A Nation in Making/Chapter 18

​18

The Partition of Bengal

The year 1905 is one of the most memorable in the history of Bengal. It would be no exaggeration to say that it was an epoch-making year, leaving a profound and far-reaching influence on the public life of Bengal and the future of the country. It was the year of the Partition of Bengal.

There had been for some time a general feeling in official quarters that Bengal was too large a charge for a single ruler, and that the partition of the province was necessary in the interests of administrative efficiency. It was in pursuance of this idea that the province of Assam was separated from Bengal in 1874, and made a separate administrative unit under a Chief Commissioner. The separation did not, at the time, excite much criticism, although in the province thus separated from Bengal there were three Bengalee-speaking districts, namely, Sylhet, Cachar and Goalpara. Public opinion was not then much of a power, and the solidarity of the Bengalee-speaking people and their growing sense of unity had not become so pronounced a factor in the public life of the province. The change was acquiesced in without demur; possibly it was welcomed by the people of Assam, who hoped that special attention would be paid to their interests.

But there is growth in all things, good or bad—nothing stationary in administration or in other human concerns. Soon the bureaucracy discovered that a further expansion of the scheme of partition was required, in the interests of efficiency as well as of the Service. Assam had no cadre of its own. The Civil Service appointments for the province were too few to justify a special cadre. Civil servants from Bengal and sometimes from the United Provinces took up appointments in Assam, but after a term reverted to their own provinces, the high appointments being few and the prospects limited. The interests of the Civil Service, with which undoubtedly the interests of the province were to some extent bound up, demanded that Assam should be a self-contained province.

​The idea of a further partition for the creation of a greater Assam loomed large in the official view. The proposal was made, that the Chittagong Division, comprising the districts of Chittagong, Noakhali and Tippera, should be withdrawn from Bengal and tacked on to the Province of Assam. The proposal elicited a strong protest from the people of the Chittagong Division, supported by the public opinion of Bengal. The reformed Legislative Council had come into existence. Public opinion was becoming a growing power and could no longer be altogether ignored. The proposal was dropped in view of the strong public protest; but it was never completely shelved. It lingered in the subterranean depths of the official consciousness, to emerge into view in more propitious circumstances.

Lord Curzon was now at the head of affairs. His energy was feverish. He was upsetting and unsettling things. The question of boundaries attracted his attention. The map of India was to be recast, but by pacific methods and with the impress of his genius and superior personality stamped thereon. Here was this unsettled question. It was taken up and its scope further expanded. The proposal now assumed the form of the separation from Bengal of the whole of the Chittagong Division, to which the districts of Dacca and Mymensingh were to be added, and this area was to be incorporated into Assam.

It was in this form that the proposal came up for discussion before the public of Bengal. It roused strong opposition among all sections of the community—Hindus and Mohamedans alike. It was an opposition that the Government could not ignore. The Government sought to persuade and to conciliate by conferences with the leaders of East Bengal. These conferences were held at 'Belvedere' under the presidency of the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Andrew Fraser. They were organized by the newly-formed Land- holders' Association, of which the life and soul at that time was Mr. (afterwards Sir A.) Chaudhuri. I was asked by Mr. Chaudhuri to attend these conferences. I said it was not necessary, as the arrangements were in such excellent hands. I watched the proceedings as an interested spectator, eager to know and to help, but took no personal part or share in them.

I was under the impression, wholly unfounded, as the sequel proved, that the Government, as the result of these conferences, would bow to public opinion and withdraw from an untenable position. But this was not to be. Lord Curzon visited East Bengal, ​ostensibly with the object of ascertaining public opinion, but really to overawe it. He was so hopelessly out of touch with the new spirit that his own reactionary policy had helped to foster, that he thought that his presence would serve to bring the leaders of East Bengal round to his views. He was greatly mistaken. At Mymensingh he was the guest of the Maharaja Surya Kanto Acharya. Among the Zemindars of Bengal there never was a finer or a stronger personality. He received Lord Curzon with all the honours of princely hospitality; but he told him with quiet and dignified firmness that he would regard the Partition of Bengal as a grave disaster, and that he was opposed to it; and throughout he remained a prominent leader of the anti-Partition agitation.

It was in the course of this tour that the scheme of Partition underwent a further expansion. It was now proposed, and for the first time, to include the whole of North Bengal and the districts of Faridpore and Barisal in East Bengal, in the new and expanded project.

The revised scheme was conceived in secret, discussed in secret, and settled in secret, without the slightest hint to the public. The idea of submitting it to a representative conference was no longer followed. 'The final scheme' said Lord Morley from his place in Parliament, was never submitted to the judgment of anybody in Bengal.' And why not? What became of that pretended deference to public opinion, of the solicitude to consult it, so conspicuous in the early stages of the discussion, when the East Bengal leaders were invited to conferences at 'Belvedere' under the presidency of the Lieutenant-Governor?

The truth is that there never was any real desire to defer to public opinion and abide by its decision. Lord Curzon and Sir Andrew Fraser had hoped to persuade the leaders to acquiesce in their views; when they failed, they set public opinion at defiance, but not with the inborn courage of real statesmanship. For the scheme, as finally settled, was embodied in a secret despatch of which the public knew nothing. Indeed, so complete was the lull after Lord Curzon's visit to East Bengal and before the storm actually burst, that the idea gained ground that the project of a partition had been abandoned. Had we the faintest idea of what had been secretly decided, a deputation would have gone to England along with the despatch, with a view to procuring the annulment of its recommendations. I would have gladly joined such a deputation.

