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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.
In the first few centuries of the second millennium, the level of independence of Bengal was fought over by the governors of Bengal and by the rulers of Delhi. Bengal finally emerged as an independent polity with the establishment of the Sultanate of Bengal formed from the unification of three principalities; [1] Satgaon (western Bengal), Lakhnauti (northern Bengal) and Sonargaon (eastern Bengal), by Sultan Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah in 1352. [2]
A watershed in the Bengali sultanate's history was the rise of the Sur and Mughal empires, which greatly weakened Bengal, with the two empires formally annexing Bengal in 1538 and 1576 respectively. Despite the loss of independence, a loose confederacy of fiercely independent zamindars led by Isa Khan refused to submit to Mughal hegemony, thus extending the complete conquest of Bengal to as late as the mid-17th century. [3] The Bengal Subah emerged as the most prosperous province of the Mughal Empire but as a result of the empire weakening, it re-emerged as an independent state under the Nawabs of Bengal from 1717 onwards. Bengal was lost to British powers after 1772 which reorganised the borders of the former Bengal Subah. The Treaty of Yandabo in 1826 facilitated the transfer of the former Bengal Subah's southeastern frontier (which stretched up to Akyab and the Kaladan River) to British Burma. [4] Following the British annexation of Assam in 1838, the Bengali districts of Goalpara and Sylhet were transferred to the newly established North-East Frontier (later Assam Province).
The partition in 1905 reunited these districts with eastern Bengal through the formation of two new provinces; Eastern Bengal and Assam and Western Bengal. However, this was strongly protested by Bengalis and the authorities assented to reversing this partition in 1912. [5]
On 27 April 1947, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the Prime Minister of Bengal and a Muslim League leader, addressed a press conference in New Delhi outlining his opposition to the looming partition of Bengal under the British government's plans. At the press conference, Suhrawardy made an impassioned plea for setting aside religious differences in order to create an "independent, undivided, and sovereign Bengal". [6]
Let us pause for a moment to consider what Bengal can be if it remains united. It will be a great country, indeed the richest and the most prosperous in India capable of giving to its people a high standard of living, where a great people will be able to rise to the fullest height of their stature, a land that will truly be plentiful. It will be rich in agriculture, rich in industry and commerce and in course of time it will be one of the powerful and progressive states of the world. If Bengal remains united this will be no dream, no fantasy. [6]
Suhrawardy, a lawyer from Midnapore, did not want to lose western Bengal to the opposing side of the Hindu-Muslim divide. The proposal elicited support from Bengali Hindu leaders Sarat Chandra Bose of the Indian National Congress, Kiran Saankar Roy (Leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party in the Bengal Assembly), and Satya Ranjan Bakshi. [7] Prominent Bengali Muslims in support of Suhrawardy included Bengal Finance Minister Mohammad Ali Chaudhury, Bengal Revenue Minister Fazlur Rahman, Islamic scholar Shamsul Huda Panchbagi, [8] Tippera politician Ashrafuddin Ahmad Chowdhury, Mayor of Calcutta Syed Badrudduja and Bengal Muslim League secretary Abul Hashim. [7] [9] For a while, the proposal was subject to significant negotiations.
On 12 May 1947, Bose and Hashim met Congress stalwart Mahatma Gandhi to discuss the United Bengal scheme. Gandhi gave an attentive hearing.[ citation needed ] Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, was also open to the idea of an independent Bengal. [6] On 20 May 1947, a five-point plan was outlined for a "Free State of Bengal", echoing the legacy of the name of the Irish Free State. The plan was based on a confessionalist structure with power-sharing between Hindus and Muslims. It mirrored some of the confessionalist practices adopted in French Lebanon in 1926, where the positions of President and Prime Minister rotated among Muslims and Christians.[ citation needed ]
However, the Congress Party backtracked in its openness to the idea. On 27 May 1947, Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru formally stated that his party would "agree to Bengal remaining united only if it remains in the Indian Union". [6] Congress President J. B. Kripalani opposed the proposal to "save the unity of Bengal". In reply to the plea made by Ashrafuddin Chowdhury, Kripalani stated "All that the Congress seeks to do today is to rescue as many areas as possible from the threatened domination of the League and Pakistan. It wants to save as much territory for a Free Indian Union as is possible under the circumstances. It therefore insists upon the division of Bengal and Punjab into areas for India and Pakistan respectively." [10] [11] Opponents included mostly Hindus in the Bengal Provincial Congress and Hindu Mahasabha who wanted to remain part of India and didn't wanted to join a newly created ethnic muslim majority state . A minority of leaders in the Bengal League favored partition and the inclusion of eastern Bengal and Assam in Pakistan. These leaders included former premier Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin. [7]
Within the British government, there was serious consideration of the proposal. British commercial interests in Bengal required safeguards. The United States government was also briefed on the possibility of three countries emerging out of partition, including Pakistan, India, and Bengal. On 2 June 1947, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee informed the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom Lewis Williams Douglas that there was a "distinct possibility Bengal might decide against partition and against joining either Hindustan or Pakistan". [12] Douglas cabled the US State Department about the meeting. [12]
On 3 June 1947, Viceroy of India Earl Mountbatten outlined the framework principles of partition, including that in principle the partition of British India was accepted by the British Government; successor governments would be given dominion status; autonomy and sovereignty will be given to the new countries; each country will make its own constitution; princely states were given the right to either join Pakistan or India; and that Provinces can become a separate nation other than Pakistan or India. There appeared to be some popular momentum towards the concept of United Bengal. On 6 July 1947, the Sylhet referendum was held. Voters in the Sylhet division in Assam Province voted by a majority to bifurcate Sylhet from Assam and merge into Eastern Bengal.
