The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and Southeast Asia. Bengal proper covered the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal (present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal). Calcutta, the city which grew around Fort William, was the capital of the Bengal Presidency. For many years, the

Governor of Bengal The Governor was the chief colonial administrator in the Bengal presidency, originally the "Presidency of Fort William" and later "Bengal province". In 1644, Gabriel Boughton procured privileges for the East India Company which permitted them to ...

was concurrently the Viceroy of India and Calcutta was the de facto

capital of India This is a list of locations which have served as the capital city of India. The current capital city is New Delhi, which replaced Calcutta in 1911. Early period * Rajgir : Initial capital of the Magadha Empire from 6th century BCE to 460 BCE, ...

until 1911. The Bengal Presidency emerged from trading posts established in Mughal Bengal during the reign of Emperor

Jahangir Nur-ud-Din Muhammad Salim (30 August 1569 – 28 October 1627), known by his imperial name Jahangir (; ), was the fourth Mughal Emperor, who ruled from 1605 until he died in 1627. He was named after the Indian Sufi saint, Salim Chishti. Ear ...

in 1612. The East India Company (HEIC), a British monopoly with a Royal Charter, competed with other European companies to gain influence in Bengal. After the decisive

overthrow Overthrow may refer to: * Overthrow, a change in government, often achieved by force or through a coup d'état. **The 5th October Overthrow, or Bulldozer Revolution, the events of 2000 that led to the downfall of Slobodan Milošević in the former ...

of the

Nawab of Bengal The Nawab of Bengal ( bn, বাংলার নবাব) was the hereditary ruler of Bengal Subah in Mughal India. In the early 18th-century, the Nawab of Bengal was the ''de facto'' independent ruler of the three regions of Bengal, Bihar, ...

in 1757 and the

Battle of Buxar The Battle of Buxar was fought between 22 and 23 October 1764, between the forces under the command of the British East India Company, led by Hector Munro, and the combined armies of Mir Qasim, Nawab of Bengal till 1764; the Nawab of Awadh, Sh ...

in 1764, the HEIC expanded its control over much of the Indian subcontinent. This marked the beginning of Company rule in India, when the HEIC emerged as the most powerful military force in the subcontinent. The British Parliament gradually withdrew the monopoly of the HEIC. By the 1850s, the HEIC struggled with finances.William Dalrymple (10 September 2019). The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company. Bloomsbury Publishing. . After the

Indian Mutiny The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...

of 1857, the British government assumed direct administration of India. The Bengal Presidency was re-organized. In the early 20th century, Bengal emerged as a hotbed of the Indian independence movement, as well as the epicenter of the

Bengali Renaissance The Bengal Renaissance (Bengali: বাংলার নবজাগরণ — ''Banglar Navajagaran''), also known as the Bengali Renaissance, was a cultural, social, intellectual, and artistic movement that took place in the Bengal region of ...

. Bengal was the economic, cultural and educational hub of the British Raj. During the period of proto-industrialization, Bengal significantly contributed directly to the Industrial revolution in Britain, although it was soon overtaken by the

Kingdom of Mysore The Kingdom of Mysore was a realm in South India, southern India, traditionally believed to have been founded in 1399 in the vicinity of the modern city of Mysore. From 1799 until 1950, it was a princely state, until 1947 in a subsidiary allia ...

ruled by Tipu Sultan as South Asia's dominant economic power. When Bengal was reorganized,

Penang Penang ( ms, Pulau Pinang, is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, by the Malacca Strait. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the Malay ...

, Singapore and

Malacca Malacca ( ms, Melaka) is a state in Malaysia located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, next to the Strait of Malacca. Its capital is Malacca City, dubbed the Historic City, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site si ...

were separated into the

Straits Settlements The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Headquartered in Singapore for more than a century, it was originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Comp ...

in 1867.

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, ...

became a province of India and a later a

Crown Colony A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony administered by The Crown within the British Empire. There was usually a Governor, appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the UK Government, with or without the assistance of a local Counci ...

in itself. Western areas, including the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and The Punjab, were further reorganized. Northeastern areas became Colonial Assam. The Partition of British India in 1947 resulted in Bengal's division on religious grounds.

History

Background

In 1599, a Royal Charter was granted by Queen Elizabeth I to allow the creation of a trading company in London for the purposes of trade with the East Indies. The governance of the company was placed in the hands of a governor and a 24-member Court of Directors. The corporation became known as the Honourable East India Company (HEIC). It rose to account for half of the world's trade. The company was given a monopoly for British trade in the Indian Ocean. In 1608, Mughal Emperor

allowed the English East India Company to establish a small trading post on the west coast of India. It was followed in 1611 by a factory on the Coromandel Coast in South India, and in 1612 the company joined other already established European trading companies to trade in the wealthy Bengal Subah in the east. However, the power of the Mughal Empire declined from 1707, as the Nawab of Bengal in Murshidabad became financially independent with the help of bankers such as the Jagat Seth. The Nawabs began entering into treaties with numerous European companies, including the French East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, and the Danish East India Company. The Mughal court in Delhi was weakened by

Nader Shah Nader Shah Afshar ( fa, نادر شاه افشار; also known as ''Nader Qoli Beyg'' or ''Tahmāsp Qoli Khan'' ) (August 1688 – 19 June 1747) was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the most powerful rulers in Iranian h ...

's invasion from Persia (1739) and Ahmed Shah Durrani's invasion from Afghanistan (1761). While the Bengal Subah suffered a decade of Maratha raids, through bands of Bargir-giri light cavalry, directed to pillage the territory, between 1741 and 1751. In 1742 the Company chooses to spend Rs. 25 thousand on the construction of a 3 km Maratha ditch around Calcutta, to protect its facilities from the raiders. The Nawab of Bengal later electing to end the plunder of his territory, in 1751, though conceding the administration of

Orrisa Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of Sch ...

and agreeing to make Bengal a tributary state of the Marathas, paying Rs. 1.2 million annually as the '' chauth'' of Bengal and Bihar.OUM. pp. 16, 17 The Nawab of Bengal also paid Rs. 3.2 million to the Marathas, towards the arrears of ''chauth'' for the preceding years. In June 1756 the company's factories at Cossimbazar and Calcutta were besieged and captured by the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, with the company's goods, treasure and weapons seized. Calcutta being renamed Alinagar in honour of the Siraj ud-Daulah's predecessor. A Company force, led by Watson and

Robert Clive Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, (29 September 1725 – 22 November 1774), also known as Clive of India, was the first British Governor of the Bengal Presidency. Clive has been widely credited for laying the foundation of the British ...

, recaptured Fort William in January 1757, with the Nawab, Siraj ud-Daulah, agreeing the

Treaty of Alinagar The Treaty of Alinagar was signed on 9 February 1757 between Robert Clive of the British East India Company and the Nawab of Bengal, Mirza Muhammad Siraj Ud Daula. Alinagar was the short-lived name given to Calcutta given by the Nawab after ...

, reestablishing the company's right to trade in Bengal, and fortify Fort William. In parallel Robert Clive conspired with Jagat Seth, Omichand and

Mir Jafar Sayyid Mīr Jaʿfar ʿAlī Khān Bahādur ( – 5 February 1765) was a military general who became the first dependent Nawab of Bengal of the British East India Company. His reign has been considered by many historians as the start of the expan ...

to install the latter on the musnud of Bengal, a plan that they would implement in June 1757. The East India Company's victories at the

Battle of Plassey The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757, under the leadership of Robert Clive. The victory was made possible by the defection of Mir Jafar, ...

(1757) and the

(against the Nawabs of Bengal and Oudh in 1764) led to the abolition of local rule (Nizamat) in Bengal in 1793. The Company gradually began to formally expand its territories across India and Southeast Asia. By the mid-19th century, the East India Company had become the paramount political and military power in the Indian subcontinent. Its territory was held in trust for the

British Crown The Crown is the state (polity), state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, British Overseas Territories, overseas territories, Provinces and territorie ...

. The company also issued coins in the name of the nominal Mughal Emperor (who was exiled in 1857).

Administrative changes and the Permanent Settlement

Under Warren Hastings, the consolidation of British imperial rule over Bengal was solidified, with the conversion of a trade area into an occupied territory under a military-civil government, while the formation of a regularised system of legislation was brought in under

John Shore John Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth (5 October 1751 – 14 February 1834) was a British official of the East India Company who served as Governor-General of Bengal from 1793 to 1798. In 1798 he was created Baron Teignmouth in the Peerage of ...

