Eastern Bengal and Assam was an administrative subdivision (province) of British India between 1905 and 1912. Headquartered in the city of Dacca, it covered territories in what are now Bangladesh, Northeast India and Northern West Bengal.

History

As early as 1868, British administrators saw the need for an independent administration in the eastern portion of the Bengal Presidency. They felt that Fort William in Calcutta, the capital of British India, was already overburdened. By 1903, it dawned on the colonial government on the necessity of partitioning Bengal and creating prospects for Assam's commercial expansion. The British promised increased investment in education and jobs in the new province called Eastern Bengal and Assam. George Curzon2

All India Muslim league conference 1906 attendees in Dhaka

Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, proposed the Partition of Bengal and put it into effect on 16 October 1905. Dacca, the former Mughal capital of Bengal, regained its status as a

seat of government The seat of government is (as defined by ''Brewer's Politics'') "the building, complex of buildings or the city from which a government exercises its authority". In most countries, the nation’s capital is also seat of its government, thus that ...

. Sir Bampfylde Fuller was the province's first Lieutenant Governor. He served for a year in office, and resigned in 1906 after disagreements with Lord Minto and pressure from the British Parliament. He was succeeded by Sir Lancelot Hare (1906-1911), who in turn was succeeded by Sir Charles Stuart Bayley (1911-1912). The partition stoked controversy among Indian nationalists, who described it as an attempt to " divide and rule" the Bengali homeland. The merchant class in Calcutta also feared losing their economic influence in the region. In 1906, the

All India Muslim League The All-India Muslim League (AIML) was a political party established in Dhaka in 1906 when a group of prominent Muslim politicians met the Viceroy of British India, Lord Minto, with the goal of securing Muslim interests on the Indian subcontin ...

was formed in Dacca during the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference, as a response to rising Hindu nationalism. This in turn sparked the creation of the All India Hindu Mahasabha. At the

Delhi Durbar The Delhi Durbar ( lit. "Court of Delhi") was an Indian imperial-style mass assembly organized by the British at Coronation Park, Delhi, India, to mark the succession of an Emperor or Empress of India. Also known as the Imperial Durbar, it was ...

in 1911, King George V announced that the British government had decided to annul the partition. The move by the colonial government was seen as an appeasement of hardline

communal Communal may refer to: *A commune or also intentional community * Communalism (Bookchin) * Communalism (South Asia), the South Asian sectarian ideologies *Relating to an administrative division called comune * Sociality in animals *Community owne ...

forces. Eastern Bengal was reunited with western Bengali districts, and Assam was made a chief commissioner's province.

Geography

Eastern Bengal and Assam had a total area of 111,569 sq m and was situated between 20° 45' and 28° 17' N., and between 87° 48' and 97° 5' E. It was bounded by Tibet and the

Kingdom of Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

to the north,

British Burma British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

to the east and the Bay of Bengal to the south. Within these limits, were the princely states of Hill Tippera, Cooch Behar and Manipur.

Administration

The Viceroy represented the

British monarch The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (the Bailiwi ...

and the

Lieutenant Governor A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...

was the chief administrator. Dacca was the provincial capital, with the Legislative Council and the High Court. Five commissioners acted under the Lieutenant Governor. The Eastern Bengal and Assam Legislative Council was composed of 40 members. Elected councillors included representatives of municipalities, district boards, Muslim electorates, the landowning gentry, the tea industry, the jute industry and the Port of Chittagong. Nominated members included government officials, educationists and commercial leaders.Ilbert, Sir Courtenay Peregrine (1907). "Appendix II: Constitution of the Legislative Councils under the Regulations of November 1909", in The Government of India. Clarendon Press. pp. 432-5. The High Court of Dacca was subordinate to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. Shillong was the summer capital of Eastern Bengal and Assam. There were 4 administrative divisions in the province, including the Assam Valley Division, Chittagong Division, Dacca Division, Rajshahi Division and the Surma Valley Division. There were a total of 30 districts, including Dacca, Mymensingh, Faridpur and

Backergunge Backergunge, Backergunje, Bakarganj, or Bakerganj was a former district of British India. It was the southernmost district of the Dacca Division. The district was located in the swampy lowlands of the vast delta of the Ganges and the Brahmapu ...

in Dacca Division, Tippera, Noakhali,

Chittagong Chittagong ( /ˈtʃɪt əˌɡɒŋ/ ''chit-uh-gong''; ctg, চিটাং; bn, চিটাগং), officially Chattogram ( bn, চট্টগ্রাম), is the second-largest city in Bangladesh after Dhaka and third largest city in B ...

and the

Hill Tracts The Chittagong Hill Tracts ( bn, পার্বত্য চট্টগ্রাম, Parbotto Chottogram), often shortened to simply the Hill Tracts and abbreviated to CHT, are group of districts within the Chittagong Division in southeast ...

in Chittagong Division, Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri, Rangpur, Bogra, Pabna, Malda in Rajshahi Division,

Sylhet Sylhet ( bn, সিলেট) is a metropolitan city in northeastern Bangladesh. It is the administrative seat of the Sylhet Division. Located on the north bank of the Surma River at the eastern tip of Bengal, Sylhet has a subtropical climate an ...

Cachar Cachar district is an administrative district in the state of Assam in India. After independence the undivided Cachar district was split into four districts in Assam: Dima Hasao district (formerly North Cachar Hills), Cachar district alongside ...

