Pakistan, India

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Pakistan
Village
India Bihar location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Pakistan
India location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Pakistan
Coordinates: 25°56′18″N87°24′12″E / 25.9384°N 87.4034°E / 25.9384; 87.4034
CountryFlag of India.svg  India
State Bihar
District Purnia
Named for Pakistan (country)
Government
  Type Panchayati Raj
  Body Gram Panchayat
Demonym Pakistani
Languages
  Official Maithili, Hindi
Time zone UTC+5:30 (IST)
ISO 3166 code IN-BR

Pakistan is a village located in Purnia district, Bihar, India. It is named after the country of Pakistan in memory of its Muslim residents who migrated to erstwhile East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) after the Partition of India in August 1947. [1] Although the village's district shared a common land border with what was East Pakistan at the time of Partition, its present-day Purnia district does not border Bangladesh. [2] The village today does not have any Muslims or mosques and is mainly populated by Hindu tribals. [3]

Contents

History

Purnia district was part of the Bihar Province of the British Raj before its dissolution in August 1947, when British India was partitioned into the Hindu-majority Dominion of India and the Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan.

While remaining in India itself, Purnia was in close proximity to the newly-created exclave of East Pakistan, prompting many Muslims to migrate there. Before their departure, the Muslim residents handed over their property and other assets to their Hindu neighbours, who subsequently renamed the village "Pakistan" in their memory. [4] Prior to the Indian States Reorganisation Act of 1956, the district of Purnia shared a land border with East Pakistan, which ceased to exist after Islampur subdivision was transferred to the state of West Bengal. [1]

Geography

The village lies some 30 km (19 mi) from Purnia, the district headquarters, and is located in Srinagar Block. [5]

Demographics

Following the Partition of India in 1947, the village ceased to have any Muslim residents; the inhabitants of the village today are Hindus. Pakistan village's residents largely belong to the Santal tribe, the largest tribal group in India. [5] The village today is poverty-stricken and reportedly lacks basic facilities including roads, schools and hospitals. [6] The literacy rate of the district is 35.51%. [7] [5]

Naming controversy

Relations between the states of India and Pakistan have historically been turbulent. The immense violence between Hindus and Muslims that occurred as a consequence of the Partition of India left millions dead and sowed the seeds of discontent between both sides. Following the Partition and subsequent independence from the United Kingdom, the two countries have fought several wars, primarily stemming from their territorial dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is claimed in full by both nations. [6]

Residents of neighbouring villages refer to the people of Pakistan village as "Pakistanis" and, due to the local stigma associated with this term, refuse to allow women to marry men from this village. [4] There have been requests submitted to rename the village to "Birsa Nagar", [8] although the submissions have not been acted on by the Indian government. [9] [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Partition of India</span> 1947 division of British India

The Partition of India in 1947 was the change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent and the creation of two independent dominions in South Asia: India and Pakistan. The Dominion of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Pakistan—which at the time comprised two regions lying on either side of India—is now the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition was outlined in the Indian Independence Act 1947. The change of political borders notably included the division of two provinces of British India, Bengal and Punjab. The majority Muslim districts in these provinces were awarded to Pakistan and the majority non-Muslim to India. The other assets that were divided included the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Royal Indian Air Force, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury. Provisions for self-governing independent Pakistan and India legally came into existence at midnight on 14 and 15 August 1947 respectively.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian Independence Act 1947</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Indian Independence Act 1947 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that partitioned British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan. The Act received Royal Assent on 18 July 1947 and thus modern-day India and Pakistan, comprising west and east regions, came into being on 15 August.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Purnia district</span> District in Bihar, India

Purnia District is one of the thirty-eight districts of the Indian state of Bihar. The city of Purnia is the administrative headquarters of this district. The city of Purnia has continued its tradition of hoisting the national flag at 12:07 am on every Independence Day since 1947. Purnia district is a part of Purnia Division. The district extends northwards from the Ganges river.

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 Bengali Hindu-majority West Bengal became a state of India, and the Bengali Muslim-majority East Bengal became a province of Pakistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominion of India</span> 1947–1950 dominion in South Asia

The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India, was an independent dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations existing between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950. Until its independence, India had been ruled as an informal empire by the United Kingdom. The empire, also called the British Raj and sometimes the British Indian Empire, consisted of regions, collectively called British India, that were directly administered by the British government, and regions, called the princely states, that were ruled by Indian rulers under a system of paramountcy. The Dominion of India was formalised by the passage of the Indian Independence Act 1947, which also formalised an independent Dominion of Pakistan—comprising the regions of British India that are today Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Dominion of India remained "India" in common parlance but was geographically reduced. Under the Act, the British government relinquished all responsibility for administering its former territories. The government also revoked its treaty rights with the rulers of the princely states and advised them to join in a political union with India or Pakistan. Accordingly, the British monarch's regnal title, "Emperor of India," was abandoned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominion of Pakistan</span> 1947–1956 monarchy in South Asia

The Dominion of Pakistan, officially Pakistan, was an independent federal dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations, existing between 14 August 1947 and 23 March 1956, created by the passing of the Indian Independence Act 1947 by the British parliament, which also created an independent Dominion of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Bengal</span> Geographical eastern wing of the Dominion of Pakistan (1947–1955)

