Introduction
The objective of this article is to review the history of Partition of Bengal in 1905, its annulment in 1911, and the final Partition of Bengal in 1947, resulting in the creation of East Bengal (East Pakistan). Using a reductionist approach, we have condensed a large amount of historical information to test the central assumption of this study that a common hegemonic ploy was responsible for the reunification of Bengal in 1911 and its subsequent repartition in 1947, rejecting a pre-partition plan of establishing an independent Bengal as a nation-state, based on Bengali nationalism. This crucial finding provides a basis for rejecting a false narrative claiming that Bengali nationalism is the raison d’être of Bangladesh. In conclusion, we have attributed this false narrative as one of the contributing factors of the 2024 Monsoon Revolution.
1905 Partition of Bengal: A hegemonic ploy to undermine it
The Partition of Bengal in 1905 by Lord Curzon, the British Viceroy (1898-1905) was perhaps one of the most consequential historical events of British India in the 20th century. Prior to the Partition, Bengal was a much larger province than the combined territories of current Bangladesh and West Bengal. Lord Curzon argued that Bengal was too large to administer since it included Assam and parts of Bihar and Orissa. Therefore, in 1905 he partitioned Bengal into two separate provinces: (a) a Muslim majority East Bengal and Assam, with its capital at Decca (Dhaka), and (b) Bengal (West Bengal) with a predominantly Hindu population but including parts of Bihar and Orissa, with its capital at Calcutta (Kolkata), the largest and most prosperous city of British India. Although (West) Bengal continued to dominate commerce, industry and other economic and cultural activities of Greater Bengal, most of the Hindus of Bengal, especially its influential business class and educated elites, opposed Curzon’s unilateral action of dividing the province into two halves and embarked on a vigorous political and cultural movement to annul this Partition. What was the central motive of this movement?
In this article, we posit that the concept of political and cultural hegemony, formulated by Antonio Gramsci, provides a broad theoretical framework for explaining major political manoeuvrings by both the Indian Congress and the Indian Muslim League and their provincial counterparts. Gramsci suggests that such hegemony may be established by the dominant social class of a community over the rest, often by consent, coercion or intellectual and moral leadership.
Applied to the case of the Partition of Bengal, we will demonstrate that opposition to the 1905 Partition by the Bengal Congress and majorities of the Hindus of the province and, paradoxically, their strong support for the 1947 Partition of the province could be attributed to competing political manoeuvrings by two antagonistic parties and their communities, i.e., the Bengal Congress representing the Hindus of greater Bengal and the Bengal Muslim League, representing the Muslim majorities of Bengal. In this context, we may characterize such political manoeuvrings as a hegemonic ploy, i.e., a method of retaining established hegemony. The reversal of this ploy between 1911 and 1947 due to major changes in demographic and political landscapes of Bengal could explain apparently two contradictory propositions by the Hindu community of Bengal.
At the time of the 1905 Partition, the Hindus of Bengal, especially its influential business class and the educated elites had a monopoly over the political, economic and cultural affairs of the province. The Partition was a blow to this hegemonic structure since it altered the established order. There were widespread apprehensions for losses in every sector of the province, especially in the following:
- Loss of market for commerce and industry
- Loss of circulation and sale of Calcutta-based newspapers
- Additional expenditures by Zamindars (mostly Hindu landlords) for their landholdings in East Bengal
- Loss of importance of the Calcutta High Court due to establishment of an Appeals Court in Decca (Dhaka)
- Loss of political hegemony due to a rise of a new Muslim power
The post-Partition history for the next five to six years until the annulment of the Partition in 1911was tumultuous with recurrent protest rallies and cultural events denouncing the Partition. Among other dignitaries, Rabindranath Tagore played a direct role in this movement by reciting his poems and speaking at rallies denouncing this unilateral move by Lord Curzon. His patriotic poems were recited by others at many cultural events. Tagore’s famous poem Amar Sonar Bangla Ami Tomay Bhalobashi (the current national anthem of Bangladesh) was a product of this movement.
Besides such linguistic cultural events, religion was also introduced in this movement by invoking the slogan Vande Mataram (Hail the Motherland) as a rallying cry in defence of their undivided motherland. There were large political-religious rallies at the Kali Mandir (Temple) of Calcutta. As a reaction to such religious zeal, Muslim feelings were also aroused. Thus, the all-India Muslim League was established in Dhaka in 1906.
The British government responded to the anti-Partition movement by annulling the 1905 Act of Partition of Bengal in 1911 (by King George V). The annulment was followed by a major reshaping of the boundaries of Bengal, which resembled the combined territories of current Bangladesh and West Bengal. Assam was made a separate province (in 1911). Similarly, based on linguistic lines, Bihar and Orissa were curved out of Bengal and made into separate provinces. At the end of this process, the Hindu business and elite classes were vindicated by re-establishing their political and cultural hegemony.
