Despite the effort to wedge in divisiveness and suspicion, this move failed and the opposition to the Partition of Bengal spread to the far corners of the country
Lord Curzon / BBC Hulton Picture Library
It was on July 19, 1905, that, the British governor-general Curzon, in a cynical and divisive move, announced the partition of Bengal into two provinces-Eastern Bengal and Assam, and the rest of Bengal which included Bihar and parts of Orissa. Motive? To divide the Bengal population and to weaken the nationalist movement, of which Bengal was the most important entre. Also, the British move was also to disrupt Hindu-Muslim unity by convincing upper class Muslims that the newly created province with its Muslim majority was in their interest.
How the move failed. Seeing through this design of the colonial masters, all sections of the people in Bengali people came together in an unprecedented fashion, in a mass movement to oppose this move. Anger spread to many other parts of the country. The anti-partition agitation assumed a militant from on August 7, 1905 when thousands of people at a meeting in Calcutta resolved to boycott British goods until the partition proposal was withdrawn.
When the partition came into force on 16 October 1905 which day was observed as a day of national mourning throughout Bengal. It was during this movement that Swadeshi or use of Indian goods and boycott of British Goods became an integral part of the freedom struggle. At thousands of meeting people took the pledge of Swadeshi and boycott. Resolutions supporting Swadeshi and boycott were also passed at the Benares session of the Congress under the president ship of Gokhle in December 1905, although the Moderates then and later tried to restrict their scope.
The message of Swadeshi spread to the entire country and helped in promoting Indian Industries. A large number of educational institutions were also opened by nationalists and a National Council of Education was set up. The movement which had begun in Bengal over the question of partition was transformed into a wider movement for freedom of the country. The British rulers, in order to crush the rising tied of nationalism, unleashed naked repression.
Calcutta in Morning
The first part of a news item, which appeared in the Amrita Bazaar Patrika of October 17, 1905 entitled “Calcutta in Morning-A Unique Sight”, describing the situation in Calcutta on 16 October 1905, the day Bengal was partitioned, is given below.
YESTERDAY WAS one of the most memorable days in the history of the British administration of India. It being the day on whish the Bengal partition scheme took effect, the day on which our unsympathetic government forced a measure by a proclamation in the official gazette against the wishes of the whole population, the day on which our rules tried to separate the Bengali speaking people of the East Bengal from those of the West Bengal, the people of Calcutta, irrespective of nationality, social position, creed and sex, observed it as a day of mourning. The leaders of the Bengali community-Hindus and Mahomedans-did not however silently mourn and weep. They did something more. They as a legacy to posterity and as a landmark to British administration laid the foundation of the Federation Hall. They also took a practical step towards the furtherance of the Swadeshi movement by opening the National Fund.
The Scene on the Bank of the Hooghly
From the small hours in the morning till noon, the bank of the Ganges from Bag bazaar to Howrah presented a unique spectacle. It looked, as if it were, a surging sea of human faces. From all streets, lanes and bye-lanes, leading to the bank a quick succession of streams of people all bare-footed-found their way to the bank to have a plunge in the sacred river.
As the day advanced, the gathering thickened more and more and by 10, about a lakh of the male population of the metropolis-all in mourning-thronged the bank and the Ghats of tender sex. They cry of “Bande Mataram” now and then, broke the silence of the still air and reverberated through it imparting a chastening influence on the minds of those who gathered together there…innumerable processions consisting of scores and hundreds of men, after arriving at the bank of the sacred river and wearing Rakhi (yellow thread) proceeded in procession singing ‘Bande Matram’ all the way. Several thousands of such processions passed all over the city especially the northern quarter of it from 8 am. To 2 pm. They accosted on the way everyone they met with “Bande Mataram” in embracing each other and putting on “Rakhi”. It was a sight for the gods to see….
Roads and Streets
The scene in the roads and streets of whole Calcutta was quite novel and was perhaps never before witnessed in any Indian city….No purchasers were there and thus no sellers had to exhibit their articles…All the mills were closed and the mill hands paraded the city in procession…The only cry that was heard was of “Bande Mataram” . Bands of Mahomedans and Marwari’s joined the percussionists and greatly enhanced the enthusiasm.
Rakhee Sangeet
During the swadeshi and anti-partition agitation people in both the Benglas took out processions in the streets of towns and villages and sang swadeshi and patriotic songs. An English version of one such song, originally composed in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore, is reproduced below.
Let the earth and water of Bengal,
Let the air and fruits of Bengal, be sacred, be sacred, be sacred, my god.
Let the homes and marts of Bengal,
Let the forests and fields of Bengal, be full, be full, be full, my god.
Let the promises and hopes of Bengalis,
Let the deeds and language of Bengalis, be true, be true, be true, my god.
Let the lives and hearts of Bengalis,
Let all the brothers and sisters in Bengali homes, be united, be united, be united, my god.
Excerpts from Gokhale’s Presidential Address
The following lines are taken from Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s Presidential Address at the Banares Congress (1905), where the made a detailed analysis of the question of the partition of Bengal and the swadeshi movement.
GENTLEMEN, THE question that is uppermost in the minds of all at this moment is the partition of Bengal. A cruel wrong has been inflicted on our Bengalee brethren, and the whole country has been stirred to its deepest depths in sorrow and resentment, as had never been the case before. The scheme of Partition concocted in the dark and carried out in the face of the fiercest opposition that any Government measure has encountered during the last half-a-century, will always stand as a complete illustration the worst features of the present system of bureaucratic rule-its utter contempt for public opinion, its arrogant pretensions to superior wisdom… Lord Curzon and his advisers… could never allege that they had no means of judging of the depth of public feeling in the matter. All that could possibly have been done by way of a respectful representation of the views of the people had been done. As soon as it was known that a partition of some sort was contemplated, meeting after meeting of protest was held…. The Secretary of State for India was implored to withhold his sanction to the proposed measure. The intervention of the British House of Commons was sought, first by a monster petition, signed by sixty thousand people, and later by means, of a debate on the subject raised in the House by our over-watchful mend, Mr. Herbert Roberts. All proved unavailing…. To add insult to injury, Lord Curzon described the opposition to his measures as “manufactured”-an opposition in which all classes of Indians, high and low, uneducated and educated, Hindus and Mahomedans had joined, an opposition than which nothing more intense, nothing more wide-spread, nothing more spontaneous had been seen in this country in the whole course of our political agitation.. . .
The tremendous upheaval of popular feeling, which has taken place in Bengal in consequence of the partition, will constitute a landmark in the history of our national progress. For the first time since British rule began, all sections of the Indian community, without distinction of caste or creed, have been moved by a common impulse and without the stimulus of extend pressure to act together in offering resistance to a common wrong. A wave of true national consciousness has swept over the province…. Bengal’s heroic stand against the oppression of a harsh and uncontrolled bureaucracy has astonished and gratified all India, and her sufferings have not been endured in vain, when they have helped to draw closer all pasts of the country in sympathy and in aspiration….