Get complete information on ‘Curzon’s Partition of Bengal

On 20 July 1905, Lord Curzon issued an order dividing the province of Bengal into two parts: Eastern Bengal and Assam with a population of 31 million and the rest of Bengal with a population of 54 million,

of whom 18 million were Bengalis and 36 million Biharis and Oriyas.

It was said that the existing province of Bengal was too big to be efficiently administered by a single provincial government.

However, the officials who worked out the plan had also other political ends in view. They hoped to stem the rising tide of nationalism in Bengal, considered at the time to be the nerve centre of Indian nationalism. The Indain National Congress and the nationalists of Bengal firmly opposed the partition.

Within Bengal, different sections of the population- zamindars, merchants, lawyers, students, the city poor, and even women – rose up in spontaneous opposition to the partition of their province.

The nationalists saw the act of partition as a challenge to Indian nationalism and not merely an administrative measure. The Anti-Partition Movement was the work of the entire national leadership of Bengal and not of any one section of the movement. Its most prominent leaders at the initial stage were moderate leaders like Surendranath Banerjee and Krishna Kumar Mitra; militant and revolutionary nationalists took over in the later stages.

Both the moderate and militant nationalists co-operated with one another during the course of the movement. The streets of Calcutta were full of the cries of ‘Bande Mataram’ which overnight became the national song of Bengal and which was soon to become the theme song of the national movement.

The ceremony of Raksha Bandhan was utilised in a new way. Hindus and Muslims tied the rakhi on one another’s wrists as a symbol of the unbreakable unity of the Bengalis and of the two halves of Bengal.

The cry of Swadeshi and Swaraj was so taken up by other provinces of India. Movements in support of Bengal’s unity and boycott of foreign goods were organised in Bombay, Madras and northern India. The leading role in spreading the Swadeshi Movement to the rest of the country was played by Tilak.

Tilak quickly saw that with the inauguration of this movement in Bengal, a new chapter in the history of Indian nationalism had opened. Here was a challenge and an opportunity to lead a popular struggle against the British Raj and to unite the entire country in one bond of common sympathy.