. Acting through Lord Cornwallis, then Governor-General, he ascertained and defined the rights of the landholders over the soil. These landholders under the previous system had started, for the most part, as collectors of the revenues, and gradually acquired certain prescriptive rights as quasi-proprietors of the estates entrusted to them by the government. In 1793 Lord Cornwallis declared their rights perpetual, and gave over the land of Bengal to the previous quasi-proprietors or ''zamindars'', on condition of the payment of a fixed land tax. This piece of legislation is known as the Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue. It was designed to "introduce" ideas of property rights to India, and stimulate a market in land. The former aim misunderstood the nature of landholding in India, and the latter was an abject failure. The ''Cornwallis Code'', while defining the rights of the proprietors, failed to give adequate recognition to the rights of the under-tenants and the cultivators. This remained a serious problem for the duration of British Rule, as throughout the Bengal Presidency ''ryots'' (peasants) found themselves oppressed by rack-renting landlords, who knew that every rupee they could squeeze from their tenants over and above the fixed revenue demanded from the Government represented pure profit. Furthermore, the Permanent Settlement took no account of inflation, meaning that the value of the revenue to Government declined year by year, whilst the heavy burden on the peasantry grew no less. This was compounded in the early 19th century by compulsory schemes for the cultivation of

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

and indigo, the former by the state, and the latter by British planters. Peasants were forced to grow a certain area of these crops, which were then purchased at below market rates for export. This added greatly to rural poverty. So unsuccessful was the Permanent Settlement that it was not introduced in the North-Western Provinces (taken from the Marathas during the campaigns of Lord Lake and Arthur Wellesley) after 1831, in Punjab after its conquest in 1849, or in Oudh which was annexed in 1856. These regions were nominally part of the Bengal Presidency, but remained administratively distinct. The area of the Presidency under direct administration was sometimes referred to as Lower Bengal to distinguish it from the Presidency as a whole. Officially Punjab, Agra and Allahabad had Lieutenant-Governors subject to the authority of the Governor of Bengal in Calcutta, but in practice they were more or less independent. The only all-Presidency institutions which remained were the Bengal Army and the Civil Service. The Bengal Army was finally amalgamated into the new

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 cou ...

in 1904–5, after a lengthy struggle over its reform between Lord Kitchener, the Commander-in-Chief, and Lord Curzon, the Viceroy.

Straits Settlements

Photographic Views of Singapore Plate 01 Johnston's Pier

In 1830, the British Straits Settlements on the coast of the Malacca Straits was made a residency of the Presidency of Bengal in Calcutta. The area included the erstwhile Prince of Wales Island and Province Wellesley, as well as the ports of

and Singapore. Under the administration of the East India Company, the Settlements were used as

penal settlements A penal colony or exile colony is a Human settlement, settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colony, colonial territory. Although the ter ...

for Indian civilian and military prisoners, earning them the title of the "Botany Bays of India". The years 1852 and 1853 saw minor uprisings by convicts in Singapore and Penang. Upset with East India Company rule, in 1857 the European population of the Settlements sent a petition to the British Parliament asking for direct rule.

Victorian Era

In 1859, under the terms of the Queen's Proclamation issued by Queen Victoria, the Bengal Presidency, along with the rest of British India, came under the direct rule of the British Crown. The Governor's Council was reformed and expanded under the Indian Councils Act 1861, the Indian Councils Act 1892, the Indian Councils Act 1909, the Government of India Act 1919 and the

Government of India Act 1935 The Government of India Act, 1935 was an Act adapted from the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It originally received royal assent in August 1935. It was the longest Act of (British) Parliament ever enacted until the Greater London Authority ...

1905 Partition of Bengal

George Nathaniel Curzon - Marble Statue By Frederick William Pomeroy - Victoria Memorial Hall - Kolkata 2018-02-17 1303

The partition of the large province of Bengal, which was decided upon by Lord Curzon, and Cayan Uddin Ahmet, the Chief Secretary of Bengal carried into execution in October 1905. The

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 ...

, Dhaka and Rajshahi divisions, the Malda District and the States of Hill Tripura,

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 ...

and Comilla were transferred from Bengal to a new province, Eastern Bengal and Assam; the five Hindi-speaking states of Chota Nagpur, namely Changbhakar, Korea, Surguja, Udaipur and

Jashpur State Jashpur State, was one of the princely states of India during the period of the British Raj. The town of Jashpur was the former state's capital. The rulers were Rajputs of the Chauhan dynasty. After the Independence of India Jashpur State was ...

, were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces; and Sambalpur State and the five Oriya states of Bamra, Rairakhol, Sonepur, Patna and Kalahandi were transferred from the

Central Provinces The Central Provinces was a province of British India. It comprised British conquests from the Mughals and Marathas in central India, and covered parts of present-day Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states. Its capital was Nagpur. ...

to Bengal. The province of West Bengal then consisted of the thirty-three districts of Burdwan, Birbhum, Bankura, Midnapur,

Hughli Hooghly or Hughli can refer to: Places *Hooghly, West Bengal, colonial port town now part of Hugli-Chinsura *Hooghly district, established 1795, containing the above town * Hooghly (Lok Sabha constituency) *Hooghly River The Bhagirathi Hooghl ...

Howrah Howrah (, , alternatively spelled as Haora) is a city in the Indian state of West Bengal. Howrah is located on the western bank of the Hooghly River opposite its twin city of Kolkata. Administratively it lies within Howrah district, and is th ...

Twenty-four Parganas 24 Parganas district (''cabbiś pargaṇā jēlā'') is a former district of the Indian state of West Bengal. The district was split into two districts — North 24 Parganas district and South 24 Parganas district, with effect from 1 March 1 ...

, Calcutta, Nadia, Murshidabad, Jessore,

Khulna Khulna ( bn, খুলনা, ) is the third-largest city in Bangladesh, after Dhaka and Chittagong. It is the administrative centre of Khulna District and Khulna Division. Khulna's economy is the third-largest in Bangladesh, contributing $53 b ...

, Patna,

Gaya Gaya may refer to: Geography Czech Republic *Gaya (German and Latin), Kyjov (Hodonín District), a town Guinea * Gaya or Gayah, a town India *Gaya, India, a city in Bihar **Gaya Airport *Bodh Gaya, a town in Bihar near Gaya *Gaya district, Bi ...

, Shahabad, Saran, Champaran, Muzaffarpur,

Darbhanga Darbhanga is the fifth-largest city and municipal corporation in the Indian state of Bihar situated centrally in Mithila region. Darbhanga is the headquarters of the Darbhanga district and the Darbhanga division. It was the seat of the erstw ...

Monghyr Munger, formerly spelt as Monghyr, is a twin city and a Municipal Corporation situated in the Indian state of Bihar. It is the administrative headquarters of Munger district and Munger Division. Munger was one of the major cities in Eastern In ...

, Bhagalpur, Purnea, Santhal Parganas, Cuttack,

Balasore Balasore or Baleswara is a city in the state of Odisha, about north of the state capital Bhubaneswar and from Kolkata, in eastern India. It is the largest town of northern Odisha and the administrative headquarters of Balasore district. It i ...

Angul Angul (also known as Anugul) is a town and a municipality and the headquarters of Angul district in the state of Odisha, India. Angul has an average elevation of above sea level. The total geographical area of the district is 6232 km2. ...

and Kandhmal, Puri, Sambalpur, Singhbhum, Hazaribagh,

Ranchi Ranchi (, ) is the capital of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement, which called for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern Odisha, western West Bengal and the eastern area ...

, Palamau, and Manbhum. The princely states of Sikkim and the tributary states of Odisha and Chhota Nagpur were not part of Bengal, but British relations with them were managed by its government. The Indian Councils Act 1909 expanded the legislative councils of Bengal and Eastern Bengal and Assam provinces to include up to 50 nominated and elected members, in addition to three ''ex officio'' members from the executive council. Bengal's legislative council included 22 nominated members, of which not more than 17 could be officials, and two nominated experts. Of the 26 elected members, one was elected by the

Corporation of Calcutta Kolkata Municipal Corporation (abbreviated KMC; also Calcutta Municipal Corporation) is the local government of the Indian city of Kolkata, the state capital of West Bengal. This civic administrative body administers an area of . Its mot ...

, six by municipalities, six by district boards, one by the University of Calcutta, five by landholders, four by Muslims, two by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, and one by the Calcutta Trades Association. Eastern Bengal and Assam's legislative council included 22 nominated members, of which not more than 17 be officials and one representing Indian commerce, and two nominated experts. Of the 18 elected members, three were elected by municipalities, five by district and local boards, two by landowners, four by Muslims, two by the tea interest, one by the jute interest, and one by the Commissioners of the Port of Chittagong. The partition of Bengal proved highly controversial, as it resulted in a largely Hindu West Bengal and a largely Muslim East. Serious popular agitation followed the step, partly on the grounds that this was part of a cynical policy of divide and rule, and partly that the Bengali population, the centre of whose interests and prosperity was Calcutta, would now be divided under two governments, instead of being concentrated and numerically dominant under the one, while the bulk would be in the new division. In 1906–1909 the unrest developed to a considerable extent, requiring special attention from the Indian and Home governments, and this led to the decision being reversed in 1911.

