Essay · 2026
Rethinking the origins of Bongabdo through Bengal’s ecological civilisation
Mohammad Habib Reza
The Daily Star 14 May 2026
Abstract
The essay questions the popular attribution of the Bengali calendar to the Mughal emperor Akbar or to Shashanka, the seventh-century ruler of Gauda. It proposes instead that the calendar is ‘a long-term expression of Bengal’s delta civilisation, later changed and adapted by different rulers’, holding signs of ‘monsoon ecology, life along rivers, farming traditions, Buddhist institutions, local astronomy, Shaivite state-building, and Mughal administrative changes’, each layer added ‘without wiping out the earlier ones’.
The author note describes him as ‘the originator of the new contextualism framework’ and as working on ‘Bengal’s cultural history, deltaic urbanism, heritage governance, and civilisational continuity’. The essay itself does not discuss New Contextualism.
Editorial summary Summary written by the editors
Cite this record
Reza, Mohammad Habib. 2026a. “Rethinking the origins of Bongabdo through Bengal’s ecological civilisation.” The Daily Star, May 14, 2026. https://www.thedailystar.net/slow-reads/focus/news/rethinking-the-origins-bongabdo-through-bengals-ecological-civilisation-4174901.
Reza, M. H. (2026, May 14). Rethinking the origins of Bongabdo through Bengal’s ecological civilisation. The Daily Star. https://www.thedailystar.net/slow-reads/focus/news/rethinking-the-origins-bongabdo-through-bengals-ecological-civilisation-4174901
@article{reza-2026-bongabdo,
author = {Reza, Mohammad Habib},
title = {{Rethinking the origins of Bongabdo through Bengal’s ecological civilisation}},
journal = {The Daily Star},
year = {2026},
month = {may},
url = {https://www.thedailystar.net/slow-reads/focus/news/rethinking-the-origins-bongabdo-through-bengals-ecological-civilisation-4174901}
} TY - NEWS AU - Reza, Mohammad Habib TI - Rethinking the origins of Bongabdo through Bengal’s ecological civilisation T2 - The Daily Star SE - Slow Reads PY - 2026 DA - 2026/05/14/ UR - https://www.thedailystar.net/slow-reads/focus/news/rethinking-the-origins-bongabdo-through-bengals-ecological-civilisation-4174901 KW - Bengali calendar KW - deltaic civilisation KW - civilisational history KW - Bengal delta ID - reza-2026-bongabdo ER -
In-text: (Reza 2026a) Download RIS