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Partition of Bengal (1947)

February 04, 2023

For the 1905 partition, see 1905 Partition of Bengal.

The Partition of Bengal in 1947, part of the Partition of India, divided the British Indian Bengal Province along the Radcliffe Line between the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The Hindu-majority West Bengal became a state of India, and the Muslim-majority East Bengal (now Bangladesh) became a province of Pakistan.

On 20 June 1947, the Bengal Legislative Assembly met to decide the future of the Bengal Province, as between being a United Bengal within India or Pakistan or divided into East and West Bengal. At the preliminary joint session, the assembly decided by 120-90 that it should remain united if it joined the new Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. Later, a separate meeting of legislators from West Bengal decided by 58-21 that the province should be partitioned and that West Bengal should join the existing Constituent Assembly of India. In another separate meeting of legislators from East Bengal, it was decided by 106-35 that the province should not be partitioned and by 107-34 that East Bengal should join Pakistan in the event of Partition.[1]

On 6 July 1947, the Sylhet referendum decided to sever Sylhet from Assam and merge it into East Bengal.

The partition, with power transferred to Pakistan and India on 14–15 August 1947, was done according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan, or the Mountbatten Plan. Indian independence, on 15 August 1947, ended over 150 years of British rule and influence in the Indian Subcontinent. East Pakistan became the independent country of Bangladesh after the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

Background

 
Louis Mountbatten discusses the partition plan with Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammad Ali Jinnah
 
Entrance to the Legislative Assembly in Kolkata (Calcutta)

In 1905, the First Partition in Bengal was implemented as an administrative preference since governing two provinces, West and East Bengal, would be easier.[2] The partition divides the province between West Bengal, whose majority was Hindu, and East Bengal, whose majority was Muslim, but left considerable minorities of Hindus in East Bengal and Muslims in West Bengal. While the Muslims were in favour of the partition, as they would have their own province, Hindus opposed it. The controversy led to increased violence and protest, and in 1911, the provinces were again united.[3]

However, the disagreements between Hindus and Muslims in Bengal that had sparked the Partition of Bengal in 1905 remained, and laws, including the Second Partition of Bengal in 1947, were implemented to fulfil the political needs of the parties involved.

According to plan, on 20 June 1947, the members of the Bengal Legislative Assembly cast three separate votes on the proposal to partition Bengal:

  • In the joint session of the house, composed of all the members of the Assembly, the division of the joint session of the House stood at 126 votes against and 90 votes for joining the existing Constituent Assembly (India)
  • The members of the Muslim-majority areas of Bengal in a separate session then passed a motion by 106–35 against partitioning Bengal and instead joining a new Constituent Assembly (Pakistan) as a whole.
  • A separate meeting of the members of the non-Muslim-majority areas of Bengal then decided 58–21 to partition the province.

Under the Mountbatten Plan, a single majority vote in favour of partition by either of the notionally-divided halves of the Assembly would have decided the division of the province and hence the proceedings on 20 June resulted in the decision to partition Bengal. That set the stage for the creation of West Bengal as a province of India and East Bengal as a province of the Dominion of Pakistan.

Also in accordance with the Mountbatten Plan, a referendum held on 6 July saw the electorate of Sylhet vote to join East Bengal. Further, the Boundary Commission, headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, decided on the territorial demarcation between the two newly created provinces. Power was transferred to Pakistan and India on 14 and 15 August, respectively, under the Indian Independence Act 1947.

Opposition to partition of India

Main article: Opposition to the partition of India
Further information: Composite nationalism, Hindu-Muslim unity, and Religious harmony in India

In Bengal, the Krishak Praja Party's Syed Habib-ul-Rahman said that partitioning India was "absurd" and "chimerical". Criticising the partition of the province of Bengal and India as a whole, Syed Habib-ul-Rahman said that "the Indian, both Hindus and Muslims, live in a common motherland, use the offshoots of a common language and literature, and are proud of the noble heritage of a common Hindu and Muslim culture, developed through centuries of residence in a common land".[4]

United Bengal plan

 
H. S. Suhrawardy, the last Prime Minister of Bengal, urged a separate independent status for the whole province
 
Sarat Chandra Bose supported the United Bengal plan

After it became apparent that the division of India on the basis of the two-nation theory would almost certainly result in the partition of Bengal along religious lines, the Bengal provincial Muslim League leader Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy came up with a new plan to create an independent Bengal state, which would join neither Pakistan nor India and remain unpartitioned. Suhrawardy realised that if Bengal was partitioned, it would be economically disastrous for East Bengal[5] as all coal mines, all but two jute mills and other industrial plants would certainly go to the western part since they were in overwhelmingly-Hindu areas.[6] Most importantly, Calcutta, the largest city in India and an industrial and commercial hub and the largest port, would also go to the western part. Suhrawardy floated his idea on 24 April 1947 at a press conference in Delhi.[7]

However, the plan ran directly counter to that of the Muslim League, which demanded the creation of a separate Muslim homeland on the basis of the two-nation theory. The Bengal provincial Muslim League leadership opinion was divided. The leader Abul Hashim supported it,[8] but Nurul Amin and Mohammad Akram Khan opposed it.[8][9] However, Muhammad Ali Jinnah realised the validity of Suhrawardy's argument and gave his tacit support to the plan.[10][11][12] After Jinnah's approval, Suhrawardy started gathering support for his plan.

For the Congress, only a handful of leaders agreed to the plan, such as the influential Bengal provincial Congress leader Sarat Chandra Bose, the elder brother of Netaji and Kiran Shankar Roy. However, most other leaders and Congress leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, rejected the plan. The nationalist Hindu Mahasabha, under the leadership of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, vehemently opposed it[13] and considered it nothing but a ploy by Suhrawardy to stop the partition of the state so that its industrial west, including the city of Kolkata, would remain under League control. It also claimed that even if the plan was for a sovereign Bengal state, it would be a virtual Pakistan, and the Hindu minority would always be at the mercy of the Muslim majority.[13][14]

Although the chance of the proposal seeing light without the Congress central committee's approval was slim, Bose and Suhrawardy continued talks to reach an agreement on the political structure of the proposed state. Like Suhrawardy, Bose also felt that Partition would severely hamper Bengal's economy, and almost half of the Hindus would be left stranded in East Pakistan.[15] The agreement was published on 24 May 1947[16] but was largely political. The proposal had little support at grassroots level, particularly among Hindus.[17] The Muslim League's continuous propaganda for the two-nation theory during the past six years, as well as the marginalisation of Hindus in the Suhrawardy ministry and the vicious 1946 riots, which many Hindus believed to have been sponsored by the state, left little room for trust by the Bengali Hindus.[18] Soon, Bose and Suhrawardy were divided on the nature of the electorate: separate or joint. Suhrawardy insisted upon maintaining the separate electorates for Muslims and non-Muslims. Bose opposed the idea and withdrew. The lack of any other significant support by the Congress caused the United Bengal plan to be discarded.[19] Still, the relatively-unknown episode marked the last attempt among Bengali Muslim and Hindu leadership to avoid Partition and to live together.

