Partition Of Bengal

Introduction The opening years of the twentieth century were stormy. That was the time when the greatest disaster of history took place. The political situation was undergoing a change. The British were beginning to feel a bit uneasy. Discontentment was brewing. Political discontent was growing due to the inability of the government to organize effective relief during the period of plague and famine. Partition: Lord Curzon, the viceroy of India decided to partition Bengal for administrative purposes, creating a new province of East Bengal and Assam, with a population of 31 million people and with its capital at Dhaka. The Brahmaputra and the Padma (the Ganges) rivers physically defined this first partition of Bengal. East Bengal prospered, Dhaka assumed its old status as capital and Chittagong became an important sea port.

Anti-Partition Movement: The partition of Bengal led many youths to resort to arms. In different parts of the country a number of secret societies sprang up, particularly in Bengal and Maharashtra. To terrorize the British officers, they trained members, mostly students in the use of firearms. In this, Aurobindo Ghosh and his associates Bengal and one Chapekar brother and the Savarkar brothers in Maharashtra were quite active. By assassinating unpopular British officials and their Indian agents, their main method was to spread terror.

Education: One manifestation of the Swadeshi spirit was the Indianisation of education. There was a feeling that along with the boycott of British goods the students should turn to their own culture and tradition. English education only resulted in alienation from their roots.. From boycott of British goods the next step was boycott of the Calcutta University. Alternatives had to be worked out. The National Education movement gathered momentum, but there

were serious differences of opinion about what measures should be adopted.

National Flag On August 7, 1906, the first anniversary of the anti-partition movement, a big rally was organised at Parsi Bagan Square (Greer Park) in Calcutta. For the first time a tricolour flag was unfurled there.

Literature The sufferings of the motherland and the passion for independence inspired many Bengali writers, novelists, poets and play weights to show their protest against the colonial rule. The turbulent movement against the partition of Bengal came in the sphere of drama and plays too

Conclusion The Partition of Bengal indeed marks a turning point in the history of nationalism in India. It may be said that it was out of the travails of

Bengal that Indian nationalism was born. By the same token the agitation against the partition and the terrorism that it generated was one of the main factors which gave birth to Muslim nationalism and encouraged them to engage in separatist politics.