History of Bangladesh
From Free net encyclopedia
Template:See also Bangladesh became one of the youngest major nation states following a pair of twentieth century secessions from India (1947) and Pakistan (1971). The region's history combines Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Mughal, Persian, Turkic and British influences. Bangladesh's territory became part of the state of Bengal as part of the Mughal Empire for two centuries and also during the succeeding two centuries of British rule. During the twentieth century, its resilient inhabitants seem to have suffered one trauma after another. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (Mujib) led the nation to independence in 1971, but he and his successor Ziaur Rahman (Zia) were both assassinated only in a span of six years. Their legacies (and families) define Bangladesh's faltering democracy to this day.
Contents |
Ancient period
Remnants of civilization in the greater Bengal region date back three millennia. From the sixth century BC, much of Bengal was a part of the powerful kingdom of Magadha, which was an ancient Indo-Aryan kingdom of ancient India, mentioned in both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. It was also one of the four main kingdoms of India at the time of Buddha, having risen to power during the reigns of Bimbisara (c. 544-491 BC) and his son Ajatashatru (c. 491-460 BC). Magadha spanned to include most of Bihar and much of Bengal.
Magadha formed one of the sixteen Mahā Janapadas (Sanskrit, "great country"). The Magadha empire included republican communities such as Rajakumara. Villages had their own assemblies under their local chiefs called Gramakas. Their administrations were divided into executive, judicial, and military functions. Bimbisara was friendly to both Jainism and Buddhism and suspended tolls at the river ferries for all ascetics after the Buddha was once stopped at the Ganges River for lack of money.
In the third and second centuries BC, artifacts from Bogra suggest it was under Mauryan rule. Greek and Roman writings refer to the Gangaridai (Land of the Ganges) between the third century BC and first century AD.
Early medieval period
The name Bengal might derive from the Vanga, one of several early tribes in the region. In the fourth century, the region came under the rule of the north Indian Gupta Empire which was largely broken up by the sixth century. Eastern Bengal became the Vanga kingdom while the Gauda king Shashanka rose in the west, and vied for regional power with northern India. But this burst of Bengali power did not last beyond his death, as Bengal descended afterwards into a period marked by disunity and foreign invasion.
The first independant Buddhist king of Bengal, Gopala I came to power in 750 in Gaur by democratic election. Gopala founded the Buddhist Pala dynasty which lasted for four centuries (750-1120 AD), ushering in a period of relative stability and prosperity. At its peak, under Dharmapala the empire extended into much of Bihar and once more wrestled for control of the subcontinent. The Pala empire did not extend into southeastern Bengal which saw several independent dynasties and kingdoms during this time including the Khadgas, Devas, Harikela and Varmans. The east and west would come under one ruler only during the twelfth century Sena dynasty. The Sena dynasty brought a revival of Hinduism and cultivated Sanskrit literature.
Late medieval period - arrival of Islam
Islam made its first appearance in Bengal during the twelfth century AD when Sufi missionaries arrived. Later occasional Muslim invaders reinforced the process of conversion by building mosques, madrassas and Sufi Khanqahs. Beginning in 1202 a military commander from the Delhi Sultanate, Ikhtiar Uddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiar Khilji, overran Bihar and Bengal as far east as Rangpur, Bogra and the Brahmaputra River. The defeated Laksmanasena and his two sons moved to a place then called Vikramapura (south of Dhaka), where their diminished dominion lasted until the late thirteenth century. The period after Bakhtiar Khilji's death in 1206 devolved into infighting among the Khiljis - representative of a pattern of succession struggles and intra-empire intrigues during later Turkish regimes. Ghiyasuddin Iwaz Khalji prevailed and extended the Sultan's domain south to Jessore and made the eastern Bang province a tributary. The capital was made at Lakhnauti on the Ganges near the older Bengal capital of Gaur. Two Turkish attempts to push east of the broad Jamuna and Brahmaputra rivers were repulsed, but a third led by Mughisuddin Tughral conquered the Sonargaon area south of Dhaka to Faridpur, bringing the Sena Kingdom officially to an end by 1277.