Displacement

1946–1951

Following the partition of Bengal between the Hindu-majority West Bengal and the Muslim-majority East Bengal, there was an influx of Hindu/Muslim refugees from both sides. An estimation suggests that before Partition, West Bengal had a population of 21.2 million, of whom only 5.3 million or roughly 25 percent were Muslim minorities, whereas East Bengal had 39.1 million people, of whom a staggering 11.4 million or roughly 30 percent were predominantly Hindu minorities. Nearly 2.16 million Bengali Hindus have left Pakistan's East Bengal for India's West Bengal region, and only four-hundred thousand Bengali Muslims have left India's West Bengal for Pakistan's East Bengal region immediately after Partition because of violence and rioting resulting from mobs supporting West Bengal and East Bengal. Unlike Punjab, India, where a full population exchange between Punjabi Muslims and Punjabi Hindus/Sikhs during partition happened, the same complete population exchange did not happen in Bengal (their population transfer between Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims was gradually slower due to occurrence of less violence); overall it was one-sided.[20] Presently, only 8 percent of East Bengal, now Bangladesh, is Hindu, whereas West Bengal is still 27 percent Muslim, compared to 25 percent at the time of Partition.[21]

1960

An estimated one million Hindu refugees had entered West Bengal by 1960, and close to 700,000 Muslims left for East Pakistan. The refugee influx in Bengal was also accompanied by the fact that the government was less prepared to rehabilitate them, which resulted in huge housing and sanitation problems for the millions, most of whom were owners of large property back in East Bengal.[22]

1964

During East Pakistan riot of 1964, it is estimated according to Indian authorities, 135,000 Hindu refugees arrived in West Bengal from East Pakistan, and the Muslims started to migrate to East Pakistan from West Bengal. According to Pakistani figures, by early April, 83,000 Muslim refugees had arrived from West Bengal.[23]

1971

In 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War against Pakistan, a large group of refugees numbering an estimated 7,235,916 arrived from Bangladesh to India's West Bengal. Nearly 95% of them were Bengali Hindus and, after Independence of Bangladesh, nearly 1,521,912 people belonging to Bengali Hindu refugees decided to stay back in West Bengal.[24] The Bangladeshi Hindus were mainly settled in Nadia, North 24 parganas and South 24 parganas district of West Bengal after 1971.[25]

Aftermath

Before the official Radcliffe Line was drawn in 1947, these were the religious demographics in Bengal:

  • Muslim-majority districts: Dinajpur, Rangpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Rajshahi, Bogra, Pabna, Mymensingh, Jessore, Nadia, Faridpur, Dhaka, Tippera, Bakerganj, Noakhali and Chittagong.
  • Hindu-majority districts: Calcutta, Howrah, Hooghly, Birbhum, Burdwan, Bankura, Midnapore, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, 24 Pargan and Khulna
  • Buddhist-majority district: Chittagong Hill Tract

Final division:

The second partition of Bengal left behind a legacy of violence that has continues ever since. As Bashabi Fraser put it, "There is the reality of the continuous flow of 'economic migrants', 'refugees', 'infiltrators', 'illegal immigrants' who cross over the border and pan out across the sub-continent, looking for work and a new home, setting in metropolitan centres as far off as Delhi and Mumbai, keeping the question of the Partition alive today".[26]

Displacement crisis

 
Gandhi in Noakhali, 1946

A massive population transfer began immediately after partition. Millions of Hindus migrated to India from East Bengal, and most of them settled in West Bengal. A significant number even went to Assam, Tripura and other states. However, the refugee crisis was markedly different from Punjab at India's western border. Punjab had witnessed widespread communal riots immediately before partition. As a result, the population transfer in Punjab happened almost immediately after Partition, as terrified people left their homes from both sides. Within a year, the population exchange had been largely complete between East and West Punjab, but in Bengal, violence was limited to Kolkata and Noakhali. Hence in Bengal, the migration occurred much more gradually and continued over the three decades after partition.[27][28] Although riots were limited in pre-independence Bengal, the environment was communally charged. Both Hindus in East Bengal and Muslims in West Bengal felt unsafe and had to take a crucial decision on whether to leave for an uncertain future in another country or to stay in subjugation under the other community.[29] Among Hindus in East Bengal, those who were better placed economically left first. Government employees were given a chance to swap their posts between India and Pakistan. The educated urban upper and middle classes, the rural gentry, traders, businessmen and artisans left for India soon after partition. They often had relatives and other connections in West Bengal and settled with less difficulty. Muslims followed a similar pattern. The urban and educated upper and middle classes left for East Bengal first.[29]

However, poorer Hindus in East Bengal, most of whom are Dalits found it much more difficult to migrate. Their only property was immovable land holdings. Many sharecropped had no skills other than farming. As a result, most of them decided to stay in East Bengal. However, the political climate in Pakistan deteriorated soon after partition and communal violence started to rise. In 1950, severe riots occurred in Barisal and other places in East Pakistan, causing a further exodus of Hindus. The situation was vividly described by Jogendra Nath Mandal's resignation letter to Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Mandal was a dalit leader and despite being a depressed classes, he supported the Muslim League as a protest to the subjugation of lower-castes by their higher-caste coreligionists.[30] He fled to India and resigned from his cabinet minister's post. For the next two decades, Hindus left East Bengal whenever communal tensions flared up or relationship between India and Pakistan deteriorated as in 1964. The situation of the Hindu minority in East Bengal reached its worst in the months preceding and during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, when the Pakistani Army systematically targeted ethnic Bengalis, regardless of religious background, as part of Operation Searchlight.

In independent Bangladesh, state-sponsored discrimination of Hindus largely stopped. However, like India, the two communities' relationship remains tense and occasional communal violence occurred, such as in the aftermath of Babri Mosque demolition. Illegal immigration to India has continued but is now mostly economic and is not limited to Hindus alone.

Though Muslims in post-independence West Bengal faced some discrimination[citation needed], it was unlike the state-sponsored discrimination faced by the Hindus in East Bengal. Most Hindus fled from East Bengal, but Muslims largely stayed on in West Bengal. Over the years, however, the community became ghettoised and was socially and economically segregated from the majority community.[31] West Bengali Muslims are highly marginalised, as can be seen from social indicators like literacy and per capita income.[32]

Apart from West Bengal, thousands of Bihari Muslims also settled in East Bengal. They had suffered terribly in severe riots before partition. However, they supported West Pakistan during the Liberation War and were subsequently denied citizenship in independent Bangladesh. Most of the Bihari refugees have remained stateless.

