Who was the architect of partition of Bengal

The staunchly reactionary representative of the British Empire, George Nathaniel Baron Curzon of Kedleston—better known as Lord Curzon—arrived in India in 1899 as Viceroy of British India. His seat of power and residence was in the capital, Calcutta. A shrewd and deeply anti-Bengali figure, Curzon wasted no time in recognising and understanding Bengal and the Bengalis. He quickly grasped the Bengalis’ sharp sense of nationalism, their patriotism, and, above all, their anti-colonial sentiment. As a people advancing in education, culture and intellectual pursuits, the Bengalis were increasingly active in seeking an end to British rule; for someone as cunning as Curzon, this reality was not hard to perceive. To restrain the patriotically inspired Bengalis, Curzon adopted various strategies. In 1902, with the aim of dividing Bengalis along religious lines, he initiated the move for partitioning Bengal.

At the same time, he imposed strict restrictions on the free flow of news. Under the Official Secrets Act, press freedom was curtailed. The British role in spreading education was never without purpose; it served state policy. They had no intention of creating a highly educated Indian nation. Their primary aim was to create a clerical class by providing limited education to locals. This clerical class became collaborators in administration, serving the expansion of the colonial empire. Bringing an entire workforce of English officers from Britain to India was impossible. Hence, missionaries were tasked with educating locals only enough to form this clerical stratum to meet administrative needs. 

True, the spread of education opened opportunities for Indians to pursue higher studies, but this was incidental rather than intentional. Locals managed to attain higher education by seizing that opportunity. Curzon, however, intervened openly to block the way. In order to limit higher education, he increased student fees at universities and brought all university affairs under the strict control of British bureaucracy. He enacted various black laws to ensure smooth colonial rule. It was the progressive Bengalis, advancing in education and culture, who bore the brunt of Curzon’s repressive measures. 

To detach this class permanently from the masses by offering them privileges, the Indian National Congress was formed in 1885. This was done under the indirect encouragement of the Viceroy and the direct initiative of retired British civil servant Allan Octavian Hume. Over time, the Congress slipped from British influence and came under Indian control. Angered by the Congress’s anti-British movements, Curzon remarked that thanks to his own help, the Congress would eventually find its way to a peaceful death. At Calcutta University, Curzon did not hesitate to mock Indian cultural traditions in the harshest terms. His policies of repression and persecution directly inspired the formation of secret armed societies aimed at ending British rule. Their principal goal was to defeat the British through armed struggle and save the motherland.

In February 1904, to push through his partition plan, Curzon came to Eastern Bengal. Under colonial rule, the visits of British rulers often led to the construction of commemorative structures. When Queen Victoria came to Calcutta, the Victoria Memorial was built at the city’s heart. The cost of this vast project was not borne by the British government but extracted through heavier taxes on locals. Similarly, when Lord Northbrook visited Dhaka in 1874, Northbrook Hall was built with a donation of 250,000 rupees from Abdul Ghani, a businessman who favoured the British and later received their titles. To commemorate Curzon’s visit, Curzon Hall was built in Dhaka with a donation of 150,000 rupees from Narendra Narayan, Prince of Bhawal. On 19 February 1904, the foundation stone was laid by Curzon himself. That very stone still stands intact on the left wall of the main entrance to Curzon Hall.

At that time, the Treasury located in Dhaka’s Sadarghat area housed Dhaka College. Due to lack of space, the college library was shifted to Curzon Hall. Historians note that Curzon Hall was originally built to serve as a Town Hall. After the partition of Bengal was annulled, Dhaka College was moved from Sadarghat to Curzon Hall and renamed Dhaka Government College. Earlier, Curzon Hall had been used as a public hall as well. Following the establishment of Dhaka University in 1921, Curzon Hall became part of the university. To this day, the Faculty of Science continues to operate from there.

Curzon’s Eastern Bengal mission was undertaken solely to implement partition. To secure his objectives, he travelled to Mymensingh as a guest of Maharaja Surya Kanta Acharya Chowdhury. There he urged and pressured the Maharaja to support the partition proposal. For Curzon, it was unthinkable that any local Maharaja or landlord, beneficiaries of the Permanent Settlement under colonial rule, would dare reject the Viceroy’s proposal. Yet Maharaja Surya Kanta Chowdhury set a rare precedent by rejecting it outright to Curzon’s face.

