Riyad
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Today Rohingya influx is a great crisis for Bangladesh but there was a time in history when Bangladeshi influx was a great crisis for India since 1947.
Bangladesh is not just another neighboring country for India. In history it has been a great critical neighbor ever since India got liberated from British empire and Bangladesh was East Pakistan.
East Bengali Refugees are people who left East Bengal following the Partition of Bengal, which was part of the Independence of India and Pakistan in 1947. An overwhelming majority of these refugees and immigrants were Bengali Hindus.[1] They adopted Indian citizenship and contributed to various fields and professions. During the Bangladesh liberation war with West Pakistan, an estimated 10 million people of East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) fled the country and took refuge in India particularly in the Indian states of West Bengal and Indian North East region. Out of 10 million people, a majority of 60% to 80% are Hindus who were the main victims of the West Pakistani army.
History
In 1947, Bengal was partitioned into the Indian state of West Bengal and the Pakistani province of East Bengal. East Bengal was later renamed East Pakistan, which subsequently broke away from Pakistan to form the independent country of Bangladesh. Most of Sylhet district in Assam also joined East Pakistan and was subsequently considered to be East Bengal. East Bengal was the area of agricultural growth whereas West Bengal was meant for industrial development.
Settlement
The majority of East Bengali refugees settled in the city of Kolkata (Calcutta) and various other towns and rural areas of West Bengal, but a significant number also moved to the Barak Valley of Assam and the princely state of Tripura which eventually joined India in 1949. Around 0.5 million were also settled in other parts of India, including the East Pakistan Displaced Persons' Colony (EPDP) in Delhi (subsequently renamed Chittaranjan Park), Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. The estimated 0.5 million Bengalis in Delhi and 0.3 million in Mumbai are also largely East Bengali refugees and their descendants.[2]
Scope
The exact number of refugees has never been officially collected and estimates vary considerably.
In the immediate aftermath of partition, commonly attributed figures suggest around 3 million East Bengalis migrating to India and 864,000 migrants from India to East Pakistan. Indian government estimates suggest around 2.6 million migrants leaving East Bengal for India and 0.7 million migrants coming to East Pakistan from India.[3]
As per the Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department of the Government of West Bengal, the census figures show the number of refugees from East Pakistan in 1971 was nearly 6 million (60 lakhs) and in 1981, the number was assessed at 8 million (80 lakhs).[4]A district-wise break-up in 1971, shows the main thrust of the refugee influx was on 24-Parganas (22.3% of the total refugees), Nadia (20.3%), Bankura (19.1%) and Kolkata (12.9%).[5]
Further migration
1950s
In 1950, it is estimated that a further one million refugees crossed into West Bengal, particularly in the aftermath of 1950 Barisal riots and Noakhali riots.[6] The 1951 Census of India recorded that 27% of Kolkata's population was East Bengali refugees mainly Hindu Bengalis and they contributed the economic growth of Kolkata in various fields. Millions of Hindus particularly Bengali speaking from East Pakistan took refuge mainly in India's various state. A number estimated that around 3.2 lakhs Hindus from East Pakistan migrated mainly to Kolkata and various rural areas and towns of West Bengal during 1947.[7]
1960s
Migration continued, primarily from East Pakistan to India, right up to the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, both on an ongoing basis and with spikes during periods of particular communal unrest such as the 1964 East Pakistan riots and the 1965 India-Pakistan War, when it is estimated that 600,000 refugees left for India.[6] Estimates of the number of refugees up to 1970 are over 5 million to West Bengal alone.[8] This includes around 4.1 million coming between 1946 and 1958 and 1.2 million coming between 1959 and 1971.[7]
1970s
Another major influx into India came in 1971 during the Bangladesh Liberation War, when Hindu refugees escaped systematic mass killings, rapes, lootings and arson. It is estimated that around 10 million East Bengali refugees entered India during the early months of the war, of whom 1.5 million may have stayed back after Bangladesh became independent.[8]
An estimate shows that nearly 2.4 million Hindus [9][6][10][11] were killed in East Pakistan during 1971 war. These refugees remain in India and became the citizens of India and never went back to independent Bangladesh due to economic, fear of insecurity for being a minority there but estimate shows only 1.5 million Muslim refugees out of 10 million refugees went to Bangladesh. The Hindu population in Bangladesh is now over 12 million constituting 8.2% of the population. But still large of Hindu refugees from Bangladesh now arriving in the Indian state of West Bengal and India's North East part. Most of the Hindu refugees from Bangladesh came to Kolkata capital of West Bengal where they hoped to find a job and better livelihood than compare to Islamic Bangladesh where Minorities are day by day vanishing from the country due to persecution and discrimination by mainstream media and various Islamic political party even laws are against them. Hindus in the late 1990s were distributed in various parts of Bangladesh but soon after demolished of Babri Masjid in India during 1991 many Hindus in Bangladesh were killed and simply driven out of the country.