Statistics

The 1951 census in India recorded 2.523 million refugees from East Bengal, 2.061 million of whom settled in West Bengal. The rest went to Assam, Tripura and other states.[33] By 1973 their number reached over 6 million. The following table shows the major waves of refugee influx and the incident that caused it.[34][note 1]

Year Reason Number in lakhs
1947 Partition 3.44
1948 Hyderabad annexation by India 7.86
1956 Pakistan becomes Islamic Republic 3.20
1964 Riots over Hazratbal incident 6.93
1971 Bangladesh Liberation War 15

The 1951 census in Pakistan recorded 671,000 refugees in East Bengal, the majority of which came from West Bengal. The rest were from Bihar.[33] By 1961 the numbers reached 850,000. Crude estimates suggest that about 1.5 million Muslims migrated from West Bengal and Bihar to East Bengal in two decades after partition.[35]

Government response

In Punjab, the Indian government anticipated a population transfer and was ready to take proactive measures. Land plots that were evacuated by Muslims were allotted to incoming Hindu and Sikh refugees.[citation needed] The government allocated substantial resources for the rehabilitation of refugees in Punjab. In contrast, there was no such planning in the eastern part of the country. Neither the central nor the West Bengal state governments anticipated any large-scale population exchange, and no co-ordinated policy was in place to rehabilitate millions of homeless people. The newly independent country had few resources, and the central government was exhausted in resettling 7 million refugees in Punjab. Instead of providing rehabilitation, the Indian government tried to stop and even to reverse the refugee influx from East Bengal. India and Pakistan signed the Liaquat–Nehru Pact in 1950 to stop any further population exchange between West and East Bengal. Both countries agreed to take the refugees back and to return them their property which they evacuated in their respective countries. However, in practice, both countries failed to uphold it. Even after it became clear that refugees were determined not to be sent back, the governments of both countries failed to provide any significant assistance. The government policy of East Bengal refugee rehabilitation mostly consisted of sending them to empty areas, mostly outside of West Bengal. One of the most controversial scheme was the government's decision to settle the refugees by force in Dandakaranya, a barren plot of land in Central India.[28][29]

Social impact

Without the government's assistance, the refugees often settled themselves. Some found jobs in factories. Many took small businesses and hawking. Numerous refugee colonies sprang up in Nadia, 24 Paraganas and Kolkata's suburbs. It has been argued recently that the refugees facilitated an incremental urbanization without accumulation, in the frontiers of Calcutta. The process has been termed as 'urbanization with de-accumulation'.[36]

Tripura's tribal insurgency

Main article: Insurgency in Northeast India § Tripura

The princely state of Tripura had a predominantly-tribal population, but educated Bengalis were welcomed by the King and were prominent in the state's administration in pre-independence India. However, after partition, thousands of Bengali Hindus migrated to Tripura, which changed the state's demography completely. Tripura's tribes became a minority in their own homeland and lost their land holdings. As a result, a tribal insurgency began caused violent riots among tribes and Bengalis in 1980. A low-scale insurgency has continued ever since.[37]

Many Bengalis migrated from East Bengal side during Partition and the Liberation War, but half of the Bengali community of Tripura has lived in Tripura for hundreds of years, according to the 1901 census report, which clearly stated that Bengali and Tripura had numbers that were almost equal.

Economic impact

West Bengal

Radcliffe's line split Bengal, which had always historically been always a single economic, cultural and ethnic (Bengali-Hindu or Bengali-Muslim) zone, into two halves. Both halves were intricately connected. The fertile East produced food and raw materials which the West consumed and the industrialised West produced manufactured goods which were consumed by the East. According to the POV, this was either considered an exploitative or a mutually-beneficial trade and exchange. This was naturally, severely disrupted by Partition. Rail, road and water communication routes were severed between them.

After Partition, West Bengal suffered from a substantial food shortage as the fertile rice-producing districts went to East Bengal. The shortage continued into the 1950s and the 1960s. By 1959, West Bengal faced an annual food shortage of 950,000 tones. Hunger marches became a common sight in Kolkata.[38]

 
Prafulla Chandra Ghosh (left), the first chief minister of West Bengal, with Mohammad Ali of Bogra

Jute was the largest industry in Bengal at Partition. The Radcliffe Line left every single jute mill in West Bengal but four fifths of the jute-producing land in East Bengal. The best quality fibre yielding breeds of jute were cultivated mostly in East Bengal. India and Pakistan initially agreed to a trade agreement to import raw jute from East Bengal for West Bengal's mills. However, Pakistan had plans to set up its own mills and put restrictions on raw jute export to India. West Bengal's mills faced acute shortage, and the industry faced a crisis.[39] On the other hand, jute farmers in East Bengal were now without a market to sell their produce. Exporting jute to West Bengal suddenly became an anti-national act for Pakistan. Smuggling of raw jute shot up across the border,[40] but West Bengal rapidly increased jute production and in the mid-to-late 1950s became largely self-sufficient in jute.[41] West Bengal's mills became less dependent on East Bengal for raw materials. Pakistan also set up new factories to process its local produce instead of exporting to India.[42] The following table shows jute production details in both countries in 1961:[41]

Year 1961 Area Harvested (Ha) Yield (Hg/Ha) Production (tonnes)
East Pakistan 834000 15761 1314540
India 917000 12479 1144400

West Bengal's paper and leather industry faced similar problems. The paper mills used East Bengal's bamboo, and the tanneries consumed leather, which were also mainly produced in East Bengal. Like jute, the lack of raw material pushed both industries into decline.[43]

Despite central and state governments' best efforts, the pressure of millions of refugees, food shortages and industrial decline after independence put West Bengal in a severe crisis. Dr. B. C. Roy's government tried to cope up with the situation by initiating several projects. The government built irrigation networks like DVC and Mayurakshi project, the Durgapur industrial zone and the Salt Lake City, but they failed to arrest West Bengal's decline. Poverty rose, and West Bengal lost its top place and lagged well behind other Indian states in industrial development. Massive political unrest, strikes and violence crippled the state for the three decades after Partition.[29]

North East India

Rail and road links connecting North East India to the rest of the country passed through East Bengal territory. The lines connecting Siliguri in North Bengal to Kolkata and Assam to Chittagong were severed. The whole Assam Railway was cut off from the rest of the Indian system.[44] Those lines carried almost all freight traffic from those regions. The most important commodities were tea and timber. The tea industry in Assam depended on the Chittagong Port to export its produce and import raw materials for the industry such as coal, which was used as the fuel to dry the tea leaves. The industry was severely hit, as Chittagong went to Pakistan. Initially, India and Pakistan reached an agreement to allow cross-border transit traffic, but India now had to pay a tariff. By 1950, India had reconnected Assam to the rest of the country's rail network by building a 229 km meter gauge rail link through the Siliguri Corridor,[44] but now the Tea chests from Assam's gardens would have to be carried over a much longer distance to reach the Port of Kolkata. Exporting tea via the nearby Chittagong port was still an option, but after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, all transit traffic was switched off by Pakistan.[45]

East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh in 1971 but cross-border railway traffic did not resume until 2003. By the 1990s, India upgraded the Assam rail link to 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) broad gauge up to Dibrugarh, thereby easing the traffic problem in Brahmaputra Valley region, but the southern section of the area, which comprises Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur and Barak valley of Assam, still faces serious connectivity problems. Talks between both countries are underway to allow transit traffic between the area and Mainland India through Bangladesh.

East Bengal

 
Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin, the first chief minister of East Bengal

At Partition, East Bengal had no large industry. There were few mineral resources in this region. Its economy was completely agrarian. The main produce was food grains and other crops, jute, bamboo, leather and fish. The raw materials were consumed by factories in and around Kolkata. Kolkata was the centre of Bengal's economic and social development for both Hindus and Muslims. All large industries, military bases and government offices and most of the institutions of higher education were in Kolkata.[citation needed] Without Kolkata, East Bengal was decapitated.[46] It lost its traditional market for agricultural products. It also lost Kolkata, the most important port of the country. East Bengal had to begin from nothing. Dhaka was then only a district headquarters. Government offices had to be placed inside makeshift buildings. Dhaka also faced a severe human resource crisis. The majority of high-ranking officers in British Indian administration were Hindu and migrated to West Bengal. Often, the posts had to be filled up by West Pakistani officers. Desperately poor, East Bengal soon became politically dominated by West Pakistan. Economic disparities and subjugation of Bengalis by the Punjabi elite eventually led to a struggle for separation in 1971.

