Epilogue
Some stories do not end. They simply pass from one generation to the next, carried, but never fully lost.
Post-colonial Bengal was not merely a political redrawing of borders. It was the fracturing of a civilization — its language, its soil, its people divided by lines drawn by people not native to India but foreigners who ruled, oppressed, and divided.
What remained was memory. Fragile, contested, irreplaceable.
This chapter is dedicated to those who left without wanting to, who arrived without belonging, and who built new lives on the foundations of a grief that had no name in any official record.
Hindu udbastu. Bangladeshi muhajir. Refugee. Displaced. The words differ; the wound is the same.
Bengal was never just a place. It was a way of being — together.
That is what was lost. That is what Epilogue attempt to remember.
Dr. Shantanu Majumder (Professor) Department of Political Science Shantanu Majumder is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Dhaka. His research interests include political secularism, democracy deficit, identity politics, state and civil society, local government, elections, disinformation on social media, and religious-rumour violence against minorities. He publishes articles in local and international journals and attends conferences, seminars and workshops at home and abroad. He also writes for the local newspapers. Shantanu Majumder has experience working as an expert with international organizations. Shantanu Majumder did BSS (Hons) and MSS from the Department of Political Science, University of Dhaka before obtaining an MSc from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and a PhD from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICWS) of the University of London.