Birat Chandra Mandal was a member of the 1st National Assembly of Pakistan as a representative of East Pakistan. He had argued for the constitution of Pakistan to be secular. [1]
Mandal represented Bengal Depressed Classes Association at the All India Depressed Classes Association meeting at Shimla in 1930. [2] [3] He supported the creation of separate electorates for low caste and high caste Hindus. [4]
Mandal argued that Mohmmad Ali Jinah had said Pakistan would be a secular state. [5] [6] On 9 March 1949, he was made the law and labour minister of Pakistan. [7] He was a Member of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. [8]
Mandal died on 5 October 1964 in Kolkata, West Bengal. [9]
The Constituent Assembly of India was partly elected and partly nominated body to frame the Constitution of India. It was elected by the Provincial assemblies of British India following the Provincial Assembly elections held in 1946 and nominated by princely states. After India's independence from the British in August 1947, its members served as the nation's 'Provisional Parliament', as well as the Constituent Assembly. It was conceived and created by V. K. Krishna Menon, who first outlined its necessity in 1933 and enshrined it as an Indian National Congress demand.
Jagjivan Ram, known popularly as Babuji, was an Indian independence activist and politician from Bihar. He was instrumental in the foundation of the All India Depressed Classes League, an organisation dedicated to attaining equality for dalits, in 1935 and was elected to Bihar Legislative Assembly in 1937, after which he organised the rural labour movement.
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.
East Bengal ( was the eastern province of the Dominion of Pakistan, which covered the territory of modern-day Bangladesh. It consisted of the eastern portion of the Bengal region, and existed from 1947 until 1955, when it was renamed as East Pakistan. East Bengal had a coastline along the Bay of Bengal to the south, and bordered India to the north, west, and east and shared a small border with Burma to the southeast. It was situated near, but did not share a border with Nepal, Tibet, the Kingdom of Bhutan and the Kingdom of Sikkim. Its capital was Dacca, now known as Dhaka.
The Objectives Resolution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on March 12, 1949. The resolution proclaimed that the future constitution of Pakistan would not be modeled entirely on a European pattern, but on the ideology and democratic faith of Islam. The resolution, in its entirety, has been made part of the Constitution of Pakistan under Article 2(A).
Events from the year 1964 in Pakistan.
Jogendranath Mandal emerged as a prominent figure among the architects of the nascent state of Pakistan. He served as the inaugural Minister of Law and Labour, as well as the subsequent Minister of Commonwealth and Kashmir Affairs. Within the Interim Government of India, he had previously held the portfolio of law. Distinguished as a leader representing the Scheduled Castes (Dalits), Mandal vehemently opposed the partition of Bengal in 1947. His rationale rested on the apprehension that a divided Bengal would subject the Dalits to the dominance of the majority caste-Hindus in West Bengal (India) and Assam. Eventually opting to maintain his base in East Pakistan, Mandal aspired for the welfare of the Dalits and assumed a ministerial role in Pakistan as the Minister of Law and Labour. However, a few years subsequent to the partition, he relocated to India, tendering his resignation to Liaquat Ali Khan, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, citing the perceived anti-Dalit bias within the Pakistani administration.
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.
The Krishak Sramik Party was a major anti-feudal political party in the British Indian province of Bengal and later in the Dominion of Pakistan's East Bengal and East Pakistan provinces. It was founded in 1929 as the Nikhil Banga Praja Samiti to represent the interests of tenant farmers in Bengal's landed gentry estates. Sir Abdur Rahim was its first leader. A. K. Fazlul Huq was elected leader in 1935 when the former was appointed as the president of the Central Legislative Assembly of India. In 1936, it took the name of Krishak Praja Party and contested the 1937 election. The party formed the first government in the Bengal Legislative Assembly. After the partition of British India, it was reorganized as the Krishak Sramik Party to contest the 1954 election, as part of the United Front. The coalition won the election and formed the provincial government in the East Bengal Legislative Assembly.
The Pakistan National Congress, which later gave rise to the Bangladesh National Congress, was a political party that mainly represented the Hindus, Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The party championed secularism in the Muslim-dominated state, and its electoral and organisational strength was mainly based in East Bengal.
The Constitution of 1956 was the fundamental law of Pakistan from March 1956 until the 1958 Pakistani coup d'état. It was the first constitution adopted by independent Pakistan. There were 234 articles 13 parts and 6 schedules.
Baishya Saha or Saha, is a Bengali Hindu trading caste traditionally known to have the occupation of grocers, shopkeepers, dealers moneylenders, and farming.
The Legislatures of British India included legislative bodies in the presidencies and provinces of British India, the Imperial Legislative Council, the Chamber of Princes and the Central Legislative Assembly. The legislatures were created under Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom. Initially serving as small advisory councils, the legislatures evolved into partially elected bodies, but were never elected through suffrage. Provincial legislatures saw boycotts during the period of dyarchy between 1919 and 1935. After reforms and elections in 1937, the largest parties in provincial legislatures formed governments headed by a prime minister. A few British Indian subjects were elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which had superior powers than colonial legislatures. British Indian legislatures did not include Burma's legislative assembly after 1937, the State Council of Ceylon nor the legislative bodies of princely states.
The Bengal Legislative Assembly was the largest legislature in British India, serving as the lower chamber of the legislature of Bengal. It was established under the Government of India Act 1935. The assembly played an important role in the final decade of undivided Bengal. The Leader of the House was the Prime Minister of Bengal. The assembly's lifespan covered the anti-feudal movement of the Krishak Praja Party, the period of World War II, the Lahore Resolution, the Quit India movement, suggestions for a United Bengal and the partition of Bengal and partition of British India.
Akshay Kumar Das was a Bengali Hindu politician of Pakistan, who served as a representative of East Pakistan in both the First and Second Constituent Assemblies, and held multiple ministries across the 1950s in governments formed by different political parties.
Mukunda Behari Mullick (1888–1974) was an Indian lawyer, reformer, professor and politician.
The East Bengal Scheduled Castes Federation, later the East Pakistan Scheduled Castes Federation, was a political party in Pakistan. In the first years after the independence of Pakistan, the party was one of the two main political parties of the Hindu minority population in East Bengal. After departure of its main leader Jogendra Nath Mandal in 1950, the party suffered a number of divisions. In the mid-1950s the party participated in different coalition governments at Pakistan Centre level and East Pakistan provincial level. After 1958 the party went into oblivion.
The Pakistan Gana Samiti was a political party in Pakistan.