The Partition of Bengal in 1947, part of the Partition of India, was a partition that divided the British Indian province of Bengal between India and Pakistan, with West Bengal becoming a province of India and East Bengal becoming a province of Pakistan. The partition was done according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan.
As per the plan, on 20 June, 1947, the members of the Bengal Legislative Assembly cast three separate votes on the proposal to partition Bengal:
- In the joint session of the house, comprising of all the members of the Assembly, the division of the joint session of the House stood at 126 votes against and 90 votes for joining the present Constituent Assembly (i.e, India)
- Then the members of the Muslim-majority areas of Bengal in a separate session passed a motion by 106-35 votes against partitioning Bengal and instead joining a new Constituent Assembly (i.e, Pakistan) as a whole.
- This was followed by the separate meeting of the members of the non-Muslim-majority areas of Bengal who by a division of 58-21 voted for partition of the province.
Under the Mountbatten Plan, a single majority vote in favour of partition by either notionally divided half of the Assembly would have decided the division of the province, and hence the house proceedings on 20 June resulted in the decision to partition Bengal. This set the stage for the creation of West Bengal as a province of the Union of India and East Bengal as a province of the Dominion of Pakistan.
Also in accordance with the Mountbatten Plan, in a referendum held on 7 July, the electorate of Sylhet gave a verdict in favor of joining East Bengal. Further, the Boundary Commission headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe decided on the territorial demarcation between the two newly created provinces. The power was finally officially transferred to Pakistan and India on 14 and 15 August, respectively, under the Indian Independence Act, 1947.
East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan in 1955, and became the independent nation of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.
See also
Bibliography
- Gyanendra Pandey Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism, and History in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521002508
- Tai Yong Tan and Gyanesh Kudaisya The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia. London: Routledge, 2001. ISBN 0415172977
References
- Suhrawardy, Huseyn Shaheed Retrieved September 25, 2009.
- Partition of Bengal, 1947 Retrieved September 25, 2009.
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