved in politics or or suppose in lions or rotary those those kind of social network would work and and but for us it's not the case because we are not like for many of our generations we are not involved in active political party or or or those kind of association. Like we have lots of Facebook friends but not really tap into those social network, not not necessarily. So of course that the accumulations are changing and and I don't talk about that much. Now, but there there's a massive shift in in accumulations as well. Thank you, I think I missed a question from Patrick before taking Shajithi's question and that will be the last question that I can take for this session. So apologies to Max and rubber question from Patrick you do you see anything about middle class formation in Bangladesh that that are applicable to other parts of the British Empire outside of South Asia. I wish I could say yes, but I'm skeptical because as an anthropologist. This is particular historical context that we place the class and the formation. So I'm not too sure but class mobility, yes, you can talk about class mobility you can talk about different forms of accumulation you can talk about, you can relate how the middle formation change the post colonial lives of people so yes to those those things are applicable, but for rest, I wouldn't say I can copy and paste that that would be fair. Well, thank you so much she'll be and be now for that fascinating and enriching session and I'm eagerly looking forward to your book now she'll be so good luck with that. And thank you to our audience members I know a lot of you have joined from Bangladesh. So well thank you for staying up so late and joining us a recording of this session will be uploaded on YouTube the British Library YouTube channel, and we'll be sharing it across social media platforms so do give it a listen and share it amongst your networks. The South Asia seminar series will take a short break, and will possibly be back this year or early next year so do keep an eye on the British Library page for details. And thank you, thank you to all of you and thank you again to be Nancy for joining us tonight. Thank you Priyanka for making it happen because it was, it was, it was a great relief to have the audience and have been up on the panel and you as well. Talk about this. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the opportunity and British Library too.