Why Bengal, which has faced map-maker's scalpel before, is troubled by idea of 'partition'

By Jayanta Roy Chowdhury Kolkata, Jul 4 (PTI) When John Barla, BJP's Alipurduar Lok Sabha MP, last week made a controversial demand for a separate Union Territory carved out of Bengal's rrn districts, little did he realise storm that would r with endless hours of television debate, scores of opinion pieces and thousands of social media outpourings against what has been dubbed as " New Partition Plan".

A demand for ar state carved out of tribal- dominated districts of West Bengal, made by ar BJP MP Saumitra Khan, merely added fuel to fire with furious newspaper editorials condemning move to "balkanise" eastern state.

Bengal, which has gone under map-maker's scalpel twice in last 116 years, finds itself caught in a vortex of emotions as hated word 'partition' increasingly crops up in coffee house debates and 'addas' (long conversations) at roadside tea shops.

" word 'partition' evokes strong emotions here as state has faced two bloody and emotionally exhaustive partitions -- first in 1905, and n in 1947 when bloody riots followed Sir Cyril Radcliffe wielding his knife through Bengal's body politic," pointed out Aditya Mukherjee, Professor of Contemporary History and Director of Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Studies.

In July 1905, Lord Curzon anunced his plan to partition Bengal presidency into two separate provinces -- Bengal which comprised western Bengal, Bihar and Odisha, and a separate province of East Bengal and Assam -- ostensibly for administrative expediency but in reality, to tame a growing nationalist movement based out of Kolkata.

India's first mass movement followed with people from all walks of life -- from Congress leader S N Banerjee to India's poet Laurette Rabindranath Tagore -- taking to streets to protest partition.

uproar which spread to or parts of British- ruled India forced a rethink and partition was reversed in 1911, but capital of British India was shifted out of restive metropolis of Calcutta to political backwaters of Delhi, n a town with just 4 lakh inhabitants.

However, attempted partition had deeper consequences for country, with Congress splitting between moderates and extremists who favoured more street- based agitations, and secret revolutionary societies such as Anushilan Samiti which advocated an armed revolution, springing up as a force to reckon with.

"Much of Bengal's popular genre of patriotic music and literature was from this period -- Tagore, Dwijendralal Roy, Rajanikanta Sen produced path-breaking songs of this genre -- which are still popular in both India and Bangladesh," pointed out Mukherjee.

next time Roman maxim 'Divide et Tempera' or divide and rule was adopted for Bengal was 1947, as British decided to quit India leaving behind perpetually disjointed twins busy squabbling with each or.

summer of 1947 saw last-minute hectic parleys to retain some form of united Bengal, but as Mahatma Gandhi wrote to Sarat Bose, Subhas Bose's bror and leader of Forward Bloc, Congress leadership including Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru were "very much opposed to it", and nascent plan for keeping two Bengals toger dreamt by Huseyn S Suhrawardy, Bose and Kiran Shankar Roy remained stillborn.

last nail in coffin of united Bengal was struck in June 1947, when legislative assembly voted for partition. On July 3, 1947 a shadow cabinet was formed by Congress party, led by P C Ghosh which would take over running of West Bengal once partition came about.

Muslim League which longer trusted Suhrawardy, till n League-elected Premier of Bengal, formed a similar cabinet led by Khwaja Nizamuddin, which would take over running of East Bengal.

partition carn which followed and long lines of refugees who fled leaving behind ir land and hearth is part of many families' personal history as is aftermath of life in refugee camps, struggle to rebuild lives, and to escape curse of poverty.

Filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak based his award-winning trilogy of movies 'Meghe Dhaka Tara' (Cloud-Capped Star), 'Komal Gandhar' (Soft te on a Sharp Scale) and 'Subarnarekha' (Streak of Gold) on this period.

aftermath, historians and political scientists say, find reverberations in political and socio-ecomic life even today.

"Though pain felt and remembered is of personal loss, deeper and longer-lasting impact of 1947 partition was ecomic," said Kunal Bose, ecomist and former India correspondent of Financial Times.

Bengal was an ecomically integrated province. rich farmlands of eastern Bengal produced food and cash crops that were processed in Industrialised west. east was also ready market for foundries and textile mills in and around Calcutta.

Radcliffe line which used rivers Padma and Ichamati to divide two Bengals, rent asunder its ecomic life.

" biggest loser was jute industry which till n was India's top foreign exchange grosser...connectivity with Assam and rast was also strangled raising costs for tea trade and letting rivals like Sri Lanka and Kenya come up," pointed out Bose.

However, Barla and Khan feel ir demand is legitimate given "neglect" that hill and tribal areas have experienced over last seven decades since Independence.

Neverless, BJP's state unit chief Dilip Ghosh has gone on record to state, "I want to make it clear that BJP has such nda to divide Bengal or create a new state." Darjeeling, where Nepali-speakers predominate, has witnessed a movement for 'Gorkhaland' focussing on ecomic backwardness of tea-growing hill areas since late 1980s which West Bengal government has tried to address by forming an automous district council.

movement for Kamtapur, which too is based on ethnic differences, however, has t made much headway till w.

Ors including Left too concede that re are striking regional variations in development within West Bengal.

"Bengal's Adivasis do have grievances which need to be addressed, though it does t mean separate states have to be created," CPI (ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said.

ruling TMC, off record, does concede that more needs to be done in both tribal areas and hills but is adamant against any plans to divide state and will possibly use such demands to consolidate its own base in plain areas, given emotional chord that 'partition' demands touches.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already turned it into a state-versus-Centre issue and stated she would "t allow anyone to divide Bengal" or allow any part of state "to lose its freedom and be dependent on Delhi".

Ranabir Samaddar, a well-kwn political scientist and Director, Calcutta Research Group, said, "Partition is first idea of a lazy statesman... fact is, history shows that partitions always create more problems than y solve." Analysts point out that differences which Muslim League cited besides religious divide in seeking to partition Bengal was "backwardness and exploitation" of East Bengal vis-a-vis industrialised west.

se differences seemed to remain even after Pakistan was born, between West and East Pakistan, and eventually became one of reasons behind uprising and subsequent creation of Bangladesh in 1971. PTI JRC ACD ACD