My history textbooks in school did not say much on the partition of Bengal in 1947. Who exactly created the entity called West Bengal as a state in India, who consented to that plan, who was the leader of this movement – all remained unanswered in the West Bengal’s history textbooks. However, from very many propaganda booklets of the leftists, I learnt that Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and his Hindu Mahasabha was the culprit.
It was made to sound like a Gospel truth that the Hindu Mahasabha, for being a communal party, must be wrong always. Therefore, the bad thing, namely the partition of India happened being dictated by them. The Hindu Mahasabha-cum-Shyama Prasad Mukherjee must be crucified for all the problems emanating out of the partition of Bengal such as the great refugee problem of West Bengal. This fictitious history has become part of the Bengali consciousness for the last two-three generations.
Change happens. Truth unravels in its own mysterious way. Today a large majority of the Bengalis possibly know that the Communist think tank that created this fictitious history was completely in favour of Pakistan and partition of India. By Gangadhar Adhikari’s thesis of 1942, they declared that India could be independent only after the creation of Pakistan. That was the progressive party line. Catering to that party line, lyricist Hemanga Biswas of Indian People’s Theatre Association wrote a song (translation mine):
…শোনকংগ্রেসনেতাগণ
মুসলমানেরআত্মশাসন
নামানিলেহয়নামিলন
দেখচিন্তাকরি।
[Listen, Congress Leader! No Hindu Muslim Unity, when you cannot concur to Muslim self-rule.]
(Source: Ananda Bazar Patrika, 22 November 2005, Editorial page article by Kalikaprasad Bhattacharya)
The proposal of Pakistan stated it as a homeland for Muslims while the rest of India as a homeland for others. No doubt everyone understood that actualisation of this proposal means massive Hindu exodus from Pakistan to India. Endorsing the demand for Pakistan, poet Hemanga supplied language (translation mine) in a definitely communal tone:
দীনইসলামেরনিদ্মহলেহাঁকেভোরেরআজান
জাগ্জাগ্রেমুসলমান।
[The Faith of Islam calls you, Musalman! Arise and awake with the morning azan.]
If the progressive left needs to blame anyone for the partition and refugee crisis, it has to be themselves first.
Yes, indeed the greatest ideological opponents of Shyama Prasad, the communists, too agree to the principal role of Shyama Prasad towards the partition of Bengal to carve out a Hindu Bengali homeland. He and the Hindu Mahasabha were self-declared champions of the Hindu interest. And, it is none other than Dr B.R. Ambedkar who warned the Bengali Hindus about their existence in 1945 (‘Pakistan or The Partition of India’, Dr B. R. Ambedkar, Vol.8, Education Dept, Govt of Maharashtra, Bombay, 1990, page 294):
According to Muslim Canon Law, the world is divided into two camps, Dar-ul-Islam (abode of Islam) and Dar-ul-Harb (abode of war). A country is Dar-ul-Islam when it is ruled by Muslims. A country is Dar-ul-Harb when Muslims only reside in it but are not rulers of it. That being the Canon Law of the Muslims, India cannot be the common motherland of the Hindus and the Musalmans. It can be the land of the Musalmans – but it cannot be the land of the ‘Hindus and the Musalmans living as equals’. Further, it can be the land of the Musalmans only when it is governed by the Muslims. The moment the land becomes subject to the authority of a non-Muslim power, it ceases to be the land of the Muslims.
The warning of Dr Ambedkar was perhaps a bit abstract for the understanding of the Bengali Hindus. They received the opportunity for a first-hand application of the idea narrated by Ambedkar on 16 August 1946 when the ruling party of Undivided Bengal, the Muslim League, began its Direct Action against the Hindus. A detailed description of this ruthless massacre of this Hindus was tendered by Amitabha Ghosh, IAAS, and son of the pre-eminent scholar Acharya Debaprasad Ghosh. Kolkata turned red from the bloodshed of thousands of hapless Hindus. Many famous persons were killed or attacked during this Hindu genocide, such as musician Harendra Ghosh, actor Chhabi Biswas, mathematician Yadav Chakraborty, Raja Debendra Mallick or police officer S. N. Mukherjee.
And, next happened even greater genocide in Noakhali of East Bengal. It was the night of the Lakshmi Puja in October. Journalist Animitra Chakraborty writes:
All of a sudden, the stillness of the night was shattered by the army of Qasim Ali, the leader of the Noakhali region of the Muslim League. They were duly assisted by the forces of Ghulam Sarwar. Their goal was the destruction of the Hindus. Two months ago, the ruthless attacks of the Muslim League for the destruction of the Hindus had happened in Kolkata. In the end-game, it had invited ferocious revenge from the Hindus. The Muslim Leadership sought brutal retaliation. Within hours, regions like Ramgunj, Begumgunj, Raipur, Lakshmipur, Chhagalanaiya and Sandwip were devastated by brutal murders and rapes. Even the regions like Hajigunj, Faridgonj, Chandpur, Laksham and Chauddagram of the neighbouring Tipera district suffered. The Hindu extermination was executed with perfect planning. None knows the number of casualties of this genocide — how many lost lives, how many Hindu women were raped, how many were force-fed beef, how many were forcibly circumcised, how many Hindu women were gang-raped and made into a prostitute from a housewife, how many were turned into widows. Last 80 years were not sufficient to account for all of them.
The genocides of Kolkata and Noakhali amply illustrated the warning of Ambedkar and the important message of Shyama Prasad to the Bengali Hindus. It may be kept in perspective that at that time only Undivided Bengal was ruled by the Muslim League and the ruling party itself called for and organised the massacre of the Hindus. Therefore, understanding the fate of Hindus in Muslim League ruled prospective Pakistan required no guesswork. The only question was whether the refugee Bengalis should take shelter in a non-Bengali province of India or in the partitioned Bengal (West Bengal) created as the Hindu homeland? The answer is obvious, isn’t it?
Shyama Prasad formed the Bengal Partition League for facilitating the partition of Bengal in the interest of a homeland for Bengali Hindus along with Upendra Nath Banerjee, a prominent revolutionary and Hemanta Kumar Sarkar, a peasant leader. Then, shall we deduce that it is Shyama Prasad who caused the partition of Bengal?