ABSTRACT
Nineteenth-century Bengal is often seen as the time of great cultural and social development. A large section of the native population, however, saw this as a time of great plight – a time that brought in its wake the signs of the end of the world. As one reform bill after the other brought about new changes in society, conservative Hindus felt that their long-cherished order of quotidian life was being attacked by the British rulers and their native accomplices. Speculations about how this amoral age would push the world towards a certain apocalypse became a major part of the discussions in the public sphere. A vast number of pamphlets and chapbooks written around this time drew copiously from this metaphor of the apocalypse. After each natural disaster, slender volumes would be published, declaring the most recent calamity as a direct result of the assault on time-honoured beliefs and norms. This paper reads some of these chapbooks, with an aim to explore how this mythos of the end of the world influenced popular print culture.