Support for the 1947 Partition of Bengal and rejection of a proposal for an Independent Undivided Bengal: An outcome of the second hegemonic ploy
Whereas a hegemonic ploy by the dominant Hindu leadership of Greater Bengal vitiated Lord Curzon’s 1905 Partition of Bengal (as explained above), we posit here further that a second hegemonic ploy prevented the prospect of an Independent Undivided Bengal based on Bengali nationalism. This is a stunning reversal of political manoeuvring by the same Hindu leadership of Bengal, which was further reinforced by other national parties of India, including the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha. What were the reasons for such reversals?
The history of British India for four decades following the reunification of Bengal (1911-1947) provides broad contexts of the British decolonization process, ending nearly two centuries of imperial rule, culminating in the 1947 independence of India and Pakistan. The Partition of Bengal in 1947 resulted in an unprecedented union of East Bengal (subsequently called East Pakistan) with a distant and emotionally detached West Pakistan.
The post-reunification period (1911-1947) witnessed many tumultuous events, notably, the Khilafat Movement (1919-1922), non-cooperation movement led by Gandhi, continuation of Swadeshi movement (Buy Indian), Quit India movement led by Gandhi and Nehru, and the Second World War (1939-1945). Amid such tumultuous events, perhaps no other event was more consequential for Bengal than the Government of India Act of 1935. The British objective of this Act was experimental with a good intention since it granted self-rule (provincial autonomy) to several provinces of India including Bengal.
However, the 1911 reunification of Bengal followed by a revised territorial boundary resulted in a Muslim majority in Bengal, largely in the eastern section of the province. Consequently, when provincial parliamentary elections were held between 1937 and 1946, four successive governments were formed by Muslim majorities or coalitions of Muslim majorities: (a) Fazlul Haq (1937-1941), (b) Fazlul Haq (1941-1943), (c) Khwaja Nazimuddin (l943-1946), (d) Hussein Shahid Suhrawardy (1946-1947).
Clearly, this was a major transformation of the hegemonic structures of Greater Bengal. The Hindu elites of Bengal, who had been accustomed to political, economic and cultural hegemony over relatively impoverished Muslim Bengalis for more than a century, suddenly found themselves in a disadvantageous position. Their despondence for this new hegemonic structure is reflected in their vociferous opposition to a proposal for an independent undivided Bengal based on Bengali nationalism. This is the context for the ill-fated Suhrawardy-Sarat Bose proposal for an independent Socialist Republic of Bengal.
The timing of the proposal was problematic since it was revealed in the wake of the 1946 Calcutta riot, which occurred barely six months earlier “under the watch of Suhrawardy.” Therefore, there was an environment of mistrust between the Hindus and the Muslims of Bengal. Suhrawardy allied with Sarat Bose, the elder brother of Subash Bose. As a Congress member of the Bengal Legislature, Bose had credibility of working with Muslim colleagues. For a short period of time, he served as a minister in the Fazlul Haq cabinet. However, the amount of time for pursuing such a historically significant proposal was too short for reviewing it or promoting it.
Suhrawardy, the Chief Minister of Bengal and Abul Hashim, one of his trusted cabinet colleagues and the General Secretary of the Bengal Muslim League, revealed the proposal in public in Delhi on 27 April 1947 and in Calcutta on 29 April. Initially, the proposal was called “Sovereign Socialist Republic of Bengal.” In the face of criticisms of the term “Socialist Republic,” an attempt was made to sell the project as the Bengal Free State after the Irish Free State. It is generally known as Suhrawardy-Bose Pact which was based on the model of proportional representations of Muslims and Hindus in the Legislature. Like French Lebanon, it had a power-sharing scheme between the Muslims and the Hindus. For example, it would guarantee the position of the Home Minister to a Hindu member of the Legislature when a Muslim would hold the position of the Prime Minister.
The reaction to the proposal was swift and largely negative, especially among the Hindus and the members of the Congress. The opinions among the Muslims were mixed. Initially Jinnah supported the proposal with the hope that a Muslim majority independent Bengal would be a friendly country of Pakistan. Concerned with reconciliations of Hindus and Muslims of India, initially Gandhi also agreed to consider the proposal.
In contrast, Nehru, the leader of the Indian National Congress and Sardar Patel, an influential Congress stalwart, rejected the proposal accusing it as a ploy to join Muslim-majority Bengal with Pakistan in an uncertain future. The members of the Bengal Congress were also vehemently against the proposal.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, was one of the prominent critics of the Suhrawardy-Bose proposal for an independent Bengal outside the Indian Union. To protect interests of the Hindus of Bengal, he was strongly in favour of the Partition of Bengal for the second time.
There were votes and counter votes in the Bengal Legislature in favour of or against the proposal by both the Congress and the Muslim League. The Muslims were largely in favour of the partition of Bengal and joining East Bengal as the eastern part of Pakistan in the face of opposition by the majorities of Hindus of greater Bengal and rejection of the proposal by Nehru, Patel and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee.
