The Division of Bengal, 1905-12
Meet Bangladesh - Bangladesh 101:
In 1905 the British governor general, Lord George Curzon,
divided Bengal into eastern and western sectors in order
to improve administrative control of the huge and populous province. Curzon
established a new province called Eastern Bengal and Assam, which had its
capital at Dhaka. The new province of West Bengal (the
present-day state of West Bengal in India) had its capital at Calcutta, which
also was the capital of British India. During the next few years, the long
neglected and predominantly Muslim eastern
region of Bengal made strides in education and communications. Many Bengali
Muslims viewed the partition as initial recognition of their cultural and
political separation from the Hindu majority population. Curzon's decision,
however, was ardently challenged by the educated and largely Hindu upper classes
of Calcutta. The Indian National Congress (Congress), a Hindu-dominated
political organization founded in 1885 and supported by the Calcutta elite,
initiated a well-planned campaign against Curzon, accusing him of trying to
undermine the nationalist movement that had been spearheaded by Bengal. Congress
leaders objected that Curzon's partition of Bengal deprived Bengali Hindus of a
majority in either new province--in effect a tactic of divide and rule. In
response, they launched a movement to force the British to annul the partition.
A swadeshi (a devotee of one's own country) movement boycotted
British-made goods and encouraged the production and use of Indian-made goods to
take their place. Swadeshi agitation spread throughout India and became a
major plank in the Congress platform. Muslims generally favored the partition of
Bengal but could not compete with the more politically articulate and
economically powerful Hindus. In 1912 the British voided the partition of
Bengal, a decision that heightened the growing estrangement between the Muslims
and Hindus in many parts of the country. The reunited province was reconstituted
as a presidency and the capital of India was moved from Calcutta to the less
politically electric atmosphere of New Delhi. The reunion of divided Bengal was
perceived by Muslims as a British accommodation to Hindu pressures.
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