Reorganisation of Bengal, 1912

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 ...

on 12 December 1911, King George V announced the transfer of the seat of the Government of India from Calcutta to Delhi, the reunification of the five predominantly Bengali-speaking divisions into a Presidency (or province) of Bengal under a Governor, the creation of a new province of

Bihar and Orissa Bihar and Orissa was a province of British India, which included the present-day Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha. The territories were conquered by the British in the 18th and 19th centuries, and were governed by the then Indian Ci ...

under a lieutenant-governor, and that Assam Province would be reconstituted under a chief commissioner. On 21 March 1912 Thomas Gibson-Carmichael was appointed Governor of Bengal; prior to that date the Governor-General of India had also served as the governor of Bengal Presidency. On 22 March the provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and Assam were constituted. The Government of India Act 1919 increased the number of nominated and elected members of the legislative council from 50 to 125, and the franchise was expanded. Bihar and Orissa became separate provinces in 1936. Bengal remained in its 1912 boundaries until Independence in 1947, when it was again partitioned between the dominions of India and Pakistan.

1947 Partition of Bengal

On 8 May 1947, Viceroy

Earl Mountbatten Earl Mountbatten of Burma is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 28 October 1947 for Rear Admiral Louis Mountbatten, 1st Viscount Mountbatten of Burma. The letters patent creating the title specified the following r ...

cabled the British government with a partition plan that made an exception for Bengal. It was the only province that would be allowed to remain independent should it choose to do so. On 23 May, the British Cabinet meeting also hoped that Bengal would remain united. British Prime Minister

Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...

informed the

US Ambassador to the United Kingdom The United States ambassador to the United Kingdom (known formally as the ambassador of the United States to the Court of St James's) is the official representative of the president of the United States and the American government to the monarc ...

on 2 June 1947 that there was a "distinct possibility that Bengal might decide against partition and against joining either India or Pakistan". On 6 July 1947, the Sylhet referendum gave a mandate for the District of Sylhet to be re-united into Bengal. However, Hindu nationalist leaders in West Bengal and conservative East Bengali Muslim leaders were against the prospect. On 20 June 1947, the Bengal Legislative Assembly met to vote on partition plans. At the preliminary joint session, the assembly decided by 120 votes to 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 by 58 votes to 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 by 106 votes to 35 that the province should not be partitioned and 107 votes to 34 that East Bengal should join Pakistan in the event of partition. There was no vote held on the proposal for an independent United Bengal.

Geography

The Presidency's principal maritime gateway was the Bay of Bengal. The following maps illustrate its territorial evolution. 1776 Rennell - Dury Wall Map of Bihar and Bengal, India - Geographicus - BaharBengal-dury-1776.jpg, Bengal Presidency, 1776 1786 - A map of Bengal, Bahar, Oude & Allahabad - James Rennell - William Faden.jpg, Bengal Presidency, 1786 Bengal Presidency 1858.png, Map showing northern regions of the Presidency in 1858, including princely states of

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

, Rajputana Agency, and the Punjab Joppen1907BritishBengalBritishBurmaA.jpg, Map showing growth of British rule in Bengal and Burma LowerBengal1870Map.png, Map denoting Lower Bengal in 1870, including Bengal proper, Orissa, Bihar and Assam; and princely states BengalPartition1905 Map.png, Map showing the result of the partition of Bengal in 1905. The western part (Bengal) gained parts of Orissa, while the eastern part (Eastern Bengal and Assam) regained Assam that had been made a separate province in 1874. Bengal Province 1931.png, Bengal Province in 1931 and adjoining

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...

s of Hill Tippera and Cooch Behar State

Government

Initially, Bengal was under the administration of the East India Company, which appointed chief agents/presidents/governors/lieutenant governors in Fort William. The governor of Bengal was concurrently the governor-general of India for many years. The East India Company maintained control with its private armies and administrative machinery. Nevertheless, the East India Company was a quasi-official entity, having received a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I in 1600. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 caused the British government to assume direct control of India's administration under the Government of India Act 1858. The head of state became 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 ...

, who was also given the title of Emperor of India/ Empress of India. The monarch was represented through a viceroy. The Viceroy of India was based in the Bengal Presidency until 1911. The Secretary of State for India was also an important official. The Bengal Civil Service managed the provincial government. Modern scholars decry the colonial system as bureaucratic authoritarianism.

Executive councils

Established by Charter Act of 1833, the

Governor-General in Council The King-in-Council or the Queen-in-Council, depending on the gender of the reigning monarch, is a constitutional term in a number of states. In a general sense, it would mean the monarch exercising executive authority, usually in the form of ap ...

was subordinate to the Court of Directors of the East India Company and the British Crown. The Governor-General in Council in Fort William enacted legislation, such as the prohibition of Persian as an official language under Act no. XXIX of 1837 passed by the President of the Council of India in Council on 20 November 1837.

Judiciary

The

Calcutta High Court The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in India. It is located in B.B.D. Bagh, Kolkata, West Bengal. It has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The High Court buildi ...

was set up in 1862. The building was designed on the model of

Ypres Cloth Hall The Cloth Hall ( nl, Lakenhal/Lakenhalle) is a large cloth hall, a medieval commercial building, in Ypres, Belgium. It was one of the largest commercial buildings of the Middle Ages, when it served as the main market and warehouse for the Flemish ...

in Belgium. The Dacca High Court building was built during the early 20th century, with elements of a Roman pantheon. District courts were established in all district headquarters of the Bengal Presidency. At the district level, tax collectors and revenue officers acted with the power of magistrates. In 1829, magisterial power was given to all Collectors and Revenue Officers. The controversy regarding the lack of separation of powers continued until 1921.

Bengal Legislative Council (1862–1947)

The British government began to appoint legislative councils under the Indian Councils Act 1861. The Bengal Legislative Council was established in 1862. It was one of the largest and most important legislative councils in British India. Over the years, the council's powers were gradually expanded from an advisory role to debating government policies and enacting legislation. Under the

, the council became the upper chamber of the Bengali legislature.

Dyarchy (1920–37)

British India's Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms of 1919, enacted in 1921, expanded the Bengal Legislative Council to 140 members to include more elected Indian members. The reforms also introduced the principle of dyarchy, whereby certain responsibilities such as agriculture, health, education, and local government, were transferred to elected ministers. However, the important portfolios like finance, police and irrigation were reserved with members of the Governor's Executive Council. Some of the prominent ministers were Surendranath Banerjee (Local Self-government and Public Health 1921–1923), Sir Provash Chunder Mitter (Education 1921–1924, Local Self-government, Public Health, Agriculture and Public Works 1927–1928), Nawab Saiyid Nawab Ali Chaudhuri (Agriculture and Public Works) and

A. K. Fazlul Huq Abul Kasem Fazlul Huq ( bn, আবুল কাশেম ফজলুল হক, ur, ; 26October 1873 — 27 April 1962), popularly known as Sher-e-Bangla (''Lion of Bengal''), was a British Indian and Pakistani lawyer and writer who present ...

(Education 1924).

Bhupendra Nath Bose Bhupendra Nath Bose (13 January 1859 – 13 September 1924) was an Indian politician and President of the Indian National Congress in 1914. Life and works Bose was born in Radhanagar, West Bengal in 1859. He graduated from the Presidency Coll ...

and Sir Abdur Rahim were Executive Members in the Governor's Council.

Bengal Legislative Assembly (1935–1947)

The Government of India Act, 1935 established the Bengal Legislative Assembly as the lower chamber of the Bengali legislature. It was a 250-seat assembly where most members were elected by either the General Electorate or the Muslim Electorate (under the Communal Award). Other members were nominated. The separate electorate dividing Muslims from the general electorate was deeply controversial. The

Prime Minister of Bengal The Prime Minister of Bengal was the head of government of Bengal Presidency, Bengal Province and the Leader of the House in the Bengal Legislative Assembly in British India. The position was dissolved upon the Partition of Bengal (1947), Partitio ...

was a member of the assembly. AK Fazlul Huq Cabinet 1937

In the

1937 election The following elections occurred in the year 1937. Asia * 1937 Philippine local elections * 1937 Iranian legislative election * 1937 Soviet Union legislative election India * 1937 Indian provincial elections * 1937 Madras Presidency legislative ...