In popular culture

Chinnamul (The Uprooted) a 1950 Bengali film directed by Nemai Ghosh, first dealt with the theme of partition of Bengal. This was followed by Ritwik Ghatak's trilogy, Meghe Dhaka Tara (Cloud-covered stars) (1960), Komal Gandhar (1961), and Subarnarekha (1962), all dealing with the aftermath of the partition.[47]

The film Rajkahini directed by Srijit Mukherji is also based on the theme of partition of Bengal 1947.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ During the Bangladesh Liberation War, 11 million people from both communities took shelter in India. After the war 1.5 million decided to stay.[28]

Bengali Hindus in Assam

References

  1. ^ Mukherjee 1987, p. 230.
  2. ^ . Archived from the original on 6 August 2018. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
  3. ^ Baxter 1997, pp. 39–40: "The new province had a Muslim majority of about three to two... The partition was widely welcomed by Muslims and sharply condemned by Hindus. Hindu opposition was expressed in many forms, ranging from boycott of British goods to revolutionary activities.... protests eventually bore fruit, and the partition was annulled in 1911."
  4. ^ Chandar, Y. Udaya (25 February 2020). The Strange Compatriots for Over a Thousand Years. Notion Press. ISBN 978-1-64760-859-0.
  5. ^ Tripathi 1998, p. 87.
  6. ^ Chakrabarty 2004, p. 138.
  7. ^ Chakrabarty 2004, p. 132.
  8. ^ a b Chakrabarty 2004, p. 135.
  9. ^ Jalal 1994, p. 266: "The president of the Bengal League, Maulana Akram Khan, publicly rejected any notion of a Bengali nation in which Muslims and Hindus would share power.... The speaker of the Bengal assembly, Noorul Amin, was confident that he could become the chief minister of east Bengal and so wanted partition".
  10. ^ Jalal 1994, p. 265: "An undivided Bengal was vital for Jinnah's strategy.... Jinnah told Mountbatten..., 'What is the use of Bengal without Calcutta; they had better remain united and independent.'"
  11. ^ Chakrabarty 2004, p. 137.
  12. ^ Bandopadhyay, p. 266.
  13. ^ a b Chakrabarty 2004, pp. 140–147.
  14. ^ Tripathi 1998, p. 86.
  15. ^ Chakrabarty 2004, p. 142.
  16. ^ Chakrabarty 2004, p. 141.
  17. ^ Chakrabarty 2004, p. 149.
  18. ^ Tripathi 1998, pp. 86, 186.
  19. ^ Chakrabarty 2004, p. 143.
  20. ^ https://www.firstpost.com/world/nothing-new-in-persecution-of-hindus-in-bangladesh-this-time-we-are-talking-about-it-openly-and-firmly-10064361.html
  21. ^ https://www.partitionmuseum.org/partition-of-india/bengal-assam/
  22. ^ "Voices of Partition: A Dhaka Hindu and a Kolkata Muslim recount what Independence meant to them". The Indian Express. 15 August 2017. from the original on 6 October 2022. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
  23. ^ Brady, Thomas F. (5 April 1964). "Moslem-Hindu Violence Flares Again". The New York Times. New York. from the original on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 17 August 2014.
  24. ^ "When Indira Gandhi said: Refugees of all religions must go back – Watch video". from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  25. ^ "Why Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh are a key component of the BJP's West Bengal expansion strategy". from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  26. ^ Fraser 2008, p. 40.
  27. ^ Chatterji 2007, p. 111.
  28. ^ a b c "A home... far from home?". The Hindu. 30 July 2000. from the original on 5 March 2007.
  29. ^ a b c d Chatterji 2007.
  30. ^ Chakrabarty 2004, p. 113.
  31. ^ Chatterji 2007, p. 181.
  32. ^ Rajinder Sachar (2006). Sachar Committee Report (PDF) (Report). (PDF) from the original on 14 January 2015. Retrieved 4 April 2012.
  33. ^ a b Hill et al. 2005, p. 13.
  34. ^ Luthra 1972, pp. 18–19.
  35. ^ Chatterji 2007, p. 166.
  36. ^ Bandyopadhyay, Ritajyoti (30 June 2022). Streets in Motion: The Making of Infrastructure, Property, and Political Culture in Twentieth-century Calcutta. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781009109208. from the original on 3 July 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
  37. ^ Manorama Yearbook 1998
  38. ^ Chatterji 2007, pp. 244–245.
  39. ^ Chatterji 2007, p. 240.
  40. ^ Schendel 2005, pp. 158–159.
  41. ^ a b "Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations". from the original on 19 June 2012. Retrieved 26 March 2011.
  42. ^ Schendel 2005, p. 159.
  43. ^ Chatterji 2007, pp. 241–242.
  44. ^ a b "History of Indian railways". from the original on 21 June 2019. Retrieved 26 March 2011.
  45. ^ Schendel 2005, p. 150.
  46. ^ Jalal 1994, p. 3: "Stripped of Calcutta and western Bengal, eastern Bengal was reduced to the status of an over-populated rural slum."
  47. ^ Roy & Bhatia 2008, pp. 66–68.

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  • Tan, Tai Yong; Kudaisya, Gyanesh (2000). The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-17297-7.
  • Prasad, Rajendra (1947). India Divided (3 ed.). Bombay: Hind Kitabs.
  • S. M. Ikram Indian Muslims and Partition of India. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1992. ISBN 81-7156-374-0
  • Hashim S. Raza Mountbatten and the partition of India. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1989. ISBN 81-7156-059-8
  • Singh, J. J. (15 June 1947). "Partition of India: British Proposal Said to be Only Feasible Plan Now". The New York Times (Letter to editor). p. E8.
  • Gyanendra Pandey Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism, and History in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-521-00250-8
  • Mookerjea-Leonard, Debali. (2017). Literature, Gender, and the Trauma of Partition: The Paradox of Independence London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1138183100

