October 16, 1905: A Forgotten Date of Indian/Bengali History

October 16, 1905: A Forgotten Date of Indian/Bengali History [1]

Sachi G. Dastidar

October 16 is a very important date in the Indian calendar but very few people in the Subcontinent — India, Bangladesh or Pakistan — will remember this day as mythology- and ancient tradition-influenced Hindu culture is not readily influenced by date-specific historic events. On that day one hundred years ago in 1905 the Colonial British Administration mandated a Muslim-Hindu (non-Muslim) partition of mixed, tolerant Bengal Province in eastern India when there was no such demand from either community. In Indian history this date is possibly more profound than 9/11 for America, but very few in the Subcontinent talk about that. This is may also be the beginning of the modern Islamist movement of the world. In the late 1800s and early 1900s Calcutta, the British Colonial capital, and Bengal of which Calcutta was also the capital, was leading an intense struggle for Indian independence joined by India’s diverse religious and linguistic groups — Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Brahmo. Bengal was then evenly divided between Muslim and non-Muslim. Colonial ruler Lord Curzon devised a divide-and-rule policy to create a cleavage among Indians, starting with the Bengalis first. He proposed the creation of a majority-Muslim East Bengal Province with extra privileges for ‘backward Muslims,’ and a Hindu-majority (West) Bengal. The British Raj sanctioned huge sums of money to a non-native Urdu-speaking Muslim landlord, Nawab Salimullah, of Dhaka of East Bengal, now Bangladesh, to promote an anti-independence Muslim League Party to counter the more numerous Hindus and other non-Muslims in the independence struggle. After an intense effort by mostly-non-Muslim Indians of the entire Subcontinent the province was reunited in 1912 but that communal impetus gave rise to intolerant, separatist Islamism. Muslim-non-Muslim killings became ‘a part of life’ in Bengal and Indian Subcontinent. Success of the first ever use of divide-and-rule policy would make Britain use that tool later in Ireland, Cyprus, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Other European colonial powers would use similar policies elsewhere. The Islamism that the British Raj nurtured in Indian soil eventually partitioned Bengal in 1947, almost along the same geographical line that Curzon devised in 1905, along with partitioning of India, Punjab, Assam and Kashmir and creation of Islamic Pakistan and Bangladesh. One could easily argue that this was the beginning of the making of the minds of extremism. Ironically for the creation of these Islamic states another October 16 in 1946, is intimately associated with. To galvanize public opinion for Muslim-non-Muslim partition of India a ghastly anti-Hindu pogrom was initiated on a Hindu holy day in its remote eastern Noakhali district when Bengal’s Muslim League Premier Surahwardy was in charge of the province. British Army and Police watched as thousands of Hindus were killed and tens of thousands of girls and wives were converted which is known as Noakhali Danga pogrom. Gandhiji went to Noakhali to stop that carnage. This killing followed the August 16 Hindu-Muslim killing also in 1946, known as Great Calcutta Killing, as the British Police, Premier Surahwardy and Calcutta Mayor Osman (Usman) remained in the sidelines. Yet in the typical Indian, Bengali or Hindu psyche there in neither any memorial to those carnages nor to the millions of people killed in the 1947 pre- and post-partition-related violence. Today in Bengal there won’t be any commemoration for that British-invented event that has had untold human sufferings and enormous geo-political impact as Bangladesh is run by a coalition of pro-Islam, pro-Taliban parties and West Bengal by hard-line communists. Since the second British partition of Bengal in 1947 Bangladeshi Hindus have come down from a third of the population to below 10% now, a loss of over 48 million people from Bangladeshi Census! Minority Muslim populations in both Hindu-majority West Bengal and India have risen since 1947; yet feels vulnerable by that partition. On this important day let us take a moment to pray for the innocent victims of that Colonial 9/11. Let us hope that such divisiveness would never be used for national governance.

