The History of East Bengal and Bangladesh’s National Identity
Bangladesh’s political and cultural landscape is currently undergoing a massive shock wave of change, a historic juncture marked by profound psychological transformation and deep self-realization.
Following the fall of the fifteen-year authoritarian Awami regime in the wake of the bloody student-led mass uprising on August 5, 2024, many long-unresolved questions in the nation’s politics have resurfaced.
In particular, the new generation widely referred to today as “Gen Z” has begun evaluating its identity, cultural heritage, and national sovereignty through a completely fresh lens.
At the core of this awakening lies a historic intellectual rebellion against long-standing colonial and hegemonic narratives.
Recent incidents such as the defacement of a Rabindranath Tagore graffiti with black ink on the wall opposite the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy in Dhaka’s Segunbagicha, or the vocal demands for altering or re-evaluating the national anthem are by no means isolated occurrences.
Rather, they are the manifestation of long-suppressed grievances harbored by the working-class and freedom-loving people of East Bengal against two and a half centuries of deprivation, regional disparity, and cultural hegemony.
In this context, the time has come to rewrite our national history, transcending Kolkata’s one-sided, hegemonic narrative to uncover the true contours of East Bengal’s indigenous history and geopolitical identity.
The history of Bangladesh’s distinctiveness and sovereignty is not an overnight phenomenon that suddenly sprouted in 1947 or 1971 its roots run deep into the distant past.
The foundation of the first independent and sovereign seat of power in this region was laid at the dawn of the thirteenth century; with the conquest of Gaur in 1204 by the warrior Ikhtiyar Uddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji.
Ancient Gaur encompassing present-day Chapainawabganj in Bangladesh and the Maldah border region of West Bengal, India broke away from the direct dominion of the Delhi Sultanate and the Turkish Empire, giving birth to an independent Sultanate era.
From Sultan Shamsuddin Iliyas Shah through the independent Sultanate and subsequent Subahdar periods, a distinct political and cultural entity flourished among the people of this region.
The reign of Sultan Alauddin Husain Shah and later the relocation of Bengal’s capital to Dhaka by Mughal Subahdar Islam Khan in 1610 accelerated the administrative and economic liberation of this land.
Centered around the Buriganga River, Dhaka rapidly transformed into a global hub of trade, commerce, and culture, symbolized by Ahsan Manzil, Lalbagh Fort, and the historic Katras.
The legendary economic prosperity under Subahdar Shaista Khan where a single taka could purchase eight maunds of rice or a cow for three takas was the direct outcome of a self-reliant, independent, and people-centric economy anchored in Dhaka.
However, on June 23, 1757, in the mango groves of Plassey, the defeat of Bengal’s last independent Nawab, Siraj-ud-Daulah, extinguished the sun of liberty for this region and ushered in a prolonged chapter of colonial exploitation.
In 1772, the British East India Company shifted its administrative capital from Dhaka to Kolkata, turning the once-thriving global trade hub of Dhaka into an overnight backwater deprived of its administrative importance and left as a neglected settlement.
The colonial masters did not stop at merely relocating the capital; through Lord Cornwallis’s Permanent Settlement Act of 1793, they unleashed a cruel economic oppression upon the destitute, oppressed, and peasant masses of East Bengal.
The region’s peasantry largely comprised Muslims and lower-caste Hindus who were almost entirely marginal farmers, while the primary beneficiaries were the newly minted landlord class and “Babu” society cultivated in Kolkata under colonial patronage.
The surplus wealth extracted through the grueling labor and blood-soaked indigo cultivation of East Bengal’s farmers went on to illuminate Kolkata’s palatial mansions in aristocratic luxury, while the towns and villages of East Bengal were plunged into abyssal darkness.
The people of East Bengal never bowed down to this intense economic exploitation and cultural discrimination; they offered resistance at every turn of history. A blazing testimony to this is the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.
When the fires of the 1857 uprising began sweeping across India, their impact immediately reverberated in Dhaka. The Bengali sepoys of the 73rd Native Infantry stationed at Dhaka’s Lalbagh Fort bravely resisted British dominance.
On November 22, 1857, British naval forces and European volunteers launched a sudden assault on the rebellious sepoys inside Lalbagh Fort.
Despite mounting a valiant defense in this unequal battle, several sepoys embraced martyrdom while many others were imprisoned.
This armed resistance which shook the very foundations of British colonial rule in Dhaka and the subsequent indiscriminate executions by hanging at Antaghar Maidan (now Bahadur Shah Park) remain an eternal, blood-soaked chapter in the history of East Bengal’s freedom-seeking people, reflecting their yearning for liberty and emancipation.
On the other hand, Mir Nesar Ali Titu Mir’s “Baisher Kella” (Bamboo Fort) and Haji Shariatullah’s Faraizi Movement were not confined to mere religious reform; they were uncompromising, armed struggles by the sons of the soil against economic rights violations and landlord tyranny.
Titu Mir’s Bamboo Fort and the Faraizi movement proved that the people of East Bengal possessed the mental fortitude and courage to fight against the joint exploitation of British rulers and domestic compradors.
Following over a century and a half of deprivation, when British Viceroy Lord Curzon created a new province named “Eastern Bengal and Assam” in 1905 with Dhaka as its capital for administrative convenience, a new horizon of possibilities opened up for the region.
This new provincial territory laid down a massive blueprint for Dhaka centric infrastructural development in education, healthcare, and communication.
This was the first institutional opportunity to uplift the neglected Muslims, lower-caste Hindus, and other marginalized populations of East Bengal who had long been dependent on Kolkata’s mercy.
To organize this new political sphere and secure their rights, the All-India Muslim League was established in Dhaka in 1906 under the leadership of Nawab Siraj-ud-Din (Sir Salimullah) of Dhaka.
However, Kolkata’s vested-interest landlords, traders, lawyers, and intelligentsia could not accept this administrative reform and the rise of East Bengal by any means.
Terrified that the development of education and the economic fortunes of the region’s peasants around Dhaka would erode their dominance in Kolkata, they went into a frenzy.
Consequently, they launched the so-called “Swadeshi Movement” against the partition of Bengal. Poet Rabindranath Tagore became one of the primary political and cultural masterminds of this movement.
Composing songs like “Amar Sonar Bangla,” observing Rakhi Bandhan, raising the slogan “Bande Mataram,” and touring various regions alongside folk poet Mukunda Das, he built a fierce public opinion against the partition.
He and his like-minded literati propagated that the partition of Bengal amounted to the “dismemberment of the Mother Bengal.”
In other words, they were entirely unwilling to see East Bengal whose farmers’ blood, sweat, and land revenues funded the luxury of Kolkata’s Babus as an independent and autonomous administrative entity.
As a reward for this loyalty and appeasement policy, the British Crown conferred upon Rabindranath Tagore the highest civilian honor of the British Empire, the “Knighthood,” in 1915.
The accurate and glorious history of the University of Dhaka, the city of Dhaka, and the sacrifices of the millions of marginalized people of this land must be reinstated in textbooks and national consciousness.
Upholding complete national sovereignty, Dhaka-centric geopolitical distinctiveness, and the indigenous cultural roots of the majority populace, we must propel a self-reliant, independent Bangladesh forward onto the global stage.
(Author: Woashim Farooque, Columnist and Analyst)
