Before the official Radcliffe Line was drawn in 1947, these were the religious demographics in Bengal: • Muslim-majority districts: Dinajpur, Rangpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Rajshahi, Bogra, Pabna, Mymensingh, Jessore, Nadia, Faridpur, Dhaka, Tippera, Bakerganj, Noakhali and Chittagong. • Hindu-majority districts: Calcutta, Howrah, Hooghly, Birbhum, Burdwan, Bankura, Midnapore, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, 24 Pargan and Khulna • Buddhist-majority district: Chittagong Hill Tract Final division: • Pakistan:
East Dinajpur,
Rangpur, Rajshahi, Bogra, Pabna,
Mymensingh,
Sylhet (except Karimganj),
Khulna,
Bakerganj,
Tippera (plain
Tripura),
Noakhali,
Chittagong,
Jessore,
East Nadia,
Chittagong Hill Tracts. • India:
West Dinajpur,
Jalpaiguri,
Darjeeling,
Malda,
Murshidabad,
West Nadia,
Calcutta, 24 Pargana, Burdwan, Birbhum,
Midnapore,
Howrah,
Hooghly and
Karimganj district in Assam. The second partition of Bengal left behind a legacy of violence that has continued ever since. As
Bashabi Fraser put it, "There is the reality of the continuous flow of 'economic migrants'/'refugees'/'infiltrators'/'illegal immigrants' who cross over the border and pan out across the subcontinent, looking for work and a new home, settling in metropolitan centres as far off as Delhi and Mumbai, keeping the question of Partition alive today".
Displacement crisis in Noakhali, 1946 A massive
population transfer began immediately after partition. Millions of
Hindus migrated to India from East Bengal, and most of them settled in West Bengal. A significant number even went to
Assam, Tripura and other states. However, the refugee crisis was markedly different from
Punjab at India's western border. Punjab had witnessed widespread
communal riots immediately before partition. As a result, the population transfer in Punjab happened almost immediately after Partition, as terrified people left their homes from both sides. Within a year, the population exchange had been largely complete between
East and
West Punjab, but in Bengal, violence was limited to
Kolkata and
Noakhali. Hence, in Bengal, the migration occurred much more gradually and continued over the three decades after partition. Apart from West Bengal, thousands of
Bihari Muslims also settled in East Bengal. They had suffered terribly in
severe riots before partition. However, they supported
West Pakistan during the Liberation War and were subsequently denied citizenship in independent Bangladesh. Most of the Bihari refugees
have remained stateless.
Statistics The 1951 census in India recorded 2.523 million refugees from East Bengal, 2.061 million of whom settled in West Bengal. The rest went to Assam, Tripura and other states. By 1973, their number reached over 6 million. The following table shows the major waves of refugee influx and the incident that caused it. The 1951 census in Pakistan recorded 671,000 refugees in East Bengal, the majority of whom came from West Bengal. The rest were from
Bihar. By 1961, the numbers reached 850,000. Crude estimates suggest that about 1.5 million Muslims migrated from West Bengal and Bihar to East Bengal in the two decades after partition.
Government response In Punjab, the Indian government anticipated a population transfer and was ready to take proactive measures. Land plots that were evacuated by Muslims were allotted to incoming Hindu and Sikh refugees. The government allocated substantial resources for the rehabilitation of refugees in Punjab. In contrast, there was no such planning in the eastern part of the country. Neither the central nor the West Bengal state governments anticipated any large-scale population exchange, and no co-ordinated policy was in place to rehabilitate millions of homeless people. The newly independent country had few resources, and the central government was exhausted in resettling 7 million refugees in Punjab. Instead of providing rehabilitation, the Indian government tried to stop and even to reverse the refugee influx from East Bengal. India and Pakistan signed the
Liaquat–Nehru Pact in 1950 to stop any further population exchange between West and East Bengal.
