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In
1905 the British governor general, Lord George Curzon, divided Bengal into
eastern and western sectors in order to improve administrative control of the
huge and populous province. Curzon established a new province called Eastern
Bengal and Assam, which had its capital at Dhaka. The new province of West
Bengal (the present-day state of West Bengal in India) had its capital at
Calcutta, which also was the capital of British India. During the next few
years, the long neglected and predominantly Muslim eastern region of Bengal made
strides in education and communications. Many Bengali Muslims viewed the
partition as initial recognition of their cultural and political separation from
the Hindu majority population. Curzon's decision, however, was ardently
challenged by the educated and largely Hindu upper classes of Calcutta. The
Indian National Congress (Congress), a Hindu-dominated political organization
founded in 1885 and supported by the Calcutta elite, initiated a well-planned
campaign against Curzon, accusing him of trying to undermine the nationalist
movement that had been spearheaded by Bengal. Congress leaders objected that
Curzon's partition of Bengal deprived Bengali Hindus of a majority in either new
province--in effect a tactic of divide and rule. In response, they launched a
movement to force the British to annul the partition. A swadeshi (a
devotee of one's own country) movement boycotted British-made goods and
encouraged the production and use of Indian-made goods to take their place. Swadeshi
agitation spread throughout India and became a major plank in the Congress
platform. Muslims generally favored the partition of Bengal but could not
compete with the more politically articulate and economically powerful Hindus.
In 1912 the British voided the partition of Bengal, a decision that heightened
the growing estrangement between the Muslims and Hindus in many parts of the
country. The reunited province was reconstituted as a presidency and the capital
of India was moved from Calcutta to the less politically electric atmosphere of
New Delhi. The reunion of divided Bengal was perceived by Muslims as a British
accommodation to Hindu pressures.
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