1950 Bengal Crisis
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The 1950 Bengal Crisis was a moment in the history of India-Pakistan relations where India and Pakistan almost went to war due to communal violence in East Bengal and West Bengal. Despite the warlike tensions in Bengal, India and Pakistan in the end resolved the Crisis through diplomacy, culminating in the signing of the Nehru-Liaquat Pact, which sought to safeguard minority rights in both nations and avert war between the two nations.
Background
In August 1947, British India was partitioned into the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The province of Bengal was partitioned, with Muslim-majority East Bengal (and Sylhet district of Assam) going to Pakistan and Hindu-majority West Bengal going to India. Instances of communal violence in Bengal had preceded Partition, though the frequency of communal riots intensified in the 1940s, most notably in 1946 and continued to plague Bengal post-Partition, nurturing considerable nervousness among religious minorities in both Bengals. Whilst Punjab saw a virtual population exchange of religious minorities, Bengal retained large religious minorities, with an estimated 11-12 million Hindus out of a total of 42 million in East Bengal and 5-6 million Muslims out of a total of 21 million in West Bengal.[1] In its early days, numerous crises and disputes defined relations between India and Pakistan. The issue of the sharing of the Indus River water's was a major dispute that came to head in April 1948. Pakistan's decision not to devalue the Pakistani rupee in light of the British Pound Sterling being devalued against the American dollar in September 1949 led to a 17-month trade lock that severely disrupted the Jute trade in Bengal.[2] In October 1947, India and Pakistan went to war over the issue of Kashmir in the Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948, which formally ended in January 1949 after a UN-brokered ceasefire agreement.[3] However, another crisis in India-Pakistan relations emerged, not in Kashmir, but in Bengal.
Outbreak of Crisis
Communist Crackdown in Kalshira, December 1949
What particular event triggered the Crisis in Bengal in 1950 is disputed, though communal riots in Bengal undoubtedly triggered it. One theory purports that a police crackdown on Communists in East Paksitan started the Crisis. On 20 December 1949, the Pakistan police aided by East Pakistan Ansars cracked down on Communists in the Kalshira village of Bagerhat sub-district in the Khulna Division of East Pakistan, looking for a suspected Communist Joydev Brahma. Unable to find Brahma and being surrounded by Communist inspired mobs of Namasudras, Brahma's home was burnt and looted and his wife assaulted. Afterwards, Muslim mobs, supported by the Ansars and police, looted Hindu villages and property across the Khulna Division and assaulted and murdered Hindu men and women.[4][5] This led to a mass exodus of Hindus to West Bengal, with a claimed figure of 24,000 Hindus entering West Bengal at a rate of 500 migrants a day, with lower-caste Hindus joining the exodus to India for the first time.[4]
Communal riots in West Bengal, January to March 1950
Communal riots in West Bengal also added to the outbreak of the Crisis.
Dhaka riots, February to March 1950
India prepares for War, March 1950
Nehru-Liaquat Pact
Aftermath
See also
- 1950 East Pakistan riots
- Nehru-Liaquat Pact
- Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts
- India–Pakistan relations
- Partition of India
References
- ↑ Wallbank, T. Walter (1950-08-01). "India and Pakistan". Current History. 19 (108): 83–87. doi:10.1525/curh.1950.19.108.83. ISSN 0011-3530.
- ↑ Lambert, Richard D. (1950). "Religion, Economics, and Violence in Bengal: Background of the Minorities Agreement". Middle East Journal (4): 307–28.
- ↑ Wolpert, Stanley (2010-09-13). India and Pakistan: Continued Conflict or Cooperation?. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 21–27. doi:10.1525/9780520948006. ISBN 978-0-520-94800-6. Search this book on
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Raghavan, Srinath (2010). War and Peace in Modern India. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 149–187. Search this book on
- ↑ "'E. Bengal Note on Khulna Incident: Joint action sought to keep peace in province". Statesman, New Delhi. 3 February 1950.
Bibliography
- ‘Agreement Between India and Pakistan regarding security and rights of minorities (Nehru Liaquat Agreement) (New Delhi, 8 April 1950)’ in India, Bilateral Treaties and Agreements: 1947-1952, volume 1 (New Delhi 1994), 243-248.
- Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar, Decolonization in South Asia: Meanings of freedom in post-independence West Bengal, 1947-52 (New York, 2009)
- Chatterji, Joya, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967 (New Delhi, 2011).
- Clary, Christopher, The Difficult Politics of Peace: Rivalry in Modern South Asia (New York, 2022).
- Dutt, Subimal, With Nehru in the Foreign Office (Calcutta, 1977).
- Ghosh, Subhasri, ‘THE WORKING OF THE NEHRU LIAQUAT PACT: A CASE STUDY OF NADIA DISTRICT, 1950,’ Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 68 (2007), 853–62.
- Lambert, Richard D., ‘Religion, Economics, and Violence in Bengal: Background of the Minorities Agreement,’ Middle East Journal, 4 (1950), 307–28.
- Raghavan, Pallavi, ‘The Making of South Asia’s Minorities: A Diplomatic History, 1947-52,’ Economic and Political Weekly, 51 (2016), 45–52.
- Raghavan, Pallavi, ‘The Making of the India–Pakistan Dynamic: Nehru, Liaquat, and the No War Pact Correspondence of 1950,’ Modern Asian Studies 50 (2016), 1645–78.
- Raghavan, Pallavi, ‘Partition: An International History,’ International History Review 42 (2020), 1029–47.
- Raghavan, Pallavi, Animosity at Bay: An Alternative History of the India-Pakistan Relationship, 1947-1952 (Oxford, 2020).
- Raghavan, Srinath, War and Peace in Modern India (Basingstoke, 2010).
- Roy, Haimanti, Partitioned Lives: Migrants, Refugees, Citizens in India and Pakistan, 1947-65 (Delhi, 2013).
- Sen, Dwaipayan, The Decline of the Caste Question: Jogendranath Mandal and the Defeat of Dalit Politics in Bengal (Cambridge, 2018).
- Singh, Zorawar Daulet, Power and Diplomacy: India’s Foreign Policies During the Cold War (Delhi, 2019).
- Swaminathan, V. S., ‘Pakistan Problems and Prospects,’ Middle East Journal, 4 (1950), 447–66.
- Van Schendel, Willem, Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia (London, 2005).
- Wallbank, T. Walter, ‘India and Pakistan: Can two nationalisms survive?’ Current History, 19 (1950), 83–87.
- Zamindar, Vazira, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia (New York, 2007).
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