NAV DURGA BENGALI CHARITABLE TRUST

Early Days

Ancient history of Bengal is not well known, however Stone Age tools dating back 20,000 years have been excavated in the state. Remnants of Copper Age settlements in the Bengal region date back 4,000 years. The original settlers spoke non-Aryan languages - mainly, Austro-Asiatic languages like the languages of the present-day Kola, Bhil, Santal and Shabara.

According to the Mahabharata, Harivamsha Vanga was one of the adopted sons of King Vali who founded the Vanga Kingdom. The Mahabharata also speaks of Bengali kings called Chitrasena and Sanudrasena who were defeated by Bhima. The Vanga Kingdom was a powerful seafaring nation of Ancient India. They had overseas trade relations with Java, Sumatra and Siam (modern day Thailand). According to some scriptures, the Vanga prince Vijaya Simha conquered Lanka (modern day Sri Lanka) in 544 BC and gave the name "Sinhala" to the country.

The pre-Gupta period of Bengal is shrouded with obscurity. Before the conquest of Samudragupta, Bengal was divided into two kingdoms: Pushkarana and Samatata.By the 6th century, the Gupta Empire, which ruled over the northern Indian subcontinent had largely broken up. Eastern Bengal splintered into the kingdoms of Vanga, Samatata and Harikela, while the Gaur kings rose in the west with their capital at Karnasuvarna (near modern Murshidabad).

Shashanka, a vassal of the last Gupta Empire proclaimed independent and unified the smaller principalities of Bengal (Gaur, Vanga, Samatata) and vied for regional power with Harshavardhana in northern India.

Pal Dynasty

Pal Empire was the first independent Buddhist dynasty of Bengal. Gopala was the first ruler from the dynasty. He came to power in 750 in Gaur by a democratic election. This event is recognized as one of the first democratic elections in South Asia since the time of the Maha Janapadas. He reigned from 750 - 770 and consolidated his position by extending his control over all of Bengal. The Buddhist dynasty lasted for four centuries (750 - 1120 AD) and ushered in a period of stability and prosperity in Bengal. They created many temples and works of art as well as supported the Universities of Nalanda and Vikramashila. Somapura Mahavihara (shown below) built by Dharmapala is the greatest Buddhist Vihara in the Indian Subcontinent.

The empire reached its peak under Dharmapala and Devapala. Dharmapala extended the empire into the northern parts of the Indian Subcontinent. This triggered once again the power struggle for the control of the subcontinent.

Sen Dynasty

Vijay Sen the second ruler of this dynasty defeated the last Pala emperor Madanapala and established his reign. Ballal Sena introduced caste system in Bengal and made Nabadwip the capital. The fourth king of this dynasty Lakshman Sen expanded the empire beyond Bengal to Bihar, Assam, Orissa and probably to Varanasi. Lakshman was later defeated by the Muslims and fled to eastern Bengal were he ruled few more years. The Sena dynasty brought a revival of Hinduism and cultivated Sanskrit literature in India. It is proposed by some Bengali authors that Jayadeva, the famous Sanskrit poet and author of Gita Govinda, was one of the Pancha ratnas (meaning 5 gems) in the court of Lakshman Sen.

Medieval Bengal

Islam made its first appearance in Bengal during the 12th century when Sufi missionaries arrived. Later, occasional Muslim raiders reinforced the process of conversion by building mosques, madrassas and Sufi Khanqah. Beginning in 1202 a military commander from the Delhi Sultanate, Bakhtiar Khilji, overran Bihar and Bengal as far east as Rangpur, Bogra and the Brahmaputra River. Although he failed to bring Bengal under his control, the expedition managed to defeat Lakshman Sen and his two sons moved to a place then called Vikrampur (present-day Munshiganj District), where their diminished dominion lasted until the late 13th century. During the 14th century, the former kingdom became known as the Sultanate of Bengal, ruled intermittently with the Sultanate of Delhi as well as powerful Hindu states and land-lords-Baro-Bhuyans.

