The Rajshahi ethnic cleansing, marked by widespread ethnic violence and killings of minority Hindus, took place in April 1962 in Rajshahi and Pabna districts of East Pakistan. [1] [2] People and property were attacked. [3] Around three hundred non-Muslims died in the massacre. [4]
In 1958 the military junta led by Ayub Khan came to power in Pakistan.
On 22 March 1962, an ethnic riot broke out between the Santhals and the Muslims in the Malda district of West Bengal. The Santhals, armed with bows and arrows, shot dead three Muslims while six were burnt to death. Between 16 and 20 April, the ethnic tension between the two groups led to another ethnic riot. [5]
The Pakistani press not only published exaggerated figures of Muslim casualties in Maldah district, even though there was no incident of ethnic violence in the district. Pakistan Radio too broadcast false stories of atrocities on minorities in India. [4] On 22 April, Lieutenant General Muhammad Azam Khan, the Governor of East Pakistan, delivered an inflammatory speech with imaginary stories of torture on minorities in India. On 23 April, the Bengali Hindus and other ethnic minorities were attacked in the Rajshahi Division. The District Magistrate of Rajshahi did not take any steps to stop the attacks. Killings, rape, loot and arson continued for days. They were attacked in the passenger trains at the Rajshahi railway station and in the market adjacent to the Natore railway station. [6] In Sarusa village of Hujuri Para Union under Paba police station, the Hindus were attacked and many were seriously afflicted. [7] In Darsa village under Paba police station 10 people were killed. Thousands non-muslims are taken shelter in a school but brutally it was burnt. [6] An estimated 3000 non-Muslims were killed in Rajshahi district. [6]
The Assistant High Commissioner in Rajshahi came to the rescue of the minorities. The intervention of the Indian Assistant High Commission at resulted in the troops being called and the massacre was stopped. [4] The Pakistan government whipped up a war hysteria and the Indian Deputy High Commission at Dhaka was placed under military guard. [8] It was impossible for the Indian Deputy High Commission to collect information on the attacks on the minorities. Rajeshwar Dayal, the Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan who had come to Dhaka too, was not allowed to visit the districts of Rajshahi and Pabna. [8]
Around 11,000 Santhals and Rajbanshis migrated to India. [9]
Events in the year 1947 in India. It was a very eventful year as it became independent from the British crown, resulting in the split of India and Pakistan. Many people died during partition and India became a democracy.
Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was a Pakistani Bengali barrister and politician. In Bangladesh, Suhrawardy is remembered as a pioneer of Bengali civil rights movements, later turned into Bangladesh independence movement, and the mentor of Bangladesh's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He is also remembered for his performance as the Minister for Civil Supply during the Bengal famine of 1943. In India, he is seen as a controversial figure; indirectly responsible for the 1946 Calcutta Killings.
Rajshahi Division is one of the eight first-level administrative divisions of Bangladesh. It has an area of 18,174.4 square kilometres (7,017.2 sq mi) and a population at the 2022 Census of 20,353,119. Rajshahi Division consists of 8 districts, 70 Upazilas and 1,092 Unions.
Rajshahi is a metropolitan city and a major urban, administrative, commercial and educational centre of Bangladesh. It is also the administrative seat of the eponymous division and district. Located on the north bank of the Padma River, near the Bangladesh–India border, the city is surrounded by the satellite towns of Nowhata and Katakhali, which together build an urban agglomeration of about 1 million population. Modern Rajshahi lies in the ancient region of Pundravardhana. The foundation of the city dates to 1634, according to epigraphic records at the mausoleum of Sufi saint Shah Makhdum. The area hosted a Dutch settlement in the 18th century. The Rajshahi municipality was constituted during the British Raj in 1876. It was the divisional capital of the greater Rajshahi division which was the largest division in Bengal Province.
Hinduism is the second largest religious affiliation in Bangladesh, as according to the 2022 Census of Bangladesh, approximately 13.1 million people responded that they were Hindus, constituting 7.95% out of the total population of 165.15 million people. In terms of population, Bangladesh is the third-largest Hindu populated country of the world, after the neighboring countries of India and Nepal. Hinduism is the second-largest religion in 61 out of 64 districts of Bangladesh, but there is no Hindu majority district in Bangladesh.
Ila Mitra was an Indian communist and peasants movement organizer of the Indian subcontinent, especially in East Bengal.
Rajshahi District is a district in mid-western Bangladesh. It is a part of the Rajshahi Division. The metropolitan city of Rajshahi is in Rajshahi District.
Naogaon District is a district in northern Bangladesh, part of the Rajshahi Division. It is named after its headquarters, the city of Naogaon in Naogaon Sadar Upazila.
North Bengal or Uttar Banga is a term used for the north-western part of Bangladesh and northern part of West Bengal. The Bangladesh part denotes the Rajshahi Division and Rangpur Division. Generally, it is the area lying west of Jamuna River and north of Padma River and includes the Barind Tract. The West Bengal part denotes Jalpaiguri Division and the Malda division together. The Bihar parts include the Kishanganj district. It also includes parts of Darjeeling Hills. Traditionally, the Ganga River divides Bengal into South Bengal and North Bengal, divided again into Terai and Dooars regions. Jalpesh and jatileswar are some of the most popular sacred places.