Tripura's tribal insurgency The
princely state of Tripura had a predominantly-tribal population, but educated Bengalis were welcomed by the King and were prominent in the state's administration in pre-independence India. However, after partition, thousands of Bengali Hindus migrated to Tripura, which changed the state's
demography significantly. Tripura's tribes became a minority in their own
homeland and lost their land holdings. As a result, a tribal
insurgency began, causing violent riots among tribes and Bengalis in 1980. A low-scale insurgency has continued ever since. Many Bengalis migrated from East Bengal region during Partition and the Liberation War, but half of the Bengali community of Tripura has lived in Tripura for hundreds of years, according to the 1901 census report, which clearly stated that Bengali and Tripura had numbers that were almost equal.
Economic impact West Bengal Radcliffe's line split Bengal, which
had always historically been a single economic, cultural and ethnic (Bengali-Hindu or Bengali-Muslim) zone, into two halves. Both halves were intricately connected. The
fertile East produced food and raw materials, which the West consumed, and the industrialised West produced manufactured goods, which were consumed by the East. According to the POV, this was either considered an exploitative or a mutually beneficial trade and exchange. This was, naturally, severely disrupted by Partition. Rail, road and water communication routes were severed between them. After Partition, West Bengal suffered from a substantial food shortage as the fertile
rice-producing districts went to East Bengal. The shortage continued into the 1950s and the 1960s. By 1959, West Bengal faced an annual food shortage of 950,000 tones. Hunger marches became a common sight in Kolkata. (left), the first chief minister of West Bengal, with
Mohammad Ali of Bogra Jute was the largest industry in Bengal at Partition. The Radcliffe Line left every single jute mill in West Bengal but four fifths of the jute-producing land in East Bengal. The
best-quality fibre yielding breeds of jute were
cultivated mostly in East Bengal. India and Pakistan initially agreed to a
trade agreement to import raw jute from East Bengal for West Bengal's mills. However, Pakistan had plans to set up its own mills and put restrictions on raw jute export to India. West Bengal's mills faced an acute shortage, and the industry faced a crisis. On the other hand, jute farmers in East Bengal were now without a market to sell their produce. Exporting jute to West Bengal suddenly became an anti-national act for Pakistan. Smuggling of raw jute shot up across the border, but West Bengal rapidly increased jute production and in the mid-to-late 1950s became largely self-sufficient in jute. West Bengal's mills became less dependent on East Bengal for raw materials. Pakistan also set up new
factories to process its local produce instead of exporting to India. The following table shows jute production details in both countries in 1961: Those lines carried almost all
freight traffic from those regions. The most important commodities were tea and timber. The
tea industry in Assam depended on the
Chittagong Port to export its produce and import raw materials for the industry, such as coal, which was used as the fuel to
dry the
tea leaves. The industry was severely hit, as Chittagong went to Pakistan. Initially, India and Pakistan reached an agreement to allow cross-border transit traffic, but India now had to pay a
tariff. By 1950, India had reconnected Assam to the rest of the country's rail network by building a 229 km
meter gauge rail link through the
Siliguri Corridor,
East Bengal , the first chief minister of East Bengal At Partition, East Bengal had no large industry. There were few mineral resources in this region. Its economy was completely agrarian. The main produce was food grains and other crops, jute, bamboo, leather and
fish. The raw materials were consumed by factories in and around Kolkata. Kolkata was the centre of Bengal's economic and social development for both Hindus and Muslims. All large industries, military bases and government offices, and most of the institutions of higher education were in Kolkata. Without Kolkata, East Bengal was decapitated. It lost its traditional market for agricultural products. It also lost Kolkata, the most important port of the country. East Bengal had to begin from nothing.
Dhaka was then only a district headquarters. Government offices had to be placed inside makeshift buildings. Dhaka also faced a severe human resource crisis. The majority of high-ranking officers in British Indian administration were Hindu and migrated to West Bengal. Often, the posts had to be filled up by West Pakistani officers. Desperately poor, East Bengal soon became politically dominated by West Pakistan. Economic disparities and subjugation of Bengalis by the
Punjabi elite eventually led to a struggle for separation in 1971. == In popular culture ==