Notable refugees and migrants
The outflow of Hindus from East Bengal had a particularly negative effect on the Hindu community of East Pakistan and subsequently Bangladesh, as a significant portion of the region's educated middle class, intelligentsia and political leadership left. The heights reached by many of the East Bengali migrants and their descendants, including Amartya Sen's Nobel Prize and Megh Nad Saha's pioneering work in Astrophysics are considerable. The number of minority Hindu community in Muslim-majority Bangladesh continued to dwindle as many Hindus left the country in 1990s following widespread communal riots and Islamic fundamentalist securing power of the nation in 2001.
Bangladesh is not just another neighboring country for India. In history it has been a great critical neighbor ever since India got liberated from British empire and Bangladesh was East Pakistan.
East Bengali Refugees are people who left East Bengal following the Partition of Bengal, which was part of the Independence of India and Pakistan in 1947. An overwhelming majority of these refugees and immigrants were Bengali Hindus.[1] They adopted Indian citizenship and contributed to various fields and professions. During the Bangladesh liberation war with West Pakistan, an estimated 10 million people of East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) fled the country and took refuge in India particularly in the Indian states of West Bengal and Indian North East region. Out of 10 million people, a majority of 60% to 80% are Hindus who were the main victims of the West Pakistani army.
History
In 1947, Bengal was partitioned into the Indian state of West Bengal and the Pakistani province of East Bengal. East Bengal was later renamed East Pakistan, which subsequently broke away from Pakistan to form the independent country of Bangladesh. Most of Sylhet district in Assam also joined East Pakistan and was subsequently considered to be East Bengal. East Bengal was the area of agricultural growth whereas West Bengal was meant for industrial development.
Settlement
The majority of East Bengali refugees settled in the city of Kolkata (Calcutta) and various other towns and rural areas of West Bengal, but a significant number also moved to the Barak Valley of Assam and the princely state of Tripura which eventually joined India in 1949. Around 0.5 million were also settled in other parts of India, including the East Pakistan Displaced Persons' Colony (EPDP) in Delhi (subsequently renamed Chittaranjan Park), Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. The estimated 0.5 million Bengalis in Delhi and 0.3 million in Mumbai are also largely East Bengali refugees and their descendants.[2]
Scope
The exact number of refugees has never been officially collected and estimates vary considerably.
