Bengal

• 1. Ancient Kingdoms And Early Empires

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  Pottery with processional scenes from the Chandraketugarh region of West Bengal dates back to 100 BC. Archaeological evidence shows that rice-cultivating communities dotted the region during the second millennium BCE. By the eleventh century BCE, people in Bengal lived in systematically aligned homes and produced copper objects. The ancient city of Mahasthangarh emerged as a significant settlement during this Iron Age period. The Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers served as natural arteries for communication and transportation. Estuaries on the Bay of Bengal allowed for maritime trade with distant lands in Southeast Asia. The ancient geopolitical divisions included Varendra, Suhma, Anga, Vanga, Samatata and Harikela. These regions were often independent or under the rule of larger empires. The Mahasthan Brahmi Inscription indicates that Bengal was ruled by the Mauryan Empire in the 3rd century BCE. This inscription was an administrative order instructing relief for a distressed segment of the population. Punch-marked coins found in the region indicate that currency was used during the Iron Age. The namesake of Bengal is the ancient Vanga Kingdom which was reputed as a naval power with overseas colonies. A prince from Bengal named Vijaya founded the first kingdom in Sri Lanka. The two most prominent pan-Indian empires of this period included the Mauryans and the Gupta Empire. The region was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Gangaridai. The Greek ambassador Megasthenes chronicled its military strength and dominance of the Ganges delta. The invasion army of Alexander the Great was deterred by accounts of Gangaridai's power in 325 BCE. Later Roman accounts noted maritime trade routes with Bengal. 1st century Roman coins with images of Hercules were found in the region. The Wari-Bateshwar ruins are believed to be the emporium of Sounagoura mentioned by Roman geographer Claudius Ptolemy.

• 2. Islamic Conquest And Sultanate Rise

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  In 1204, the Ghurid general Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji began the Islamic conquest of Bengal. The fall of Lakhnauti was recounted by historians circa 1243. Lakhnauti was the capital of the Sena dynasty. According to historical accounts, Ghurid cavalry swept across the Gangetic plains towards Bengal. They entered the Bengali capital disguised as horse traders. Once inside the royal compound, Bakhtiyar and his horsemen swiftly overpowered the guards of the Sena king who had just sat down to eat a meal. The king then hastily fled to the forest with his followers. The overthrow of the Sena king has been described as a coup d'état which inaugurated an era lasting over five centuries. During this period, most of Bengal was dominated by rulers professing the Islamic faith. Bengal became a province of the Delhi Sultanate. A coin featuring a horseman was issued to celebrate the Muslim conquest of Lakhnauti with inscriptions in Sanskrit and Arabic. An abortive Islamic invasion of Tibet was also mounted by Bakhtiyar. Bengal was under the formal rule of the Delhi Sultanate for approximately 150 years. In 1338, new rebellions sprung up in Bengal's three main towns. Governors in Lakhnauti, Satgaon and Sonargaon declared independence from Delhi. This allowed the ruler of Sonargaon, Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah, to annex Chittagong to the Islamic administration. By 1352, the ruler of Satgaon, Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah, unified the region into an independent state. Ilyas Shah established his capital in Pandua. The new breakaway state emerged as the Bengal Sultanate. At its peak, the Bengal Sultanate's territory included parts of Arakan, Assam, Bihar, Orissa, and Tripura. The Bengal Sultanate experienced its greatest military success under Alauddin Hussain Shah. He was proclaimed as the conqueror of Assam after his forces led by Shah Ismail Ghazi overthrew the Khen dynasty. In maritime trade, the Bengal Sultanate benefited from Indian Ocean trade networks and emerged as a hub of re-exports. A giraffe was brought by African envoys from Malindi to Bengal's court and was later gifted to Imperial China.

• 3. Mughal Prosperity And Colonial Plunder

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  Mughal Bengal had the richest elite and was the wealthiest region in the subcontinent. Bengal's trade and wealth impressed the Mughals so much that it was described as the Paradise of the Nations by the Mughal Emperors. A new provincial capital was built in Dhaka. Members of the imperial family were appointed to positions in Mughal Bengal including Rajput general Man Singh I. Emperor Shah Jahan's son Prince Shah Shuja served as governor. Emperor Aurangzeb's son and later Mughal emperor Azam Shah also held office there. The influential aristocrat Shaista Khan governed during the tenure when Portuguese and Arakanese were expelled from Chittagong in 1666. By the 18th century, Bengal became home to a semi-independent aristocracy led by the Nawabs of Bengal. Bengal premier Murshid Quli Khan managed to curtail the influence of the governor due to his rivalry with Prince Azam Shah. Khan controlled Bengal's finances since he was in charge of the treasury. He shifted the provincial capital from Dhaka to Murshidabad. In 1717, the Mughal court in Delhi recognized the hereditary monarchy of the Nawab of Bengal. The ruler was officially titled as the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The Nawabs began issuing their own coins but continued to pledge nominal allegiance to the Mughal emperor. The wealth of Bengal was vital for the Mughal court because Delhi received its biggest share of revenue from the Nawab's court. Under the Nawabs, the streets of Bengali cities were filled with brokers, workers, peons, naibs, wakils, and ordinary traders. The Nawab's state was a major exporter of Bengal muslin, silk, gunpowder and saltpetre. The British East India Company eventually emerged as the foremost military power in the region. It defeated the last independent Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Colonial policies led to the deindustrialisation of Bengal's textile industry. The capital amassed by the East India Company in Bengal was invested in the emerging Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.

