United Bengal Plan, Partition of Bengal "EMPOWER IAS"

 

In news:

• In a recent election rally, a politician spoke about the contributions of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in the making of West Bengal immediately after independence.

 

The United Bengal plan

• A most striking aspect of the Partition of Bengal was the fact that the same people, who had vociferously opposed the 1905 partition of the region by Lord Curzon, were the ones who demanded the division of the province on communal lines.
• One way to understand this is by noting the fact that the communal skirmishes that had started in 1905, reached its peak by 1947.
• But there was also the fact that Bengal politics changed dramatically in 1932 with the introduction of the Communal Award.
• It gave more seats in the Legislative Council to Muslims than Hindus. It also provided separate electorates for the Dalits.
• Consequently, Bengali Hindus ceased to be as significant and visible in provincial politics as they were before.
• What further aggravated the situation was the communal violence in Calcutta in August 1946 and those in Noakhali just seven weeks later.

 

Mukherjee and the Plan

• Mukherjee, who was president of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha between 1943 and 1946, is known to have been the man behind the Partition of Bengal in 1947.
• Calcutta riots (1947) led the Hindu Mahasabha under Mukherjee to put forward the demand for dividing Bengal on religious grounds.
• He was one of the strongest voices to have opposed the united Bengal plan of the Bengal provincial League leader and PM Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy.
• As per the plan, Bengal would be a separate nation, independent from both India and Pakistan.

 

Debate over partition

• In the meantime Suhrawardy along with few other top Bengal politicians like Sarat Bose and K.S. Roy came up with an alternative for the Partition.
• They argued for a united Bengal, independent from India and Pakistan.
• Suhrawardy had realized that the Partition of Bengal would mean economic disaster for East Bengal since all jute mills, coal mines and industrial plants would go to the western part of the state.
• Suhrawardy argued strongly for a united Bengal because Bengal was indivisible in view of its ‘economic integrity, mutual reliance and the necessity of creating a strong workable state.

 

Why did Mukherjee oppose the united Bengal plan?

• The Hindu Mahasabha under Mukherjee spearheaded a fierce attack against the united Bengal scheme, which he thought would force Hindus to live under Muslim domination.
• He further defended the Partition to the Viceroy by drawing upon Jinnah’s two-nation theory.
• Finally, for Mukherjee, the idea of a united Bengal was not appealing because he believed that a ‘sovereign undivided Bengal would be a virtual Pakistan’.
• Eventually, the idea of a united Bengal failed to garner sufficient support from among the Muslim League and the Congress.
• It also did not find sufficient support from the grassroots as most Hindus favoured the Partition of Bengal.

 

The Partition of Bengal

• In July 1905, Curzon announced the partition of the undivided Bengal Presidency.
• The Presidency was the most populous province in India, with around 8 crore people, and comprised the present-day states of West Bengal, Bihar, parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Assam, as well as today’s Bangladesh.
• A new province of East Bengal and Assam was announced, with a population of 3.1 crore, and a Muslim-Hindu ratio of 3:2. Bengal, the western province, was overwhelmingly Hindu.
• While the move was ostensibly aimed at making the administration of the large region easier, Curzon’s real intentions were far less benign.

 

Aftermath of the partition

• The partition provoked great resentment and hostility in Bengal.
• It was clear to the Bengal Congress and patriotic Indians in both Bengal and elsewhere that Curzon’s motive was to crush the increasingly loud political voices of the literate class in the province, and to provoke religious strife and opposition against them.
• But the protests against the partition did not remain confined to this class alone.
• A campaign to boycott British goods, especially textiles, and promote swadeshi began.
• There were marches and demonstrations with the protesters singing Bande Mataram to underline their patriotism and challenge the colonialists.
• Samitis emerged throughout Bengal, with several thousand volunteers.
• Rabindranath Tagore led the marches at many places, and composed many patriotic songs, most famously ‘Amar Sonar Bangla’ (My Golden Bengal), which is now the national anthem of Bangladesh.
• The message of patriotism and Bengali nationalism was showcased in Jatras, or popular theatre.