Bengal was sufficiently remote from Delhi that its governors would declare independence on occasion, styling themselves as Sultans of Bengal. It was Iliyas Shah who would make that title last, founding an independent dynasty that lasted from 1342-1487 which successfully repulsed attempts by Delhi to reign them in. They continued to reel in the territory of modern-day Bengal, reaching to Khulna in the south and Sylhet in the east. The sultans advanced civic institutions and became more responsive and "native" in their outlook, having cut loose from Delhi. Considerable architectural projects were completed in Gaur including the massive Adina Mosque and the 1479 Darasbari Mosque which still stands in Bangladesh near the border. The Sultans of Bangalah were patrons of Bengali literature and began a process in which a common Bengali culture and identity would coalesce.
The Iliyas Shahi dynasty gave way to a similar Husain Shahi dynasty that ruled from 1494-1538. Its domain extended all the way to the port of Chittagong, which witnessed the arrival of the first Portuguese merchants. The Sultan of Bengal, which continued to rule from Gaur, had to contend with rising Afghan activity on his northwestern border. Eventually the Afghans broke through and sacked the capital in 1538 where they remained for several decades until the arrival of the Mughals. Their most impressive achievement was Sher Shah's construction of the Grand Trunk Road connecting Sonargaon, Delhi and Peshawar.
Mughal period
Bengal came once more under the suzerainty of Delhi as the Mughals conquered it in 1576. Not far from Sonargaon, Dhaka rose from the mists of obscurity as a Mughal provincial capital. But it remained remote and thus a difficult to govern region--especially the section east of the Brahmaputra River--outside the mainstream of Mughal politics. The Bengali ethnic and linguistic identity further cystallized during this period, since the whole of Bengal was united under an able and long-lasting administration. Furthermore its inhabitants were given sufficient autonomy to cultivate their own customs and literature.
The Mughal onslaught against the Afghan Sultan began with the battle of Rajmahal in 1576, led by Khan Jahan. In 1612, during Emperor Jahangir's reign, the defeat of Sylhet completed the Mughal conquest of Bengal, except for Chittagong. At this time the capital was established at Dhaka. Chittagong was later annexed in order to stifle Arakanese raids from the east. During the great Aurangzeb's reign, the local Nawab made the haunting mistake of selling three villages, including one then known as Kalikata, to the British. A well-known Dhaka landmark, Lalbagh Fort was built during Aurengzeb's sovereignty as well.
History repeated itself as the frontier Bengal province broke off from a Delhi-based empire around the time Aurangzeb's death in 1707. Murshid Quli Khan ended Dhaka's century of grandeur as he shifted the capital to Murshidabad ushering in a series of independent Bengal Nawabs.
British India
Portuguese traders and missionaries were the first Europeans to reach Bengal in the latter part of the fifteenth century. They were followed by representatives of the Dutch, the French, and the British East India Company. Calcutta was in fact Britain's initial foothold on the Indian subcontinent and remained a focal point of their activity. The British gradually extended their commercial contacts and administrative control beyond Calcutta to the rest of Bengal. The British East India Company gained official control of Bengal following the Battle of Plassey in 1757. This was the first conquest, in a series of engagements that ultimately lead to the expulsion of other European competitors, the defeat of the Mughals and the consolidation of the subcontinent under the rule of a corporation -- a doubly unique event. Calcutta (nowadays Kolkata) on the Hooghly became a major trading port for the Muslin and Jute produced in Dhaka and the rest of Bengal.
Scandals and the bloody rebellion known as the Sepoy Mutiny prompted the British government to intervene in the affairs of the East India Company. In 1858, authority in India was transferred from the Company to the crown and the rebellion was brutally surpressed. Rule of India was organized under a Viceroy and continued a pattern of economic exploitation. Famine racked the subcontinent many times, including at least two major famines in Bengal. The British Raj was politically organized into seventeen Provinces--of which Bengal was one of the most significant--most headed by a Governor. For a brief period in the early twentieth century, an abortive attempt was made to divide Bengal into two zones.
Creation of Pakistan
As the independence movement throughout British-controlled India began in the late nineteenth century gained momentum during the twentieth century, Bengali politicians played an active role in Gandhi's Congress Party and Jinnah's Muslim League, exposing the opposing forces of ethnic and religious nationalism. By exploiting the latter, the British probably intended to distract the independence movement, for example by partitioning Bengal in 1905 along religious lines (the split only lasted for seven years). At first the Muslim League sought only to ensure minority rights in the future nation. But after faring poorly in the 1936 elections, in 1940 Jinnah shifted decisively towards the idea of a separate Islamic Pakistan. Non-negotiable was the inclusion of the Muslim parts of Punjab and Bengal in this new state. The stakes grew as a new Viceroy Mountbatten was appointed expressly for the purpose of effecting a graceful British exit. Communal violence in Noakhali and Calcutta sparked a surge in support for the Muslim League, which won a majority of Bengal's Muslim seats in 1946. Accusations have been made that Hindu and Muslim nationalist instigators were involved in the latter incident.
