When Jinnah tried to include complete Bengal in his demand package, the Bengali Hindu Homeland movement fought for a land for Hindus to be retained in the India. That Hindu homeland is what we know as West Bengal today.
ওঁ জয় জয় দেবী চরাচর সারে, কুচযুগশোভিত মুক্তাহারে ।
বীনারঞ্জিত পুস্তক হস্তে, ভগবতী ভারতী দেবী নমহস্তুতে।।
Here, Devi denotes Ma Saraswati and Pustak denotes Ved (Devi Bhagwat Puran, Skand 9).
Bengal, the native land of Vedic Bengalis spans from foot of Himalayas in the north; to the mighty Sundarban and the longest natural beach in the world at Cox’s Bazar; and from beyond Ayodhya Pahad in the east; to beyond Sylhet in the west. Bengal’s total area is 236,323 Sq Km (almost equal to present day Uttar Pradesh) of which 62% is Bangladesh and only 38% is West Bengal.
The line that divides the 62% from the 38% is not only an international border, it is the line of amputation of the Hindu sub-conscious and sub-continent
West Bengal was the last parcel of land preserved for the Bengali Hindus who were survivors of extermination and expulsion from their soil by their muslim compatriots. West Bengal has traditionally been home to one of the most beautiful Indian languages alongside Vedic traditions, art, culture, music, poetry, literature and most importantly the social awakening of Indian national conscious during the long British subjugation. Ironically, it (alongside Kerala) has also been the den of communism in India. The Indian state that was one of the two most wounded states during partition, should have been the most nationalist in the coming years. Ironically, some people foresaw the threat and domesticated the venom of communism in the state which was otherwise home to thousands of freedom fighters. Left has been so successful in corrupting at least three generations in the state, that we find Hindus from West Bengal protesting against CAA and NRC today. Irony at its best!
The very core of Vedic Bengal was already crisscrossed with British pencils in 1905. The continued dilution of religious proportions further poisoned the very essence of Bengal to near death in 1947, 1971 and so on. We have to ensure that the house of the Hindu Bengali living in West Bengal today never falls again.
Sindhis, in spite of having a mention in our national anthem, do not have their land. The homeless Kashmiri pandits lost their lands in independent India.
The Bengali Hindu must not (once again) lose the last remains of his dissected fatherland to religious dilution. Ironically, the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh were written by a deeply Vedic- Bengali in words dipped in the essence of Sanatan Dharma.
In the last decade the nationalistic movement has regained its lost ground in CPM’s West Bengal. As a direct consequence to this, the left has been doing what it does the best, the old Russian gimmick of planting false narratives! They have an extremely illogical narrative of the formation of the state of West Bengal been based not on religion but on language (like many other Indian states). The truth as usual is opposite to the communist narrative. The truth is unforgettable to Bengali Hindus.
The formation/ reorganization of states in India was majorly done 1948 onward mostly basis the demography and language, however, West Bengal was carved out in 1947, as a result of Partition of India. What was the basis of Partition of India? Religion. The respective partitions of Bengal and Punjab collectively resulted in partition of India, and not the other way round.
THE FORMATION OF WEST BENGAL, 1947
At a League conference in Lahore in 1940, Jinnah said:
“Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, literature… It is quite clear that Hindus and Mussalmans derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, different heroes and different episodes … To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state.”
In Lahore, the Muslim League formally recommitted itself to creating an independent Muslim state which would include Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan, the North West Frontier Province, and Bengal, and which would be “wholly autonomous and sovereign”.
Following the continuous persecution of Hindus across Dhaka, Noakhali, Kolkata from long before the infamous riots of 1930 to 1946; and in the wake of Muslim Leagues’s proposal and campaign to include the entire province of Bengal within Pakistan (for Muslim Bengalis), in 1946, a movement was born for the creation of a homeland for Hindu Bengalis within the union of India.
Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and Bengali Hindu Homeland Movement, 1946
By April 1947, especially after the Direct Action Day in Kolkata and the Noakhali riots, the movement gained significant momentum. There were at least 10 conferences and more than 1500 rallies held between March to June (1947) before Mountbatten announced the plan of partition of Bengal on 3rd June same year. Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee further clarified that the movement for the partition of Bengal was not directly related to the partition of India. Even if Pakistan was not created, it was necessary to partition Bengal for the safety of the Bengali Hindu people and their culture. On 22 April, at a public rally in New Delhi, Dr Mookerjee declared that even if the Muslim League accepts the Cabinet Mission plan, a separate province needs to be constituted in the Hindu majority areas of Bengal, Dr Mookerjee had called a general strike in Bengal on 23 April demanding against the inclusion of the whole of Bengal into Pakistan. The strike was initially supported by the Communist Party of India. Later the tram workers union, owing affiliation to the CITU planned to defy the strike. When the news reached him, Dr. Mookerjee himself visited the tram depots in person and successfully motivated the workers in favor of the strike.
