Courtesy Google Maps. Shows Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram that share a border with Bangladesh
The partition of Eastern India had major implications not just for Bengal but also India’s Northeastern states, which lost access to their nearest port in Chittagong and found themselves mired in ethnic and linguistic conflict following the influx of Bengali and other refugees.
Unlike the western partition, in which the brutal population exchange was immediate and proportionate, the flow of refugees in the east was largely towards India overwhelming West Bengal and Calcutta. The influx was staggered over decades, with peaks during riots targeting Hindus in East Pakistan in 1950 and 1964 followed by the mass killings in 1971 and India’s military triumph over Pakistan that led to the independence of Bangladesh. A lesser number of Muslims migrated to East Pakistan voluntarily as well as amid riots.
Answers
1) He was Pakistan’s first Law and Labour Minister. Mohammad Ali Jinnah ensured that he presided over the first session of Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly, in which Jinnah was sworn in as Governor-General. But he was marginalised in the government after Jinnah’s death in 1948. The riots in 1950 targeting Hindus in East Pakistan were the last straw and he moved to India. Who?
Jogendra Nath Mandal. He belonged to the Dalit (formerly untouchable) community of Namasudras, who were mostly based in East Bengal. Mandal allied with Jinnah, advocating a Dalit-Muslim alliance to combat economic and social marginalisation. It was Mandal who ensured a seat in undivided India’s Constituent Assembly from Bengal for fellow Dalit leader B.R. Ambedkar, who later led the panel that drafted Independent India’s constitution (Ambedkar was thwarted in his home province of Bombay). Mandal moved to India and West Bengal after the riots in East Pakistan in 1950. His subsequent efforts to regain a foothold in electoral politics failed. More here, here and here
2) Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide published in 2004 was the first work of fiction in English to dwell extensively on one of the worst massacres in independent India. While there is no precise death toll because of an official clampdown, survivors say thousands of refugees were killed as police encircled an island in 1979. Where?
Marichjhapi in the Sundarbans in West Bengal. Refugees, mostly Dalits, who had initially stayed in East Pakistan and were forced to flee in later years, were resettled far from Bengal in the arid Dandakaranya region of central India. Politicians from the Communist-led Left Front had promised them space in West Bengal but ignored their plight after coming to power in 1977. Many refugees on their own established themselves in remote places like Marichjhapi. The Communist government implemented an economic blockade of the island on January 26, 1979, India’s Republic Day. The police crackdown and massacre followed soon. More here, here, here and here.
3) What was the result of a series of peace treaties signed by the Mughal Empire and the Kingdom of Cooch Behar from 1711-13? The issue was resolved through an agreement in 2015.
Indian enclaves inside East Pakistan/Bangladesh and Bangladeshi enclaves surrounded by India. Complicating matters further were counter-enclaves, in which an enclave of one country was inside an enclave of the other. Then there was the world’s only counter-counter enclave, Dahala Khagrabari, an enclave of India surrounded by an enclave of Bangladesh, which itself was surrounded by India. That Indian enclave in turn was completely surrounded by Bangladesh.
The enclaves were swapped to ensure geographical continuity in the 2015 deal. More here, here, here, here, here, here
4) Mohammad Ali Jinnah's speech at Dhaka University on March 24, 1948 created a political uproar and marked a turning point for East Pakistan, just months after Pakistan came into being. Why?
Jinnah said Urdu will be the sole state language of Pakistan. More here and here. That set the stage for the Language Movement that advocated for Bengali. Protesting students were shot and killed by police in East Pakistan on February 21, 1952. February 21 is recognised by the United Nations as International Mother Language Day to promote and celebrate linguistic and cultural diversity. The language movement played an important role in the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.
5) A court ruling in 2008 opened the door to Bangladeshi citizenship and allowed members of this community to register as voters. This group, estimated at 300,000 people had been stateless for decades. Which community?
Urdu speakers who had migrated from the Indian state of Bihar to East Pakistan during Partition. They were viewed as collaborators with the Pakistani state during its crackdown against Bengalis during the war of independence in 1971. More here, here, here and here. Pakistan has largely refused to repatriate them, fearing it would worsen ethnic tensions in Karachi and Sindh province. More here.
6) This predominantly Bengali-speaking district was part of Assam and a commercial hub for the province under the British in 1947. It was the only part of Eastern India where a referendum was held to decide whether to opt for India or Pakistan. A majority in the Muslim-majority region with a sizeable Hindu minority chose Pakistan. Name the district.
Sylhet. More here and here. A small part of Sylhet district, Karimganj, was assigned to India.
7) With Sylhet going to East Pakistan, tribal communities in the hills were separated from others in their community in the plains. They found themselves struggling to sell their produce as the commercial hub was now on the other side of the border. These tribal groups were then part of Assam but later got their own state, which is still a hotbed of ethnic tensions. Name the state.
Meghalaya. More here, here, here and here.
8) This Indian state (then a kingdom) had a tribal majority (barely) during Partition. The influx of refugees from East Pakistan rapidly changed its demographic balance. It became a Bengali-majority state in the 1950s and by the 1960s fears of marginalisation fuelled a separatist movement among the indigenous people. Which state?