Hussain Shah

The Hussain Shahi dynasty ruled in the period 1494 - 1538. Alauddin Hussain Shah, considered as the greatest of all the sultans of Bengal for bringing cultural renaissance during his reign. He extended the sultanate all the way to the port of Chittagong, which witnessed the arrival of the first Portuguese merchants. Nasiruddin Nasrat Shah gave refuge to the Afghan lords during the invasion of Babur though he remained neutral. However Nusrat Shah made a treaty with Babur and saved Bengal from a Mughal invasion. He was the last Sultan of the dynasty, who continued to rule from Gaur, had to contend with rising Afghan activity on his northwestern border.

Mughal Period

In 1534, the Pashtun Sher Shah Suri - a man of incredible military and political skill - succeeded in defeating the superior forces of the Mughals under Humayun at Chausa (1539) and Kannauj (1540). Sher Shah fought back and captured both Delhi and Agra and established a kingdom stretching far into Punjab. Sher Shah's administrative skill showed in his public works, including the Grand Trunk Road connecting Sonargaon in Bengal with Peshawar in the Hindu Kush. Sher Shah's rule ended with his death in 1545, although even in those five years his reign would have a powerful influence on Indian society, politics, and economics. Shah Suri's successors lacked his administrative skill, and quarreled over the domains of his empire. Humayun, who then ruled a rump Mughal state, saw an opportunity and in 1554 seized Lahore and Delhi.

Akbar, the greatest of the Mughal emperors, defeated rulers of Bengal in 1576. Afterwards, Bengal came once more under the control of Delhi. It became a Mughalsubah and ruled through subahdars (governors). Akbar exercised progressive rule and oversaw a period of prosperity (through trade and development) in Bengal and northern India.

Bengal's trade and wealth impressed the Mughals that they called the region the "Paradise of the Nations". Administration by governors appointed by the court of the Mughal Empire court (1575 - 1717) gave way to four decades of semi-independence under the Nawabs of Murshidabad, who respected the nominal sovereignty of the Mughals in Delhi. The Nawabs granted permission to the French East India Company to establish a trading post at Chandernagore in 1673, and the British East India Company at Calcutta in 1690.

There were several independent Hindu states established in Bengal during the Mughal period like those of Maharaja Pratap Aditya of Jessore and Raja Sitaram Ray of Burdwan and the Koch Bihar Kingdom in the northern Bengal weathered the Mughals and survived till the advent of the British. These kingdoms contributed a lot to the economic and cultural landscape of Bengal. Extensive land reclamations in forested and marshy areas were carried out and intrastate trade as well as commerce were highly encouraged. These kingdoms also helped introduce new music, painting, dancing and sculpture into Bengali art-forms as well as many temples were constructed during this period. Militarily, they served as bulwarks against Portuguese and Burmese attacks.

Around the early 1700s, the Maratha Empire led expeditions in Bengal. The leader of the expedition was Maratha Maharaja Raghuji of Nagpur. Raghoji was able to annex Orissa and parts of Bengal permanently as he successfully exploited the chaotic conditions prevailing in the region after the death of their Governor Murshid Quli Khan in 1727. The expeditions resulted in Bengal becoming a tributary region of the Marathas for a period of time.

Modern Bengal

Birth of Calcutta

In 1690, Job Charnok, an agent of the East India Company chose this place for a British trade settlement. The site was carefully selected, being protected by the Hooghly River on the west, a creek to the north, and by salt lakes about two and a half miles to the east. There were three large villages along the east bank of the river Ganges, named, Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata. These three villages were bought by the British from the local land lords. The Mughal emperor granted East India Company freedom of trade in return for a yearly payment of 3,000 rupees.