On 20th or 22nd June the same year, Hindu legislators of the Bengal Legislative Assembly voted in favor of the Partition of Bengal. This movement is the reason Bengali Hindus have an Indian abode today. Today, the left intends to give away this remaining 38% to religious dilution again.
More than 30% of current population of West Bengal is estimated to be Muslim, thanks to continuous breach of trust by the state governments over the last two decades. The objective of such false narratives is simply to form a false historical platform for the Muslims to claim their right on West Bengal’s soil, irrespective of having been given a separate country (major part of Bengal). If the language of East and West Bengal was Bengali, then where does their proposition stand on a scale of logic?
West Bengal is the only Bengal left in the world because Bengali culture is either only Vedic or not Bengali at all. The silenced sound of Shankh and Dhaak in Bangladesh is a testimony. Out of all the things that we dearly call Bengali, Bangladesh is left with the language alone.
STATE REORGANIZATION COMMISSION, 1948 – 1956
Before independence, India was divided into 565 princely states. At this time India had three types of states:
1.Territories of British India
2.Princely states
3. The colonial territories of France and Portugal
After the Indian independence; most princely states had nodded to join the Indian Confederation except Hyderabad, Junagadh, Bhopal and Kashmir. Since the Indian independence the boundaries of the Indian states keep on changing year by year. From 565 princely states and 17 provinces before partition, to 14 states and 6 Union Territories following the Reorganization of States in 1956 to 28 states and 9 union territories in 2019. Congress’s initial plan (Pre-1947) was to form states basis linguistic groups, however post- independence they realized this could lead to sub nationalism and coups. Consequently, they kept making committee to approve and disapprove the same and finally on facing backlashes from states settled to formation of states basis linguistic groups. Here is what happened earlier in 1920, the members of the Indian National Congress had agreed on the linguistic reorganisation of the Indian states as one of the party’s political goals. The Provincial Committees of the party were set on this basis since 1920. In 1927, the Congress declared that it was committed to “the redistribution of provinces on a linguistic basis”, and reaffirmed its stance several times, including in the election manifesto of 1945-46. However, immediately after independence, the Congress government foresaw the concern that the states formed solely on a linguistic basis would pose a threat to the centre. On 17 June 1948, Dr Rajendra Prasad, the President of the Constituent Assembly, set up the Linguistic Provinces Commission (Dhar Commission) to recommend whether the states should be reorganised on linguistic basis or not. The committee included SK Dhar, Jagat Narain Lal and Panna Lall. On 10 December 1948 the report was presented, the Commission recommended that “the formation of provinces on exclusively or even mainly linguistic considerations is not in the larger interests of the Indian nation.” It recommended the reorganization of the provinces of Madras, Bombay and Central Provinces and Berar primarily on the basis of geographical contiguity, financial self-sufficiency and ease of administration. Soon after the report was published, the Congress, at its Jaipur session, set up the “JVP committee” to study the recommendations of the Dhar Commission. The committee, comprised Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel and Pattabhi Sitaramayya. In its report dated 1 April 1949, the Committee stated that the time was not suitable for formation of new provinces, but also stated that the “public sentiment is insistent and overwhelming, we, as democrats, have to submit to it, but subject to certain limitations in regard to the good of India as a whole.”B. R. Ambedkar submitted a Memorandum (dated 14 October 1948) to the Dhar Commission, supporting the formation of linguistic provinces, specifically the formation of the Marathi-majority Maharashtra state with Bombay as its capital. To address the concern of national unity, he suggested that the official language of every province should be same as the official language of the Central Government. KM Munshi, a Gujarati leader opposed to incorporation of Bombay in the proposed Maharashtra state, opposed the linguistic reorganization proposal, saying that “the political ambition of a linguistic group can only be satisfied by the exclusion and discrimination of other linguistic groups within the area. No safeguards and no fundamental rights can save them from the subtle psychological exclusion which linguist-ism implies.” By the 1952, the demand for creation of a Telugu-majority state in the parts of the Madras State had become powerful. Potti Sreeramulu, one of the activists demanding the formation of a Telugu-majority state, died on 16 December 1952 after undertaking a fast-unto-death. Subsequently, the Telugu-majority Andhra State was formed in 1956. This sparked off agitations all over the country, with linguistic groups demanding separate statehood. In 1953, Fazal Ali Commission (States Reorganization Committee) was formed. It gave the first acceptance to linguistic basis of state formation. Basis this, in the same year, few states were created basis the linguistic demography in India.
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