, the Congress emerged as the single largest party but short of an absolute majority. The second-largest party was the

Bengal Provincial Muslim League The Bengal Provincial Muslim League (BPML) was the branch of the All India Muslim League in the British Indian province of Bengal. It was established in Dacca on 2 March 1912. Its official language was Bengali. The party played an important role i ...

(BPML), followed in third place by the

Krishak Praja Party The Krishak Sramik Party ( bn, কৃষক শ্রমিক পার্টি, ''Farmer Labourer Party'') was a major anti-feudal political party in the British Indian province of Bengal and later in the Dominion of Pakistan's East Bengal and ...

. The BPML, Krishak Praja Party and independent legislators formed a coalition government.

, a founder of the BPML who later broke away to form the Krishak Praja Party, was elected as parliamentary leader and prime minister. Huq pursued a policy of

Hindu–Muslim unity Hindu–Muslim unity is a religiopolitical concept in the Indian subcontinent which stresses members of the two largest faith groups there, Hindus and Muslims, working together for the common good. The concept was championed by various persons, s ...

. His cabinet included leading Hindu and Muslim figures, including

Nalini Ranjan Sarkar Nalini Ranjan Sarkar () (1882–25 January 1953) was an Indian businessman, industrialist, economist, and public leader. He was greatly involved in the political and economic regeneration of Bengal. Sarkar was Finance Minister of West Bengal in ...

(finance), Bijoy Prasad Singha Roy (revenue), Maharaja

Srish Chandra Nandy Srish Kumar Nandy (10 October 1897 – 23 February 1952) was the last zamindar of Cossimbazar Raj and a writer, politician and landlord of Bengal. He was eldest son of Sir Maharaja Manindra Chandra Nandy and Maharani Kashishwari"The Indian a ...

(communications and public works), Prasanna Deb Raikut (forest and excise), Mukunda Behari Mallick (cooperative credit and rural indebtedness), Sir Khwaja Nazimuddin (home), Nawab Khwaja Habibullah (agriculture and industry), Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (commerce and labour), Nawab Musharraf Hussain (judicial and legislative affairs), and Syed Nausher Ali (public health and local self-government). Huq promoted financial and land reforms with the Bengal Agricultural Debtors' Act (1938), The Money Lenders' Act (1938), and the Bengal Tenancy (Amendment) Act (1938). He introduced the Primary Education Bill to make primary education free and compulsory. He established schools such as the

Lady Brabourne College Lady Brabourne College (LBC) is an institution for women's education in Kolkata, India. The college admits undergraduates and post-graduates, and awards degrees from the University of Calcutta. It is a state government administered college and is ...

. In 1941, Prime Minister Huq joined the Viceroy's Defence Council in support of

Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

war efforts. In a letter to Governor John Herbert, Huq called for the resurrection of a Bengal Army. He wrote "I want you to consent to the formation of a Bengali Army of a hundred thousand young Bengalis consisting of Hindu and Muslim youths on a fifty-fifty basis. There is an insistent demand for such a step being taken at once, and the people of Bengal will not be satisfied with any excuses. It is a national demand which must be immediately conceded". Huq supported the adoption of the Lahore Resolution in 1940. He envisaged Bengal as one of the "independent states" outlined by the resolution. The first Huq cabinet dissolved after the BPML withdrew from his government. Huq then formed a second coalition with the

Hindu Mahasabha The Hindu Mahasabha (officially Akhil Bhārat Hindū Mahāsabhā, ) is a Hindu nationalist political party in India. Founded in 1915, the Mahasabha functioned mainly as a pressure group advocating the interests of orthodox Hindus before the B ...

led by Syama Prasad Mukherjee. This cabinet was known as the Shyama-Huq Coalition. The cabinet included Nawab Bahabur Khwaja Habibullah, Khan Bahadur Abdul Karim, Khan Bahadur Hashem Ali Khan, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Syama Prasad Mukherjee, Santosh Kumar Bose and Upendranath Barman. Huq's government fell in 1943 and a BPML government under Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin as Prime Minister was formed. Nazimuddin's tenure coincided with the Bengal famine of 1943. His government was replaced by Governor's rule. After the end of World War II, elections were held in 1946 in which the BPML won an overwhelming majority of 113 seats in the 250-seat assembly. A government under Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was formed. Prime Minister Suhrawardy continued with the policy of power-sharing between Hindus and Muslims. He also advocated a plan for a Bengali sovereign state with a multiconfessionalist political system. The breakdown of Hindu-Muslim unity across India eventually upended Bengali power-sharing. Religious violence, including the Noakhali riots and Direct Action Day riots, contributed to the polarization. When the Bengal Assembly met to vote on Partition, most West Bengali legislators held a separate meeting and resolved to partition the province and join the Indian union. Most East Bengali legislators favored an undivided Bengal. The Bengal Assembly was divided into the West Bengal Legislative Assembly and East Bengal Legislative Assembly during the Partition of British India.

Civil liberties

English common law was applied to Bengal. Local legislation was enacted by the Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly.

Case law Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of a l ...

was also an important source of law. Many laws enacted in British Bengal are still in use today, including the Indian Penal Code. In 1919, the Rowlatt Act extended wartime powers under the Defence of India Act 1915, including arbitrary arrests and trial without juries. Press freedom was muzzled by the Indian Press Act 1910. The Seditious Meetings Act 1908 curtailed freedom of assembly. Regulation III of 1818 was also considered draconian. King George V granted a royal amnesty to free political prisoners. Some draconian laws were repealed, including the Rowlatt Act. Despite being a common law jurisdiction, British India did not enjoy the same level of protection for civil liberties as in the United Kingdom. It was only after independence in 1947 and the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, that human rights were clearly enshrined in law.

Princely states

Princely states were autonomous principalities under the

suzerainty Suzerainty () is the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity who controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. While the subordinate party is cal ...

of the British Crown in India. Initially, the Bengal Presidency managed the British government's relations with most princely states in the northern subcontinent, extending from

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered ...

in the north to Manipur in the northeast. An

Agency Agency may refer to: Organizations * Institution, governmental or others ** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients ** Employment agency, a business that ...

was often formed to be the liaison between the government and the princely states. The largest of these agencies under Bengal once included the Rajputana Agency. Other agencies covered the

Chota Nagpur Tributary States The Chota Nagpur Tributary States or Chota Nagpur States were a group of non-salute states (minor princely states) at the time of British Raj, located on the Chhota Nagpur Plateau. British suzerainty over the states was exercised through the g ...

and the Orissa Tributary States. Agents were also appointed to deal with tribal chiefs, such as the three tribal kings in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. At the time of the partition of India in 1947, the jurisdiction of the

Bengal States Agency The Eastern States Agency was an agency or grouping of princely states in eastern India, during the latter years of the Indian Empire. It was created in 1933, by the unification of the former Chhattisgarh States Agency and the Orissa States Agen ...

included Cooch Behar State and

Hill Tipperah Tripura State, also known as Hill Tipperah, was a princely state in India during the period of the British Raj and for some two years after the departure of the British. Its rulers belonged to the Manikya dynasty and until August ...

Himalayan kingdoms

Bengal was strategically important for the Himalayan regions of Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and Sikkim. The Anglo-Nepalese War between the East India Company and the Kingdom of Nepal was concluded with the Treaty of Sugauli, which ended Gorkha territorial expansion. The Treaty of Titalia was signed in 1817 between the HEIC and the Kingdom of Sikkim to establish British hegemony over Sikkim. The Bhutan War in the 1860s saw 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 ...

lose control of the

Bengal Duars The Dooars or Duars ( as, দুৱাৰ, duar, rkt, দুৱাৰ, duar, bn, দুয়ার, duyar) () are the alluvial floodplains in eastern-northeastern India that lie south of the outer foothills of the Himalayas and north of the ...

to the British. The British expedition to Tibet took place between 1903 and 1904. It resulted in the Treaty of Lhasa which acknowledged

Qing China The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu people, Manchu-led Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin (1616–1636), La ...

's supremacy over Tibet.

Foreign relations

The United States of America began sending envoys to Fort William in the 18th century. President

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

nominated Benjamin Joy as the first Consul to Fort William on 19 November 1792. The nomination was supported by the erstwhile Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and approved by the U. S. Senate on 21 November 1792. Benjamin Joy reached Calcutta in 1794. The HEIC did not recognize Joy as an official consul but allowed him to be a Commercial Agent. The American Consulate General was established during formal British rule. A consular agency for Chittagong was created in the 1860s. Many other countries also set up consulates in Calcutta.

