Bengal Divided

Beginning with the British partition of Bengal in 1905, Nitish K. Sengupta examines why a province united by language and a long shared culture developed increasingly separate Hindu and Muslim political identities. He contrasts the Swadeshi agitation centred on Kolkata with support for the new eastern province in Dhaka, and traces the social inequalities, competing ideas of representation and uneven effects of the Bengal Renaissance that deepened mistrust between the bhadralok elite and Bengali Muslims.

The narrative follows the political realignments of the 1920s and 1930s, the wartime crisis, the failed attempt to preserve a sovereign united Bengal and the decision to divide the province in 1947. It then compares the trajectories of West Bengal and East Pakistan, including the Bengali language movement, military rule and the growth of a distinct Bangladeshi nationalism that culminated in independence in 1971. Chittaranjan Das, Subhas Chandra Bose, Kazi Nazrul Islam, A. K. Fazlul Huq, H. S. Suhrawardy, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman are treated as political actors within the broader breakdown of a common Bengali nation.