SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PARTITION OF BENGAL

The Partition of Bengal 1905

A masterpiece of Curzon’s internal policy was the partition of Bengal into two provinces of Bengal proper and eastern Bengal and Assam in 1905.

The provinces of Bengal at the time comprised Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Curzon described the partition as ‘a mere readjustment of administrative boundaries’. It was explained that the Eastern districts of Mymen Sings and Backergange divisions were notorious for lawlessness and crime and the police arrangement was unable to cope with the situation. The lieutenant Governor who was in charge of the extensive areas could not properly look after these extensive areas. Besides there had been historical precedents of the creation of separate administrative units, as the setting up of Northwest Provinces in 2865 and separation of Assam under a high commissioner in 1874.

The new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam was to include Assam and the divisions of Dacca, Rajshahi and Chittagong.

The opposition to the partition of Bengal was great and vocal. The Bengal intelligentsia took it to be a subtle attack upon the growing solidarity of Bengali nationalism, an attempt to undermine the traditions, history and language of the Bengalis. The nationalists pointed out that the scheme was devised to divide the people on the basis of religion and to put the Muslims against the Hindus. Lord Curzon explained that one object of the partition proposal was to create a Mohammedan province where Islam could be predominant and its followers in ascendency.

Far more offensive was the manner in which the proposal of partition was carried out in the teeth of public opposition. The viceroy described the popular agitation as ‘partly unscrupulous and partly misinformed’, while Sir Andrew Fraser, the lieutenant Governor, attributed the agitation to vested interests of two provincial classes, the Calcutta Bar who feared a setback to other work due to the creation of a separate court at Dacca and the Calcutta journalists who feared the possibility of new newspapers being published from Dacca. Lord Morley, the new Secretary of State, declared in 1905 that the partition was a ‘settled fact’.

It was suggested to the government that united Bengal could be placed under a governor with a separate executive council as in Madras and Bombay. The viceroy turned down the proposal as unsatisfactory. Probably the best solution could be, what was done six years later, the separation of non-Bengali speaking parts of Bihar and Orissa from Bengal proper.

Sentiments on both sides clouded the real issue and poisoned the political atmosphere.  The partition was forced at a psychological moment, the year of Japan’s victory over Russia. The Indian opinion was utterly disregarded.

Curzon made it a prestige issue and decided not to yield to pressure. Bengali youth accepted it as a challenge to their nationalism and pledged to undo it.

Recent researches have proved that Curzon’s main motives were political and Machiavellian, to undermine the solidarity of politically advanced Bengalis and at lessening the political influence of Calcutta in Indian affairs. In a private confidential letter to the Secretary of State on 17 February 1904, Curzon wrote ‘If we are weak enough to yield to their clamor now, we shall not be able to dismember or reduce Bengal again and you will be cementing and solidifying, on the Eastern flanks of India, a force already formidable and certain to be a source of increasing trouble in future’.

The partition of Bengal, whatever its justification from the administrative viewpoint, was a cardinal blunder of Curzon. It embittered Indo British relations. It created a breach between Muslims and Hindus for the Muslims thought that they had been deprived by the Hindus of the opportunities possible from a Muslim majority province. However, the partition and the resultant agitation gave a great fillip to the nationalist movement. The annulment of the partition in 1911 gave India a ‘sense of power’, besides inculcating love for swadeshi.