On 20 June 1947, the Bengal Legislative Assembly met to vote on the partition of Bengal. At the preliminary joint session, the assembly decided by 126 votes to 90 that if it remained united it should join the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. Later, a separate meeting of legislators from West Bengal decided by 58 votes to 21 that the province should be partitioned and that West Bengal should join the Constituent Assembly of India. In another separate meeting of legislators from East Bengal, it was decided by 106 votes to 35 that the province should not be partitioned and 107 votes to 34 that East Bengal should join Pakistan in the event of partition. [13] No vote on the United Bengal proposal was held.
Religions in United Bengal (2011)
Religion | Population |
---|---|
Muslims ( ![]() | 167,440,983 |
Hindus ( ![]() | 101,423,013 |
Christians ( ![]() | 9,034,999 |
Buddhists ( ![]() | 3,822,866 |
Others or no religion | 2,558,946 |
Total | 284,280,807 |
A five-point plan was outlined on 20 May 1947 after consultations with Governor Frederick Burrows. Its salient features are outlined below.
The United Bengal proposal has been the sole attempt by prominent Bengali leaders to establish an independent country encompassing East and West Bengal. However, since the Partition of Bengal in 1947, the region's politics have veered away from any semblance of pan-Bengali nationalism. It also became complicated with Indian support for East Pakistan's liberation as Bangladesh in 1971. Given the close Bangladesh-India relations, any notion of a pan-Bengali state is considered unrealistic. The pioneer of the United Bengal proposal, Suhrawardy, went on to become a leading statesman of Pakistan. Suhrawardy died in Beirut in 1963 in a country with a confessionalist system.[ citation needed ] In his memoirs, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh and a protege of Suhrawardy, remarked, "Initially, Bengalis failed to appreciate Mr Suhrawardy’s greatness. By the time they learned to value him they had run out of time". [19]
Modern Indian nationalists discuss Bengali reunification in the context of wider Indian reunification. In the 1950s, the Calcutta-based Hindu nationalist volunteer group Sri Aurobindo Sevak Sangha included in their programme "Annulment of the ill-fated partition and reunification of India." [20] On 4 February 1957, an East Pakistani-based newspaper The Morning News published an article accusing the Awami League of favoring Indian reunification, stating that "there is a party even in Pakistan which is working for reunification and it is growing in strength". [20]
Bengal or endonym Bangla is a historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Bengal proper is divided between modern-day sovereign nation of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.
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.
The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal, later the Bengal Province, was the largest of all three presidencies of British India during Company rule and later a province of India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and Southeast Asia. Bengal proper covered the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. Calcutta, the city which grew around Fort William, was the capital of the Bengal Presidency. For many years, the governor of Bengal was concurrently the governor-general of India and Calcutta was the capital of India until 1911.
Abul Kasem Fazlul Huq, popularly known as Sher-e-Bangla, was a Bengali lawyer and politician who presented the Lahore Resolution which had the objective of creating an independent Pakistan. He also served as the first and longest Prime Minister of Bengal during the British Raj.
Direct Action Day was the day the All-India Muslim League decided to take a "direct action" using violence to intimidate non-muslims and their leadership for a separate Muslim homeland after the British exit from India. Also known as the 1946 Calcutta Killings, it was a day of nationwide communal riots. It led to large-scale violence between Muslims and Hindus in the city of Calcutta in the Bengal province of British India. The day also marked the start of what is known as The Week of the Long Knives. While there is a certain degree of consensus on the magnitude of the killings, including their short-term consequences, controversy remains regarding the exact sequence of events, the various actors' responsibility and the long-term political consequences.