, the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, the Naga Hills and the

Lushai Hills The Lushai (Pron: ˌlʊˈʃaɪ) Hills (or Mizo Hills) are a mountain range in Mizoram and Manipur, India. The range is part of the Patkai range system and its highest point is 2,157 m high Phawngpui, also known as 'Blue Mountain'. Flora and fau ...

in Surma Valley Division, and Goalpara, Kamrup, the Garo Hills, Darrang, Nowgong, Sibsagar and Lakhimpur in Assam Valley Division. Cooch Behar fell under the jurisdiction of Rajshahi Division, Manipur under the Assam Valley Division. The provincial government in Dacca also managed relations with the

Demographics

The population of Eastern Bengal and Assam was 30,961,459 in 1901. The densely populated districts in East Bengal and the Surma and Brahmaputra Valleys were home to Indo-Aryan ethnic groups, including the Bengalis (27,272,895) and the

Assamese Assamese may refer to: * Assamese people, a socio-ethnolinguistic identity of north-eastern India * People of Assam, multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and multi-religious people of Assam * Assamese language, one of the easternmost Indo-Aryan language ...

(1,349,784). Hill districts were home to a predominantly Tibeto-Burman population, including groups like the Tripuri people Tiprasa,

Chakmas The Chakma people ( ccp, 𑄌𑄋𑄴𑄟𑄳𑄦; ) are a tribal group from the eastern-most regions of the Indian subcontinent. They are the largest ethnic group in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region of southeastern Bangladesh, and the seco ...

Mizos The Mizo people ( Mizo: ''Mizo hnam'') are an ethnic group native to the Indian state of Mizoram and neighbouring regions of Northeast India. The term covers several related ethnic groups or clans inside the Mizo group. All Mizo tribes and cla ...

, Nagas, Garos and

Bodo Bodo may refer to: Ethnicity * Boro people, an ethno-linguistic group mainly from Northwest Assam, India * Bodo-Kachari people, an umbrella group from Nepal, India and Bangladesh that includes the Bodo people Culture and language * Boro cu ...

s. There were 18,036,688 Muslims and 12,036,538

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

s. The remainder included

Buddhists Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

, Christians and animists. With reference to the census in 1911, the population of Dhaka was 21% higher than that of 1906, when it was made the capital of the newly formed state.

Economy

Eastern Bengal and Assam possessed one of the most fertile lands in the British Empire. The eastern Bengal delta was the rice basket of the Indian subcontinent. It produced 80% of the world's

jute Jute is a long, soft, shiny bast fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', which is in the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is ''Corchorus olit ...

, and dominated supply in the once thriving global jute trade. The Assam and

Valleys were home to the largest tea plantations in the world, and became famous for producing high-quality Assam tea. The province was also a center of the petroleum industry, due to

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude ...

production in Assam. The Port of Chittagong began to flourish in international trade, and was connected to its hinterland by the Assam Bengal Railway. Shipbuilding was a major activity in coastal Bengal, and catered to the British naval and merchant fleets. Dyeing industries were set up in several districts, particularly in Pabna and Dhaka.

Transportation

First Ever Steam Engine of Bangladesh (2)

The two main rail lines in Eastern Bengal and Assam were the

Eastern Bengal Railway The Eastern Bengal Railway (full name: "Eastern Bengal Railway Company"; shortened EBR) was one of the pioneering railway companies that operated from 1857 to 1942, in Bengal and Assam provinces of British India. History Formation The Eastern ...

and the Assam Bengal Railway. The port city of Chittagong was the main rail terminus, as routes connected the interior hinterland with the main regional maritime gateway. Railways were vital for the export of tea, jute and petroleum. A number of new ferry services were introduced connecting Chittagong, Dhaka, Bogra, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Jalpaiguri, Maldah and Rajshahi. This improved communication network created a positive impact on overall economy, boosting trade and commerce. Newly built highways connected the inaccessible areas of Assam and the Chittagong Hill Tracts. All district capitals were connected by an inter-district road network.

Military

The

British Indian Army The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which co ...

had cantonments in Dacca, Chittagong, Shillong, Comilla and Gauhati. The Assam Rifles guarded the eastern frontier of the province, while the Gurkha regiments and the Bengal Military Police patrolled northern borders.

Education

Within its short lifespan, the Provincial Education Department promoted a significant expansion and improvement of higher education. Persian, Sanskrit, mathematics, history and algebra were among different disciplines introduced in the college level curriculum. Female colleges were established in each district. School enrollment increased by 20%. A committee was formed for the creation of the University of Dacca, which was established later in 1921, and came to be known as the ''Oxford of the East''.

Legacy

The partition of 1905 created a precedent for the partition of British India. The British partitioned Bengal and Assam again in 1947, making Muslim-majority districts a part of the Dominion of Pakistan. Later renamed East Pakistan, the region gained independence as the country of Bangladesh in 1971. Most of the colonial Assam Province became a part of the Dominion of India, and was eventually divided into several states for the

States Reorganisation Act, 1956 The States Reorganisation act, 1956 was a major reform of the boundaries of India's states and territories, organising them along linguistic lines. Although additional changes to India's state boundaries have been made since 1956, the States ...

; these states include Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, current-day Assam, Tripura and Manipur. In modern times, Bangladesh and India have sought to revive British Raj-era transport links. The BBIN Initiative has taken shape to promote economic integration and development in the region. The Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar ( BCIM) grouping also seeks to stimulate economic growth in this Asian sub-region.