Voicing Our Roots: A Critical Review of Indigenous Media and Knowledge in Bengal

Inthgenous metha in Bengal has been provithng social, philosophical, and spiritual education to the people of the region since long before recorded history. In the past 200 years the greater Bengal region, which is comprised of Bangladesh and West Bengal of Intha, has been through three significant cultural shifts: the influence of British colonization; the partition and decolonization of Bengal into Eastern (Muslim majority) and Western (Hindu majority); and lasdy, the liberation of Bangladesh as an independent state from Pakistan, in 1971- Throughout these tumultuous times the people of Bengal (both East and West) have managed to sustain their inthgenous culture and trathtional heritage amid a volatile background of political instability and foreign and domestic market-oriented cultural encroachment mechanisms. The significance of inthgenous cultural processes in Bengal thus lies in their instrumental role in continually raising awareness among the rural people regarthng various local issues, such as the protection of trees and natural ecological processes, conservation and use of water resources, and resolving social conflicts (Ghosh, 1996). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.