History of Bengal
The region was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Gangaridai, a powerful kingdom whose war elephant forces led the withdrawal of Alexander the Great from India.
A thalassocracy and an entrepôt of the historic Silk Road,[1] ancient Bengal had strong trade links with Persia, Arabia and the Mediterranean that focused on its lucrative cotton muslin textiles.
[7] The Bengal Sultanate was notable for its Hindu aristocracy, including the rise of Raja Ganesha and his son Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah as usurpers.
Under the Mughals, Bengal Subah rose to global prominence in industries such as textile manufacturing and shipbuilding,[9] its economy in the 18th century exceeding in size any of Europe's empires.
[16][25] Archaeological evidence confirms that by the second millennium BCE, the Bengal delta was inhabited by rice-cultivating communities, with people living in systemically-aligned housing and producing pottery.
[29][30] The ancient Bengal region features prominently in legendary history of India, Sri Lanka, Siam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Burma, Nepal, Tibet, China and Malaya.
[33] Roman geographers also noted the existence of a large natural harbour in southeastern Bengal, corresponding to the present-day Chittagong region.
[41] During Ashoka's time, Tamralipta served as the principal port of the Gupta Empire, facilitating communication between Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) and Magadha.
According to the Ceylonese chronicle, the Mahavamsa, Ashoka visited Tamralipta when Mahendra and Sanghamitta embarked on their voyage to Sinhala, carrying a holy branch of the Bodhi tree.
According to Pala copperplate inscriptions, his successor Devapala exterminated the Utkalas, invade the Kamarupa Kingdom of Assam, shattered the pride of the Huna people and humbled the lords of Gurjara-Pratihara and the Rashtrakuta dynasty.
He married a Western Chalukya princess and concentrated on building his empire eastwards, establishing his rule over nearly all of Bengal and large areas of lower Assam.
Bakhtiyar Khalji emerged victorious in the campaign and subsequently annexed Nabadwip, a significant portion of the territory controlled by the Sena Dynasty.
The dynasty is regarded by several historians as a golden age in which a syncretic Bengali culture evolved including elements of Muslim and Hindu traditions.
The Chittagong Hill Tracts frontier region was made a tributary state of Mughal Bengal and a treaty was signed with the Chakma Circle in 1713.
Bengali agriculturalists rapidly learned techniques of mulberry cultivation and sericulture, establishing Bengal as a major silk-producing region of the world.
During the Mughal era, the most important center of cotton production was Bengal, particularly around its capital city of Dhaka, leading to muslin being called "daka" in distant markets such as Central Asia.
Najafi dynasty Nawabs continued to rule as semi-independent till 1772 after which British East India Company took complete control of this former Mughal province.
This devastated Bengal's economy, as many of the people killed in the Maratha raids included merchants, textile weavers, silk winders, and mulberry cultivators.
[74] However due to their relentless attacks and raids the Nawab would be more partial towards signing the treaty eventually agreeing to cede Orissa to the Maratha Confederacy to ensure peace for both states.
His wife Maharani Bhavashankari defeated the Pathan resurgence in Bengal[75] and her reign brought power, prosperity and grandeur to Bhurishrestha Kingdom.
The Koch Bihar Kingdom in the northern Bengal, flourished during the period of 16th and the 17th centuries as well as weathered the Mughals and survived till the advent of the British.
[76] The Burdwan Raj founded by Maharaja Sangam Rai Kapoor was a zamindari estate that flourished from about 1657 to 1955, first under the Mughals and then under the British in the province of Bengal in British-India.
When the East India Company began strengthening the defences at Fort William (Calcutta), the Nawab, Siraj Ud Daulah, at the encouragement of the French, attacked.
The famine devastated the region as well as the economy of the East India Company, forcing them to rely on subsidies from the British government, an act which would contribute to the American Revolution.
Historian Nitish Sengupta describes it as having started with reformer and humanitarian Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1775–1833), and ended with Asia's first Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941).
[96] This flowering of religious and social reformers, scholars, and writers is described by historian David Kopf as "one of the most creative periods in Indian history".
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 allied with Japan to fight against the British.
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 recognised and supported by the Axis powers.
The Ledo Road was constructed between Bengal and China through Allied controlled areas in northern Burma to supply the forces led by Chiang Kai Shek.
However, the Indian National Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha on one side and the Muslim League on the other forced the British viceroy Earl Mountbatten to partition Bengal along religious lines.
