Know Bengal
Stories that help you see
Bengal differently.
History, people, culture, places and ideas — researched, contextualised and written for curious readers.
Kolkata’s riverfront at sunrise: moored country boats on the Hooghly, with the Howrah Bridge and the dome of the Victoria Memorial in the distance and old ghat steps in the foreground.
Latest
Did the British Cut Off Bengal Weavers' Thumbs? Tracing a Famous Story Back to 1768
Many Bengalis grow up hearing that the British cut off the thumbs of Bengal's weavers. The trail leads back to one Company servant's letter of 1768, which says something stranger and sadder: silk winders, forced to work for the East India Company, cut off their own.
Read the articleA growing archive of Bengal
A place to understand Bengal — its history, the people who shaped it, the culture it carries, the places it happened in, and the ideas still argued over.
Every entry begins as academic and archival research and is rewritten as a clear, sourced article for a general reader. Articles are connected to each other and grouped into 6 broad categories.
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- Many more to come
Explore by category
View all stories- History 28 stories Events, movements and turning points that shaped Bengal.
- Economy & Enterprise 8 stories Trade, industry, business, entrepreneurship, work and the economic forces that shaped Bengal.
- People 6 stories Lives and figures — the widely remembered and the overlooked.
- Culture, Language & Literature 23 stories Art, faith, food, performance, festivals, language, literature and the ways Bengal expresses itself.
- Places 3 stories Rivers, towns, settlements, landscapes and historic sites — and the stories they hold.
- Society & Ideas 3 stories Social change, institutions, reform, education, public life and ideas shaping Bengal’s present and future.
Bengal’s stories are many.
This is one way to begin.