February 04, 2023
partition, bengal, 1947, 1905, partition, 1905, partition, bengal, partition, bengal, 1947, part, partition, india, divided, british, indian, bengal, province, along, radcliffe, line, between, dominion, india, dominion, pakistan, hindu, majority, west, bengal,. For the 1905 partition see 1905 Partition of Bengal The Partition of Bengal in 1947 part of the Partition of India divided the British Indian Bengal Province along the Radcliffe Line between the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan The Hindu majority West Bengal became a state of India and the Muslim majority East Bengal now Bangladesh became a province of Pakistan On 20 June 1947 the Bengal Legislative Assembly met to decide the future of the Bengal Province as between being a United Bengal within India or Pakistan or divided into East and West Bengal At the preliminary joint session the assembly decided by 120 90 that it should remain united if it joined the new Constituent Assembly of Pakistan Later a separate meeting of legislators from West Bengal decided by 58 21 that the province should be partitioned and that West Bengal should join the existing Constituent Assembly of India In another separate meeting of legislators from East Bengal it was decided by 106 35 that the province should not be partitioned and by 107 34 that East Bengal should join Pakistan in the event of Partition 1 On 6 July 1947 the Sylhet referendum decided to sever Sylhet from Assam and merge it into East Bengal The partition with power transferred to Pakistan and India on 14 15 August 1947 was done according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or the Mountbatten Plan Indian independence on 15 August 1947 ended over 150 years of British rule and influence in the Indian Subcontinent East Pakistan became the independent country of Bangladesh after the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War Contents 1 Background 1 1 Opposition to partition of India 1 2 United Bengal plan 2 Displacement 2 1 1946 1951 2 2 1960 2 3 1964 2 4 1971 3 Aftermath 3 1 Displacement crisis 3 1 1 Statistics 3 1 2 Government response 3 1 3 Social impact 3 1 4 Tripura s tribal insurgency 3 2 Economic impact 3 2 1 West Bengal 3 2 2 North East India 3 2 3 East Bengal 4 In popular culture 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 SourcesBackground Edit Louis Mountbatten discusses the partition plan with Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammad Ali Jinnah Entrance to the Legislative Assembly in Kolkata Calcutta In 1905 the First Partition in Bengal was implemented as an administrative preference since governing two provinces West and East Bengal would be easier 2 The partition divides the province between West Bengal whose majority was Hindu and East Bengal whose majority was Muslim but left considerable minorities of Hindus in East Bengal and Muslims in West Bengal While the Muslims were in favour of the partition as they would have their own province Hindus opposed it The controversy led to increased violence and protest and in 1911 the provinces were again united 3 However the disagreements between Hindus and Muslims in Bengal that had sparked the Partition of Bengal in 1905 remained and laws including the Second Partition of Bengal in 1947 were implemented to fulfil the political needs of the parties involved According to plan on 20 June 1947 the members of the Bengal Legislative Assembly cast three separate votes on the proposal to partition Bengal In the joint session of the house composed of all the members of the Assembly the division of the joint session of the House stood at 126 votes against and 90 votes for joining the existing Constituent Assembly India The members of the Muslim majority areas of Bengal in a separate session then passed a motion by 106 35 against partitioning Bengal and instead joining a new Constituent Assembly Pakistan as a whole A separate meeting of the members of the non Muslim majority areas of Bengal then decided 58 21 to partition the province Under the Mountbatten Plan a single majority vote in favour of partition by either of the notionally divided halves of the Assembly would have decided the division of the province and hence the proceedings on 20 June resulted in the decision to partition Bengal That set the stage for the creation of West Bengal as a province of India and East Bengal as a province of the Dominion of Pakistan Also in accordance with the Mountbatten Plan a referendum held on 6 July saw the electorate of Sylhet vote to join East Bengal Further the Boundary Commission headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe decided on the territorial demarcation between the two newly created provinces Power was transferred to Pakistan and India on 14 and 15 August respectively under the Indian Independence Act 1947 Opposition to partition of India Edit Main article Opposition to the partition of India Further information Composite nationalism Hindu Muslim unity and Religious harmony in India In Bengal the Krishak Praja Party s Syed Habib ul Rahman said that partitioning India was absurd and chimerical Criticising the partition of the province of Bengal and India as a whole Syed Habib ul Rahman said that the Indian both Hindus and Muslims live in a common motherland use the offshoots of a common language and literature and are proud of the noble heritage of a common Hindu and Muslim culture developed through centuries of residence in a common land 4 United Bengal plan Edit H S Suhrawardy the last Prime Minister of Bengal urged a separate independent status for the whole province Sarat Chandra Bose supported the United Bengal plan After it became apparent that the division of India on the basis of the two nation theory would almost certainly result in the partition of Bengal along religious lines the Bengal provincial Muslim League leader Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy came up with a new plan to create an independent Bengal state which would join neither Pakistan nor India and remain unpartitioned Suhrawardy realised that if Bengal was partitioned it would be economically disastrous for East Bengal 5 as all coal mines all but two jute mills and other industrial plants would certainly go to the western part since they were in overwhelmingly Hindu areas 6 Most importantly Calcutta the largest city in India and an industrial and commercial hub and the largest port would also go to the western part Suhrawardy floated his idea on 24 April 1947 at a press conference in Delhi 7 However the plan ran directly counter to that of the Muslim League which demanded the creation of a separate Muslim homeland on the basis of the two nation theory The Bengal provincial Muslim League leadership opinion was divided The leader Abul Hashim supported it 8 but Nurul Amin and Mohammad Akram Khan opposed it 8 9 However Muhammad Ali Jinnah realised the validity of Suhrawardy s argument and gave his tacit support to the plan 10 11 12 After Jinnah s approval Suhrawardy started gathering support for his plan For the Congress only a handful of leaders agreed to the plan such as the influential Bengal provincial Congress leader Sarat Chandra Bose the elder brother of Netaji and Kiran Shankar Roy However most other leaders and Congress leaders including Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel rejected the plan The nationalist Hindu Mahasabha under the leadership of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee vehemently opposed it 13 and considered it nothing but a ploy by Suhrawardy to stop the partition of the state so that its industrial west including the city of Kolkata would remain under League control It also claimed that even if the plan was for a sovereign Bengal state it would be a virtual Pakistan and the Hindu minority would always be at the mercy of the Muslim majority 13 14 Although the chance of the proposal seeing light without the Congress central committee s approval was slim Bose and Suhrawardy continued talks to reach an agreement on the political structure of the proposed state Like Suhrawardy Bose also felt that Partition would severely hamper Bengal s economy and almost half of the Hindus would be left stranded in East Pakistan 15 The agreement was published on 24 May 1947 16 but was largely political The proposal had little support at grassroots level particularly among Hindus 17 The Muslim League s continuous propaganda for the two nation theory during the past six years as well as the marginalisation of Hindus in the Suhrawardy ministry and the vicious 1946 riots which many Hindus believed to have been sponsored by the state left little room for trust by the Bengali Hindus 18 Soon Bose and Suhrawardy were divided on the nature of the