Greater Bangladesh

Greater Bangladesh ( bn, বৃহত্তর বাংলাদেশ, Brihôttôr Bangladesh; among other names, see below) is a theory that the People's Republic of Bangladesh has aspirations of territorial expansion, to include the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam's Barak valley, Hojai and Undivided Goalpara as part of its own territory. Some proponents also claim that Sheikh Hasina, Prime minister of Bangladesh and Mamata Banerjee, Chief minister of West Bengal, are involved in trying to create Greater Bangladesh.

Names

It is known by various names in Bengali. bn, বৃহত্তর বাংলাদেশ, Brihôttôr Bangladesh;Col. Ved Prakash, ''Terrorism in India's north-east: a gathering storm'' (Volume 1),Kalpaz Publications, 2008, bn, বৃহৎ বাংলাদেশ, Brihôt Bangladesh; bn, মহাবাংলাদেশ, Môhabangladesh; bn, বড় বাঙ্গালা, Boro Bangala and bn, বিশাল বাংলা, Bishal Bangla

Demography

Overall Bengal region is a Muslim majority province with significant Hindu population. Other religious composition like Buddhists, Christians, Animists etc together comprising a little percentage of population.

West Bengal is Hindu majority with a large Muslim population, while East Bengal is Muslim majority with a significant Hindu population. Today Western part of Bengal is a part of India as its state, while Eastern part of Bengal is Republic of Bangladesh, an independent sovereign nation in South Asia.

The Bengal region comprising West Bengal and East Bengal is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. With a population of 300 million, Bengalis are the third largest ethnic group in the world after the Han Chinese and Arabs. The largest religions practiced in Bengal are Islam and Hinduism. According to provisional results of 2021 Bangladesh estimation, the population of Bangladesh was 170 million; however, CIA's ''The World Factbook'' gives 163,654,860 as its population in a July 2013 estimate. According to the provisional results of the 2021 Indian national census, West Bengal has a population of 100 million people. "So, the Bengal region, , has at least 250 million bengalis,with 10 million bengalis in Assam,Tripura and other states(excluding Khotta muslims of West Bengal,Surjapuri muslims of Dinajpur,Sylheti and Chittagongians)who have their own language. This figures give a population density of 1003.9/km²; making it among the most densely populated areas in the world.World Bank Development Indicators Database, 2006.

Life expectancy is around 72.49 years for Bangladesh and 70.2 for West Bengal. In terms of literacy, West Bengal leads with 77% literacy rate, in Bangladesh the rate is approximately 72.9%. The level of poverty in West Bengal is at 15%(2021), while in Bangladesh it stands at 12.9% West Bengal has one of the lowest total fertility rates in India. West Bengal's TFR of 1.7 roughly equals that of Canada.

The combined land of West Bengal and Bangladesh gives a total area of 237,212 sq² km.

Partition of Bengal (1905)

During the Partition of Bengal 1905, (translated variously as Bengali: বঙ্গভঙ্গ, romanized: Bônggôbhônggô) - when the ruling British empire had the province of Bengal (of undivided India) split into two parts, many Bengali intellectuals joined cultural and political movement against the partition. The partition took place in October 1905 and separated the largely Muslim eastern areas from the largely Hindu western areas. The Hindus of West Bengal who dominated Bengal's business and rural life complained that the division would make them a minority in a province that would incorporate the Bihar and Orissa Province. It was during this time the Mother Bengal was an immensely popular theme in Bengali patriotic songs and poems and was mentioned in several of them, such as the song ″Dhana Dhanya Pushpa Bhara″ and ″Banga Amar Janani Amar″ (Our Bengal Our Mother) by Dwijendralal Ray. These songs were meant to rekindle the unified spirit of Bengal, to raise public consciousness against the communal political divide.

Partition of Bengal (1947)

The Partition of Bengal in 1947, part of the Partition of India, divided the British Indian province of Bengal based on the Radcliffe Line between the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The Hindu-majority West Bengal became a state of India, and the Muslim-majority East Bengal (now Bangladesh) became a province of Pakistan.

On 20 June 1947, the Bengal Legislative Assembly met to decide the future of the Bengal Presidency on being a United Bengal within India or Pakistan or divided into East and West Bengal. At the preliminary joint session, the assembly decided by 120-90 that it should remain united if it joined the new Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. Later, a separate meeting of legislators from West Bengal decided 58-21 that the province should be partitioned and that West Bengal should join the existing Constituent Assembly of India. In another separate meeting of legislators from East Bengal, it was decided 106-35 that the province should not be partitioned and 107-34 that East Bengal should join Pakistan in the event of Partition.

