Partition of Bengal

(1905)
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Map showing the result of the partition of Bengal in

1905. The western part (Bengal) gained parts of
Orissa, the eastern part (Eastern Bengal and Assam)
regained Assam that had been made a separate
province in 1874
Map showing the modern day nation of Bangladesh
and Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Assam,
Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Nagaland
and Manipur within the Province before division into
Bihar and Orissa and East Bengal and Assam

The decision to effect the Partition of

Bengal (Bengali: ব ভ ) was announced
on 19 July 1905 by the Viceroy of India,
Lord Curzon. The partition took place on
16 October 1905 and separated the largely
Muslim eastern areas from the largely
Hindu western areas. The Hindus of West
Bengal who dominated Bengal's business
and rural life complained that the division
would make them a minority in a province
that would incorporate the province of
Bihar and Orissa.[1] Hindus were outraged
at what they recognised as a "divide and
rule" policy,[2] where the colonisers turned
the native population against itself in order
to rule, even though Curzon stressed it
would produce administrative efficiency.
The partition animated the Muslims to
form their own national organization on
communal lines. In order to appease
Bengali sentiment, Bengal was reunited by
Lord Hardinge in 1911 , in response to the
Swadeshi movement's riots in protest
against the policy and the growing belief
among Hindus that east Bengal would
have its own courts and policies.

Background
The provincial state of Bengal had an area
of 490,000 km2 (189,000 mi2) and a
population of nearly 78.5 million. It
comprised West Bengal with a Hindu
majority and East Bengal and Assam with
a Muslim majority. It included the Hindi-
speaking regions of Bihar, the Odia-
speaking regions of Odisha as well as the
Assamese-speaking region of Assam,
making it a huge administrative entity.
Moreover, the capital, Calcutta, was also
the capital of the entire British India. With
the growing efforts of the Indian freedom
fighters to secure the independence of
India, Lord Curzon decided to address both
these problems by partitioning Bengal into
two entities, which would result in a
Muslim-majority in the eastern part, and a
Hindu-majority in the western part. This he
hoped would reduce the administrative
pressures.

Partition
See also: Bengal Presidency (Partition of
Bengal, 1905)
The government announced the idea for
partition in January 1904. The idea was
opposed by Henry John Stedman Cotton,
Chief Commissioner of Assam (1896–
1902). The partition was enacted on 16
October 1905, by Viceroy Curzon, and
Cayan Uddin Ahmet, the Chief Secretary of
Bengal.

The Lower Bengal was divided into two

new provinces: "Bengal" province,
composed of the Hindu-majority, largely
Bengali speaking divisions of Patna,
Baghalpur, Bardwan and Presidency
administered from Calcutta, and the
eastern Muslim-majority divisions of
Chittagong, Rajshahi and Dhaka, as well as
the states of Comilla, Sylhet and Tripura
united within the Eastern Bengal and
Assam province with Dhaka as the
capital.[3] There were further transfers of
administrative districts in the name of
linguistic or ethnic unification, with the
Hindi-speaking districts of Chota Nagpur
becoming part of the Central Provinces,
while the Bengali-speaking areas of Oriya
and Sambalpur were included in the new
province of Bengal

Partition was promoted for administrative

reasons since Bengal was geographically
as large as France and had a significantly
larger population. Curzon stated the
eastern region was neglected and under-
governed. By splitting the province, an
improved administration could be
established in the east, where
subsequently, the population would benefit
from new schools and employment
opportunities.

The partition was generally supported by

the Muslims of East Bengal by both their
poor economic conditions in East Bengal
and the perceived dominance of the Hindu
businessmen and landlords in West
Bengal over the governance of Bengal.
Most of the factories and mills in Bengal
were established in and around Calcutta,
while many sources of raw materials for
these factories were in East Bengal.
Furthermore, most of the educational
institutions of the Province were in
Calcutta, including the lone university in
Bengal.

The scars resulting from the partition of

Bengal have never completely healed and
can still be seen today.

Given below is the proclamation of

partition:

"The Governor-General is pleased to

constitute the territories at present under
the administration of the Chief
Commissioner of Assam to be for the
purposes of the Indian Councils Act
1861... a province to which the provisions
of that Act touching the making of laws
and regulations for the peace and good
order of the presidencies of Fort St.
George and Bombay shall be applicable
and to direct that the said province shall
be called and known as the province of
Eastern Bengal and Assam.... The
Governor-General in Council is pleased to
specify the sixteenth day of October, 1905
as the period at which the said provisions
shall take effect and 15th as the number
of councilors whom the Lieutenant-
Governor may nominate for his assistance
in making laws and regulations. The
Governor-General in Council is further
pleased to declare and appoint that upon
the constitution of the said province of
Eastern Bengal and Assam, the districts of
Dacca, Mymensingh, Faridpur,
Backergunge, Tippera, Noakhali,
Chittagong, the Chittagong Hill Tracts,
Rajashahi, Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri, Rangpur,
Bogra, Pabna, and Malda which now form
part of the Bengal Division of the
Presidency of Fort William shall cease to
be subject to or included within the limits
of that Division, and shall thenceforth be
subject to and included within the limits of
the Lieutenant-Governorship of the
province of Eastern Bengal and Assam."

