Community boundary, secularized religion and imagined past in Bangladesh: Archaeology and historiography of unequal encounter

The past, as constructed by the modern power of colonialism and nationalism, has essentialized the ideals of nation-state through the process of homogenizing the polysemous identities of non-Western societies and religions. The power of this imagined past is particularly manifested in the institutionalization of the disciplines of archaeology and history, and has acted to fix communitarian boundaries within the conditions and structures of inequality. The analysis of the part played by archaeological narratives in this process of fixation within the domain of nation-state has not even been initiated in the context of Bangladesh. This paper examines the conditions and processes in and by which the secularized notion of religion and representations of the past have been persuaded and coerced to invoke the 'pure' ideals of nation while simultaneously subordinating other notions of collective identity.