Partition of Bengal (1905)

The first Partition of Bengal (1905) was a territorial reorganization of the Bengal Presidency implemented by the authorities of the British Raj. The reorganization separated the largely Muslim eastern areas from the largely Hindu western areas. Announced on 19 July 1905 by Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy of India, and implemented on 16 October 1905, it was undone a mere six years later.

Quotes

• This benevolent action, combined with certain privileges granted to Mohammedans, was supposed by many Hindus to have encouraged the Nawab and his co-religionists in taking a still more favourable view of the Partition itself.
• “Priestly Mullahs went through the country preaching the revival of Islam and proclaiming to the villagers that the British Government was on the Mohammedan side, that the Law Courts had been specially suspended for three months and no penalty would be exacted for violence done to the Hindus, or for the loot of Hindu shops or the abduction of Hindu widows. A Red Pamphlet was everywhere circulated maintaining the same wild doctrine… In Comilla, Jamalpur and a few other places, rather serious riots occurred. A few lives were lost, temples desecrated, images broken, shops plundered, and many widows carried off. Some of the towns were deserted, the Hindu population took refuge in any pukka houses, women spent nights hidden in tanks, the crime known as ‘group-rape’ increased and throughout the country districts, there reigned a general terror, which still prevailed at the time of my visit.”
• Some two years after his departure from India Lord Curzon wrote to the Times that it was " a wicked falsehood " to say that by the Partition he intended to carve out a Mohammedan State, to drive a wedge between Mohammedan and Hindu, or to arouse racial feuds. Certainly no one would willingly accuse another of such desperate wickedness, but a statesman of better judgment might have foreseen that, not a racial, but a religious feud would probably be the result of the measure.
  • (East Bengal, 1907) Reported by H.W. Nevison, The New Spirit in India, London, 1908, p. 192 and 193.[1]

• “Ye Musalmans, arise, awake! Do not read in the same schools with the Hindus. Do not touch any article manufactured by the Hindus. Do not give any employment to the Hindus. Do not accept any degrading office under a Hindu. You are ignorant, but if you acquire knowledge you can send all Hindus to Jahannum (Hell). You form the majority of the population in this province. The Hindu has no wealth of his own and has made himself rich only by despoiling you of your wealth. If you become sufficiently enlightened, the Hindus will starve and soon become Mohammedans.”
  • Lal Ishtahãr (Red Pamphlet) [of Samiullah, the Nawab of Dacca] which was circulated all over Bengal in the wake of the first Muslim League meeting at Dacca in December 1906. Cited in R.C. Majumdar (ed.), History and Culture of the Indian People, Volume XI, Bombay, 1978, p.54.

• The imperialist motive behind this move was exposed by an English officer, Sir Henry Cotton, himself : ‘‘The object of the measure was to shatter the unity and to disintegrate the feelings of solidarity which are established in the province. It was no administrative reason that lay at the root of this scheme. It was part and parcel of Lord Curzon’s policy to enfeeble the growing power and to destroy the political tendencies of a patriotic spirit.’ The Statesman, the English-owned daily from Calcutta, also laid bare the true colour of the partition plan when it justified the measure editorially by asserting that it was intended “‘to foster in Eastern Bengal the growth of Mohammedan power which, it is hoped, will have the effect of keeping in check the rapidly growing strength of the Hindu community.’’In his letter to Brodrick in 1904, Curzon wrote : ‘If we are weak enough to yield to their clamour now, we shall not be able to dismember or reduce Bengal again; and you will be cementing and solidifying, on the eastern flank of India, a force almost formidable, and certain to be a source of increasing trouble in the future.’’
  • Sir H. Cotton, Statesman in Metha and Patwardhan, Communal Triangle, 64; Curzon in RC Majumdar Struggle for freedom vol XI 22-4. quoted from The Tragic Story of Partition (1982)

• The Partition of Bengal and the foundation of the Muslim League widened the cleavage between the Hindus and the Muslims. The passionate outburst against the Partition which was noticed not only all over Bengal, but more or less all over India, was in striking contrast to the delight with which the Muslim League welcomed the measure. It undoubtedly gave great offence to the Hindus to see that the way in which Government practically disregarded the wishes of the entire Bengali community found support in u section of the population. The Partition was not merely an administrative measure ; it was a deliberate outrage upon public sentiment. But even more than this, it brought to the forefront a great political issue namely, whether India was to be governed autocratically without any regard to the sentiments and opinions of the people, or on the enlightened principles professed by the British rulers. Looked at from this point of view, the Partition invited a trial of strength between the people and the bureaucracy. It was a momentous issue far transcending the mere wishes and opinions or even the interests of once community or another. It was a national issue of vital importance and the attitude of the Muslims naturally constituted one of the greatest shocks to the national sentiments in India. 227ff
  • R.C. Majumdar History Of The Freedom Movement In India, vol I.