Partition of Bengal, Swadeshi and the Freedom Struggle in Bengal — WBCS

Weightage: The Indian National Movement carries about 25 marks of the WBCS Prelims and is central to Mains General Studies Paper I, with Bengal's role stressed. The national frame comes from the aliased UPSC CSE chapters. This chapter gives the Bengal events with dates.

1. The Bengal frame

Bengal produced the first mass movement of the 20th century, a strong revolutionary tradition, and one of the nation's deepest wounds in 1947. Learn the period as three acts: 1905 to 1911 (partition and Swadeshi), 1919 to 1942 (Congress politics and revolutionary action) and 1943 to 1947 (famine, communal violence and partition).

2. Act one: the partition of 1905

Lord Curzon announced the partition of Bengal, and it took effect on 16 October 1905. The stated reason was administrative size. The nationalist view was that it divided Bengal on religious lines, with a Muslim-majority East Bengal and Assam, with Dhaka as capital, and a Hindu-majority West Bengal that also included Bihar and Orissa.

Protest was immediate:

• On 7 August 1905, a meeting at the Calcutta Town Hall passed the boycott of British goods.
• 16 October was observed as a day of mourning, with the exchange of rakhis as a sign of unity.
• Leaders included Surendranath Banerjee, Bipin Chandra Pal, Aurobindo Ghose and Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote songs for the movement.

3. Swadeshi: what it built

The movement used boycott, swadeshi, national education and swaraj as its four ideas. It produced the National Council of Education (1906), Bengali-language schools and indigenous enterprises. It also split the Congress at Surat in 1907 between Moderates and Extremists.

The Muslim League was founded at Dhaka in 1906, and the government used separate electorates in the 1909 reforms. These are the roots of later communal politics.

4. Revolutionary groups

Secret societies such as the Anushilan Samiti (1902) and the Jugantar group of Barin Ghosh turned to arms. Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki threw a bomb at Muzaffarpur on 30 April 1908, aiming at the magistrate Kingsford.

The police uncovered the group's garden in Maniktala, and the Alipore Bomb Case (1908 to 1909) followed. Aurobindo was acquitted with the defence of C. R. Das.

5. The partition annulled

At the Delhi Durbar of December 1911, the Crown announced the annulment of the partition. Bengal was reunited, Bihar and Orissa were separated in 1912, and the capital moved from Calcutta to Delhi. A recurring Prelims item is that this loss of status weakened Calcutta as an imperial centre.

6. Act two: Congress politics and revolutionaries

• C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party (1923). Das's Bengal Pact of 1923 tried to settle Hindu-Muslim claims on jobs and representation, and the Congress rejected it after his death.
• Subhas Chandra Bose became Congress president in 1938 and was re-elected in 1939 at Tripuri, but resigned after clashes with Gandhi and formed the Forward Bloc.
• The Chittagong Armoury Raid of 18 April 1930, led by Surya Sen with Pritilata Waddedar and Kalpana Dutta among others, seized weapons in Chittagong, now in Bangladesh.
• Benoy, Badal and Dinesh attacked the Writers' Building in Calcutta in December 1930.

7. Subhas Bose and the INA

Bose escaped from house arrest in January 1941. In 1943 he took over the Indian National Army in Southeast Asia and set up the Azad Hind Government in October 1943. His slogan was Delhi Chalo. After the war, the INA trials of 1945 stirred public opinion.

8. Act three: famine and partition

• The Bengal famine of 1943 killed about two to three million people by most estimates. Wartime policy, hoarding, loss of rice imports from Burma and failures of distribution were causes. Amartya Sen later argued that it was a failure of entitlement, not a shortage of food alone.
• Direct Action Day, 16 August 1946: the Muslim League's call led to the Great Calcutta Killings, then violence in Noakhali in October 1946.
• Gandhi went to Noakhali and stayed in Calcutta in 1947 to stop the violence.

9. The Partition of 1947

The Radcliffe Line was announced on 17 August 1947. Bengal's boundary followed a rough religious majority by district, which divided Bengal, with Murshidabad in India and Khulna in Pakistan as well-known results. Sylhet held a referendum and went to East Bengal.

Millions of refugees came to West Bengal in several waves, shaping Kolkata and the state's politics for decades. The princely state of Cooch Behar joined in 1950.

Common traps WBCS sets here

• Dating the partition of Bengal to 1911. It was 1905; 1911 was its annulment.
• Confusing Khudiram Bose's bomb with the Chittagong raid. One was 1908, the other 1930.
• Naming Muzaffarpur as in Bengal. It is in Bihar.
• Giving Surya Sen's raid location as Calcutta. It was Chittagong.
• Saying the capital moved to Delhi in 1905. It moved in 1911 to 1912.

Memory aids

• "1905 split, 1906 League, 1907 Surat, 1911 undone": the Swadeshi chain.
• "1930 Chittagong, 1943 famine, 1946 Direct Action, 1947 Partition": act three.
• "Muzaffarpur is Bihar": the Khudiram trap.

Summary

The partition of 1905 launched the Swadeshi movement and a revolutionary tradition, and was annulled in 1911. Congress politics under C. R. Das and Subhas Bose, and the Chittagong raid, followed.

The famine of 1943, Direct Action Day and the Partition of 1947 ended the period. Refugee settlement shaped the new state of West Bengal.

Exam protocol

• Learn the three acts with their years.
• Put each event in the right present-day state or country.
• Add the long-run effect of partition to Mains answers.