Calcutta was the capital and Bengal the nerve center of the British empire in India. Bengalis were the first people in the country to be exposed to English education and also the first to enter government service. They were also the first to demand civil rights. The political situation was rapidly changing. The British were beginning to feel uneasy in their colony. Hostility was brewing among the natives. The anger among the people intensified when the British Government failed to organize effective relief during the plague and famine. In order to alleviate the anger, the British played the political trump-card; they used their divide-and-rule political game.
In 1905, the British governor general, Lord George Curzon divided the state of Bengal into separate Hindu and Muslim sections. West Bengal, Orissa and Bihar were on one side and the East Bengal and Assam were on the other. The idea was to disperse the Bengalis and divide them along religious lines. Eastern Bengal would get a Muslim identity and the Bengalis of West Bengal would be outnumbered by Biharis and others in the new province.
The Muslim population had found the partition effective for them. By remaining aloof from the Western-oriented education system, the Muslims alienated themselves from the many new avenues opening up for the emerging middle class. This self-imposed isolation led to an intensified awareness of their minority role.Before the partition it was western Bengal, mainly Calcutta and its adjacent areas, that came under the British influence and enjoyed the facilities of education, development and industrialization. On the other hand the socio-economic condition of the Muslim majority Eastern part of Bengal was poor. Lack of communication impaired trade and commerce and the condition of peasants was miserable under the exaction of absentee landlords. The rivers were full of pirates and a minimum amount was funded for education. Muslims had feelings of alleviation in the partitioning of Bengal as they thought that they would enjoy more freedom and opportunity for education, employment, politics and economy.
Curzon's decision, however, was ardently challenged by the educated and largely Hindu upper classes of Calcutta. The Indian National Congress (Congress) and other leaders initiated a well-planned campaign against the partition.A huge amount of nationalist literature was created there during this period. This nationalist spirit was popularized by the patriotic songs of Dwijendralal Roy, Rajanikanta Sen and Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore spoke out in a highly inspiring poem: Banglar mati Banglar jal, Banglar bayu, banglar phal, punya houk, hey Bhagaban…(roughly translated into English: "May the soil of Bengal, the water and the air of Bengal be hallowed ... "). He also wrote Amar Shonar Bangla in 1906, the first ten lines of which were adopted in 1972 as the Bangladeshi national anthem. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s ‘Bande Matram’ was taken up as the soul-stirring slogan.
Nawab Salimullah of Dhaka (grandson of Sir Khwaja Abdul Ghani), a staunch supporter of the British Raj started pro-partition campaign which led to the creation of All India Muslim League in 1906. Thus, a separate all-India platform was created to voice the grievances of the Muslims and contain the growing influence of the Congress Party. The leadership had remained loyal to the British Empire, and the Government of India Act of 1909 granted separate electorates to the Muslims.
The educated Bengali, mostly Hindus, felt that it was a deliberate blow inflicted by Curzon at the national consciousness and growing solidarity of the Bengali-speaking population. The Bengali weekly Sanjeevani then suggested that the government would be compelled to take note of the people's mood if the public stopped buying British goods. Agitation against the partition manifested itself in the form of mass meetings, rural unrest and a Swadeshi Movement to boycott British manufactured goods.
The idea of boycotting British goods spread like wildfire through Bengal and then to different parts of the country.
In the face of rising opposition to colonial rule the British ended the division and the partition had to be annulled. The government felt that the main advantage, which could be derived from the move, was that it would remove the seat of the government of India from the agitated atmosphere of Bengal to less politically electric atmosphere of. To deprive Calcutta of its prime position as the nerve center of political activity necessarily weakened the influence of the Bengali Hindus.
The annulment of the partition as a result of the agitation against it had a negative effect on the Muslims. The majority of the Muslims did not like the Congress support to the anti-partition agitation. The politically conscious Muslims felt that the Congress had supported a Hindu agitation against the creation of a Muslim majority province. It reinforced their belief that their interests were not safe in the hands of the Congress. Thus they became more anxious to emphasise their separate communal identity and leaned towards the Muslim League to safeguard their interest against the dominance of the Hindu majority in undivided India.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Britain declared that India was also at war with Germany. Indian troops fought in many parts of the world. But following the conclusion of the war, the British sought to introduce draconian legislation to contain the activity of people presumed to be political extremists. On April 13, 1919, large number of men women and children had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh, a public garden in Amritsar on the occasion of Baisakhi (new year celebrations held on 13th April every year) and also to show their resentment against the government policies. The British were enraged, closed of all exit routes and fired 1600 rounds of ammunition on the crowds, resulting in a stampede and a bloody massacre of thousands of men women and children. The brutality of the Jallianwallah Bagh tragedy shocked the country. It deeply moved the national leaders and marked the emergence of a nation-wide movement against British rule. To show his solidarity with the Indian masses, Tagore rejected the knighthood, earlier conferred upon him by the British government.
The events of 1919 also brought to the fore Mahatma Gandhi.
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