War, Identity and Subaltern Voices: Bengal and the 49th Regiment in the First World War

The ‘Great war’, popularly known as the First World War proved to be disastrous for the human civilization during the first half of twentieth century in diverse trajectories. India as a part of British colony initially reluctant to join this catastrophe. Later, India had been part of this war as British colony on compulsion. Most of the literature on the First World War is Eurocentric and colony’s role in it has been marginal or omitted from the mainstream narratives. Recent researches on the First World War since 2018 has particularly focused on unexplored terrain of the war and shifted focus towards the global south. India’s contribution in this regard has somehow discussed at length, yet the role of Bengali soldiers and subsequently the 49th Bengalee Regiment has not been properly analysed in the larger backdrop of the First World War studies. Therefore, my paper tries to focus on Nazrul and his inclusion in the 49th Bengalee Regiment and how the war changed personal and literary landscape of Nazrul. This paper also challenges the dominant narrative that the Bengalis were effeminate and did not have marital qualities for the war.