British India was partitioned and the independent states of India and Pakistan were created in 1947; the region of Bengal was divided along religious lines. The predominantly Muslim eastern half of Bengal became the East Bengal (later renamed East Pakistan) state of Pakistan and the predominantly Hindu western part became the Indian state of West Bengal.
Pakistan's history from 1947 to 1971 was marked by political instability and economic difficulties. In 1956 a constitution was at last adopted, making the country an "Islamic republic within the Commonwealth". The nascent democratic institutions foundered in the face of military intervention in 1958, and the government imposed martial law between 1958 and 1962, and again between 1969 and 1971.
Almost from the advent of independent Pakistan in 1947, frictions developed between East and West Pakistan, which were separated by more than 1,000 miles of Indian territory. East Pakistanis felt exploited by the West Pakistan-dominated central government. Linguistic, cultural, and ethnic differences also contributed to the estrangement of East from West Pakistan.
When Mohammad Ali Jinnah died in September 1948, Khwaja Nazimuddin became the Governor General of Pakistan while Nurul Amin was appointed the Chief Minister of East Bengal. Nurul Amin continued as the Chief Minister of East Bengal until 2 April 1954. The abolition of the Zamindari system in East Bengal (1950) and the Language Movement were two most important events during his tenure.
The Language Movement
The Language Movement began in 1948 and reached its climax in the killings of 21 February 1952, and ended in the adoption of Bangla as one of the state languages of Pakistan. The question as to what would be the state language of Pakistan was raised immediately after its creation.
The central leaders and the Urdu-speaking intellectuals of Pakistan declared that Urdu would be the state language of Pakistan, just as Hindi was the state language of India. Bengalis strongly resisted attempts to impose Urdu as the sole official language of Pakistan. The students and intellectuals of East Pakistan, however, demanded that Bangla be made one of the state languages, which was the native language of the majority (54% native speakers as opposed to 7% native Urdu speakers) in the whole of Pakistan anyway.
After a lot of controversy over the language issue, the final demand from East Pakistan was that Bangla must be the official language and the medium of instruction in East Pakistan and for the central government it would be one of the state languages along with Urdu. The first movement on this issue was mobilised by Tamaddun Majlish headed by Professor Abul Kashem. Gradually many other non-communal and progressive organisations joined the movement, which finally turned into a mass movement.
Politics: 1954 - 1970
The first election for East Bengal Provincial Assembly was held between 8 March and 12 March 1954. The Awami Muslim League, krishak sramik party and nezam-e-islam formed the United Front, on the basis of 21-points agenda.
Notable pledges contained in the 21-points were:
- making Bangla one of the state languages
- autonomy for the province
- reforms in education
- independence of the judiciary
- making the legislative assembly effective, etc.
The United Front won 215 out of 237 Muslim seats in the election. The ruling Muslim League got only nine seats. Khilafat-E-Rabbani Party got one, while the independents got twelve seats. Later, seven independent members joined the United Front while one joined the Muslim League.
There were numerous reasons for the debacle of the Muslim League. Above all, the Muslim League regime angered all sections of the people of Bengal by opposing the demand for recognition of Bangla as one of the state languages and by ordering the massacre of 1952.
The United Front got the opportunity to form the provincial government after winning absolute majority in the 1954 election. Of the 222 United Front seats, the Awami Muslim League had won 142, Krishak-Sramik Party forty eight, Nezam-i-Islam nineteen and Ganatantri Dal thirteen.
The major leaders of the United Front were Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani of Awami Muslim League and AK Fazlul Huq of Krishak-Sramik Party. Suhrawardy and Bhasani did not take part in the election and Fazlul Huq was invited to form the government. But a rift surfaced at the very outset on the question of formation of the cabinet. The unity and solidarity among the component parties of the United Front soon evaporated. Finally, on 15 May, Fazlul Huq arrived at an understanding with the Awami Muslim League and formed a 14-member cabinet with five members from that party.
