Bengal and its Partition : An Untold Story

by Bhaswati Mukherjee

As it revisits the partition—and indeed the long road to it—this book reveals some untold facts for a better understanding of our past, even as it holds a message for the future. My ancestral roots are in Bengal, a region that was left bleeding by the Partition of 1947. This is a narrative about the painful division of a beloved part of undivided India, The Partition of Bengal. I have often wondered if there can ever be closure to the Partition, not only in the generation who lived through the experience, but also the later generations who seem to subconsciously carry the burden of it. I wonder if we will ever be able to finally move on, leaving this painful National legacy behind. Yet, to know the answer to it, We must—like a time-traveller—go back into the past and look at history and historical events as they unfolded themselves to their final tragic conclusion. Bengal and its Partition tells the untold story of this province’s Partition. In the process, it answers profoundly some deeply relevant questions: was this a tragedy waiting to happen? Was Bengal's Partition inherent in its demographic and religious fault lines? Or was it a man-made plot, malicious conceived by the British; played out in Bengal in bloody acts of violence and slaughter? To move on, we can neither ignore nor deny the past which continues to throw a long shadow on our future.

Genres: History

224 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2021

Reviews

[Somnath Bandyopadhyay · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a non-fiction book, one cannot expect a totally untold story for a subject such as this! It's the nuance or the emphasis that may be "untold". In that sense, the gift of communalism by a colonial government to the people of Bengal is indeed "untold". We grow up thinking, based on our readings and experiences, that communalism existed which the colonial government exploited through its "divide et impera" policy. However, the author clearly brings out the mechanism of the Communal Award and separate electorates as colonial instruments designed to divide, a division that was not only artificial (given the history of coexistence of Hindu and Muslim communities in the region) but also farcical (given the subsequent events in East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh).

A secondary "untold" story, almost as a sub-text, is also discernible. This is the way local leadership of the day responded to the colonial design. However, this theme is not as well developed, and flits between the Hindu Bhadralok leadership steeped in its idealism, and the two broad strands of Muslim leadership - one representing the local underprivileged that is using religion to justify violence and base instincts, and the other representing the "external" elite that is using the religious sentiments as a broader bargaining chip in the national power equation.

In the midst of this complexity is a lone Gujarati, educated in England, supportive of colonial stooges, and yet yearning to claim the moral high ground as a Nation's compass. It is his dilemma in facing stark realities where religion is used to justify killings and rape on the one hand and the political demands for independent territory of the perpetrators on the other that stand out. His helplessness is depicted chillingly through the abduction and killing of Nirmala, a goat that fed the Mahatma, in Noakhali.

The author has tried very hard to claim the scholastic high ground through copious references in the entire text. This is unnecessary and rather contrived. With experience, perhaps, the author would begin to understand the relative importance of themes and perspectives and why good narratives are more important than elaborate justification. Look forward to more, even updated editions of the same book.

[Arup · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short recap of how Bengal was split: first, by the maligned intentions of the East India Co. (divide and rule) who engineered a communal split and second, by the incompetence of our rulers who made critical errors like accepting Separate Electorates (incompatible with a functioning democracy which was the aim) and third, personal aggrandizement and ambitions of the rulling elites (both INC and Muslim League) who allowed that split to deepen to form the Radcliffe line.

Partition was not inevitable and what happened from 1905 to 1947 is not just lamentable because of misery, displacement, loss of life and property (the Great Bengal Famine, the Calcutta killings, the Noakhali massacre) but also because it created an irreversible schism. Today there are 170mio+ people in Bangladesh and another 90mio+ in West Bengal. And this is not all of Bengal. There are another 10mio+ native bengalis in Assam, Tripura, Jharkhand as well. And I am not counting the 10mio+ bengali diaspora here. Without partition bengalis would be over 270mio+ strong - almost as big as the fourth largest country in the world Indonesia. Just think about it for a second. A force so strong divided by machinations and ineptitude.

[Anisur Mullick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good insight of the British autocracy after 1857, the way British implemented its "divide and rule" policies. Brief overview of how EIC get into Indian politics and took control. A glimpse of relation of Hindus and Muslims prior to British rules. But, the author is little biased in favour of the Elite Bengali Bhadroloks (Hindus).