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Bangladesh
The Division of Bengal, 1905-12
Bangladesh
The Division of Bengal, 1905-12
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.
Data as of September 1988