• 4. Partition Politics And Modern Division

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  On the 27th of April 1947, the last Prime Minister of Bengal Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy held a press conference in New Delhi. He outlined his vision for an independent Bengal where it would be a great country capable of giving to its people a high standard of living. On the 3rd of June 1947, the Mountbatten Plan outlined the partition of British India. On the 6th of July, the Sylhet district of Assam voted in a referendum to join East Bengal. The English barrister Cyril Radcliffe was instructed to draw the borders of Pakistan and India. The Radcliffe Line created the boundary between the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The Radcliffe Line awarded two-thirds of Bengal as the eastern wing of Pakistan. Dhaka's status as a capital was restored after the partition. The circumstances of partition were bloody with widespread religious riots in Bengal. In 1876, about 200,000 people were killed in Bengal by the Great Backerganj Cyclone of 1876 in the Barisal region. About 50 million were killed in Bengal due to massive plague outbreaks and famines which happened from 1895 to 1920. Between 1905 and 1911, an abortive attempt was made to divide the province of Bengal into two. The short-lived province of Eastern Bengal and Assam existed during this period. In 1911, the Bengali poet and polymath Rabindranath Tagore became Asia's first Nobel laureate when he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Bengal played a major role in the Indian independence movement. Armed attempts to overthrow the British Raj began with the rebellion of Titumir. Subhas Chandra Bose led the Indian National Army against the British. The Muslim homeland movement pushed for a sovereign state in eastern India with the Lahore Resolution in 1943.

• 5. Geography And Environmental Challenges

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  Most of the Bengal region lies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta but there are highlands in its north, northeast and southeast. The total area of Bengal includes West Bengal and Bangladesh. The flat and fertile Bangladesh Plain dominates the geography of Bangladesh. The Chittagong Hill Tracts and Sylhet region are home to most of the mountains in Bangladesh. Most parts of Bangladesh are within one hundred meters above sea level. It is believed that about ten percent of the land would be flooded if the sea level were to rise by one meter. Because of this low elevation, much of this region is exceptionally vulnerable to seasonal flooding due to monsoons. The highest point in Bangladesh is in Mowdok range at nine hundred forty-four meters. A major part of the coastline comprises a marshy jungle called the Sundarbans. This is the largest mangrove forest in the world and home to diverse flora and fauna including the royal Bengal tiger. In 1997, this region was declared endangered. At least nine districts in West Bengal and 42 districts in Bangladesh have arsenic levels in groundwater above fifty micrograms per liter. The untreated water causes arsenicosis, skin cancer and various other complications in the body. Cox's Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh has an unbroken length of 120 kilometers making it the longest natural sea beach in the world.

• 6. Economic Evolution And Global Trade

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  Between 400 and 1200, Bengal had a well-developed economy in terms of land ownership, agriculture, shipping, trade, commerce, taxation, and banking. Ma Huan's travelogue recorded a booming shipbuilding industry and significant international trade in Bengal. In 1338, Ibn Battuta noticed that the silver taka was the most popular currency in the region instead of the Islamic dinar. In 1415, members of Admiral Zheng He's entourage also noticed the dominance of the taka. The Sultanate of Bengal established an estimated 27 mints in provincial capitals across the kingdom. These provincial capitals were known as Mint Towns. As Bengal became more prosperous and integrated into the world economy under Mughal rule, the taka replaced shell currency in rural areas. Under Mughal rule, Bengal was the centre of the worldwide muslin trade. Muslin from Bengal was worn by aristocratic ladies in courts as far away as Europe, Persia and Central Asia. The treasury of the Nawab of Bengal was the biggest source of revenue for the imperial Mughal court in Delhi. The shipbuilding output of Bengal during the 16th and 17th centuries stood at 223,250 tons annually. This volume exceeded the shipbuilding in the nineteen colonies of North America between 1769 and 1771. Historically, Bengal has been the industrial leader of the subcontinent. Liberal reforms in 1991 paved the way for a major expansion of Bangladesh's private sector industry. In 2022, Bangladesh was the second largest economy in South Asia after India. Three Bengali economists have been Nobel laureates including Amartya Sen and Abhijit Banerjee who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.

• 7. Cultural Identity And Linguistic Heritage

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  The Bengali language developed between the 7th and 10th centuries from Apabhraśa and Magadhi Prakrit. It is written using the indigenous Bengali alphabet which is a descendant of the ancient Brahmi script. Bengali is the fifth most spoken language in the world. It is an eastern Indo-Aryan language and one of the easternmost branches of the Indo-European language family. The 1952 Bengali language movement in East Pakistan is commemorated by UNESCO as International Mother Language Day. Currency in both Bangladesh and West Bengal is commonly denominated as taka. The Bangladesh taka is an official standard bearer of this tradition while the Indian rupee is also written as taka in Bengali script on all banknotes. The history of the taka dates back centuries. Bengal was home to one of the world's earliest currency systems. The region is notable for its economic and social scientists which includes several Nobel laureates. Once home to the city with the highest per capita income level in British India, the region is today a leader in South Asia in terms of gender parity. The region is also known for its literature, music, art and cinema which are well known in South Asia and beyond.