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.
East Bengal was a non-contiguous province of the Dominion of Pakistan. Geographically eastern 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.
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 and West Bengal, whereas Bengali Hindus make up the majority of India's citizens (Indians) in Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura, and are the largest minority in the Indian states of Assam and Jharkhand and the independent state of Bangladesh (8%).
Greater Bangladesh, or Greater BanglaalsoGreater Bengal is the irredentist ideology of Bangladesh to inevitably expand its territory to include the Indian states that currently has, or historically had, large populations of ethnic Bengali people. These include West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand to the west, Sikkim to the north, and the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland to the east. Greater Bangladesh would naturally therefore take on the more inclusive title of Greater Bengal, as her people would be united under a common ethnicity and heritage based on language rather than one based on religion.
The East Pakistan Renaissance Society was a political organisation formed to articulate and promote culturally and intellectually the idea for a separate Muslim state for Indian Muslims and specifically for the Muslims of Bengal. The organisation's founders and leaders included Abul Kalam Shamsuddin, the society president, Habibullah Bahar Chowdhury and Mujibur Rahman Khan.
Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, often shortened as Maulana Bhashani, was a Bengali politician. His political tenure spanned the British colonial India, Pakistan and Bangladesh periods. Maulana Bhashani was popularly known by the honorary title Mozlum Jananeta for his lifelong stance advocating for the poor. He gained nationwide mass popularity among the peasants and helped to build the East Pakistan Peasant Association. Owing to his political leaning to the left, often dubbed Islamic Socialism. he was also called 'The Red Maulana'. He is considered as one of the main pillars of Bangladeshi independence of 1971.
The prime minister of Bengal was the head of government of Bengal Province and the Leader of the House in the Bengal Legislative Assembly in British India. The position was dissolved upon the Partition of Bengal during the partition of India in 1947.
Bengal is a region in South Asia, politically split between Bangladesh and India. Due to its long history and complicated political divisions, various names have been used to refer to the region and its subsections. The name Bangla is used by both Bangladesh and West Bengal in international contexts. In the Bengali language, the two Bengals each use a different term to refer to the nominally identified nation: Bānglā and Baṅga
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.
Ashrafuddin Ahmad Chowdhury was a Bengali politician who had served as general secretary of the Congress Party's Bengal branch, member of the East Bengal Legislative Assembly and later as the education minister of Pakistan. He was an advocate of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy's United Bengal proposal.
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.
The Bengal Provincial Muslim League (BPML) was the branch of the All India Muslim League in the British Indian province of Bengal. It was established in Dhaka on 2 March 1912. Its official language was Bengali. The party played an important role in the Bengal Legislative Council and in the Bengal Legislative Assembly, where two of the Prime Ministers of Bengal were from the party. It was vital to the creation of the Dominion of Pakistan, particularly after its election victory in 1946.
Kiran Shankar Roy, also credited as Kiron Sankar Roy was an Indian Bengali politician, academic, and freedom fighter. He was one of the leading figures of the Swaraj Party in the anti-British independence movement of the Indian subcontinent and one-time colleague of Subhas Chandra Bose and associate of Sarat Chandra Bose. He was one of Bengal's big five prominent Congress leaders during the two decades 1920s and 1940s. Roy, Leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party in the Bengal Assembly, participated in the United Independent Bengal movement of 1947
Population By Religion (%) Muslim 90.39 Hindu 8.54 Buddhist 0.60 Christian 0.37 Others 0.14
That such plots continue to be discovered is indicated in an editorial in the Morning News of February 4, 1957: A vigorous campaign has been launched in Bharat to undo Pakistan and re-unite it with Bharat, according to authoritative reports reaching here from Calcutta. A political party, the Sri Aurobindo Sevak Sangha which claims that its political programme is based on the 'teaching of Sri Aurobindo' is fighting general elections in Bharat with a programme the first item of which reads: 'Annulment of the ill-fated partition and reunification of India.' In its election manifesto, which has been widely distributed and even sent to some newspapers in Pakistan, the party claims that 'there is a party even in Pakistan which is working for reunification and it is growing in strength.' The editorial in this Muslim League newspaper goes on to remark that the party in East Bengal is not named but hints very strongly that it is the Awami League. It is this latter charge (that they are at best dupes and at worst agents of seditious groups) that has been used most effectively against the regionalist groups—so much so that it made Mr. Bhashani cry out in an interview, "Call me an agitator, call me anything, but when they say that I am an enemy of Pakistan and am destroying it, I can only cry my agony to the high heavens for justice and retribution."