BENGAL, PARTITION OF

(1905), division of Bengal carried out by the British viceroy in India, Lord Curzon, despite strong Indian nationalist opposition and Hindu Bengali indignation. It began a shift of the Indian Nationalist Congress from a middle-class pressure group to a nationwide mass movement. Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa had formed a single province of British India since 1765. By 1900 the province had grown too large to handle under a single administration; east Bengal, because of isolation and poor communications, had been neglected in favour of west Bengal and Bihar. Curzon chose one of several schemes for partition: to unite Assam, which had been a part of the province until 1874, with 15 districts of east Bengal and thus form a new province with a population of 31 million. The capital was Dacca, and the people were mainly Muslim. The Hindus of west Bengal, who controlled most of Bengal's commerce and professional and rural life, complained that the Bengali nation would be split in two, making them a minority in a province including the whole of Bihar and Orissa. They regarded it as an attempt to strangle nationalism in Bengal, where it was more developed than elsewhere. Agitation against the partition included mass meetings, rural unrest, and a swadeshi (native) movement to boycott the import of British goods. The partition was carried through despite the agitation, and the extreme opposition went underground to form a terrorist movement. In 1911 east and west Bengal were reunited; Assam again became a chief commissionership, while Bihar and Orissa were separated to form a new province. The aim was to combine appeasement of Bengali sentiment with administrative convenience. This end was achieved for a time, but the Muslims were dissatisfied.