[1] From a Calcutta, India newspaper

Centenary of Colonial Religious Bengal Partition: 2005

Centenary of Colonial Religious Partition [1]

Sachi G. Dastidar

A century ago today, October 16, 1905, the Colonial British Administration in India partitioned a multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, tolerant Bengal into a ‘Muslim’ East Bengal and ‘Hindu’ West Bengal: sort of bureaucratic 9/11 in India with devastating long-term consequences. Its polarizing result was the rise of intolerant Islam and religious politics that the British Administration promoted till it resulted in the partition of India and Bengal in 1947. (Indian provinces of Assam, Punjab and Kashmir were also partitioned.) In 1905 Bengal was not much different from the rest of Colonial India in terms of her Muslim-non-Muslim relation — which was rather amicable — but for its intense pro-Indian independence activism. Bengal of eastern India was the first to be colonized by the British, and she was the first to rebel against colonial slavery. In Bengal, Muslims and Hindus, with their small Buddhist and Christian cousins, shared not only the language but also religious festivals, dress, music, food and social bond. A large number of Bengali Hindus, Brahmos, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists — scholars, social reformers, spiritualists, nationalists, poets, musicians — from early 1800s to mid-1900s championed Mother India’s freedom. Among them were Raja Ram Mohon, Vidyasagar, Bankim Chandra, Rabindranath Tagore, W.C. Bonerjea, Vivekananda, Michael Madhusudan, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Sri Aurobindo, Begum Rokeya and Pritilata Waddedar. Lord Curzon witnessing the rise of Indian nationalism devised the first Colonial divide-and-rule policy by enticing a non-native Urdu-speaking Muslim feudal lord, Nawab Salimullah, of Dhaka, now the capital of Bangladesh, to promote a Muslim party against Indian independence movement with huge funds — 300,000 rupees — from the treasury. He argued that Bengal was too large to govern from its capital Calcutta, also India’s capital then, but no explanation was given why a geographical separation was not proposed instead of communal division when every village was inhabited by Muslims and Hindus. Curzon also proposed to give some favors to ‘backward Muslims’ instead of proposing a one-man one-vote democracy which could have brought Muslim-majority to power through ballot box. Moreover, there were other large provinces which were not partitioned. After much agitation by mostly non-Muslim poets, writers and activists Bengal was reunited in 1912 but that partition would energize a separatist, intolerant Islamist movement and a separatist Muslim identity that would take millions of lives and displace tens of millions from East Bengal, now called Bangladesh, alone. By 1947 the East Bengali Muslim majority would became a champion of partition of India. At India’s independence in 1947 Bengal was partitioned following the same 1905 British-invented line. Later Britain would use divide-and-rule from North Ireland to South Africa, from Ceylon to Cyprus. That tolerant Muslim East Bengal of 1905 is now Bangladesh where ‘Islam is the Official Religion’ with pro-Taliban parties as ruling partners, and West Bengal is a state of India run by hard-line Bangladeshi Hindu privileged-caste bhadralok refugee communists. Since that fateful day in 1905 Muslim-non-Muslim conflict became routine in the Subcontinent. On the eve of India’s independence in 1946, also on October 16, on the auspicious Hindu Lakhsmi Puja day a ghastly anti-Hindu pogrom began in the eastern Noakhali district under the watchful eyes of British Raj, Colonial Army, Bengal’s Muslim League Premier Suhrawady and it’s capital Calcutta’s (Muslim) Mayor Osman to polarize the nation. The pogrom was led by a Muslim Legislator Golam Sarwar that took life of thousands of Hindus and tens of thousands of Hindu girls and wives were abducted and converted. The pogrom followed a Muslim-Hindu riot in Calcutta two months earlier. Both these killings were to convince the British Raj and Indian public that Muslims and non-Muslims cannot live together. Successive anti-Hindu pogroms in East Pakistan/ Bangladesh have dwindled her Hindu minority from a third of the population in 1947 to less than 10% now resulting in over 48 million ‘missing from the Census.’ Minority Muslim population in Hindu-majority West Bengal has risen from 18% to 26% in spite of massive influx of Hindu refugees from Bangladesh. With the steady rise of intolerant Saudi Islamism in Bangladesh (Pakistan and Afghanistan) for the past 100 years common tradition of festivities, literature, food and dress have been changing with serious repercussion for non-Muslims and secularist Muslims. Ironically in 1971 the same Islamically-charged East Bengal/East Pakistan, then the majority of Pakistan, rebelled for a secular state — first ever by a Muslim-majority nation — opposed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, other Muslim nations, China and the Administration of President Nixon-Kissinger. In 1975 Islamists took revenge by brutally murdering the pro-secular Founding Father Mujibur Rahman with 25 others of his family and friends, many there believe, with our support. In a twist of fate from that British-created event, tragedies hit British soil exactly 100 years later in July of this year through the children of Britain’s former intolerant allies. Spirit of Curzon must be wondering if Britain would have been better off with ethnically cleansed, religiously pure society or with pluralism and tolerance.