But this cabinet lasted for only fourteen days. The Muslim League could not concede defeat in the elections in good grace. So, they resorted to conspiracies to dismiss the United Front government. In the third week of May, there were bloody riots between Bengali and non-Bengali workers in different mills and factories of East Bengal. The United Front government was blamed for failing to control the law and order situation in the province.
Fazlul Huq was then quoted in an interview taken by the New York Times correspondent John P Callaghan and published in a distorted form that he wanted the independence of East Bengal. Finally, on 29 May 1954, the United Front government was dismissed by the central government and Governor's rule was imposed in the province, which lasted till 2 June 1955.
Curiously enough within two months of his sacking, Fazlul Huq was appointed the central Home Minister. As Home Minister, Fazlul Huq utilised his influence to bring his party to power in East Bengal. Naturally, the United Front broke up. The Muslim members of the United Front split into two groups. In 1955 the Awami Muslim League adopted the path of secularism and non-communalism, erased the word 'Muslim' from its nomenclature and adopted the name of Awami League. (Source: Banglapedia.)
Great differences began developing between the two wings of Pakistan. While the west had a minority share of Pakistan's total population, it had the maximum share of revenue allocation, industrial development, agricultural reforms and civil development projects. Pakistan's military and civil services were dominated by the fair-skinned, Persian-cultured Punjabis and Afghans. Only one regiment in the Pakistani Army was Bengali. And many Bengali Pakistanis could not share the natural enthusiasm for the Kashmir issue, which they felt was leaving East Pakistan more vulnerable and threatened as a result.
Independence
Template:Main After the Awami League won all the East Pakistan seats of the Pakistan's National Assembly in the 1970-71 elections, West Pakistan opened talks with the East on constitutional questions about the division of power between the central government and the provinces, as well as the formation of a national government headed by the Awami League.
The talks proved unsuccessful, however, and on March 1, 1971, Pakistani President Yahya Khan indefinitely postponed the pending national assembly session, precipitating massive civil disobedience in East Pakistan.
After the military crackdown by the Pakistan army since the night of March 25 1971 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was arrested and the political leaders dispersed, mostly fleeing to neighbouring India where they organized a provisional government afterwards. The people were at a loss. At this crucial moment with a sudden forced political vacuum, the Eighth East Bengal Regiment under the leadership of Major Ziaur Rahman revolted against the Pakistan Army and took up the Bangladesh flag as its mainstay on the night of March 26 - March 27 1971. Major Zia declared the independence of Bangladesh on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
As fighting grew between the army and the Bengali Mukti Bahini ("freedom fighters"), an estimated ten million Bengalis, mainly Hindus, sought refuge in the Indian states of Assam, Tripura and West Bengal.
The crisis in East Pakistan produced new strains in Pakistan's troubled relations with India. The two nations had fought a war in 1965, mainly in the west, but the refugee pressure in India in the fall of 1971 produced new tensions in the east. Indian sympathies lay with East Pakistan, and on December 3 1971, India intervened on the side of the Bangladeshis. On December 16 1971, Pakistani forces surrendered, and Bangladesh ("Country of Bangla") was finally established the following day. The new country changed its name to Bangladesh on January 11, 1972 and became a parliamentary democracy under a constitution. Shortly thereafter on March 19 Bangladesh signed a friendship treaty with India.
Post-Independence
In January 1975 economic and political difficulties led to Sheikh Mujib's assumption of the presidencey with greatly increased powers. On August 15, 1975, he was killed in a military coup.
Following two further coups (November 3 and November 6), Major General Ziaur Rahman emerged as de facto ruler, assuming the presidency in April 1977. In May 1981, Zia in turn fell victim to a failed coup attempt; ten months later, on March 24, 1982, Lt. General Hossain Mohammad Ershad took power, holding office until his resignation (December 6, 1990) amid corruption allegations.
Democracy was restored in 1991. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Khaleda Zia, General Zia's widow, won power in the elections held in February 1991. The next election in June 1996 was won by the rival Awami League under Mujib's daughter Sheikh Hasina. In 2001, a four-party alliance including BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami, returned to power after a landslide victory in the polls.
References
- CIA World Factbook (July 2005). Bangladesh
- US Department of State (Aug. 2005). "Background Note: Bangladesh"
- Banglapedia. History of Bangladesh
- Library of Congress (1988). A Country Study: Bangladesh
See also
External links
- History: Bangladesh on Banglapedia
- Rulers.org — Bangladesh List of rulers for Bangladeshfr:Histoire du Bangladesh