electorate separate or joint Suhrawardy insisted upon maintaining the separate electorates for Muslims and non Muslims Bose opposed the idea and withdrew The lack of any other significant support by the Congress caused the United Bengal plan to be discarded 19 Still the relatively unknown episode marked the last attempt among Bengali Muslim and Hindu leadership to avoid Partition and to live together Displacement Edit1946 1951 Edit Following the partition of Bengal between the Hindu majority West Bengal and the Muslim majority East Bengal there was an influx of Hindu Muslim refugees from both sides An estimation suggests that before Partition West Bengal had a population of 21 2 million of whom only 5 3 million or roughly 25 percent were Muslim minorities whereas East Bengal had 39 1 million people of whom a staggering 11 4 million or roughly 30 percent were predominantly Hindu minorities Nearly 2 16 million Bengali Hindus have left Pakistan s East Bengal for India s West Bengal region and only four hundred thousand Bengali Muslims have left India s West Bengal for Pakistan s East Bengal region immediately after Partition because of violence and rioting resulting from mobs supporting West Bengal and East Bengal Unlike Punjab India where a full population exchange between Punjabi Muslims and Punjabi Hindus Sikhs during partition happened the same complete population exchange did not happen in Bengal their population transfer between Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims was gradually slower due to occurrence of less violence overall it was one sided 20 Presently only 8 percent of East Bengal now Bangladesh is Hindu whereas West Bengal is still 27 percent Muslim compared to 25 percent at the time of Partition 21 1960 Edit An estimated one million Hindu refugees had entered West Bengal by 1960 and close to 700 000 Muslims left for East Pakistan The refugee influx in Bengal was also accompanied by the fact that the government was less prepared to rehabilitate them which resulted in huge housing and sanitation problems for the millions most of whom were owners of large property back in East Bengal 22 1964 Edit During East Pakistan riot of 1964 it is estimated according to Indian authorities 135 000 Hindu refugees arrived in West Bengal from East Pakistan and the Muslims started to migrate to East Pakistan from West Bengal According to Pakistani figures by early April 83 000 Muslim refugees had arrived from West Bengal 23 1971 Edit In 1971 during the Bangladesh Liberation War against Pakistan a large group of refugees numbering an estimated 7 235 916 arrived from Bangladesh to India s West Bengal Nearly 95 of them were Bengali Hindus and after Independence of Bangladesh nearly 1 521 912 people belonging to Bengali Hindu refugees decided to stay back in West Bengal 24 The Bangladeshi Hindus were mainly settled in Nadia North 24 parganas and South 24 parganas district of West Bengal after 1971 25 Aftermath EditBefore the official Radcliffe Line was drawn in 1947 these were the religious demographics in Bengal Muslim majority districts Dinajpur Rangpur Malda Murshidabad Rajshahi Bogra Pabna Mymensingh Jessore Nadia Faridpur Dhaka Tippera Bakerganj Noakhali and Chittagong Hindu majority districts Calcutta Howrah Hooghly Birbhum Burdwan Bankura Midnapore Jalpaiguri Darjeeling 24 Pargan and Khulna Buddhist majority district Chittagong Hill TractFinal division Pakistan East Dinajpur Rangpur Rajshahi Bogra Pabna Mymensingh Sylhet except Karimganj Khulna Bakerganj Tippera plain Tripura Noakhali Chittagong Jessore East Nadia Chittagong Hill Tracts India West Dinajpur Jalpaiguri Darjeeling Malda Murshidabad West Nadia Calcutta 24 Pargana Burdwan Birbhum Midnapore Howrah Hooghly and Karimganj district in Assam The second partition of Bengal left behind a legacy of violence that has continues ever since As Bashabi Fraser put it There is the reality of the continuous flow of economic migrants refugees infiltrators illegal immigrants who cross over the border and pan out across the sub continent looking for work and a new home setting in metropolitan centres as far off as Delhi and Mumbai keeping the question of the Partition alive today 26 Displacement crisis Edit Gandhi in Noakhali 1946 A massive population transfer began immediately after partition Millions of Hindus migrated to India from East Bengal and most of them settled in West Bengal A significant number even went to Assam Tripura and other states However the refugee crisis was markedly different from Punjab at India s western border Punjab had witnessed widespread communal riots immediately before partition As a result the population transfer in Punjab happened almost immediately after Partition as terrified people left their homes from both sides Within a year the population exchange had been largely complete between East and West Punjab but in Bengal violence was limited to Kolkata and Noakhali Hence in Bengal the migration occurred much more gradually and continued over the three decades after partition 27 28 Although riots were limited in pre independence Bengal the environment was communally charged Both Hindus in East Bengal and Muslims in West Bengal felt unsafe and had to take a crucial decision on whether to leave for an uncertain future in another country or to stay in subjugation under the other community 29 Among Hindus in East Bengal those who were better placed economically left first Government employees were given a chance to swap their posts between India and Pakistan The educated urban upper and middle classes the rural gentry traders businessmen and artisans left for India soon after partition They often had relatives and other connections in West Bengal and settled with less difficulty Muslims followed a similar pattern The urban and educated upper and middle classes left for East Bengal first 29 However poorer Hindus in East Bengal most of whom are Dalits found it much more difficult to migrate Their only property was immovable land holdings Many sharecropped had no skills other than farming As a result most of them decided to stay in East Bengal However the political climate in Pakistan deteriorated soon after partition and communal violence started to rise In 1950 severe riots occurred in Barisal and other places in East Pakistan causing a further exodus of Hindus The situation was vividly described by Jogendra Nath Mandal s resignation letter to Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan Mandal was a dalit leader and despite being a depressed classes he supported the Muslim League as a protest to the subjugation of lower castes by their higher caste coreligionists 30 He fled to India and resigned from his cabinet minister s post For the next two decades Hindus left East Bengal whenever communal tensions flared up or relationship between India and Pakistan deteriorated as in 1964 The situation of the Hindu minority in East Bengal reached its worst in the months preceding and during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 when the Pakistani Army systematically targeted ethnic Bengalis regardless of religious background as part of Operation Searchlight In independent Bangladesh state sponsored discrimination of Hindus largely stopped However like India the two communities relationship remains tense and occasional communal violence occurred such as in the aftermath of Babri Mosque demolition Illegal immigration to India has continued but is now mostly economic and is not limited to Hindus alone Though Muslims in post independence West Bengal faced some discrimination citation needed it was unlike the state sponsored discrimination faced by the Hindus in East Bengal Most Hindus fled from East Bengal but Muslims largely stayed on in West Bengal Over the years however the community became ghettoised and was socially and economically segregated from the majority community 31 West Bengali Muslims are highly marginalised as can be seen from social indicators like literacy and per capita income 32 Apart from West Bengal thousands of Bihari Muslims also settled in East Bengal They had suffered terribly in severe riots before partition However they supported West Pakistan during the Liberation War and were subsequently denied citizenship in independent Bangladesh Most of the Bihari refugees have remained stateless Statistics Edit The 1951 census in India recorded 2 523 million refugees from East Bengal 2 061 million of whom settled in West Bengal The rest went to Assam Tripura and other states 33 By 1973 their number reached over 6 million The following table shows the major waves of refugee influx and the incident that caused it 34 note 1 Year Reason Number in lakhs1947 Partition 3 441948 Hyderabad annexation by India 7 861956 