With the Mymensingh mission having failed, Curzon returned to Dhaka and stayed at Ahsan Manzil as the guest of Nawab Salimullah. In the presence of Dhaka’s elite Muslims, he presented the partition proposal. Exploiting communal sentiments, he argued that the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam would be entirely under Muslim control. Muslims here, he said, would no longer be dependent on Hindu-dominated Kolkata. He even offered Nawab Salimullah an interest-free loan of £10,000 to help develop the new province.

At the time, Nawab Salimullah was in severe financial difficulty, and the money was much needed. He immediately accepted the partition proposal. Another landlord, Nawab Ali Chowdhury, was also present and readily supported the scheme. To push through Bengal’s partition, Curzon did not hesitate to stoke communalism. Explicitly and implicitly, he sowed seeds of division in the hearts of Eastern Bengal’s Muslims. As a result, the elite Muslim community, inflamed by communal sentiment, strongly backed the partition, giving momentum to Curzon’s mission.

Determined to achieve his political ends, Curzon toured Eastern Bengal extensively, even travelling to Chattogram. On his return journey to Dhaka, he wrote a letter to the Secretary of State for India from his train. That letter, dated 17 February 1904, reveals Curzon’s true intentions. It reads: “The Bengalis, who like to think of themselves as a nation and dream of a future when, having expelled the English, they will seat a Bengali babu in the Government House in Calcutta, will naturally express bitter dissatisfaction at any obstacle to that dream. If we show weakness by yielding to their clamour, we will never again be able to partition or weaken Bengal, and in the east of India you will have consolidated a power which is already strong and which in future will become a certain source of increasing trouble.”

The anti-partition movement spread like wildfire, not just in Bengal but throughout India. Bengal’s nationalist leader Surendranath Banerjee wrote that the partition insulted and humiliated Bengalis and endangered their entire future. In his view, the partition was a deliberate blow against the existing unity of the Bengali-speaking people. Yet Curzon remained firm, and on 7 July 1905, he formally announced the partition, which came into effect on 16 October 1905. As early as August, Kolkata was engulfed in protest rallies, demonstrations and mass resistance against the scheme.

From the anti-partition meetings came the call to boycott British goods. On 16 October, Bengalis of all religions and classes observed the day both as Partition Day and as a National Day of Mourning. A massive anti-partition procession in Calcutta culminated at the banks of the Ganges, where participants sang Bankimchandra’s “Vande Mataram” and pledged to reunite an undivided Bengal. An undeclared strike was observed that day in Calcutta. As a symbolic oath, people tied rakhis on each other’s wrists. This rakhi bandhan became a symbol of Bengali unity. The movement drew in landlords, the middle class, professionals, students and intellectuals. Alongside Hindu participation, prominent Muslims also joined, guided by national sentiment. The non-communal nature of the anti-partition movement was strikingly clear. It alarmed the colonial rulers and threw them into uncertainty.

At the session of the Indian National Congress, Congress President Gopal Krishna Gokhale gave formal support to the call for boycotting British goods in protest against the partition. Bal Gangadhar Tilak and his followers pushed for extending the boycott into a nationwide anti-British Swadeshi movement, but the Congress right-wing opposed and blocked the resolution. Meanwhile, Kolkata’s intellectuals, artists, writers and politicians—including Rabindranath Tagore himself—actively took part in anti-partition programmes. Tagore wrote and performed many patriotic songs at this time, such as “Banglar mati, banglar jal, banglar bayu, banglar phal” and “Amar sonar Bangla ami tomay bhalobashi”.

He also delivered a speech titled “Bijoy Sammilan” and personally tied rakhis on the wrists of worshippers at the famous Nakhoda Mosque on the outskirts of Kolkata. The mass scale of this anti-partition movement opened the way for the broader Swadeshi movement against British rule. It played such a vital role that Curzon’s detested partition could not last. In 1911, the British Parliament annulled the partition, forced by public demand. For local British officials, this reversal was a humiliating slap. In retaliation, in 1912, the British moved the capital of India from Kolkata to Delhi. Kolkata lost its historic status. Its political and economic importance declined, and from being the imperial capital, it was reduced to the status of a provincial capital.

Meanwhile, Greater Bengal was deliberately diminished. Orissa, Bihar and Chotanagpur were separated from it. Assam once again became a separate province. Thus, Bengal lost its earlier size and importance, existing only as East and West Bengal. 

Mazharul Islam Babla: Executive Editor, Naya Diganta