Education

British rule saw the establishment of liberal arts colleges in many districts of Bengal. There were only two full-fledged universities in Bengal during British rule, including the University of Calcutta and the University of Dacca. Both universities were represented in the Bengal Legislative Assembly under the Government of India Act, 1935. Primary education was mandatory under the Compulsory Education Acts. Despite significant advances and the emergence of a large educated middle class, most of the population did not have access to a proper education. Some of the leading schools included the

Oriental Seminary The Oriental Seminary started in 1829 by the educator Gour Mohan Addy, was the earliest privately run, first-rate school for children of Hindu parents in Kolkata (then known as Calcutta). It was open only to boys of Hindu parents. It was possibly ...

in Calcutta, the

St. Gregory's High School St. Gregory's High School & College is a Catholic school in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was founded in 1882, when the city was part of British India, by Gregory De Groote, a Belgian Benedictine priest. The school, located on Municipal office street of L ...

in Dacca, the

Rajshahi Collegiate School Rajshahi Collegiate School ( bn, রাজশাহী কলেজিয়েট স্কুল) in Boalia Thana in the center of Rajshahi, a city in northern Bangladesh, is the oldest school in the country. History After completing MA in Phi ...

in Rajshahi and the

Chittagong Collegiate School Chittagong Collegiate School is a government educational institution in Chittagong, the southern port city in Bangladesh.It provides education from 5th to 12th grade. Established in 1836, it is one of the oldest and the best educational institutes ...

in Chittagong. European missionaries, Hindu philanthropists and Muslim aristocrats were influential promoters of education. Ethnic minorities maintained their own institutions, such as the Armenian Pogose School. Each district of Bengal had a

district school A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions ...

, which were the leading secondary institutions. Due to Calcutta being the colonial capital, the city had a large concentration of educational institutions. It was followed by Dacca, which served as a provincial capital between 1905 and 1912. Libraries were established in each district of Bengal by the colonial government and the Zamindars. In 1854, four major public libraries were opened, including the Bogra Woodburn Library, the Rangpur Public Library, the Jessore Institute Public Library and the Barisal Public Library. Northbrook Hall was established in 1882 in honor of Governor-General

Lord Northbrook Baron Northbrook, of Stratton in the County of Southampton, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1866 for the Liberal politician and former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Francis Baring, 3rd Baronet. The holde ...

. Other libraries built include the Victoria Public Library, Natore (1901), the Sirajganj Public Library (1882), the Rajshahi Public Library (1884), the Comilla Birchandra Library (1885), the Shah Makhdum Institute Public Library, Rajshahi (1891), the Noakhali Town Hall Public Library (1896), the Prize Memorial Library, Sylhet (1897), the Chittagong Municipality Public Library (1904) and the Varendra Research Library (1910). In 1925, the Great Bengal Library Association was established. Europeans played an important role in modernizing the Bengali language. The first book on Bengali grammar was compiled by a Portuguese missionary. English was the official language. The use of Persian as an official language was discontinued by Act no. XXIX of 1837 passed by the President of the Council of India in Council on 20 November 1837. However, Persian continued to be taught in some institutions. Several institutions had Sanskrit and Arabic faculties. The following includes a partial list of notable colleges, universities and learned societies in the Bengal Presidency.

Economy

The Fort and the Hooghly River in Calcutta (c

In Bengal, the British inherited from the Mughals the biggest revenue earnings in the Indian subcontinent. For example, the revenue of pre-colonial Dhaka alone was 1 million rupees in the 18th century (a high amount in that era). Mughal Bengal accounted for 12% of the world's GDP and was a major exporter of silk, cotton, saltpeter, and agricultural produce. With its proto-industrial economy, Bengal contributed to the first Industrial Revolution in Britain (particularly in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution). After 1757, the British placed Bengal under

company rule Company rule in India (sometimes, Company ''Raj'', from hi, rāj, lit=rule) refers to the rule of the British East India Company on the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when ...

(which led to Bengali

deindustrialization Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry. There are different interpre ...

). Other European powers in the region included the French East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, the Ostend Company and the Danish East India Company. Initially, the English East India Company promoted opium cultivation which caused the Opium Wars with

. The East India Company's promotion of indigo farming caused the

Indigo revolt The Indigo revolt (or ''Nil bidroha''; Bengali: নীল বিদ্রোহ) was a peasant movement and subsequent uprising of indigo farmers against the indigo planters, that arose in Bengal in 1859, and continued for over a year. The villa ...

. The British were much criticized for favoring textile imports and suppressing local muslin production. The chaos of the Company rule period culminated in the

in 1857. In 1858, the British government gained direct control of Indian administration. Bengal was plugged into the market-driven economy and trade networks of the British Empire. The Bengal Presidency had the largest gross domestic product in British India. The first British colonial banks in the Indian subcontinent were founded in Bengal. These included the General Bank of Bengal and Bihar (1733);

Bank of Hindostan of Hindostan (1770–1832), a now defunct bank, is considered as among the first modern banks in Colonial India. History It was established by the agency house of Alexander and Company. The Bank lived through three economic crises of ...

(1770), Bank of Bengal (1784); and the General Bank of India (1786). Other banks in Bengal included the Bank of Calcutta (1806), Union Bank (1829); Government Savings Bank (1833); The Bank of Mirzapore (c. 1835); Dacca Bank (1846); Kurigram Bank (1887), Kumarkhali Bank (1896), Mahaluxmi Bank, Chittagong (1910), Dinajpur Bank (1914), Comilla Banking Corporation (1914),

Bengal Central Bank Bengal Central Bank was a commercial bank based in Bengal. It was founded by J. C. Das in 1918 as the Bengal Central Loan Company. On 18 December 1950, it merged with Comilla Banking Corporation, Comilla Union Bank and Hooghly Bank to form the ...

(1918), and Comilla Union Bank (1922). Loan offices were established in Faridpur (1865), Bogra (1872), Barisal (1873), Mymensingh (1873), Nasirabad (1875), Jessore (1876), Munshiganj (1876), Dacca (1878), Sylhet (1881), Pabna (1882), Kishoreganj (1883), Noakhali (1885), Khulna (1887), Madaripur (1887), Tangail (1887), Nilphamari (1894) and Rangpur (1894). The earliest records of securities dealings are the loan securities of the British East India Company. In 1830, bourse activities in Calcutta were conducted in the open air under a tree. The Calcutta Stock Exchange was incorporated in 1908. Some of the leading companies in British Bengal included Messrs. Alexander and Co,

Waldies Waldies Compound Limited (Waldies) (ISO – 9001; ISO – 14001 & OHSAS – 18001 certified) is Indian chemical company It is India's oldest manufacturer of lead oxides. It is headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal. The company produces red l ...

Martin Burn Martin Burn Limited is a Real Estate Development firm based in Kolkata. History The history of Martin Burn Limited, generally referred to as Martin & Burn Co. goes back to 1890, when Sir Rajen Mookerjee in partnership with Sir Thomas Acquin Ma ...

M. M. Ispahani Limited M.M. Ispahani Limited ( bn, এম এম ইস্পাহানি লিমিটেড), also known as The Ispahani Group, is a Bangladeshi conglomerate headquartered in Chittagong. Founded in 1820, it is the oldest company in Bangladesh and ...

, James Finlay and Co.,

A K Khan & Company A K Khan & Co. Ltd. is one of the oldest Bangladeshi conglomerates headquartered in Chittagong. It was established in 1945 by Abul Kashem Khan during the Second World War. Projects The company is planning to setup a tyre plant under joint collab ...

, the

Calcutta Chemical Company The Calcutta Chemical Company was a pharmaceutical company established in the city of Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1916 by K.C. Das, B.N. Maitra, and R.N. Sen. Its founding was at the time of the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, where the spirit of ent ...

Bourne & Shepherd Bourne & Shepherd was an Indian photographic studio and one of the oldest established photographic businesses in the world.

, the Indo-Burmah Petroleum Company, Orient Airways,

Shaw Wallace Shaw Wallace & Company Limited, abbreviated to SWC, is an Indian liquor manufacturer headquartered in the Wallace House in Kolkata, West Bengal. It was established in 1886 by Robert Gordon Shaw and Charles William Wallace.Carew & Co, Aditya Birla Group, Tata Group,

Balmer Lawrie Balmer Lawrie & Co. Ltd. (BL) is an Indian central public sector undertaking under the ownership of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. It was a partnership firm founded on 1 February 1867 in Calcutta, British India ...

Biecco Lawrie Biecco Lawrie Co. Limited (BLL) was an Indian public sector undertaking under the ownership of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India, headquartered in Kolkata. It was originally established in 1919 as British India Elect ...