The first Partition of Bengal (1905) was a territorial reorganization of the Bengal Presidency implemented by the authorities of the British Raj. The reorganization separated the largely Muslim eastern areas from the largely Hindu western areas. Announced on 16 July 1905 by Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, and implemented West Bengal for Hindus and East Bengal for Muslims, it was undone a mere six years later. The nationalists saw the partition as a challenge to Indian nationalism and as a deliberate attempt to divide the Bengal Presidency on religious grounds, with a Muslim majority in the east and a Hindu majority in the west. The Hindus of West Bengal complained that the division would make them a minority in a province that would incorporate the province of Bihar and Orissa. Hindus were outraged at what they saw as a "divide and rule" policy, even though Curzon stressed it would produce administrative efficiency. The partition animated the Muslims to form their own national organization along communal lines. To appease Bengali sentiment, Bengal was reunited by King George V in 1911, in response to the Swadeshi movement's riots in protest against the policy.
The Partition of Bengal in 1947, also known as the Second Partition of Bengal, 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 Bengali Hindu-majority West Bengal became a state of India, and the Bengali Muslim-majority East Bengal became a province of Pakistan.
Eastern Bengal and Assam was a province of India between 1905 and 1912. Headquartered in the city of Dacca, it covered territories in what are now Bangladesh, Northeast India and Northern West Bengal.
Bengali nationalism is a form of nationalism that focuses on Bengalis as a single ethnicity by rejecting imposition of other languages and cultures while promoting its own in Bengal. Bengalis speak the Bengali language and mostly live across Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam. Bengali nationalism is one of the four fundamental principles according to the Constitution of Bangladesh and was the main driving force behind the creation of the independent nation state of Bangladesh through the 1971 liberation war. Bengali Muslims make up the majority (90%) of Bangladesh's citizens (Bangladeshis), and are the largest minority in the Indian states of Assam (29%) and West Bengal (27%), whereas Bengali Hindus make up the majority (60%) of India's citizens (Indians) in Indian state of West Bengal, and are the largest minority in the Indian states of Assam (28%) and Jharkhand (8%) and the independent state of Bangladesh (8%).
United Bengal was a proposal to transform Bengal Province into an undivided, sovereign state at the time of the Partition of India in 1947. It sought to prevent the division of Bengal on religious grounds. The proposed state was to be called the Free State of Bengal. A confessionalist political system was mooted. The proposal was not put up for a vote. The British government proceeded to partition Bengal in accordance with the Mountbatten Plan and Radcliffe Line.
Bengali Hindus are an ethnoreligious population who make up the majority in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jharkhand, and Assam's Barak Valley region. In Bangladesh, they form the largest minority. They are adherents of Hinduism and are native to the Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. Comprising about one-third of the global Bengali population, they are the second-largest ethnic group among Hindus after Hindustani Hindus. Bengali Hindus speak Bengali, which belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and adhere to Shaktism or Vaishnavism of their native religion Hinduism with some regional deities. There are significant numbers of Bengali-speaking Hindus in different Indian states. According to the census in 1881, 12.81 per cent of Bengali Hindus belonged to the three upper castes while the rest belonged to the Shudra and Dalit castes.
Bangladeshis are the citizens of Bangladesh, a South Asian country centred on the transnational historical region of Bengal along the eponymous bay.
The 1964 East Pakistan riots refer to the massacre and ethnic cleansing of Bengali Hindus from East Pakistan in the wake of an alleged theft of what was believed to be the Prophet's hair from the Hazratbal shrine in Jammu and Kashmir in India. The salient feature of the pogroms was its urban nature and selective targeting of Bengali Hindu owned industries and merchant establishments in the capital city of Dhaka. This resulted in unending waves of Bengali Hindu refugees in neighbouring West Bengal. The refugee rehabilitation became a national problem in India, and hundreds of refugees were resettled in Dandakaranya region of Odisha & Madhya Pradesh.
The 1950 East Pakistan riots took place between Hindus and Muslims in East Pakistan, which resulted in several thousands of Hindus being killed in pogroms.
1992 Bangladesh pogroms was a series of violence against the Bengali Hindus and other non-Muslim minorities of Bangladesh, by Islamists in protest against the demolition of Babri Masjid and violence against Muslims in India driven out of hate and revenge mindset continuing from almost 1947. The incidents of violence began in December 1992 and continued till March 1993.
The 1947 Sylhet referendum was held in the Sylhet District of the Assam Province of British India to decide whether the district would remain in Undivided Assam and therefore within the post-independence Dominion of India, or leave Assam for East Bengal and consequently join the newly created Dominion of Pakistan. The referendum's turnout was in favour of joining the Pakistani union; however, the district's Karimganj subdivision remained within the Indian state of Assam.
