Rabindranath, Surendranath, Sri Aurobindo, and Bipin Chandra Pal

Spotlight: The Political And Personal Thread. Readers and research scholars of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan will find the book immensely useful for their understanding of the politics of eastern India between 1911 and 1974... A review by RK Dasgupta The Statesman Curzon’s Partition of Bengal and Aftermath By Sukharanjan Sengupta Naya Udyog, Kolkata, Rs 200

Curzon and the Partition of Bengal is now a century-old story. But Sukharanjan Sengupta has given a new dimension and a new depth to this story. It is a history of the elite Hindu-Muslim conflicts over political domination leading to the second Partition, 1947. The first partition of Bengal was annulled. It is presented as the background of the second partition of 1947. The author deals with admirable competence with the details of the political conflict between the elite Hindus and Muslims of Bengal from 1905 to 1947.

We have here rare documents as the background of the second partition. Readers and research scholars of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan will find the book immensely useful for their understanding of the politics of eastern India during the years between 1911 and 1974. Mr Sengupta visited East Bengal in December 1971 along with 30 journalists both Indian and foreign. This visit gave him an insight into the circumstances which led to the creation of Bangladesh. During the swadeshi movement of 1905, Rabindranath wrote a song praying for the unity of Bengal. That unity was achieved leading to the annulment of the Partition. But the Muslims of Bengal desired a state for themselves, when they separated from Pakistan in 1971. Communalism prevailed over Bengali patriotism in 1971 and this led to the emergence of Bangladesh.

The author’s observations on the main architects of the anti-partition movement, Rabindranath, Surendranath Banerjee, Aurobindo Ghose and Bipin Chandra Pal are significant even today, except for those who have read professor Haridas and Uma Mukherjee’s work on the subject. How many today remember Bipin Chandra Pal’s address to a public gathering at Calcutta on January 13, 1906, in which he said: “My boys ~ I noticed something supernatural and divine in the agitation when I heard for the first time in the compound of Pasupati Nath Bose and the Federation Hall the song of Rabindranath to the effect that the redder the eyes of the authorities, the greater will be the force of our agitation”.

The words will stir our imagination today, when we feel that the Bangalees are now a fallen race. Bipin Chandra Pal collected a copy of Fuller’s circular to the District Magistrate banning the Vande Mataram slogan and narrated its contents to the people of East Bengal. This led to Fuller’s resignation in August 1906. Mr Sengupta says: “Bipin Babu saw in Fuller’s resignation and its quick acceptance the unsettlement of Curzon’s ‘settled fact’ .’’ The author has very ably summed up Curzon’s policy. He quotes the words of the honourable Mr Chowdhury and ex-member of the Legislative Council of Bengal: “The main object of ‘the Curzon Policy’ was to drive the wedge between Hindu and Mohammadan. Lord Curzon apparently took the Vambery view that India could only be held on the basis of racial animosity. He feared that a rapprochement between Hindu and Mohammadan would be fatal, for underneath the old antagonism there was developing a sort of political unity”.

The author has dealt in detail with the role of Salimullah, the Nawab of Dacca in countering the anti-partition movement as the first president of the All India Muslim League in 1906, when he led a deputation to the viceroy Lord Minto asking him to protect Muslim interests particularly in Bengal. He very appropriately quotes a report of US Library of Congress on the Partition which said about the reunion of divided Bengal in 1912 : “The reunion of divided Bengal was perceived by Muslims as a British accommodation to Hindu pressures”. The author brings to our memory the fact “the Nawab of Bogra moved with Rabindranath, Bipin Chandra Pal and others on the streets of Calcutta for collecting money for the swadeshi and the anti partition movement. Nawab Ali Chowdhury was the Treasurer of the National Fund for the purpose. The elite Hindu-Muslim conflict over the political domination of Bengal leading to the second partition are now only a memory.

In West Bengal we are now a single united society. Lord Curzon did a great deal to sustain this conflict. Though his partition of Bengal was annulled the political conflict reappeared in 1947. East Bengal seceded from Pakistan in 1971. The Muslims did not propose a reunion with West Bengal. Instead they created Bangladesh. I think the ghost of Lord Curzon was happy to see that his idea of Muslims of East Bengal constituting a separate Muslim nation was not wrong. Mr Sengupta says : “The Muslims were also up in arms over the annulment of the partition, which they regarded as an unwarranted destruction of a great opportunity for a community that was in need of assistance”. Obviously the aim was to reaffirm the spirit of Indian nationalism, then generated by the Indian National Congress. The anti-partition movement of 1905-11 was a part of the Indian National Movement led by the Congress.

Mr Sengupta has brought back to our memory the political movement against the partition. He gives an impressive picture of how the Bengalees began their agitation against the partition. “The 16th October, the day of implementation of Lord Curzon’s Partition of Bengal appeared. The entire Calcutta congregated from the southern end of the Monument to the northern end of Esplanade East and Chowringhee Square with Rabindranath as the central figure. Rabindranath paraded the area with thousands of people chanting Banglar mati Banglar jal and Rakhi Bandhan with yellow thread was set in motion”. In chapter 16 of the work the author very ably describes the fallout of the annulment and very aptly quotes from the US Library of Congress research paper of the subject: “The Muslim League used the occasion to declare its support for the partition of Bengal and to proclaim its mission as a political association to protect and advance the political rights and interests of the Musalmans of India”.

According to the author the government of India Act, 1935, “was a whipping lesson to teach the Hindu elite of Bengal to taste the bitter fruits of the annulment of the Bengal partition and it was the annulment which dominated the political history of India leading to the Independence and the second partition of Bengal”. This immensely valuable work on the partition of Bengal has very new and interesting things to say on Curzon’s viceroyalty and we are particularly grateful to its author for his observations in his epilogue. The author very appropriately quotes from Winston Churchell’s memorable book Great Contemporaries : “Curzon’s viceroyalty of India was his greatest period. For nearly seven years he reigned imperially over the vast Indian scene. He brought to that task intellectual powers never yet surpassed by his successors. Everything interested him, and he adorned nearly all he touched”. (A renowned scholar, the reviewer is a former Director, National Library)