Braithwaite, Burn & Jessop Construction Company The Braithwaite Burn & Jessop Construction Company Limited (BBJ Construction Company) is a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) of the Government of India under Department of Heavy Industries. Established on 26 January 1935, BBJ Construction Company ...

, Braithwaite & Co., Bridge and Roof Company, Britannia Industries, Burn Standard Company and

Andrew Yule and Company Andrew Yule & Co. Ltd. is an Indian manufacturing and industrial conglomerate, primarily owned by the Indian Government. It is the main company owned by the Yule Group. It is currently headquartered in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), and has off ...

. Some of these enterprises were nationalized after the Partition of India. James Andrew Broun Ramsay Dalhousie 5718

Agricultural products included rice, sugarcane and vegetables. The main cash crops were

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 tea. The jute trade was central to the British Bengali economy. Bengal accounted for the bulk of the world's jute production and export. Raw jute was sourced from the hinterland of Eastern Bengal. The British government declared the Port of Narayanganj as a "Tax Free Port" in 1878. Rally Brothers & Co. was one of the earliest British companies in the jute business of Narayanganj. British firms used middlemen, called ''beparis'', to source raw jute from the hinterland. In 1907, 20 firms were engaged in the jute trade of Narayanganj, including 18 European firms. Hindu merchants opened several cotton mills in the 1920s, including the Dhakeshwari Cotton Mill, the Chittaranjan Cotton Mill and the Laxmi Narayan Cotton Mill. Other goods traded in Narayanganj included timber, salt, textiles, oil, cotton, tobacco, pottery, seeds and betel nut. Raw goods were processed by factories in Calcutta, especially jute mills. The Port of Chittagong was re-organized in 1887 under the Port Commissioners Act. Its busiest trade links were with

, including the ports of Akyab and

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

; and other Bengali ports, including Calcutta, Dhaka and Narayanganj. In the fiscal year 1889–90, Chittagong handled exports totalling 125,000 tons. The Strand Road was built beside the port. In 1928, the British government declared Chittagong as a "Major Port" of British India. Chittagong's port was used by

Allied Forces of World War II The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. ...

during the Burma Campaign. The Port of Calcutta was the largest seaport of British India. The port was constructed by the British East India Company. It was one of the busiest ports in the world during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Calcutta was a major trading port with links to ports across the British Empire. Its local hinterland spanned beyond Bengal to include north and northeast India, the Himalayan kingdoms and Tibet. The Bay of Bengal became one of the busiest shipping hubs in the world, rivaling the traffic of ports on the Atlantic. Calcutta was also an important naval base in World War II and was bombed by the Japanese. Chambers of commerce were established. The Bengal Chamber of Commerce was established in 1853. The Narayanganj Chamber of Commerce was set up in 1904. The textile trade of Bengal enriched many merchants. For example, Panam City in Sonargaon saw many townhouses built for wealthy textile merchants. Tea became a major export of Bengal. Northwestern Bengal became the center of Darjeeling tea cultivation in the foothills of the Himalayas. Darjeeling tea became one of the most reputed tea varieties in the world. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway was constructed in the tea plantation zone. In eastern Bengal, the

and

hilly regions became hubs of

tea production Tea processing is the method in which the leaves from the tea plant '' Camellia sinensis'' are transformed into the dried leaves for brewing tea. The categories of tea are distinguished by the processing they undergo. In its most general form, t ...

. Assam tea was produced in the northeastern part of the Bengal Presidency. Aside from the British, the chief beneficiaries of the colonial economy were the Zamindars (landed gentry). The Permanent Settlement enforced a system in which peasants were indebted to the Zamindars. The peasants rented land from the Zamindars and became tenant farmers. Strong control of land by the Zamindars meant the British had few headaches in exploiting trade and business. However, Bengal received little attention for industrialization due to the entrenched peasant-zamindar relationship under the Permanent Settlement. The Zamindars of Bengal built mansions, lodges, modern bungalows, townhouses, and palaces on their estates. Some of the largest mansions include the Hazarduari Palace in Murshidabad, the Ahsan Manzil on the Nawab of Dhaka's estate, the Marble Palace in Calcutta, and the Cooch Behar Palace.

Infrastructure and transport

Railways

After the invention of railways in Britain, British India became the first region in Asia to have a railway. The East Indian Railway Company introduced railways to Bengal. The company was established on 1 June 1845 in London by a deed of settlement with a capital of £4,000,000. Its first line connected Calcutta with towns in northern India. By 1859, there were 77 engines, 228 coaches and 848 freight wagons. Large quantities of sal tree wood were imported from Nepal to design the sleepers. In 1862, railways were introduced to eastern Bengal with 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 ...

. The first line connected Calcutta and

Kushtia Kushtia ( bn, কুষ্টিয়া) is a city in the Khulna Division of southwestern Bangladesh. Kushtia is the second largest municipality in Bangladesh and the eleventh largest city in the country. The second largest city in Khulna div ...

. By 1865, the railway was extended to Rajbari on the banks of the Padma River. By 1902, the railway was extended to Assam. The Assam Bengal Railway was established to serve the northeastern part of the Bengal Presidency, with its terminus in Chittagong. The

Bengal and North Western Railway The Bengal and North Western Railway was owned and worked by the ''Bengal and North Western Railway Company'' (registered 23 October 1882, dissolved October 1946). The Bengal and North Western Railway was merged into the Oudh and Tirhut Railway ...

was set up in 1882 to link towns in the Oudh region with Calcutta. Several railway bridges, such as the Hardinge Bridge, were built over rivers in Bengal. In 1999, UNESCO recognized the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway as a World Heritage Site.

Roads and highways

In the 1830s the East India Company began to rebuild the ancient Grand Trunk Road into a paved highway. The company required the road for commercial and administrative purposes. It linked Calcutta to Peshawar in the North-West Frontier Province. For the project, the company founded a college to train and employ local surveyors, engineers, and overseers. In the east, the road extended to Sonargaon, Comilla and Chittagong. After the first partition of Bengal in 1905, newly built highways connected the inaccessible areas of Assam and the Chittagong Hill Tracts. All district towns were connected by an inter-district road network.

Waterways

A ''ghat'' in Bengal refers to a river port. The busiest river ports included the Port of Calcutta, the Port of Dhaka, the Port of Narayanganj and Goalundo Ghat. After the first partition of Bengal in 1905, a number of new ferry services were introduced connecting Chittagong, Dhaka, Bogra, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Jalpaiguri, Maldah and Rajshahi. This improved communication network boosted trade and commerce.

Aviation

Royal Air Force Operations in the Far East, 1941-1945

An early attempt at manned flight in Bengal was by a young female balloonist named Jennette Rumary who at the time was associated with Park Van Tassel and took the stage name ''Jennette Van Tassell''. Invited to perform by the Nawab of Dhaka, at 6.20 pm on 16 March 1892, Jennette set off to fly from the southern bank of the River Buriganga. But a gusting wind carried her off to the gardens of Shahbag, where her balloon became stuck in a tree. During her rescue from the tree she fell and died two days later. Jennette is interred in the Christian graveyard at Narinda in Old Dhaka. An airfield opened next to a Royal Artillery station on the outskirts of Calcutta. The Governor of Bengal Sir

Stanley Jackson Sir Francis Stanley Jackson Jackson's obituary in the 1948 ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack''. This gives his full name as ''Francis'' Stanley Jackson, whereas Cricinfo and CricketArchive both give his full name as ''Frank'' Stanley Jackson. This ...

opened the Bengal Flying Club in Calcutta's aerodrome in February 1929. In 1930, the airfield was upgraded into a full-fledged airport. It was popularly known as Dum Dum Airport. Imperial Airways began flights from London to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

via Calcutta in 1933. Air Orient began scheduled stops as part of its Paris to

Saigon , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...

route. KLM operated a route from Amsterdam to Batavia (Jakarta) via Calcutta. Calcutta emerged as a stopover for many airlines operating routes between Europe, Indochina and Australasia. The flight of

Amelia Earhart Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many oth ...

and Fred Noonan, who attempted to circumnavigate the world, made a stopover in Calcutta in 1937. Local airlines included

Tata Air Services Air India is the flag carrier airline of India, headquartered at New Delhi. It is owned by Talace Private Limited, a Special-Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of Tata Sons, after Air India Limited's former owner, the Government of India, completed the ...

and Orient Airways. Bengal played an important role for the air operations of the

Allied forces of World War II The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. ...

. The Royal Air Force operated airfields across Bengal during the Burma Campaign. Aircraft of the United States Army Air Forces were also stationed in Bengal. The following includes a partial list of airports and airfields established during British rule in Bengal. Airfields were used by Allied Forces during World War II.

