Undivided Sylhet district

Sylhet (1765–1947)
Part of Bengal Presidency (1765–1874) Part of North-East Frontier (1874–1905) Part of Eastern Bengal and Assam (1905–1912) Part of Assam Province (1912–1947)
1765–1947
Capital	Sylhet
History
• Part of Bengal Presidency	1765
• Transfer to North-East Frontier	1874
• Transfer to Eastern Bengal and Assam	1905
• Bifurcation of Eastern Bengal and Assam	1912
•  Partition of India	15 August 1947
Preceded by Succeeded by Bengal Subah Sylhet Karimganj
Today part of	Bangladesh India

The Undivided Sylhet district is a former administrative district of Assam Province (now Assam) of British India. It was formerly governed as part of Bengal Presidency until 1874, before its transfer to Assam. During the Partition of India in 1947, the ertswhile district was partitioned into Sylhet Division of then East Bengal (then in Pakistan), now part of Bangladesh and Karimganj district which remained as a part of Barak Valley region in Assam. ^{[1] [2]}

History

Main article: History of Sylhet

Sylhet district as part of Assam Province in 1936

Transfer to Assam Province

During the British Raj, Sylhet was governed as part of Bengal until 1874. In September 1874, Sylhet was separated from the Bengal Presidency and added to the new Assam province. ^[3] The people of Sylhet protested the decision of the region's transfer to Assam by submitting a memorandum to the Viceroy. ^[4] Later the protests subsided when the Viceroy, Lord Northbrook, visited Sylhet and announced that the education and justice would be administered from Bengal, ^[5] and the opportunities of employment for tea estates and their produce in Assam in order to facilitate the province's commercial development.. ^{[6] [7]}

Sylhet temporarily reverted to Bengal during the Partition of Bengal in 1905, when it became part of the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The partition was annulled in 1911, and the boundaries of Assam Province was restored in 1912.

Partition of Sylhet in 1947

Main article: 1947 Sylhet referendum

During the partition of India in 1947, a referendum was held to determine whether the Sylhet region would remain in India or join Pakistan. The four subdivisions (North Sylhet, South Sylhet, Habiganj and Sunamganj) joined the Dominion of Pakistan; subsequently forming East Bengal's Sylhet Division.

Meanwhile, Abdul Matlib Mazumdar led a delegation advocating for the region to remain with India, due to which the district's Karimganj subdivision remained in India, as part of the state of Assam.

Notes

1. "History of Cachar District". cachar.assam.gov.in.
2. "History". sribhumi.assam.gov.in.
3. "To make (the Province) financially viable, and to accede to demands from professional groups, (the colonial administration) decided in September 1874 to annex the Bengali-speaking and populous district of Sylhet."( Hossain 2013 :260)
4. " A memorandum of protest against the transfer of Sylhet was submitted to the viceroy on 10 August 1874 by leaders of both the Hindu and Muslim communities." ( Hossain 2013 :261)
5. "It was also decided that education and justice would be administered from Calcutta University and the Calcutta High Court respectively." ( Hossain 2013 :262)
6. Tanweer Fazal (2013). Minority Nationalisms in South Asia. Routledge. pp. 53–54. ISBN   978-1-317-96647-0.
7. "They could also see that the benefits conferred by the tea industry on the province would also prove profitable for them. For example, those who were literate were able to obtain numerous clerical and medical appointments in tea estates, and the demand for rice to feed the tea labourers noticeably augmented its price in Sylhet and Assam enabling the Zaminders (mostly Hindu) to dispose of their produce at a better price than would have been possible had they been obliged to export it to Bengal." ( Hossain 2013 :262)

References

• Hossain, Ashfaque (2013). "The Making and Unmaking of Assam-Bengal Borders and the Sylhet Referendum". Modern Asian Studies. 47 (1): 250–287. doi:10.1017/S0026749X1200056X. JSTOR   23359785. S2CID   145546471.