[1] News-India Times (a New York weekly), October 14, 2005; 2-3

1905 Bengal Partition Commemorative Petition; 2005

Committee to Commemorate Banga-Vanga (Partition of Bengal) Centenary
New York City
October 16, 2005

On this day, October 16, one hundred years ago in 1905, the Colonial British Administration mandated a Muslim-Hindu (Non-Muslim) partition of Bengal Province in British India ushering in the rise of intolerant religiosity and communal politics over the past 100 years. This event is commonly known in the Indian Subcontinent as Banga-Vanga or Partition of Bengal into a Muslim-majority East Bengal and a Hindu-majority West Bengal. With minor changes that Muslim-majority East Bengal is now Bangladesh where Islam is the State Religion and that Hindu-majority west is the West Bengal State of pluralistic, secular India.
A. Whereas before October 16, 1905 Bengal (and rest of British India, now Indian Subcontinent) was an area where Muslims and Hindus (non-Muslims) lived rather amicably;
B. Whereas prior to that engineered communal partition there were no demands for communal, sectarian, regional or racial separation between Muslims and Hindus from either of the communities who lived next to each other for hundreds of years or from any other segments of the society;
C. Whereas preceding that forced communal divide of majority-Muslim Bengal, as in rest of India, the religious-linguistic-ethnic communities had woven a composite culture where Muslims and Christians drew strengths from their ancient nature-worshipping, deity-worshipping Hindu-Buddhist-Jain roots while Muslims studied at Hindu tolls, just as Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs had drawn strengths from Muslim pirs (saints) and worshipped at those shrines, and many Hindu philanthropists establishing Muslim institutions;
D. Whereas 19th and early 20th Century Bengal was one of the leading players of India’s independence movement giving birth to numerous anti-colonial writers, intellectuals, poets, composers, saints and spiritualists — Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Brahmo, Buddhist — including Raja Ram Mohon, Vidyasagar, Bankim Chandra, Lalon Fakir, Rabindranath Tagore, Michael Madhusudan, Mir Mosharraf, Vivekananda, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Aswani Kumar, Sri Aurobindo, Atul Prasad, Rajani Kanto, Sarat Chandra, D. L. Roy, Swami Pranavananda, Rev. Lal Behari Dey, Begum Rokeya, Mukunda Das, Syruo Sen, Mohammad Shahidullah, Hasan Raja and Pritilata Waddedar;
E. Whereas Colonial British Administration devised a novel divide-and-rule policy testing in culturally homogeneous Bengal to create a schism among their colonized subjects which in later years will be tried from Ireland to Africa, and Asia to the Americas;
F. Whereas after an intense struggle from the citizens of Bengal and rest of India stretching from the Bay of Bengal to Baluchistan, the province was reunited in 1912, but Muslim-Hindu (non-Muslim) communal conflict became a part of life in Bengal (and in rest of the Subcontinent) while the Colonial Police and British Army remained in the sidelines;
G. Whereas the Muslim-Hindu (non-Muslim) fratricide and demands for Muslim-non-Muslim partition of India by then energized Muslim League Party intensified after a major riot that was organized in Calcutta, the capital of united Bengal, on August 16, 1946, then ruled by the Muslim League Premier Suhrawardy and Calcutta’s (Muslim) Mayor Osman, while the British Police remained a spectator;
H. Whereas 41 years later in 1946 on that exact same date, October 16, on the auspicious Hindu Lakhsmi Puja Day an intense anti-Hindu pogrom was organized by a Bengal Legislator Golam Sarwar with the Muslim League Premier Suhrawardy in the helm of the Province in the eastern Noakhali district taking thousands of lives and abduction of thousands of girls and wives, only stopped by a walking tour of unarmed ‘one-man army’ of Gandhi, while the British Police and Army remained in the sidelines;
