nblinks

[email fragment] In your years in Dhaka did you ever hear anything about the mysterious Second Kumar of Bhawal? He was a member of a zamindar family in Dacca district who died and was cremated under mysterious circumstances in Darjeeling around 1910. A decade later a sannysai appeared in Dacca who claimed to be the Kumar, and was eventually recognized by most of his family and tenants, but not his widow/wife nor the Court of Wards, which was administering the estate and collecting the taxes. Thus began a series of lawsuits and appeals that stretched till the 1940s and supposedly captivated much of Bengal.

Anyway, I just finished a recent account of the whole affair, _A Princely Imposter?_ by the Bengali historian Partha Chatterjee. It's a nice bit of patient legal storytelling, with some enjoyable traipses into the philosophy of identity -- both Western and Indian -- as well as the occasional pleasant postcolonial aside.