Theme 11Part B · Awakening and early nationalism
Partition of Bengal and Swadeshi
1903 to 1911 · Curzon's partition and the first mass movement
The partition of Bengal in 1905 turned a debating society into a movement. This theme shows the partition on the map as it was and as it was undone, and follows swadeshi out of Bengal to Poona, Lahore and Tuticorin.
Event 11903 to 1905
Curzon divides Bengal
The Bengal Presidency, with about 78 million people, was the largest province in India. Lord Curzon (Viceroy 1899 to 1905) said it was too big to govern. Nationalists saw another motive in the official papers: to divide Bengali Hindus and Muslims and weaken Calcutta, the heart of nationalism.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
The Bengal Presidency includes Bengal proper, Bihar, Orissa and Chota Nagpur, governed from Calcutta. Assam is a separate Chief Commissioner's province.
A new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, capital Dacca, with a Muslim majority; and a reduced Bengal with Bihar and Orissa, in which Bengalis became a minority. The plan was published in December 1903 and announced in July 1905.
At the Delhi Durbar (12 December 1911) George V announces that Bengal will be reunited; Bihar and Orissa become a separate province, Assam becomes separate again, and the capital moves from Calcutta to Delhi.
Modern State shapes stand in for the old provinces; the fit is approximate.
Event 21905 to 1908
Swadeshi and boycott
On 7 August 1905, at the Calcutta Town Hall, the boycott resolution was passed. Partition day, 16 October 1905, was observed as a day of mourning: Bengalis fasted, bathed in the Ganga, and tied rakhis on one another as a sign of unity, at Tagore's call.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
Bonfires of foreign cloth; national schools and the Bengal National College (1906, Aurobindo Ghosh as principal); samitis such as Ashwini Kumar Dutt's Swadesh Bandhab Samiti at Barisal; swadeshi mills, banks, soap and match factories.
Tilak spreads the movement in Poona and Bombay, Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh in Punjab, Syed Haidar Raza in Delhi, and V. O. Chidambaram Pillai in the Tamil country, where he starts the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company at Tuticorin (1906). Bipin Chandra Pal's tour of the Andhra districts (1907) launches the Vandemataram movement there.
Five methods
Of British cloth, salt, sugar; social boycott of those who bought them.
Bengal Chemicals (P. C. Ray), Banga Lakshmi Cotton Mills, swadeshi banks, and the Tuticorin steamship company.
A National Council of Education (August 1906), with teaching in the mother tongue.
Tagore's Amar Sonar Bangla; Abanindranath Tagore's painting and the Indian Society of Oriental Art; Vande Mataram as the anthem of protest.
Volunteer bodies that trained youth, spread the message and enforced the boycott.
Event 31906 to 1911
The Surat split, the 1909 reforms and the annulment
Swadeshi divided the Congress between those who wanted to keep it within Bengal and within the law, and those who wanted to take it national and use passive resistance.
Moderates
Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, Surendranath. Boycott only as a protest in Bengal; constitutional methods; goal of self government within the empire, step by step.
Extremists
Lal, Bal, Pal (Lajpat Rai, Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal) and Aurobindo. Boycott across India as passive resistance; self reliance; Swaraj, Tilak's "my birthright".
- 1906 Calcutta session under Dadabhai Naoroji adopts four resolutions: Swaraj, swadeshi, boycott, national education.
- Dec 1907 Surat: the two sides clash over the presidency (Rash Behari Ghosh) and the resolutions; the session breaks up in chaos and the Moderates take over the Congress.
- 1907 to 1908 Repression: Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh deported to Mandalay (1907); Tilak sentenced to six years in Mandalay (1908); Aurobindo tried in the Alipore case; V. O. Chidambaram Pillai jailed.
- 1909 Morley Minto reforms (Indian Councils Act): enlarged councils, an Indian in the Viceroy's Executive Council (S. P. Sinha), and separate electorates for Muslims.
- 1911 Partition annulled at the Delhi Durbar; capital moved to Delhi.
- 1916 The two wings reunite at the Lucknow session.
Who's who12 people
People
Lord Curzon
Viceroy 1899 to 1905
Partitioned Bengal.
Rabindranath Tagore
poet
Rakhi bandhan; Amar Sonar Bangla.
Surendranath Banerjea
Moderate leader
Led the anti partition campaign in Bengal.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Extremist
Kesari; Swaraj is my birthright.
Lala Lajpat Rai
Extremist
Punjab; deported 1907.
Bipin Chandra Pal
Extremist
Toured Andhra in 1907.
Aurobindo Ghosh
Bengal
Bande Mataram newspaper; Alipore case.
Ashwini Kumar Dutt
Barisal
Swadesh Bandhab Samiti.
V. O. Chidambaram Pillai
Tuticorin
Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company.
P. C. Ray
chemist
Bengal Chemicals.
Nawab Salimullah
Dacca
Supported the partition; host of the Muslim League's founding (1906).
Lord Minto
Viceroy 1905 to 1910
Morley Minto reforms.
Key terms8
Terms
- Swadeshi
- Of one's own country: using Indian goods and building Indian enterprise.
- Boycott
- Refusal to buy British goods or use British institutions.
- Swaraj
- Self rule.
- Rakhi bandhan
- Tying of rakhis on partition day as a pledge of unity.
- Surat split
- The 1907 break between Moderates and Extremists.
- Morley Minto reforms
- Indian Councils Act, 1909.
- Separate electorate
- Constituencies in which only Muslims voted for Muslim candidates.
- Passive resistance
- Aurobindo's term for non cooperation with the government.