Pakistan becomes Islamic Republic 3 201964 Riots over Hazratbal incident 6 931971 Bangladesh Liberation War 15The 1951 census in Pakistan recorded 671 000 refugees in East Bengal the majority of which came from West Bengal The rest were from Bihar 33 By 1961 the numbers reached 850 000 Crude estimates suggest that about 1 5 million Muslims migrated from West Bengal and Bihar to East Bengal in two decades after partition 35 Government response Edit In Punjab the Indian government anticipated a population transfer and was ready to take proactive measures Land plots that were evacuated by Muslims were allotted to incoming Hindu and Sikh refugees citation needed The government allocated substantial resources for the rehabilitation of refugees in Punjab In contrast there was no such planning in the eastern part of the country Neither the central nor the West Bengal state governments anticipated any large scale population exchange and no co ordinated policy was in place to rehabilitate millions of homeless people The newly independent country had few resources and the central government was exhausted in resettling 7 million refugees in Punjab Instead of providing rehabilitation the Indian government tried to stop and even to reverse the refugee influx from East Bengal India and Pakistan signed the Liaquat Nehru Pact in 1950 to stop any further population exchange between West and East Bengal Both countries agreed to take the refugees back and to return them their property which they evacuated in their respective countries However in practice both countries failed to uphold it Even after it became clear that refugees were determined not to be sent back the governments of both countries failed to provide any significant assistance The government policy of East Bengal refugee rehabilitation mostly consisted of sending them to empty areas mostly outside of West Bengal One of the most controversial scheme was the government s decision to settle the refugees by force in Dandakaranya a barren plot of land in Central India 28 29 Social impact Edit Without the government s assistance the refugees often settled themselves Some found jobs in factories Many took small businesses and hawking Numerous refugee colonies sprang up in Nadia 24 Paraganas and Kolkata s suburbs It has been argued recently that the refugees facilitated an incremental urbanization without accumulation in the frontiers of Calcutta The process has been termed as urbanization with de accumulation 36 Tripura s tribal insurgency Edit Main article Insurgency in Northeast India Tripura The princely state of Tripura had a predominantly tribal population but educated Bengalis were welcomed by the King and were prominent in the state s administration in pre independence India However after partition thousands of Bengali Hindus migrated to Tripura which changed the state s demography completely Tripura s tribes became a minority in their own homeland and lost their land holdings As a result a tribal insurgency began caused violent riots among tribes and Bengalis in 1980 A low scale insurgency has continued ever since 37 Many Bengalis migrated from East Bengal side during Partition and the Liberation War but half of the Bengali community of Tripura has lived in Tripura for hundreds of years according to the 1901 census report which clearly stated that Bengali and Tripura had numbers that were almost equal Economic impact Edit West Bengal Edit Radcliffe s line split Bengal which had always historically been always a single economic cultural and ethnic Bengali Hindu or Bengali Muslim zone into two halves Both halves were intricately connected The fertile East produced food and raw materials which the West consumed and the industrialised West produced manufactured goods which were consumed by the East According to the POV this was either considered an exploitative or a mutually beneficial trade and exchange This was naturally severely disrupted by Partition Rail road and water communication routes were severed between them After Partition West Bengal suffered from a substantial food shortage as the fertile rice producing districts went to East Bengal The shortage continued into the 1950s and the 1960s By 1959 West Bengal faced an annual food shortage of 950 000 tones Hunger marches became a common sight in Kolkata 38 Prafulla Chandra Ghosh left the first chief minister of West Bengal with Mohammad Ali of Bogra Jute was the largest industry in Bengal at Partition The Radcliffe Line left every single jute mill in West Bengal but four fifths of the jute producing land in East Bengal The best quality fibre yielding breeds of jute were cultivated mostly in East Bengal India and Pakistan initially agreed to a trade agreement to import raw jute from East Bengal for West Bengal s mills However Pakistan had plans to set up its own mills and put restrictions on raw jute export to India West Bengal s mills faced acute shortage and the industry faced a crisis 39 On the other hand jute farmers in East Bengal were now without a market to sell their produce Exporting jute to West Bengal suddenly became an anti national act for Pakistan Smuggling of raw jute shot up across the border 40 but West Bengal rapidly increased jute production and in the mid to late 1950s became largely self sufficient in jute 41 West Bengal s mills became less dependent on East Bengal for raw materials Pakistan also set up new factories to process its local produce instead of exporting to India 42 The following table shows jute production details in both countries in 1961 41 Year 1961 Area Harvested Ha Yield Hg Ha Production tonnes East Pakistan 834000 15761 1314540India 917000 12479 1144400West Bengal s paper and leather industry faced similar problems The paper mills used East Bengal s bamboo and the tanneries consumed leather which were also mainly produced in East Bengal Like jute the lack of raw material pushed both industries into decline 43 Despite central and state governments best efforts the pressure of millions of refugees food shortages and industrial decline after independence put West Bengal in a severe crisis Dr B C Roy s government tried to cope up with the situation by initiating several projects The government built irrigation networks like DVC and Mayurakshi project the Durgapur industrial zone and the Salt Lake City but they failed to arrest West Bengal s decline Poverty rose and West Bengal lost its top place and lagged well behind other Indian states in industrial development Massive political unrest strikes and violence crippled the state for the three decades after Partition 29 North East India Edit Rail and road links connecting North East India to the rest of the country passed through East Bengal territory The lines connecting Siliguri in North Bengal to Kolkata and Assam to Chittagong were severed The whole Assam Railway was cut off from the rest of the Indian system 44 Those lines carried almost all freight traffic from those regions The most important commodities were tea and timber The tea industry in Assam depended on the Chittagong Port to export its produce and import raw materials for the industry such as coal which was used as the fuel to dry the tea leaves The industry was severely hit as Chittagong went to Pakistan Initially India and Pakistan reached an agreement to allow cross border transit traffic but India now had to pay a tariff By 1950 India had reconnected Assam to the rest of the country s rail network by building a 229 km meter gauge rail link through the Siliguri Corridor 44 but now the Tea chests from Assam s gardens would have to be carried over a much longer distance to reach the Port of Kolkata Exporting tea via the nearby Chittagong port was still an option but after the Indo Pakistani War of 1965 all transit traffic was switched off by Pakistan 45 East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh in 1971 but cross border railway traffic did not resume until 2003 By the 1990s India upgraded the Assam rail link to 5 ft 6 in 1 676 mm broad gauge up to Dibrugarh thereby easing the traffic problem in Brahmaputra Valley region but the southern section of the area which comprises Tripura Mizoram Manipur and Barak valley of Assam still faces serious connectivity problems Talks between both countries are underway to allow transit traffic between the area and Mainland India through Bangladesh East Bengal Edit Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin the first chief minister of East Bengal At Partition East Bengal had no large industry There were few mineral resources in this region Its economy was completely agrarian The main produce was food grains and other crops jute bamboo leather and fish The raw materials were consumed by factories in and around