Partition of Bengal (1905)

The Partition was aimed for administration purposes but in fact is treated as divide and rule policy and further agitated people, who perceived that it was a deliberate attempt to divide the Bengal Presidency on religious grounds, with a Muslim majority in the east and a Hindu majority in the west, thereby weakening the nationalist cause.

To appease Bengali sentiment, Bengal was reunited by King George V in 1911, in response to the Swadeshi movement's riots in protest against the policy.

[5]: 280  For decades British officials had maintained that the huge size created difficulties for effective management[4]: 156 [6]: 156  and had caused neglect of the poorer eastern region.

[7]: 289  Therefore,[6]: 156  Curzon planned to split Orissa and Bihar and join fifteen eastern districts of Bengal with Assam.

[9]: 39 The English-educated middle class of Bengal, the Bengali Bhadraloks, saw this as a vivisection of their motherland as well as a tactic to diminish their authority.

Banerjee admitted that the petitions were ineffective; as the date for the partition drew closer, he began advocating tougher approaches such as boycotting British goods.

The president of the Congress, G.K. Gokhale, Banerji and others stopped supporting the boycott when they found that John Morley had been appointed as Secretary of State for India.

In protest, Federation Hall society was founded by nationalist leaders like, Surendranath Banerjee, Tarak Nath Palit, Ananda Mohan Bose.

[12] Renowned novelist Rabindranath Tagore made it compulsory for every individual to tie rakhi, especially to Muslims, to emphasize inter-religious bonds and that Bengal did not want partition.

[13][14] The partition triggered radical nationalism and nationalists all over India supported the Bengali cause, and were shocked at the British disregard for public opinion and what they perceived as a "divide and rule" policy.

Lord Curzon had believed that the Congress was no longer an effective force but provided it with a cause to rally the public around and gain fresh strength from.

However, Gokhale successfully steered the more moderate approach in a Congress meeting and gained support for continuing talks with the government.

Reasons behind their opposition included the threat of partition to Bengali solidarity as well as fear that the educational, social and other interests of East Bengal would become diminished under a chief commissioner.

[15] In 1904, Curzon took an official tour to visit the Muslim-majority districts of East Bengal to gain buy-in for the proposal.

[citation needed] The impending notion of a new province provided the oft-neglected Muslim Bengalis a chance to raise their own voices and issues specific to their community and region.

[citation needed] On 16 October 1905, the Mohammedan Provincial Union was founded to bring together all existing Muslim entities and groups.

Some others included: Abdur Rasul, Khan Bahadur Muhammad Yusuf (a pleader and a member of the Management Committee of the Central National Muhamedan Association), Mujibur Rahman, Abdul Halim Ghaznavi, Ismail Hossain Shiraji, Muhammad Gholam Hossain (a writer and a promoter of Hindu-Muslim unity), Maulvi Liaqat Hussain (a liberal Muslim who vehemently opposed the 'Divide and Rule' policy of the British), Syed Hafizur Rahman Chowdhury of Bogra and Abul Kasem of Burdwan.

The Muslim-majority East Bengal had remained backward, since all educational, administrative, and professional opportunities were centered around Calcutta.

[8]: 151  With the move of the capital to a Mughal site, the British tried to satisfy Bengali Muslims who were disappointed with losing hold of eastern Bengal.

However, Curzon's plan did not work at the time as intended because it only further encouraged the extremists within Congress to resist and rebel against the colonial government.

Leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak advocated for self-rule, but not at the cost of "total severance of relations with Great Britain".

[22] The uproar that had greeted Curzon's contentious move of splitting Bengal, as well as the emergence of the 'extremist' faction in the Congress, became the final motive for separatist Muslim politics.

[22] Radcliffe's line informed the Congress Plan, i.e., there ought to be equal number of Hindu and Muslim population in both provinces of Bengal.