Partition of Bengal (1947)
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 (now Bangladesh) became a province of Pakistan.
Not to be confused with Partition of Bengal (1905).Location
Bengal Presidency, British India
Bengal Presidency divided into East and West Bengal
• Muslim-majority East Bengal becomes a province of Pakistan
• Hindu-majority West Bengal becomes a state of India
On 20 June 1947, the Bengal Legislative Assembly met to decide the future of the Bengal Province, as between being a United Bengal within India or Pakistan or divided into East Bengal and West Bengal as the home lands for the Bengali Muslims and the Bengali Hindus respectively. At the preliminary joint session, the assembly decided by 126-90 that if it remained united it should join the new Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. Later, a separate meeting of legislators from West Bengal decided by 58-21 that the province should be partitioned and that West Bengal should join the existing Constituent Assembly of India. In another separate meeting of legislators from East Bengal, it was decided by 106-35 that the province should not be partitioned and by 107-34 that East Bengal should join Pakistan in the event of Partition.[1]
On 6 July 1947, the Sylhet referendum decided to sever Sylhet from Assam and merge it into East Bengal.
The partition, with power transferred to Pakistan and India on 14–15 August 1947, was done according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan, or the Mountbatten Plan. Indian independence, on 15 August 1947, ended over 150 years of British rule and influence in the Indian subcontinent. East Pakistan became the independent country of Bangladesh after the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
According to plan, on 20 June 1947, the members of the Bengal Legislative Assembly cast three separate votes on the proposal to partition Bengal:
Under the Mountbatten Plan, a single majority vote in favour of partition by either of the notionally-divided halves of the Assembly would have decided the division of the province and hence the proceedings on 20 June resulted in the decision to partition Bengal. That set the stage for the creation of West Bengal as a province of India and East Bengal as a province of the Dominion of Pakistan.
Also in accordance with the Mountbatten Plan, a referendum held on 6 July saw the electorate of Sylhet vote to join East Bengal. Further, the Boundary Commission, headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, decided on the territorial demarcation between the two newly created provinces. Power was transferred to Pakistan and India on 14 and 15 August, respectively, under the Indian Independence Act 1947.
Displacement[edit]
1946–1951[edit]
Following the partition of Bengal between the Hindu-majority West Bengal and the Muslim-majority East Bengal, there was an influx of Bengali Hindu/Bengali Muslim refugees from both sides. An estimation suggests that before Partition, West Bengal had a population of 21.2 million, of whom 5.3 million or roughly 25 percent were Muslim minorities, most of them were native Bengali Muslims, whereas East Bengal had 39.1 million people, of whom 10.94 million or roughly 28 percent were Hindu minorities i.e. predominantly native Bengali Hindus. Nearly 2.2 million Bengali Hindus have left Pakistan's East Bengal for India's West Bengal region, and 1.9 million Bengali Muslims have left India's West Bengal for Pakistan's East Bengal region immediately after Partition because of violence and rioting resulting from mobs supporting West Bengal and East Bengal, but most Muslims who have left in 1947, have returned soon to India's West Bengal before Liaquat–Nehru Pact, which have been signed in 1950 respectively.[27]
Unlike Punjab, where a full population exchange between Punjabi Muslims and Punjabi Sikhs/Punjabi Hindus during partition happened, the same complete population exchange did not happen in Bengal (their population transfer between Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims was gradually slower due to occurrence of less violence); overall it was one-sided i.e. most of the Bengali Hindus left East Bengal, but most of the Bengali Muslims didn't leave West Bengal.[28] During Partition, Hindu Mahasabha leader Shyama Prasad Mukherjee has demanded full exchange of population: that is, an exchange of the Bengali Muslim population of West Bengal with that of Bengali Hindus of East Bengal, but it didn't happen due to lack of interest of Central Government leaders of that time.[29][30] Presently, only 8 percent of Bangladesh (then East Bengal) is Hindu, whereas West Bengal is still 27 percent Muslim, compared to 25 percent at the time of Partition.[31]
1960[edit]
An estimated one million Hindu refugees had entered West Bengal by 1960, and close to 700,000 Muslims left for East Pakistan. The refugee influx in Bengal was also accompanied by the fact that the government was less prepared to rehabilitate them, which resulted in huge housing and sanitation problems for the millions, most of whom were owners of large property back in East Bengal.[32]
1964[edit]
During East Pakistan riot of 1964, it is estimated according to Indian authorities, 135,000 Hindu refugees arrived in West Bengal from East Pakistan, and the Muslims started to migrate to East Pakistan from West Bengal. According to Pakistani figures, by early April, 83,000 Muslim refugees had arrived from West Bengal.[33]
1971[edit]
In 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War against Pakistan, a large group of refugees numbering an estimated 7,235,916 arrived from Bangladesh to India's West Bengal. Nearly 95% of them were Bengali Hindus and, after Independence of Bangladesh, nearly 1,521,912 people belonging to Bengali Hindu refugees decided to stay back in West Bengal.[34] The Bangladeshi Hindus were mainly settled in Nadia, North 24 parganas and South 24 parganas district of West Bengal after 1971.[35]
In popular culture[edit]
Chinnamul (The Uprooted) a 1950 Bengali film directed by Nemai Ghosh, first dealt with the theme of partition of Bengal. This was followed by Ritwik Ghatak's trilogy, Meghe Dhaka Tara (Cloud-covered stars) (1960), Komal Gandhar (1961), and Subarnarekha (1962), all dealing with the aftermath of the partition.[65] Deepa Mehta's (2012) film adaptation of Salman Rushdie's (1981) novel Midnight's Children captures the uncertainty of partition in both the Punjab and Bengal context, subsequent violence, the transition of independent India and Pakistan stripped of British rule, and the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 from West Pakistan. The film Rajkahini (2015) directed by Srijit Mukherji is based on the theme of partition of Bengal in 1947. Tanvir Mokammel's (2017) documentary Seemantorekha (The Borderline) "documents the journey of four individuals to their erstwhile homes in Bangladesh and West Bengal".[66]
There are other contemporary films as well that captures the aftermath of partition, however, mostly set in the context of Punjab and other parts of the subcontinent. Notably, Chandraprakash Dwivedi's (2003) period drama titled Pinjar, based on the Punjabi novel of the same name by Amrita Pritam, portrays the horrors of partition, communal violence, and the predicament of women during the years preceding and succeeding 1947. The film Manto (2018) directed by Nandita Das on the life of the Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto portrayed the impact of partition, mass displacement, and communal violence in the northern and western parts of the Indian subcontinent. The web series Jubliee (2023) created by Vikramaditya Motwane and Soumik Sen, featuring Prosenjit Chatterjee, Aparshakti Kurana, and Aditi Rao Hydari depicted the partition of India and its impact on cities like Lucknow and Bombay with communal riots and mass frenzy.