East Bengal was a non-contiguous province of the Dominion of Pakistan. Geographically part of the Bengal region, East Bengal existed from 1947 until 1955, when it was renamed East Pakistan. Today, the area is an independent country, Bangladesh. With its coastline on the Bay of Bengal, it bordered India and Burma. It was located close to, 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bihari Muslims</span> Adherents of Islam who identify linguistically, culturally, and genealogically as Biharis

Bihari Muslims are adherents of Islam who identify linguistically, culturally, and genealogically as Biharis. They are geographically native to the region comprising the Bihar state of India, although there are significantly large communities of Bihari Muslims living elsewhere in the Indian subcontinent due to the Partition of British India in 1947, which prompted the community to migrate en masse from Bihar to East Pakistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Refugees in India</span> Overview of legally registered refugees residing in India

Since its independence in 1947, India has accepted various groups of refugees from neighbouring countries, including partition refugees from former British Indian territories that now constitute Pakistan and Bangladesh, Tibetan refugees that arrived in 1959, Chakma refugees from present day Bangladesh in early 1960s, other Bangladeshi refugees in 1965 and 1971, Sri Lankan Tamil refugees from the 1980s and most recently Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. In 1992, India was seen to be hosting 400,000 refugees from eight countries. According to records with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, as on January 1,2021, there were 58,843 Sri Lankan refugees staying in 108 refugee camps in Tamil Nadu and 54 in Odisha and 72,312 Tibetan refugees have been living in India.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karandighi</span> Community development block in West Bengal, India

Karandighi is a community development block that forms an administrative division in Islampur subdivision of Uttar Dinajpur district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Dalkhola, Uttar Dinajpur was established in 2005. The school is temporariliy running at Teest Colony, Dalkhola, Uttar Dinajpur. It is adjacent to Primary Health Center, Dalkhola on NH 34. The land for the construction of permanent building has been transferred and construction work is about to start at Village Sima Anandapur of Panchayat Raniganj. The temporary site is about 3.5 Km from Dalkhola Railway Station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bengali Hindus</span> Ethno-linguistic and religious population from India and Bangladesh

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-thirds 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greater Bangladesh</span> Theory about an expanded Bangladesh

Greater Bangladesh, Greater Bengal, United Bengal represents the ideological assertion that Bengal will inevitably expand its sphere of influence to include the Indian states that currently has, or historically had, large populations of ethnic Bengali people. These include Sikkim to the north, and the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland in the east. The first and only real attempt at forming such an entity was made in 1943 by the Indische Legion under Indian Bengali Nationalist Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, de facto leader of the Azad Hind movement. Such endeavors, however, failed to ultimately materialize due to Germany and Japan’s loss in World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1964 East Pakistan riots</span> Ethnic cleansing of Hindus in East Pakistan (modern-day Bangladesh)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian reunification</span> Concept of the potential reunification of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh

Indian reunification refers to the potential reunification of India with Pakistan and Bangladesh, which were partitioned from British India in 1947.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pakistanis in India</span> Widely-defined demographic of Pakistanis within India

Pakistanis in India primarily consist of Pakistani Hindus and Sikhs who seek permanent settlement in the Republic of India via Indian citizenship. However, by extension, this figure also includes ethnic Pakistanis who migrated to the Dominion of India from Pakistan following the Partition of India in 1947. Others include Muslim Pakistani nationals who desire Indian citizenship or seek to work in the Indian Republic as expatriates. In December 2015, Anglo–Pakistani singer Adnan Sami became a naturalized Indian citizen after living in India on an extended visitor visa since 2001. The state of Maharashtra has witnessed a six-fold increase in applications for Indian citizenship from Pakistani nationals following the relaxation and simplification of immigration rules in December 2017. The primary purpose of these applications was a result of cross-border marriages, which have resulted in spouses waiting for citizenship for close to a decade.

The Bengali Hindu diaspora is the worldwide population of the Bengali Hindus of Indian and Bangladeshi origin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1947 Sylhet referendum</span> Referendum in British India

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Muhajirs</span>

Muhajir History or History of Muhajirs refers to the history and origins of the Muhajir people in Pakistan. Most Muhajirs migrated from what is now Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat, and West Bengal and that results in close ties between the ethnic groups and histories.

References

  1. 1 2 Pakistan without Muslims, a village in India’s Bihar state
  2. The Pakistan that exists in Purnea district of Bihar
  3. "'Pakistan' village in India's Bihar wants to change name". gulfnews.com. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
  4. 1 2 "'Pakistan' village in India's Bihar wants to change name | India – Gulf News". Gulf news. 21 December 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2020. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 This 'Pakistan' has no Muslims [ permanent dead link ]
  6. 1 2 ‘Pakistan’ in Indian state of Bihar
  7. "Literacy". Archived from the original on 24 May 2008. Retrieved 26 September 2009.
  8. "Pakistan in Bihar to soon vanish from people's memory". 21 December 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2020. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  9. "No Muslim Residents: People Of Bihar Village Named 'Pakistan' Desperately Want A Name Change". IndiaTimes. 20 October 2019. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
  10. "A village in India called 'Pakistan'". The Express Tribune. 19 October 2019. Retrieved 24 December 2020.