At the end, only a minority of Muslims supported the proposal. The Bengal Congress accepted the proposal of the second partition grudgingly and joining the Hindu-majority West Bengal as a province (state) of India, with the hope that one day East and West Bengal would reunite again. In the words of Kiran Sankar Roy, the Congress leader of Bengal: “the Congress was accepting the division of Bengal, which had been forced upon it, but he had every faith that it would be only for a short time” (The London Times, 20 June, 1947). Thus, the second hegemonic ploy succeeded in preventing the birth of an independent United Bengal based on Bengali nationalism.
Conclusion: Implications for the 2024 Monsoon Revolution in Bangladesh
Bengali nationalism. The main findings of this article provide a basis for assessing if Bengali nationalism is the raison d’être of Bangladesh. If the people of Bengal wanted to establish an independent Bengal based on Bengali nationalism, the Suhrawardy-Bose plan provided a golden opportunity to achieve this goal. We find, on the contrary, that linguistic nationalism played very little or no part in the 1947 Partition of Bengal. The Hindus of Bengal readily identified themselves with the pan-Indian nationalism promoted by the Indian Congress. At the same time, the Muslim League promoted the Two Nation Theory to thwart Indian hegemony over the Muslims. In this context, East Bengal joined Pakistan to protect interests of its Muslim Bengalis.
In 1971 when East Pakistan seceded from Pakistan and became an independent nation-state, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first Prime Minister and later the Life-President of the new nation, failed to articulate the national identity of Bangladesh clearly and forcefully. Admittedly, he once said it famously that we are Bengali first and Muslim second, but we have not heard about this any further. If we interpret this assertion on its face value, the leader of the nation has described the dual identity of Bangladesh as a hyphenated identity, i.e., Muslim Bengalis (the emphasis is on Bengalis). Global parallels include French Canadians, English Canadians, Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots. Ignoring such dual identity if we insist that Bangladesh is based on Bengali nationalism, at once it discriminates the Aboriginal people of the country. Perhaps, the best way out of these semantic issues is to say that we are all Bangladeshis, irrespective of our religions. What could be more democratic, inclusive and secular?
Ignoring the dual national identity of Bangladesh and the geopolitical reality that the people of West Bengal are also Bengalis, the Bangladesh Awami League has been pushing for a false narrative that we are all Bengalis. Even worse, this false narrative has maligned our Muslim identity as a dirty word, such as fundamentalists (often implying a link to terrorism), moulobadis, Razakars, etc.
In 1952 Language Movement several students lost their lives in the cause of their mother language. The entire Bangladesh is grateful to them for their sacrifice. However, the Awami League has exploited this tragedy to push their anti-Muslim narratives on moulabadis. In this context, the loss of lives in the 1952 Language Movement pales compared to the murder of more than 1,000 people in one day during the 2024 Monsoon Revolution. In short, these people gave their lives as a tragic consequence of the false narratives on Bengali nationalism, characterizing the detractors readily and falsely as Razakars and moulabadis.
Right to know the correct history. Some of the recent destructions of symbolic statutes and other historical buildings seem to be the result of the past false narratives. The new generations of Bangladesh need to know the correct history of Bangladesh, which does not start from the Liberation War in 1971 or even the 1947 Partition of Bengal and the birth of East Pakistan. They need to know the history of the Partitions of Bengal in 1905 and 1947 again. There is no doubt that Bangladesh would not be a reality without the creation of East Pakistan in 1947.
Without the 1947 creation of East Pakistan, Sylhet would not have been part of Bangladesh as it was part of Assam. It became part of East Pakistan and hence now an integral part of Bangladesh as a result of the 1947 Sylhet referendum. It should be mentioned here that Moulana Bhashani played a critical role in this referendum as of post-Independence in 1947 it is a most improbable proposition to curve out an independent nation-state out of the Indian Union.
In this article, our focus is on a hegemonic ploy that attempted to thwart the aspirations of the Muslim Bengalis. The literature on this topic is extensive. The new generations of Bangladesh should have ready access to this literature. One important component of the history of Bangladesh that has been largely ignored or under-emphasized is the contributions of the forefathers of Bangladesh politics. As Bangladesh would not be a reality without the creation of East Pakistan, similarly, the independence of East Bengal (East Pakistan) could not be a realty without the valiant leaderships of some of its pioneers, especially, Fazlul Haq, Nazimuddin, Suhrawardy, Bhashani, Abul Hashim, and others. Their contributions to the creation of East Bengal, the predecessor of Bangladesh, need fresh reassessments and popularization in the national narratives. The 2024 Monsoon Revolution provides an opportunity to open the suppressed pages of the true history of Bangladesh.
Saleh Muhammad Harunur Rashid Khan
Harunur Rasid, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor, Department of Geography and Earth Science, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, WI 54601, USA. My original name Saleh Muhammad Harunur Rashid Khan was distorted as Harunur Rasid by a non-Muslim clerk at the time of my application for High School graduation. For a variety of reasons, I was unable to change it legally.