I. Whereas 1905 led to 1946 and finally to August 15 of 1947 when Britain partitioned India into Muslim Pakistan (and East Bengal/Bangladesh), and non-Muslim India with loss of over 1½ million lives and displacement of tens of millions of people which continues to this day;
J. Whereas no one in the British Administration was punished for the 1905 forced communal partition of Bengal causing hundreds of thousands of lives lost, and no British Administrator, no Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi elite was held accountable for the loss of life and ethnic cleansing of minorities after 1947 partition of India which is still continuing;
K. Whereas the first two (Islamic) partitions — 1905 and 1947 — led to a third partition and independence of Bangladesh in 1971 when over 3 million people, including Muslims, were murdered by the Army of Islamic Republic of Pakistan and its Islamist Al-Badr and Razakar killer gangs; yet no one involved in that genocide mutating from the previous killings were reprimanded;
L. Whereas the result of the 1905 Bengal Partition has been the transformation of a tolerant composite Bengali culture in East Bengal/Bangladesh into one where millions of Hindu along with Buddhist and Christian minorities have lost their lives because of the uncalled for British action, and tens of millions non-Muslims have been forced to flee their homeland, while the rest of the world looks on. This divisive policy has made life of Muslim minorities in West Bengal vulnerable as well;
Thus, we the signatories of this appeal call upon:
The leaders of Bangladesh, Paschim Bangla (West Bengal), India, Great Britain, and rest of the world that no such action of religious, linguistic, ethnic divisive politics is acted upon;
The leaders of Bangladesh, West Bengal and India, to recognize the right of the displaced families and their descendants to return to their homeland and create a composite culture that Bengalis/Indians are known for;
The current leaders of Great Britain to offer an apology to the people and their families who have lost their loved ones or were victims of ethnic cleansing because of actions they initiated in 1905;
The leaders and peoples of Bangladesh and West Bengal to create Banga-Vanga museums highlighting the lives lost, futures destroyed, families displaced due to that deliberate British communal action, and actions of Bengalis themselves, so that our children and grandchildren would learn from that preserved lessons of history and introduce study of subject in the educational curriculum for all;
Bangladeshis, Indians, Americans and rest of the world to observe October 16 as Shuvo Sampriti Community Unity Day by reading stories of courage and sorrow of their families to act as guides of our past mistakes and for a brighter future;
The leaders of the Subcontinent (South Asia) to follow a path of peaceful resolution to solve future societal problems and to accept all faiths as their own, and guarantee freedom of religion for all;
All to condemn the July 2005 acts of terrorism in London — a consequence of the seed planted one hundred years ago in Bengal, India — and similar acts in partitioned India including West Bengal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and in other parts of the world;
Leaders, intellectuals and the common man to encourage victims and survivors of pogroms, riots, genocide and ethnic cleansing in former Bengal Province not to forget the past but to revisit their ancestral lands and share their families’ experiences with their new neighbors.
This petition will be delivered to:

Prime Minister of Bangladesh
Chief Minister of the State of Paschim Bangla (West Bengal)
Prime Minister of India
Prime Minister of Great Britain
Secretary General of the United Nations
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Contact:
Postal: .............. New York, U.S.A.
E-mail: BengalPartition1905@yahoo.com

Yours truly,

Name Signature Address

This petition was signed by hundreds of people around the world through the Internet and by signature in a hard copy and delivered to all the leaders mentioned as well as to the news media.