On 6 July 1947, the Sylhet referendum decided to sever Sylhet from Assam and merge it into East Bengal.

The partition, with power transferred to Pakistan and India on 14–15 August 1947, was done according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan, or the Mountbatten Plan. Indian independence, on 15 August 1947, ended over 150 years of British influence in the Indian subcontinent. East Bengal became the independent country of Bangladesh after the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

United Bengal

After the Battle of Plassey, the region became an administrative division of British India with Bengal's capital Calcutta acting as the Indian capital. The Bengal Presidency was formed in 1765, and in 1905, the presidency was divided into Bengal province and Eastern Bengal and Assam province. Assam and the Lushai Hills became part of the Province of Assam in 1912. In 1912, Bengal was separated into two states of the British empire after the Indian independence movement began to arise. These new provinces were Bihar and Orissa and East Bengal and Assam. These provinces were partitioned again in 1947 into the Hindu-majority West Bengal and Muslim-majority East Bengal (now Bangladesh) to facilitate the creation of the separate Muslim state of Pakistan, of which East Bengal became a province.

In January 1947, Father of Independent state of Bangalarastra Sarat Chandra Bose resigned from the Indian National Congress, partially in protest against the partition of Bengal. He called for an independent state of Bengal separate from both India and Pakistan. Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Abul Hashem, two Bengali leaders of the Muslim League, also advocated for an independent state of Bengal comprising both the eastern and western parts of Bengal (now Bangladesh and West Bengal, respectively).

Mohammad Akram Khan and Khawaja Nazimuddin, two other Muslim League leaders, wanted a United Bengal as part of Pakistan. Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha and Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of Bharatiya Jana Sangh which later was succeeded by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), opposed the idea of an independent Bengal or a United Bengal. Hindu Mahashabha and Mookerjee were concerned about Bose and Suhrawardy discussing a sovereign state of Bengal.Jawaharlal Nehru, then a leader of the majority faction of the Congress, was opposed to a United Bengal unless it was connected to the Union.

Theories

Lebensraum theory

Achieving a "Greater Bangladesh" as Lebensraum (additional living space) is alleged to be the reason for large-scale illegal immigration from Bangladesh into India's states. Similarly it is alleged that illegal immigration is actively encouraged by some political groups in Bangladesh as well as the state of Bangladesh to convert large parts of India's northeastern states, particularly Assam and West Bengal into Muslim-majority areas that would subsequently seek to separate from India and join Muslim-majority Bangladesh. The proposition is that the state of Bangladesh is pursuing a territorial design seeking a Lebensraum for its teeming population and trying to establish a Greater Bangladesh.

Migration theory

At the turn of the 21st century, Indian political circles started to take a serious look at Bangladeshi illegal immigration into India.Willem van Schendel, ''The Bengal borderland: beyond state and nation in South Asia'', page 233-34, Anthem Press, 2005, According to Jyoti M. Pathania of South Asia Analysis Group the reasons for Bangladeshi immigration to India are: basic need theory i.e. food, shelter and clothing, economic dictates i.e. employment opportunity, better wages and comparatively better living conditions, demographic disproportion especially for minorities (Hindus) in this densely populated country having roughly a density of 780 per km² as against half that number on Indian side of the border, and being cheap labor the Bangladeshis find easy acceptance as "domestic helps" in Indian homes, which keeps proliferating by ever increasing demand for domestic helps. The Centre for Women and Children Studies estimated in 1998 that 27,000 Bangladeshis have been forced into prostitution in India.

Though about 1.2 million Indians are living in Bangladesh illegally.

Militancy theory

A number of Indian politicians and journalists alleged that advocates of a Greater Bangladesh seek the expansion of Bangladeshi hegemony in Northeastern India, including the states of Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura, as well as the Arakan Province of Burma (Myanmar), where there is a considerable population of Rohingya Muslims. It was also alleged that United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) conspired with state of Bangladesh to secede four to five Muslim majority districts of Assam to form a Greater Bangladesh, though Bangladesh in the contrary arrested a number of ULFA leaders, including Ranju Chowdhury, Arabinda Rajkhowa and Anup Chetia, to support Indian action against militancy.

In 2002, nine Islamic groups including Indian militant organizations Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA), Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA) and Muslim Volunteer Force (MVF), Pakistani militant organization Harkat-ul-Mujahideen

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