In the immediate aftermath of partition, commonly attributed figures suggest around 3 million East Bengalis migrating to India and 864,000 migrants from India to East Pakistan. Indian government estimates suggest around 2.6 million migrants leaving East Bengal for India and 0.7 million migrants coming to East Pakistan from India.[3]
As per the Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department of the Government of West Bengal, the census figures show the number of refugees from East Pakistan in 1971 was nearly 6 million (60 lakhs) and in 1981, the number was assessed at 8 million (80 lakhs).[4]A district-wise break-up in 1971, shows the main thrust of the refugee influx was on 24-Parganas (22.3% of the total refugees), Nadia (20.3%), Bankura (19.1%) and Kolkata (12.9%).[5]
Further migration
1950s
In 1950, it is estimated that a further one million refugees crossed into West Bengal, particularly in the aftermath of 1950 Barisal riots and Noakhali riots.[6] The 1951 Census of India recorded that 27% of Kolkata's population was East Bengali refugees mainly Hindu Bengalis and they contributed the economic growth of Kolkata in various fields. Millions of Hindus particularly Bengali speaking from East Pakistan took refuge mainly in India's various state. A number estimated that around 3.2 lakhs Hindus from East Pakistan migrated mainly to Kolkata and various rural areas and towns of West Bengal during 1947.[7]
1960s
Migration continued, primarily from East Pakistan to India, right up to the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, both on an ongoing basis and with spikes during periods of particular communal unrest such as the 1964 East Pakistan riots and the 1965 India-Pakistan War, when it is estimated that 600,000 refugees left for India.[6] Estimates of the number of refugees up to 1970 are over 5 million to West Bengal alone.[8] This includes around 4.1 million coming between 1946 and 1958 and 1.2 million coming between 1959 and 1971.[7]
1970s
Another major influx into India came in 1971 during the Bangladesh Liberation War, when Hindu refugees escaped systematic mass killings, rapes, lootings and arson. It is estimated that around 10 million East Bengali refugees entered India during the early months of the war, of whom 1.5 million may have stayed back after Bangladesh became independent.[8]
An estimate shows that nearly 2.4 million Hindus [9][6][10][11] were killed in East Pakistan during 1971 war. These refugees remain in India and became the citizens of India and never went back to independent Bangladesh due to economic, fear of insecurity for being a minority there but estimate shows only 1.5 million Muslim refugees out of 10 million refugees went to Bangladesh. The Hindu population in Bangladesh is now over 12 million constituting 8.2% of the population. But still large of Hindu refugees from Bangladesh now arriving in the Indian state of West Bengal and India's North East part. Most of the Hindu refugees from Bangladesh came to Kolkata capital of West Bengal where they hoped to find a job and better livelihood than compare to Islamic Bangladesh where Minorities are day by day vanishing from the country due to persecution and discrimination by mainstream media and various Islamic political party even laws are against them. Hindus in the late 1990s were distributed in various parts of Bangladesh but soon after demolished of Babri Masjid in India during 1991 many Hindus in Bangladesh were killed and simply driven out of the country.
Notable refugees and migrants
The outflow of Hindus from East Bengal had a particularly negative effect on the Hindu community of East Pakistan and subsequently Bangladesh, as a significant portion of the region's educated middle class, intelligentsia and political leadership left. The heights reached by many of the East Bengali migrants and their descendants, including Amartya Sen's Nobel Prize and Megh Nad Saha's pioneering work in Astrophysics are considerable. The number of minority Hindu community in Muslim-majority Bangladesh continued to dwindle as many Hindus left the country in 1990s following widespread communal riots and Islamic fundamentalist securing power of the nation in 2001.
- Achintya Kumar Sengupta (Noakhali, literature)
- Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri (Barisal, theoretical physicist)
- Amar Mitra (Khulna, writer)