Battle of Plassey

When the British East India Company began strengthening the defenses at Fort William (Calcutta), the Nawab, Siraj Ud Daulah, at the encouragement of the French, attacked. Under the leadership of Robert Clive, British troops and their local allies captured Chandernagore in March 1757 and seriously defeated the Nawab on June 23, 1757 at the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab's soldiers betrayed him. The Nawab was assassinated in Murshidabad, and the British installed their own Nawab for Bengal and extended their direct control in the south. Chandernagore was restored to the French in 1763. The Bengalis attempted to regain their territories in 1765 in alliance with the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II, but were defeated again at the Battle of Buxar (1765). The centre of Indian culture and trade shifted from Delhi to Calcutta when the Mughal Empire fell.

Famines of Bengal

However, scarcely five years into the British East India Company's rule, the catastrophic Bengal famine of 1770 - caused millions to die. Up to a third of the population died in 1770 which marked it as one of the greatest famines of the World history. (The other major famine occurred during the second world war, the Bengal famine of 1943, in which an estimated 3 million people died; this famine influenced child Amarya Sen to make up his mind to do research on hunger and find a solution to end it).

Bengal absorbed the huge blow and with time, the leading rice producer, fine cotton (muslin) producer and the World's main source of jute fiber, Bengal, around 1850s became one of India's principal centers of industry, concentrated in Calcutta and its emerging cluster of suburbs.

The Indian Mutiny of 1857 - known as Sepoy Mutiny - replaced rule by the Company with the direct control of Bengal by the British crown. In 1877, when Victoria took the title of "Empress of India", the British declared Calcutta the capital of the British Raj.

Bengal - Divided and Reunited

Bengal - India's most popular and rich province and one of the most active provinces in freedom fighting, in 1905 was divided by the British rulers for administrative purposes into an overwhelmingly Hindu west (including present-day Bihar and Orissa) and a predominantly Muslim east (including Assam). This infamous act is known as 1905 Partition of Bengal. Hindu - Muslim conflict became stronger through this partition. While Hindu Indians disagreed with the partition saying it was a way of dividing a Bengal which is united by language and history, Muslims supported it by saying it was a big step forward for Muslim society where Muslims will be majority and they can freely practice their religion as well as their culture. But owing to strong Hindu agitation, the British reunited East and West Bengal in 1912, and made Bihar and Orissa a separate province.

Freedom Fighting

Bengal played a major role in the Indian independence movement, in which revolutionary groups such as Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar were dominant. Bengalis also played a notable role in the Indian independence movement. Many of the early proponents of the freedom struggle, and subsequent leaders in movement were Bengalis such as Chittaranjan Das, Surendranath Banerjea, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Prafulla Chaki, Bagha Jatin, Khudiram Bose, Surya Sen, Binoy-Badal-Dinesh, Sarojini Naidu, Aurobindo Ghosh, Rashbehari Bose and many more.

Some of these leaders, such as Netaji, did not subscribe to the view that non-violent civil disobedience was the only way to achieve Indian Independence, and were instrumental in armed resistance against the British force. During the Second World War Netaji escaped to Germany from house arrest in India and there he founded the Indian Legion an army to fight against the British Government, but the turning of the war compelled him to come to South-East Asia and there he became the co-founder and leader of the Indian National Army (distinct from the army of British India) that challenged British forces in several parts of India. He was also the head of state of a parallel regime named 'The Provisional Government of Free India' or Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind, that was recognized and supported by the Axis powers.

India Wins Freedom - Bengal is divided

In the 20th century, the partitions of Bengal, occurring twice, has left great marks on the history and psyche of the people of Bengal. The first partition occurred in 1905 and the second partition was in 1947. As partition of British India into Hindu and Muslim dominions approached in 1947, Bengal again split into the state of West Bengal of secular India and a Muslim region of East Bengal under Pakistan, renamed East Pakistan in 1958 and Bangladesh since 1971.

The partition of Bengal entailed the greatest exodus of people in human history. Millions of Hindus migrated from East Pakistan to India and thousands of Muslims too went across the borders to East Pakistan. (Source: Wikipedia)