Military

-Bengal Horse Artillery,1860- MET DP146172

Bengal Sapper and Miners Bastion, in Sherpur cantonment, Kabul, Second Afghan War, c

The

Bengal Army The Bengal Army was the army of the Bengal Presidency, one of the three presidencies of British India within the British Empire. The presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company (EIC) until the Govern ...

was one of the Presidency Armies of British India. It was formed by the East India Company. The Commander-in-Chief of the Bengal Army was concurrently the

Commander-in-Chief, India During the period of the Company rule in India and the British Raj, the Commander-in-Chief, India (often "Commander-in-Chief ''in'' or ''of'' India") was the supreme commander of the British Indian Army. The Commander-in-Chief and most of his ...

from 1853 to 1895, as the Bengal Army was the largest of the Presidency Armies. Recruits initially included Europeans and soldiers of the former Nawabs' Armies. Many of the recruits were from Bihar and Oudh. The Gurkhas were also recruited under the Bengal Army. In 1895, the Bengal Army was merged into 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 ...

. The British Indian Army had a Bengal Command between 1895 and 1908. Major military engagements affecting British Bengal included the First Anglo-Burmese War, the Anglo-Nepalese War, the First Afghan War, the Opium Wars, the Bhutan War, the Second Anglo-Afghan War, World War I, and the Burma Campaign of World War II. The chief British base in Bengal was Fort William. Across the subcontinent, the British often converted Mughal forts into military bases, such as in Delhi and Dhaka. The British also built

cantonment A cantonment (, , or ) is a military quarters. In Bangladesh, India and other parts of South Asia, a ''cantonment'' refers to a permanent military station (a term from the British India, colonial-era). In military of the United States, United Stat ...

s, including Dhaka Cantonment and Chittagong Cantonment. Many Allied soldiers killed in Burma were buried in cemeteries in Chittagong and Comilla. The graveyards include the Commonwealth War Cemetery, Chittagong and

Mainamati War Cemetery The Mainamati War Cemetery (alternatively: Comilla War Cemetery) is a war cemetery and a memorial in Comilla, Bangladesh, for Second World War graves from nearby areas. The cemetery contains 736 Commonwealth burials. It was established and mainta ...

, which are maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Famines and other natural disasters

Colonial India as well as the Bengal Presidency suffered from the numerous famines and epidemics throughout the British Rule. The Great Bengal famine of 1770 lasted until 1773 and killed approximately 10 million Bengalis. The East India Company was heavily criticized for neglecting the population's food security. The repeated bouts of famine in India, coupled with other abuses against the population, caused the British Parliament to gradually remove the monopoly of the East India Company, curtail the company's powers and eventually replace it with crown rule. Warren Hastings, Governor of Bengal, was

censured A censure is an expression of strong disapproval or harsh criticism. In parliamentary procedure, it is a debatable main motion that could be adopted by a majority vote. Among the forms that it can take are a stern rebuke by a legislature, a spi ...

for the abuses of the company. Ironically, Hastings had set about to reform the company's practices and was later acquitted of any wrongdoing. During the trial of Hastings,

Edmund Burke Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_ NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style"> ...

delivered a scathing indictment of malpractice by the company, condemning it for "injustice and treachery against the faith of nations". Burke stated "With various instances of extortion and other deeds of maladministration....With impoverishing and depopulating the whole country.....with a wanton and unjust, pernicious, exercise of his powers.....in overturning the ancient establishments of the country......With cruelties unheard of and devastations almost without name......Crimes which have their rise in the wicked dispositions of men- in avarice, rapacity, pride, cruelty, malignity, haughtiness, insolence, ferocity, treachery, cruelty, malignity of temper - in short, nothing that does not argue a total extinction of all moral principle, that does not manifest an inveterate blackness of heart, a heart blackened to the very blackest, a heart corrupted, gangrened to the core.....We have brought before you the head (Hastings)....one in whom all the frauds, all the peculations, all the violence, all the tyranny in India are embodied". In 1876, about 200,000 Bengalis were killed in Barisal as a result of the

1876 Bengal cyclone The Great Backerganj Cyclone of 1876 (29 October – 1 November 1876) was one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in history. It hit the coast of Backerganj, British Raj (near Meghna estuary) in present-day Barisal, Bangladesh, killing about 200,0 ...

. The Bengal Presidency endured a vast famine between 1873 and 1874. The

Bengal famine of 1943 The Bengal famine of 1943 was a famine in the Bengal province of British India (present-day Bangladesh, West Bengal and eastern India) during World War II. An estimated 0.8 to 3.8 million Bengalis perished, out of a population of 60.3 millio ...

killed an estimated 3 million people during World War II. People died of starvation, malaria, or other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, and lack of healthcare. Britain's wartime Prime Minister

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

has been held responsible for the famine by prominent Indians, including politician Shashi Tharoor. When British civil servants sent letters to London regarding the famine situation, Churchill once responded by saying "Why hasn't Gandhi died yet?". Churchill's defenders, however, argue that it is an exaggeration to blame him for the wartime hunger crisis. The real cause was the fall of Burma to the Japanese, which cut off India's main supply of rice imports when domestic sources fell short, which they did in Eastern Bengal after a devastating cyclone in mid-October 1942". Lizzie Collingham holds the massive global dislocations of supplies caused by World War II virtually guaranteed that hunger would occur somewhere in the world, yet Churchill's racism toward the Indians decided the exact location where famine would fall.

Culture

Literary development

The English language replaced Persian as the official language of administration. The use of Persian was prohibited by Act no. XXIX of 1837 passed by the President of the

Council of India The Council of India was the name given at different times to two separate bodies associated with British rule in India. The original Council of India was established by the Charter Act of 1833 as a council of four formal advisors to the Governor ...

in Council on 20 November 1837, bringing an end to six centuries of Indo-Persian culture in Bengal. The Bengali language received increased attention. European missionaries produced the first modern books on Bengali grammar. In pre-colonial times, Hindus and Muslims would be highly attached to their liturgical languages, including Sanskrit and Arabic. Under British rule, the use of Bengali widened and it was strengthened as the ''

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

'' of the native population. Novels began to be written in Bengali. The literary polymath Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

in 1913. The cultural activist Kazi Nazrul Islam gained popularity as British India's ''Rebel Poet''.

Jagadish Chandra Bose Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (;, ; 30 November 1858 – 23 November 1937) was a biologist, physicist, Botany, botanist and an early writer of science fiction. He was a pioneer in the investigation of radio microwave optics, made significant contr ...

pioneered Bengali science fiction.

Begum Rokeya Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain") is the commonly used spelling of Rokeya's full married name, Rokeya herself is never seen to use her full married name in this English spelling. In much of her correspondence in English, she used just her initials: � ...

, author of ''

Sultana's Dream ''Sultana's Dream'' is a 1905 Bengali feminist utopian story in English, written by Begum Rokeya, also known as Rokeya Sahkawat Hossain, a Muslim feminist, writer and social reformer from Bengal. It was published in the same year in Madras-bas ...

'', became an early feminist science fiction author.

Media

Numerous newspapers were published in British Bengal since the 18th century. Many were in English. '' Hicky's Bengal Gazette'' was a major weekly publication. The first Bengali periodicals appeared in the 19th century. The ''Calcutta Journal'' became the first daily newspaper in British India. Other newspapers included the ''

Dacca News The ''Dacca News'' was the first English periodical in Bengal Presidency, eastern Bengal. It was a weekly English newspaper and was first published on 18 April 1856. The newspaper was published from Dhaka Press, whose owners were English, Armenian ...

'' and ''

The Bengal Times The Bengal Times a newspaper published from Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the ei ...

''. Radio channels began transmitting in 1927.

Visual arts

The Company School of Painting in Calcutta, Murshidabad, and Patna saw Mughal miniatures absorb images of British colonial officials in place of Mughal officials. European painters produced numerous works in Bengal since the 18th century. European photographers also worked in the region. The modernist Bengal school of painting evolved in the province. European sculptures were widely imported by wealthy Zamindars. In the 1940s, Zainul Abedin emerged as a modernist painter depicting poverty and the Bengal famine.

Calcutta Time

Calcutta Time was the time zone of the Bengal Presidency. It was established in 1884. It was one of the two time zones of British India. In the latter part of the 19th century, Calcutta Time was the most prevalent time used in the Indian part of the British Empire with records of astronomical and geological events recorded in it.