The reason behind the partition that was

officially announced was that the Bengal
province was too large to be administered
by a single governor and so it would be
partitioned on administrative purpose. The
real reason behind the partition was
political and not administrative. East
Bengal was dominated by the Muslims
and West Bengal by the Hindus. Partition
was yet another part of the divide and rule
policy. The following excerpts from
Curzon's letter of 2 February 1905 to St.
John Brodrick, Secretary of State for India,
give an idea of his aims in partitioning
Bengal:

"Calcutta is the centre from which the

Congress Party is manipulated throughout
the whole of Bengal, and indeed the whole
of India. Its best wire pullers and its most
frothy orators all reside here. The
perfection of their machinery, and the
tyranny which it enables them to exercise
are truly remarkable. They dominate public
opinion in Calcutta; they affect the High
Court; they frighten the local Government,
and they are sometimes not without
serious influence on the Government of
India. The whole of their activity is directed
to creating an agency so powerful that
they may one day be able to force a weak
government to give them what they desire.
Any measure in consequence that would
divide the Bengali-speaking population;
that would permit independent centres of
activity and influence to grow up; that
would dethrone Calcutta from its place as
the center of successful intrigue, or that
would weaken the influence of the lawyer
class, who have the entire organisation in
their hands, is intensely and hotly resented
by them. The outcry will be loud and very
fierce, but as a native gentleman said to
me – 'my countrymen always howl until a
thing is settled; then they accept it'."
Political crisis
Partition sparked an extremely major
political crisis along religious lines. Hindu
resistance exploded as the Indian National
Congress began the Swadeshi movement,
which included boycotting British goods
and institutions, organizing meetings and
processions, and applying diplomatic
pressure.[4] Hitherto untouched sections of
Indian society participated in these
movements, providing base for later
movements. Richness of the movement
extended to culture, science and literature.
Masses were educated for a bolder form
of politics and colonial hegemony was
undermined. The Muslims in East Bengal
hoped that a separate region would give
them more control over education and
employment, hence, they opposed those
movements. Rabindranath Tagore wrote
Banglar Mati Banglar Jol as a rallying cry
for proponents of annulment of partition.[5]

Opposition to the partition was supported

by Henry John Stedman Cotton who had
been Chief Commissioner of Assam, but
Curzon was not to be moved. Later,
Cotton, now Liberal MP for Nottingham
East coordinated the successful campaign
to oust the first lieutenant- governor of
East Bengal, Sir Bampfylde Fuller.
Re-unification
Due to these political protests, the two
parts of Bengal were reunited on 12
December 1911. A new partition which
divided the province on linguistic, rather
than religious grounds followed, with the
Hindi, Oriya and Assamese areas
separated to form separate administrative
units: Bihar and Orissa Province was
created to the west, and Assam Province
to the east. The administrative capital of
British India was moved from Calcutta to
New Delhi as well.

Aftermath
In 1909, separate elections were
established for Muslims and Hindus.
Before this, many members of both
communities had advocated national
solidarity of all Bengalis. With separate
electorates, distinctive political
communities developed, with their own
political agendas. Muslims, too,
dominated the Legislature, due to their
overall numerical strength of roughly
twenty two to twenty eight million.
Nationally, Hindus and Muslims began to
demand the creation of two independent
states, one to be formed in majority Hindu
and one in majority Muslim areas.[6]
In 1947, Bengal was partitioned for the
second time, solely on religious grounds,
as part of the Partition of India following
the formation of the nations India and
Pakistan.[7] In 1947, East Bengal became
East Pakistan, and in 1971 became the
independent state of Bangladesh after a
successful war of independence with West
Pakistan.[8]

Significance
The partition left a significant impact on
the people of Bengal as well as the
political scene of the Indian subcontinent.
This event also created a sense of political
awareness among the Muslims of East
Bengal. To mollify the people of East
Bengal, Lord Curzon declared that a
university as a center of excellence would
be established in Dacca (which would later
be named as University of Dhaka) and
formed a committee in this regard
consisting Khwaja Salimullah, A. K. Fazlul
Huq and others. The decision was severely
criticised by some Hindu leaders in West
Bengal. The most significant impact of
this event was greater communal
dissonance between the Hindus and
Muslims of Bengal.

See also
 West Bengal
Partition of Bengal (1947)

Notes
1. Encyclopædia Britannica, "the creation of
the barrier"
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topi
c/60754/partition-of-Bengal
2. Bipan Chandre Lal, "History of Modern
India", ISBN 978-81-250-3684-5, pp. 248–
249
3. David Gilmour, Curzon: Imperial
Statesman (1994), pp. 271–3
4. Johnson, Gordon (May 1973). "Partition,
Agitation and Congress: Bengal 1904 To
1908". Modern Asian Studies. 7 (3): 533–
588. JSTOR 311853 .
5. "The heritage of Bangla patriotic songs" .
The Daily Star. 15 August 2012.
6. Judith M. Brown, Modern India (1985),
pp. 184, 366
7. Haimanti Roy, "Partition of Contingency?
Public Discourse in Bengal, 1946–1947,"
Modern Asian Studies, (November 2009),
43#6, pp. 1355–1384
8. Judith M. Brown, Modern India (1985), p.
366

Further reading
 Edwardes, Michael. High Noon of
Empire: India under Curzon (1965)
McLane, John R.. "The Decision to
Partition Bengal in 1905," Indian
Economic and Social History Review, July
1965, 2#3, pp. 221–237

External resources
Ahmed, Sufia (2012). "Partition of
Bengal, 1905" . In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal,
Ahmed A. Banglapedia: National
Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second
ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
Retrieved from
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