The First Bangladesh
The arrival in Calcutta of Lord Curzon’s daughter Lady Alexandra Metcalfe, to study on behalf of the British “Save the Children Fund.” The condition of refugee children from Bangladesh, compels one to ponder over the far reaching effects of certain actions.
It is possible that if her father’s partition of Bengal in 1905 had not been rescinded in 1911 there might have been no Pakistan and consequently no Bangladesh. Curzon was, and still is, accused of being actuated by the desire to “divide and rule” and the anti-partition agitation was and still is termed the first national movement. How far do facts bear out the accusation against Curzon and how “national” was the movement?
In regard to the accusation the fact is that the proposal for partition greatly predated Curzon’s appointment as Viceroy. In fact, as early as 1896 the Chief Commissioner of Assam had suggested the transfer of Chittagong, Dacca and Mymensingh to Assam. It may be recalled at this point that the “Bengal Province” of that period consisted of Bihar, Orissa, Chota Nagpur, West and East Bengal and Assam under a Chief Commissioner but part of the Bengal Province.
Thus suggested moved so slowly within the Secretariat that it was not brought to Curzon’s notice till May, 1902 Outraged by the delay, he wrote one of his most famous minutes :
“I really feel disposed to ask : is there no such thing as a Head of the Government, and what are secretaries for but to keep him acquainted with the administration? … People sometimes ask what departmentalism is. To any such I give this as an illustration. Departmentalism is not a moral delinquency. It is an intellectual hiatus- the complete absence of thought or apprehension of anything outside the purely departmental aspects of the matter under discussion. For fourteen months it never occurred to a single human being in the department to mention the matter or to suggest that it should be mentioned Round and round like the diurnal revolution of the earth went the file, stately, solemn, sure and slow : and now in due season it has completed its orbit and I am invited to register its concluding stage.”
Agreeing that the existing boundaries in Bengal were in his own words “antiquated illogical and productive of inefficiency” he agreed to the proposal and wrote. “I would like to fix the provincial boundaries for the next generation”. The first scheme was then put into shape and published on December 12, 1903. The Chittagong, Dacca and Mymensingh Divisions were added to Assam : Sambalpur and some Feudatory States from the Central Provinces the Ganiam District and the Ganiam and Vizagapatam Agency Tracts from Madras were added to Bengal : and Chota Nagpur added to the Central Provinces.
In Bengal this scheme pleased one. The Hindu leaders of Eastern Bengal, whose spiritual home was Calcutta objected not only to separation from Calcutta but even more strongly, to becoming part of the backward province of Assam. The Hindu leaders of Western Bengal looked on it as diminishing the prosperity and status of Calcutta; and the Muslim leaders of Eastern Bengal considered it against their interests to be transferred from being governed by a Lt. Governor with a Legislative Council, in which they had some representation to a Chief Commissioner in Assam. The illiterate masses of both communities were unaware and unconcerned with such administrative changes.
Disappointed at the adverse reaction to a measure which he considered beneficial to all interest, Curzon decided to study on the spot the case for and against the proposal. In Dacca Hindu and Muslim delegations presented addresses setting out their objections. To these he gave a joint reply Referring to the Hindu objections, he said :
“… The population of the entire area in Bengal which it is proposed to transfer amounts to 111/2 millions of people. The entire population of Assam is 6 millions as it is and of this nearly 3 millions are Bengalis already. Do you mean to tell me that these 141/2 millions of Bengalis representing as you tell me, the flower of the race, are going to be absorbed, obliterated and destroyed, because it is proposed to amalgamate with them for administrative purpose only, less than 11/2 millions only of a race, i.e., the Assamese, which you declare to be in every way inferior to your own.”
Addressing the Muslims he used arguments on which the accusation against him is based: ” When then a proposal is put forward which would make Dacca the center and possibly the capital of a new and self-sufficing administration … which would invest the Mahomedens of Eastern Bengal with a unity they have not enjoyed since the days of the old Musalman Viceroy and kings … and which would go far to revive the traditions which the historical students assure us once attached to the Kingdom of Eastern Bengal… can it be that the people of these districts are to be adfice all these … advantages from fear of being tied on to the tail of the humble and backward Assam?”
Whether such words, uttered before an audience of both Hindus and Muslims were arguments for support or an incitement to division must be left to individual judgements. But it may be considered doubtful if the very mild political demands of that period, when the British Raj was never so strong and so firmly entrenched, would have worried Curzon sufficiently to move him to embark on such a heroic journey. measure of “divide and rule”
Lord Curzon returned even more convinced that a Lt-Governor with his headquarters at Calcutta could not possibly administer such distant and populous areas with their own peculiar problems. But he also appreciated that there was force in some of the points raised by both Hindus and Muslims. He therefore worked out a scheme which he considered met all the objections. This new scheme established a new Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, with its own Lt-Governor and Legislative Council with its Capital at Dacca, and comprising a population of 31 million of whom 18 million were Muslims and 12 million were Hindus.
In 1911 the Partition was rescinded. It is of course idle to speculate, but it is difficult not to wonder, if the Muslims of Eastern Bengal had been granted a majority province, in the same way that the Sikhs in present day Punjab have been granted their province, whether Eastern Bengal would have joined Pakistan. Even without their province, on the eve of the Partition of India, Suhrawardy, on behalf of the Muslims and Sarat Chandra Bose, on behalf of the Hindus, agreed on the formation of an independent and united Bengal. Jinnah agreed, but the Congress leaders did not.
“The evil that men do live after them. The good is often interred with their bones.” M. R. A. BAIG
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 11.07.1971