Cinema

The

Royal Bioscope Company The Royal Bioscope Company was the first film production company in Bengal, and possibly the first in India, set up in 1898 by Hiralal Sen, along with Matilal Sen, Deboki Lal Sen, and Bholanath Gupta. The initial productions used an Urban ...

began producing Bengali cinema in 1898, producing scenes from the stage productions of a number of popular shows at the Crown Theatre in Dacca and the Star Theater, Minerva Theater, and Classic Theater in Calcutta. The Madan Theatre started making silent films in Calcutta in 1916. The first Bengali feature film, '' Billwamangal'', was produced and released in 1919 under the banner of the Madan Theatre. The movie was directed by Rustomji Dhotiwala and produced by Priyonath Ganguli. A Bengali film company called the

Indo British Film Co The Indo British Film Co was a film production company set up by Dhirendra Nath Ganguly in 1918. Bengali Ownership It was the first Bengali owned production company in India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a co ...

was soon formed in Calcutta by

Dhirendra Nath Ganguly Dhirendra Nath Ganguly (26 March 1893 – 18 November 1978), better known as Dhiren Ganguly or D.G, was a Dadasaheb Phalke Award-winning and Padma Bhushan recipient film entrepreneur/actor/director of Bengali Cinema. He had set up a number of ...

. Ganguly directed and wrote ''

Bilat Ferat ''Bilat Ferat'' বিলেত ফেরত (England Returned) also known as ''Bilet Pherat'', is a 1921 Bengali silent film directed by Nitish Chandra LaharryIMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online databa ...

'' in 1921, which was the first production of the Indo British Film Co. ''

Jamai Shashthi ''Jamai Shashthi'' ( bn, জামাই ষষ্ঠী English: Son-in-law day) is a 1931 Bengali short film directed by Amar Choudhury and produced by Madan Theatre Limited. It is a milestone of Bengali cinema as it was the first Bengali ...

'' (1931) was one of the earliest Bengali talkies. In 1927–28, the Dhaka Nawab Family produced a short film named ''Sukumary'' (The Good Girl). After the success of ''Sukumary'', the Nawab's family went for a bigger venture. To make a full-length silent film, a temporary studio was made in the gardens of the family's estate, and they produced a full-length silent film titled ''The Last Kiss'', released in 1931. The "East Bengal Cinematograph Society" was later established in Dacca.

Sports

Royal Calcutta Turf Club Race Stands - Viceroy's Cup Day

Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

started being played in the 1790s. The Calcutta Cricket Club was set up in 1792. For

horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic p ...

, the

Royal Calcutta Turf Club The Royal Calcutta Turf Club (RCTC) is a horse racing organisation which was founded in 1847 in Calcutta, British India (now Kolkata). Horse events and sports were initially organised for the British cavalry at Akra before they were moved to the ...

was set up in 1847. It became British India's equivalent of the

Jockey Club The Jockey Club is the largest commercial horse racing organisation in the United Kingdom. It owns 15 of Britain's famous racecourses, including Aintree, Cheltenham, Epsom Downs and both the Rowley Mile and July Course in Newmarket, amo ...

in England in terms of arbitrating matters related to racing. In addition to horse races, the club also launched

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

matches among natives and colonialists. Races at the Calcutta Race Course were once among the most important social events of the calendar, opened by the Viceroy of India. During the 1930s the Calcutta Derby Sweeps was a leading sweepstake game in the world. A racecourse was also set up in Ramna by the Dacca Club. The Bengal Public Gaming (Amendment) Act (Act No. IV of 1913) excluded horse racing from the gambling law.

Bengal renaissance

The Bengal renaissance refers to social reform movements during the 19th and early 20th centuries in the region of Bengal in undivided India during the period of British rule. 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). 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". These movements were most prevalent in Bengali Hindu society, such as through the Brahmo Samaj. There was a growing cultural awakening in Bengali Muslim society, including the emergence of Mir Mosharraf Hossain as the first Muslim novelist of Bengal; Kazi Nazrul Islam as a celebrated poet who merged Bengali and Hindustani influences;

and

Nawab Faizunnesa Nawab Begum Faizunnesa Choudhurani ( bn, নওয়াব বেগম ফয়জুন্নেসা চৌধুরানী; 1834–1903) was Zamindar of Homnabad-Pashchimgaon Estate in present-day Comilla District, Bangladesh. She is mo ...

as feminist educators;

Kaykobad Kazem Ali Quereshi ( – 21 July 1951), known by his pen-name Kaykobad, was a Bengali poet. Nikhil Bharat Sahitya Sangha titled him ''"Kavyabhusan"'', ''"Vidyabhusan"'' and ''"Sahityaratna"''. Early life and education Kaykobad was born in Agla ...

as an epic poet; and members of the Freedom of Intellect Movement. Bengal played a major role in the Indian independence movement and the Pakistan movement. The earliest organized anti-colonial groups appeared in Bengal. The region produced many of the subcontinent's political leaders during the early 20th century. Political parties and rebel groups were formed across the region.

Architecture

Civic architecture began following European styles after the advent of the East India Company's authority. The Indo-Saracenic style, merging

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

and Indo-Islamic architecture, was started by British architects in the late 19th-century. While cities such as Calcutta and Dacca featured more civic architecture, country houses were built in many towns and villages across Bengal. Art deco influences began in the 1930s. Wealthy Bengali families (especially zamindar estates) employed European firms to design houses and palaces. The Hooghly Bridge (BOND 0034).jpeg, Howrah Bridge in 1945 Victoria Memorial, Calcutta - LIFE.jpg, Victoria Memorial, Kolkata Writers Building.jpg,

Writer's Building The Writers' Buildings, often shortened to just Writers, is the official secretariat building of the state government of West Bengal in Kolkata, India. The 150-meter long building covers the entire northern stretch of the iconic Lal Dighi pond a ...

Ruplal House old.jpg,

Ruplal House Ruplal House (formerly known as Aratoon House) is a 19th-century mansion in Farashganj area in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was built on the northern bank of the Buriganga River, beside the Buckland Dam. The house was built in 1825 by an Armenian busine ...

Completed Bridge. (23126065986).jpg, Hardinge Bridge, 1915 Dhaka College 1904.jpg,

Dacca College Dhaka College ( bn, ঢাকা কলেজ also known as DC) is the oldest secular educational institution of Bangladesh located in Dhaka. It offers higher secondary education ( HSC). It has Honours and Masters programs as well which are ...

, 1904 Madrassa Dhaka 1904.jpg, Dacca Madrasa, 1904 Nawab's Shahbagh Garden dhaka 1904 02.jpg, Nawab's Shahbagh Garden, 1904

Society

Bengali society remained deeply conservative during the colonial period with the exception of social reform movements. Historians have argued that the British used a policy of divide and rule among Hindus and Muslims. This meant favoring Hindus over Muslims and vice versa in certain sectors. For example, after the Permanent Settlement, Hindu merchants such as the Tagore family were awarded large land grants that previously belonged to the Mughal aristocracy. In Calcutta, where Hindus formed a majority, wealthy Muslims were often given favors over Hindus. One aspect that benefitted the Hindu community was increased literacy rates. Many Muslims, however, remained alienated from English education after the abolition of Persian. Bengali society continued to experience religious nationalism which led to the partition of Bengal in 1947. British Bengali cities included a cosmopolitan population, including Armenians and Jews.

Anglo-Indians Anglo-Indian people fall into two different groups: those with mixed Indian and British ancestry, and people of British descent born or residing in India. The latter sense is now mainly historical, but confusions can arise. The ''Oxford English ...

formed a prominent part of the urban population. Several Gentlemen's clubs were established, including the Bengal Club,

Calcutta Club Calcutta Club ( bn, কলকাতা ক্লাব) is an elite social club located on Lower Circular Road in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India. It was established in 1907 and the first president of the club was the Maharajah of Cooch Behar ...

, Dacca Club, Chittagong Club, Tollygunge Club and Saturday Club.

References

Works cited

* * C. A. Bayly ''Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire'' (Cambridge) 1988 * C. E. Buckland ''Bengal under the Lieutenant-Governors'' (London) 1901 * Sir James Bourdillon, ''The Partition of Bengal'' (London: Society of Arts) 1905 * Susil Chaudhury ''From Prosperity to Decline. Eighteenth Century Bengal'' (Delhi) 1995 * Sir William Wilson Hunter, ''Annals of Rural Bengal'' (London) 1868, and ''Odisha'' (London) 1872 * * Ray, Indraji
''Bengal Industries and the British Industrial Revolution (1757–1857)''
(Routledge) 2011 * John R. McLane ''Land and Local Kingship in eighteenth-century Bengal'' (Cambridge) 1993

External links

{{West Bengal History of Assam History of Bengal History of Bihar History of Odisha Historical Indian regions 1765 establishments in British India 1947 disestablishments in British India Former British colonies and protectorates in Asia States and territories disestablished in 1947