​It is abundantly clear from the despatch of the Secretary of State that he accepted the Partition of Bengal with hesitation, for he suggested an alternative scheme to afford relief to the administration by creating a province on the model of Sind in the Bombay Presidency; and when I had an interview with Mr. Brodrick in London in the summer of 1909 and we discussed the Partition of Bengal, he did not seek to justify it. It is my deliberate conviction that, but for the profound secrecy observed with regard to the final scheme, and our inaction owing to the absence of all information, the Partition of Bengal would not have been sanctioned by the Secretary of State. A timely deputation to England would have sealed its fate. But it is no use speculating as to what might have been.

On July 20, 1905, the announcement was made that Bengal was to be partitioned, and the public were informed of the details of the Partition. For the first time they learnt that North Bengal with all its historic associations was to be separated from the old province. The announcement fell like a bomb-shell upon an astonished public. But in our bewilderment we did not lose our heads. We made up our minds to do all that lay in our power, with the aid of the constitutional means at our disposal, to reverse, or at any rate to obtain a modification of, the Partition.

We felt that we had been insulted, humiliated and tricked. We felt that the whole of our future was at stake, and that it was a deliberate blow aimed at the growing solidarity and self-consciousness of the Bengalee-speaking population. Originally intended to meet administrative requirements, we felt that it had drawn to itself a political flavour and complexion, and, if allowed to be passed, it would be fatal to our political progress and to that close union between Hindus and Mohamedans upon which the prospects of Indian advancement so largely depended. For it was openly and officially given out that Eastern Bengal and Assam was to be a Mohamedan province, and that credal distinctions were to be recognized as the basis of the new policy to be adopted in the new province.

We lost no time in taking action. We held a conference at Maharaja Jotindra Mohon. Tagore's palace at Pathuriaghatta. The Maharaja was present and took an active part in the deliberations. Among those who attended was Mr. H. E. A. Cotton, then practising as a barrister in Calcutta, and now President of the Bengal Legislative Council. He was in the deepest sympathy with the movement for the reversal of the Partition; so was Mr. Ratcliffe, ​Editor of the Statesman, and so was Mr. Fraser Blair, then Editor of the Englishman. Anglo-Indian opinion, which generally supports the official view of things, condemned the partition through its accredited organs. The attitude, however, did not long continue; but that was the view of the Anglo-Indian Press in the early days of the anti-Partition agitation.

At the conference, it was decided that the Maharaja should send a telegram to the Viceroy praying for a reconsideration of the orders passed, and urging that, if the partition were unavoidable, owing to administrative reasons, the Bengalee-speaking population should form part and parcel of the same administration. It is significant that the form of partition that was subsequently adopted by Lord Hardinge's Government was definitely foreshadowed at this conference, and was embodied in the telegram despatched to the Viceroy.

To have divided Bengal into two provinces, keeping the Bengalee-speaking population together in one province, and the rest in the other, would have removed all administrative inconveniences, whatever they were, and gratified public opinion. But this would not suit Lord Curzon and his Government. For, as we believed, there was an underlying political motive, which would not be satisfied with such a division of the province as was suggested by the Maharaja. Lord Hardinge's Government fell in with our views, but their policy and aims were different from those of Lord Curzon.

The Conference at the Maharaja's palace was followed by almost daily conferences held in the Indian Association Rooms or at the house of Maharaja Surya Kanto Acharya of Mymensingh. It was resolved to hold a public meeting at the Town Hall on August 7, a day that was destined to become famous in the history of the anti-Partition controversy. Letters were sent to the mofussil, inviting delegates to be present at the meeting. The response was unanimous and enthusiastic. My friend Babu Anath Bandhu Guha wrote to me from Mymensingh, requesting a postponement of the date of the meeting so as to give the mofussil people more time for organization; but, having regard to the strength of the feeling that had been roused, and the eagerness to fire the first shot without delay, I wrote back, after consulting friends, that time was an important element, and that the first great demonstration should be held early, so as to give the movement a lead and a direction which would co-ordinate its future development and progress ​throughout the province.

The resolutions to be adopted at the meeting of August were the subject of anxious and prolonged discussion at the various conferences, which were attended by leading mén from East and North Bengal. It was felt that mere public meetings would be of no use. Lord Curzon's Government had shown a systematic disregard of public feeling, and had treated public demonstrations with undisguised contempt. Something more was necessary—something that would be a fitting embodiment of the intense feeling that lay behind the whole movement. I remember the various suggestions made at the meetings held almost daily in the rooms of the Indian Association. One of them was that we should resign all our honorary appointments, such as those of Honorary Magistrate, and member- ship of district boards and municipalities. The obvious objection to the resignation of our seats on the local bodies and the Magisterial Bench was that they afforded an opportunity of serving our countrymen, and that they were a source of local influence which would be. useful in the coming struggle. Further, it was doubtful whether the whole country would be with us, in such a view. A partial failure on the threshold of a great controversy would be disastrous, and the idea was therefore abandoned.