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PHASE III - 1905-1918 GATHERING STORM

PARTITION OF BENGAL

A people's proclamation

against partition

PROCLAMATION

Whereas the Government has thought fit

to effectuate the Partition of Bengal in spite

of the universal protest of the Bengali nation.

We hereby pledge and proclaim that we as

people shall do everything in our power to

counteract the evil effects of the dismember-

ment of our Province and to maintain the

integrity of our race. So help us God.

1, Nov 1905.

The main aim of the partition was to divide

the Bengali population and to weaken the

nationalist movement of which Bengal was

the nerve centre.

The British also wanted to disrupt

Hindu-Muslim unity by convincing the up-

per class Muslims that the newly created

province was in their interest.

However, it only brought all sections of

the people in Bengal together into an un-

precedented mass movement which soon

spread to all parts of the country.

The Indian National Congress con-

demned the inclusion of Chittagong division

and Dacca and Mymensing districts of As-

sam in its annual sessions of 1903 and 1904.

The vernacular newspapers published from

Calcutta started to project before the public

the bleak future of the Bengalis in the event of

partition.

The anti-partition agitation took a mili-

tant shape on 7 Aug 1905 when thousands

of people at Calcutta resolved to boycott

British goods until the partition proposal

was withdrawn. The partition came into

force on 16 Oct 1905. This day was ob-

served as a day of national mourning.

Rabindranath Tagore in his poetic lan-

guage wrote

“Bengal is going to be servered by

law on 30th Asvin but God has not

separated them; remembering this and

for proclaiming this, we shall observe

the day as a day of unity for Bengalees

and as a token of that shall tie yellow

threads on the wrists of one another,

saying ‘brothers shall not separate

’ ”.

Gokhale, presiding over the Benares

Congress, referred to the partition as a ‘a

cruel wrong

’ and ‘a

complete illustration of

the worst features of the present system of bu-

reaucratic rule: its utter contempt for public

opinion, its arrogant pretensions to superior

wisdom, its reckless disregard of the most

cherished feelings of the people... its cool

preference of service interests to those of the

governed.

’

Lord Curzon's scheme of partition was

being opposed at every stage at public meet-

ings and in newspapers in Calcutta and all

over Bengal. The

Bengalee

edited by Suren-

dranath published on 7 July a leading article

under the caption, ‘A

Grave National Disas-

ter

’ which ‘

forewarned the Government of an

impending national struggle of the greatest

magnitude in case the Government did not

reverse their decision.'

The

Sanjivani

wrote, ‘

Lord Curzon has

thrown a shaft at the heart of the Bengalis....

so long as the Bengali race is alive, they will

suffer from this pang.... Lord Curzon will

convert Bengal into a second Ireland.

’

This partition of Bengal called forth all

the latent forces of nationalism which had

been gathering for years. The protest took the

form of the Swadeshi movement which merged

itself into an all-India national struggle for

achieving freedom from the British yoke.

The continuing unity of Bengal in spite of

the partition was symbolised by the proposal

to construct

"Banga Bhavan "

and the raising

of a fund for the manufacture of indigenous

cotton textiles.

Thus

"the very weapon that Lord Curzon

employed to destroy the unity of Bengal,

worked by God's will to sow the seeds of

national consciousness in India

The British convinced themselves that

they were doing the Indians a great favour by

subjecting them to its benign control. The

attitude was best expressed by the poet,

Rudyard Kipling when, in 1899, he called

upon his countrymen back home to

Take up the White Man's Burden

Send forth the best ye breed

To bind your sons to exile

To serve your captive's need.

Just about this time, Lord Curzon came to

India as the Viceroy. He regarded the Con-

gress as an unmitigated evil. ‘My

own belief

he remarked in 1900,

‘is that the Congress is

tottering to its fall and one of my great ambi-

tions while in India is to assist it to a peaceful

demise

’. Lord Curzon's attempts to establish

control over the universities and municipali-

ties created great discontent and provoked

keen protest all over India.

Realising the possible political unity

among the Bengalis, Curzon apprehended a

future source of danger and devised a means

of nipping it in the bud and decided to consti-

tute two provinces in charge of Lt. Governors.

The ferment of extremism had already

begun to work. Curzon's policy only quick-

ened its growth. He started to plan the future

of nearly eight crores of his subjects who

inhabited the Bengal Presidency. The Presi-

dency, which covered Bihar and Orissa be-

sides Bengal, was too large to be managed

properly. There were a number of possible

solutions to the problem, but Curzon chose

the one that would hit the Western educated

Bengali Hindus.

On 19 July 1905, Curzon announced the

partition of Bengal into two provinces. East-

ern Bengal and Assam and the rest of Bengal

which included Bihar and parts of Orissa.