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DTSTAMP:20260417T120645Z
DESCRIPTION: -- PLEASE NOE THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FROM MARCH 11 TO
  MARCH 18 --\n\n \n\nAzizul Rasel (McGill University)\n\n'State\, Class\, 
 and Ethnicity: Class Alliance and Class Fracture among the working classes
  of East Pakistan.'\n\n \n\nThe newly established postcolonial state playe
 d a key role in shaping the composition and dynamics of East Pakistan’s in
 dustrial labor force. From the 1950s onward\, the industrial working class
  in East Pakistan became mainly Muslim\, and the state labor policy played
  a key role in shaping this. Yet\, this class was far from homogeneous\; t
 he working class was fragmented across linguistic and ethnic lines\, prima
 rily between Bengali- and Urdu-speaking Muslims. This essay investigates t
 he complex mosaic of East Pakistan’s working class and the roles of ethnic
 ity and the state in class alliances and class fractures within it. I argu
 e that the state sought to fragment working-class solidarity in order to r
 estrict the possibilities of industrial action and collective bargaining. 
 State policies often resulted in tensions between Bengali and non-Bengali 
 workers. Ethnic differences also disrupted the solidarity of the industria
 l working class\, as Bengali workers found that the state was discriminati
 ng against them. The emerging middle-class political activists and nationa
 list labor leaders often fostered this sense of deprivation. While I stres
 s the workers’ agency\, I contend that the subaltern historian’s propositi
 on that the subaltern domain is always autonomous\, as against what I argu
 e\, invoking Rajnarayan Chandravarkar’s works\, that neighborhood and meet
 ing places\, such as shops and bazars\, played an essential role in the ma
 king of workers’ consciousness and their actions. I also question Dipesh C
 hakrabarty’s argument that workers born in a pre-bourgeois condition\, suc
 h as the Calcutta Jute Mill workers\, grow up and uphold a culture which w
 as essentially pre-bourgeois and ‘pre-bourgeois relationship’\, and this c
 ondition baffled them in forming and acting as a class. I argue that this 
 worker's inability to form solidarity and act as a class was not solely re
 sponsible for the ‘pre-bourgeois’ condition. I argue\, drawing on the work
  of Louis Althusser and Michael Foucault\, that the state\, through both i
 ts repressive and ideological apparatuses\, played a crucial role in fragm
 enting workers’ solidarity. In the case of East Pakistan\, I argue that et
 hnic and linguistic differences\, and\, most importantly\, state apparatus
 es\, played a crucial role in fragmenting workers’ solidarity and preventi
 ng them from emerging as a class.\n	\n	Light refreshments served.\n\n \n
DTSTART:20260318T190000Z
DTEND:20260318T210000Z
LOCATION:Room 116\, Peterson Hall\, CA\, QC\, Montreal\, H3A 0E6\, 3460 rue
  McTavish
SUMMARY:Rescheduled to March 18 - IOWC Speaker Series: Azizul Rasel
URL:https://www.mcgill.ca/history/channels/event/rescheduled-march-18-iowc-
 speaker-series-azizul-rasel-371574
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