- Amartya Sen (Dhaka, economics/academia)
- Amlan Datta (Comilla, economist and educationist )
- Anil Biswas (Barisal, music)
- Anil Karanjai (Feni, painter)
- Anil Kumar Dutta (Barisal, artist)
- Arun Mitra (Jessore district, poet)
- Arundhuti Mukherjee (Barisal, cinema)
- Arup Roy Choudhury (Khulna, administrator)
- Ashutosh Mukhopadhyay (Dhaka, novelist)
- Asit Sen (Dhaka, filmmaker)
- Atin Bandyopadhyay (Dhaka district, Bengali literature)
- Barun Chanda (Dhaka, actor and advertising professional)
- Barun Sengupta (Barisal, journalist)
- Basudeb Dasgupta (Jhenaidah, novelist)
- Bhairab Ganguli (Dhaka district, umpire)
- Bhanu Banerjee (Dhaka district, cinema)
- Bijon Bhattacharya (Faridpur, cinema)
- Bimal Roy (Bagerhat, filmmaker)
- Brojen Das (Munshiganj, swimmer)
- Chandra Shekhar Ghosh (Comilla, economist and banker)
- Chinmoy Roy (Comilla, Bengali cinema)
- Chuni Goswami (Kishoreganj, football)
- Comrade Muzaffar Ahmed (Noakhali; politics, founder of Communist Party of India)
- Debabrata Biswas (Mymensingh, singer)
- Dwijendranath Maitra (Rajshahi, physician)
- Geeta Dutt (Faridpur district, singer)
- Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya (Faridpur district, entomologist and naturalist)
- Gour Kishore Ghosh (Jessore district, writer and journalist)
- Haradhan Bandopadhyay (Kushtia, cinema)
- Hem Chandra Raychaudhuri (Barisal district, historian)
- Hemanga Biswas (Sylhet, music)
- Hiralal Chakraborty (Noakhali, publisher – founder of Prakashani Limited and Nababidhan Press)
- Humayun Kabir (Faridpur, literature and academics)
- Ila Mitra (Rajshahi, human rights activist)
- Jadunath Sarkar (Natore, historian)
- Jagadish Gupta (Kushita, author-poet)
- Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri (Pabna, army officer)
- Jibanananda Das (Barisal, poet)
- Jogen Chowdhury (Faridpur district, painter)
- Jogendra Nath Mandal (Barisal, politics, First Law Minister, Pakistan (1947–1950))
- Jyoti Basu (Narayanganj, politics, Chief Minister, West Bengal 1977–2000)
- Kazi Abdul Wadud (Faridpur, literature)
- Kumar Roy (Dinajpur district, theatre personality)
- Madhabi Mukherjee (Barisal, cinema)
- Mahasweta Devi (Dhaka, literature & human rights)
- Manabendra Mukherjee (Barisal, music)
- Manohar Aich (Comilla, bodybuilder)
- Manoj Mitra (Khulna, Bengali theatre )
- Meghnad Saha (Dhaka, science)
- Mithun Chakraborty (Barisal, cinema)
- Mohit Chattopadhyay (Barisal, dramatist)
- Monotosh Roy (Dhaka, bodybuilder)
- Moushumi Chatterjee (Khulna, actress)
- Mrinal Sen (Faridpur, Filmmaker)
- Nabendu Ghosh (Dhaka district, writer)
- Narayan Debnath (Dhaka, cartoonist)
- Narendranath Mitra (Faridpur, literature and journalism)
- Nihar Ranjan Gupta (Jessore district]], physician and novelist)
- Nirad Chaudhuri (Kishoreganj, author)
- Nripen Chakraborty (Dhaka, politics)
- P. C. Sorcar (Tangail, magician)
- P. C. Sorcar, Jr. (Tangail, magician)
- Pankaj Roy (Dhaka, cricketer)
- Pannalal Ghosh (Barisal, flute (bansuri) player and composer)
- Paran Bandyopadhyay (Jessore district, cinema)
- Paritosh Sen (Dhaka, painter)
- Prafulla Chandra Sen (Khulna, Indian politician and former Chief Minister of West Bengal from 1961 to 1967)
- Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (Dhaka, statistician)
- Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi (Dinajpur, politics)
- Rajen Tarafdar (Rajshahi, filmmaker)
- Ritwik Ghatak (Dhaka, filmmaker)
- Rudraprasad Sengupta (Meherpur, Bengali theatre)
- Sabitri Chatterjee (Comilla, Bengali cinema)
- Sachin Dev Burman (Comilla, music)
- Samaresh Basu (Dhaka, Bengali literature)
- Sandhya Roy (Satkhira, cinema)
- Santosh Dutta (Dhaka district, actor)
- Satyendra Nath Bose (Dhaka, physicist)
- Shankha Ghosh (Chandpur, poet and critic)
- Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay (Dhaka district, writer)
- Somnath Hore (Chittagong, sculptor and muralist)
- Suchitra Sen (Pabna, cinema)
- Sudhi Ranjan Das (Munshiganj, 5th Chief Justice of India)
- Sunil Gangopadhyay (Faridpur, writer)
- Supriya Choudhury (Faridpur, actress)
- Surajit Chandra Sinha (Mymensingh, anthropologist)
- Susobhan Sarkar (Dhaka, Historian)
- Tapan Raychaudhuri (Barisal, historian)
- Tarun Majumdar (Bogra, cinema)
- Ustad Alauddin Khan (Brahmanbaria, music)
- Utpal Dutt (Barisal, theatre)
- Vilayat Khan (Mymensingh, music)
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