Kolkata Kolkata was the centre of Bengal s economic and social development for both Hindus and Muslims All large industries military bases and government offices and most of the institutions of higher education were in Kolkata citation needed Without Kolkata East Bengal was decapitated 46 It lost its traditional market for agricultural products It also lost Kolkata the most important port of the country East Bengal had to begin from nothing Dhaka was then only a district headquarters Government offices had to be placed inside makeshift buildings Dhaka also faced a severe human resource crisis The majority of high ranking officers in British Indian administration were Hindu and migrated to West Bengal Often the posts had to be filled up by West Pakistani officers Desperately poor East Bengal soon became politically dominated by West Pakistan Economic disparities and subjugation of Bengalis by the Punjabi elite eventually led to a struggle for separation in 1971 In popular culture EditChinnamul The Uprooted a 1950 Bengali film directed by Nemai Ghosh first dealt with the theme of partition of Bengal This was followed by Ritwik Ghatak s trilogy Meghe Dhaka Tara Cloud covered stars 1960 Komal Gandhar 1961 and Subarnarekha 1962 all dealing with the aftermath of the partition 47 The film Rajkahini directed by Srijit Mukherji is also based on the theme of partition of Bengal 1947 See also EditEast Pakistan Greater Bengal The 1947 Partition Archive Bengali Hindu Homeland MovementNotes Edit During the Bangladesh Liberation War 11 million people from both communities took shelter in India After the war 1 5 million decided to stay 28 Bengali Hindus in AssamReferences Edit Mukherjee 1987 p 230 India s History Modern India The First Partition Bengal 1905 Archived from the original on 6 August 2018 Retrieved 22 May 2012 Baxter 1997 pp 39 40 The new province had a Muslim majority of about three to two The partition was widely welcomed by Muslims and sharply condemned by Hindus Hindu opposition was expressed in many forms ranging from boycott of British goods to revolutionary activities protests eventually bore fruit and the partition was annulled in 1911 Chandar Y Udaya 25 February 2020 The Strange Compatriots for Over a Thousand Years Notion Press ISBN 978 1 64760 859 0 Tripathi 1998 p 87 Chakrabarty 2004 p 138 Chakrabarty 2004 p 132 a b Chakrabarty 2004 p 135 Jalal 1994 p 266 The president of the Bengal League Maulana Akram Khan publicly rejected any notion of a Bengali nation in which Muslims and Hindus would share power The speaker of the Bengal assembly Noorul Amin was confident that he could become the chief minister of east Bengal and so wanted partition Jalal 1994 p 265 An undivided Bengal was vital for Jinnah s strategy Jinnah told Mountbatten What is the use of Bengal without Calcutta they had better remain united and independent Chakrabarty 2004 p 137 Bandopadhyay p 266 a b Chakrabarty 2004 pp 140 147 Tripathi 1998 p 86 Chakrabarty 2004 p 142 Chakrabarty 2004 p 141 Chakrabarty 2004 p 149 Tripathi 1998 pp 86 186 Chakrabarty 2004 p 143 https www firstpost com world nothing new in persecution of hindus in bangladesh this time we are talking about it openly and firmly 10064361 html https www partitionmuseum org partition of india bengal assam Voices of Partition A Dhaka Hindu and a Kolkata Muslim recount what Independence meant to them The Indian Express 15 August 2017 Archived from the original on 6 October 2022 Retrieved 25 March 2022 Brady Thomas F 5 April 1964 Moslem Hindu Violence Flares Again The New York Times New York Archived from the original on 19 August 2014 Retrieved 17 August 2014 When Indira Gandhi said Refugees of all religions must go back Watch video Archived from the original on 23 January 2021 Retrieved 30 December 2020 Why Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh are a key component of the BJP s West Bengal expansion strategy Archived from the original on 26 February 2021 Retrieved 30 December 2020 Fraser 2008 p 40 Chatterji 2007 p 111 a b c A home far from home The Hindu 30 July 2000 Archived from the original on 5 March 2007 a b c d Chatterji 2007 Chakrabarty 2004 p 113 Chatterji 2007 p 181 Rajinder Sachar 2006 Sachar Committee Report PDF Report Archived PDF from the original on 14 January 2015 Retrieved 4 April 2012 a b Hill et al 2005 p 13 Luthra 1972 pp 18 19 Chatterji 2007 p 166 Bandyopadhyay Ritajyoti 30 June 2022 Streets in Motion The Making of Infrastructure Property and Political Culture in Twentieth century Calcutta Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 9781009109208 Archived from the original on 3 July 2022 Retrieved 3 July 2022 Manorama Yearbook 1998 Chatterji 2007 pp 244 245 Chatterji 2007 p 240 Schendel 2005 pp 158 159 a b Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Archived from the original on 19 June 2012 Retrieved 26 March 2011 Schendel 2005 p 159 Chatterji 2007 pp 241 242 a b History of Indian railways Archived from the original on 21 June 2019 Retrieved 26 March 2011 Schendel 2005 p 150 Jalal 1994 p 3 Stripped of Calcutta and western Bengal eastern Bengal was reduced to the status of an over populated rural slum Roy amp Bhatia 2008 pp 66 68 Sources EditBaxter Craig 1997 Bangladesh From a Nation to a State Boulder CO Westview Press ISBN 0 8133 2854 3 Chakrabarty Bidyut 2004 The Partition of Bengal and Assam 1932 1947 Contour of Freedom Routledge ISBN 9781134332748 Archived from the original on 6 October 2022 Retrieved 16 August 2019 Chatterji Joya 2007 The Spoils of Partition Bengal and India 1947 1967 Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 139 46830 5 Fraser Bashabi 2008 Bengal Partition Stories An Unclosed Chapter New York Anthem Press ISBN 978 1 84331 299 4 Jalal Ayesha 1994 The Sole Spokesman Jinnah the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 45850 4 Roy Anjali Gera Bhatia Nandi 2008 Partitioned lives narratives of home displacement and resettlement New Delhi Dorling Kindersley India ISBN 9788131714164 Archived from the original on 6 October 2022 Retrieved 13 February 2016 Mukherjee Soumyendra Nath 1987 Sir William Jones A Study in Eighteenth century British Attitudes to India Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 86131 581 9 Schendel Willem van 2005 The Bengal Borderland Beyond State and Nation in South Asia Anthem Press ISBN 978 1 84331 145 4 Luthra P N 1972 Rehabilitation New Delhi Publications Division Tripathi Amales 1998 স ব ধ নত র ম খ Svadhinatara mukha in Bengali Ananda Publishers ISBN 9788172157814 Bandopadhyay জ ন ন প ক স ত ন নত ন ভ বন in Bengali Hill K Seltzer W Leaning J Malik S J Russell S S 2005 The Demographic Impact of Partition Bengal in 1947 PDF International Union for the Scientific Study of Population XXV International Population Conference Tours France 18 23 July 2005 pp 1 25 Archived from the original on 1 September 2006 Retrieved 1 December 2019 Chattopadhyay Subhasis 2016 Review of Bengal Partition Stories An Unclosed Chapter edited by Bashabi Fraser Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 121 9 670 672 ISSN 0032 6178 Archived from the original on 17 September 2016 Retrieved 4 September 2016 Harun or Rashid 2012 Suhrawardy Huseyn Shaheed In Islam Sirajul Jamal Ahmed A eds Banglapedia National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh Second ed Asiatic Society of Bangladesh Archived from the original on 7 March 2016 Retrieved 11 November 2015 Harun or Rashid 2012 Partition of Bengal 1947 In Islam Sirajul Jamal Ahmed A eds Banglapedia National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh Second ed Asiatic Society of Bangladesh Archived from the original on 2 July 2015 Retrieved 11 November 2015 Tan Tai Yong Kudaisya Gyanesh 2000 The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia Routledge ISBN 0 415 17297 7 Prasad Rajendra 1947 India Divided 3 ed Bombay Hind Kitabs S M Ikram Indian Muslims and Partition of India New Delhi Atlantic Publishers and Distributors 1992 ISBN 81 7156 374 0 Hashim S Raza Mountbatten and the partition of India New Delhi Atlantic Publishers and Distributors 1989 ISBN 81 7156 059 8 Singh J J 15 June 1947 Partition of India British Proposal Said to be Only Feasible Plan Now The New York Times Letter to editor p E8 Gyanendra Pandey Remembering Partition Violence Nationalism and History in India Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2001 ISBN 0 521 00250 8 Mookerjea Leonard Debali 2017 Literature Gender and the Trauma of Partition The Paradox of Independence London and New York Routledge ISBN 978 1138183100 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Partition of Bengal 1947 amp oldid 1134965265, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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