The Koch-Rajbanshis from Panchanan to Greater Cooch Behar Movement

“The Koch-Rajbanshis from Panchanan to Greater Cooch Behar Movement” is the first book to have intensely explored the origin of the Koch-Rajbanshis, their identity, socio-religious activities and political movements in the past and in the present. This book delineates in detail the origin and religion of the Koch-Rajbanshis and the philosophical views as well as the activities of Ray Saheb Thakur Panchanan in historical perspectives of modern times. Accused by many as of being a revivalist and traditional thinker, Panchanan left behind a legacy of analyzing the society in the context of history and thereby building the projection of identity on a route leading to the remote past. Panchanan realized accurately that Identity of any community, race or ethnic group can never be established devoid of reference to Diaspora-changes from the past to the present; therefore, in search of the identity of the Rajbanshis (Koch), he too traced the social roots of the community in the past, though his claim to Kshatriyahood in the name of ‘Rajbanshi’ for the people originally of Koch origin has now been challenged and criticised by Rajbanshi scholars and politicians. This book thus has interestingly brought the background and all the facts and facets together in discovering the thinker and activist in the man of Thakur Panchanan well in comparison with other progressive thinkers of India, namely Jyotirao Phule, B.R. Ambedkar, Narayan Guru and Periar Ramaswami Naikar, who straight-way fought for the establishment of social equality and Human Rights for the downtrodden and depressed classes of India.