Tripura. More here, here and here.
9) This region in undivided Bengal was dominated by tribal communities and the two largest tribes are Buddhist. Though Bengali Muslims made up only a tiny slice of the population in 1947, the region was assigned to Pakistan. The influx of Bengali settlers has changed the demographic balance. A dam project in the 1960s displaced thousands of indigenous people and many had to flee to India. A separatist movement took on the government. A peace deal was reached in 1997. Which region?
Chittagong Hill Tracts. More here and here. The Kaptai dam project forced many to flee for India. The Shanti Bahini separatist movement emerged. The Bangladeshi government and the rebels signed a peace deal in 1997. More here and here. Many forced to take refuge in India live a precarious existence, mostly in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. Local fear of demographic change has come in the way of Indian citizenship for many. More here, here and here.
10) The completion of a structure by India in 1975 led to protests in Bangladesh and its government filed a complaint at the United Nations the next year (Bangladesh's India-friendly founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rehman had been assassinated by then). The issue was largely resolved in 1996 through a treaty. What?
Farakka barrage to divert water from the Ganges to the Hooghly to maintain the navigability of the Calcutta port. More here, here and here. The Ganges Water Sharing Treaty signed in 1996 specified the minimum level of water flow to be shared with the downstream country Bangladesh during the dry season. More here and here.
11) Besides geographical contiguity what was the major economic reason for keeping Muslim-majority Murshidabad district in India and not East Pakistan?
To ensure India and West Bengal state had control over the upstream part of Calcutta's river system. More here and here.
12) The (slightly) Hindu majority district of Khulna was included in East Pakistan and over the decades Hindus have become a minority there. In early 1964, developments more than 2,000 kilometres away to the west sparked anti-Hindu riots in Khulna causing a mass exodus to India. This was fictionalised in Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Shadow Lines. What happened more than 2,000 kilometres away from Bengal?
A holy relic stored at the Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir, believed by Muslims to be a strand of the Prophet Mohammed’s hair, disappeared in December 1963. More on the impact on Kashmir here and here. In January 1964 the Indian government announced the relic had been recovered.
More about the riots in East Pakistan targeting Hindus here, here and here. Thousands from the Garo and Hajong tribal communities were forced to leave East Pakistan’s Mymensingh district for what is now India’s Meghalaya state. There were riots in West Bengal as well, mainly in Calcutta. More here and here.
You can read some Indian government communications from the time here.
13) This industry was particularly hit hard by Partition. India and Bengal had become the global leader in this product during the colonial era. But all the factories were in India while three-quarters of the fields were in East Pakistan. Which product?
Jute. More here.
14) This sporting entity was established in 1920 after the top club at the time refused to include a player from eastern Bengal. The club was embraced by migrants to Calcutta from eastern Bengal. It had a golden spell from 1949 to 1953 winning multiple tournaments and became a source of solace and pride for the refugees arriving in Calcutta after Independence and Partition. It has a long-running and at times violent rivalry with the rival club whose actions led to its founding in 1920. Name the two clubs.
East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. The rivalry between Ghotis (people with roots in West Bengal) and Bangals (East Bengal) was amplified on the football field. More here, here and here. A recommended article is Trinanjan Chakraborty’s long piece for the Paperclip here on the bloodiest day of Indian football, the rioting and stampede that marred the annual Calcutta Derby in 1980 between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan.
15) Squatter colonies made up of refugees grew in Kolkata and districts bordering East Pakistan soon after Partition. A political party organised the refugees under the banner of the United Central Refugee Council in 1950. The UCRC pushed back against an Eviction Bill and became a powerful political force, agitating for legal recognition of the colonies and voting rights. The refugees became a major support base for which political party through its control of the United Central Refugee Council?
Communist Party of India (CPI) and later the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) which became the more influential force after the party split in 1964. The CPI(M) led Left Front governed West Bengal from 1977 to 2011, winning seven elections in a row. More here and here.
16) Several filmmakers have portrayed the trauma of Partition in Bengali, notably Ritwik Ghatak. A Malayalam film by the director G. Aravindan dealt with a rarely-discussed aspect of the rehabilitation of refugees from East Bengal. To which part of India were the refugees moved to in the film? (a part of India whose MPs have largely been Bengalis)
Andaman and Nicobar Islands. More on G. Aravindan’s film Vasthuhara (The Dispossessed) here, here and here. Aravindan’s film is based on a short story by C.V. Sreeraman, who had worked in the Rehabilitation Department in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Another noted Sreeraman story Ottuchedi also depicts Bengali refugees in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. More here in Malayalam.
17) Which economically significant eastern city in undivided India was named Porto Grande by the Portuguese and Islamabad by the Mughals?
Chattogram (earlier Chittagong). Chittagong was the closest port for northeastern India and Partition meant the nearest port had now become Kolkata, hundreds of kilometres further away. More here and here.
Courtesy Google Maps. This is the road travel route from India’s northeastern state of Tripura to Kolkata. Bangladesh’s Chattogram (Chittagong) port is way closer to Tripura. Efforts are underway now to expand economic activity in India’s northeastern states through new rail links with Bangladesh and the use of Bangladesh’s ports.