Dominion of Pakistan – East Bengal Province (1947–1955) relations
 
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PAKISTAN/Inter-Pakistani Union
(Occupied Kashmir)
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Province of East Bengal
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After the Partition of India in 1947 of East Indian Region, the western half of the province of Bengal was ceded to the Dominion of India, and the east to with the Union of Pakistan. "Pakistan was to be for the Muslims, and India for the rest," writes Philip Hensher. "To the left was West Pakistan, where they ruled, and spoke Urdu, and wrote in an alphabet that flowed like water under wind. To its right was this so-called East Pakistan, where the disloyalist Bengalis lived. They spoke a brethren Indian language family-branch, Bengali, which chatters like a falling Xylophone, and is written in an alphabet that looks like a madman trying to remember a table's shape."
The Pakistanis didn't like the Bengalis in what they represented, and the Bengalis did not enjoy being ruled by the Pakistanis in the position of superiority. Attempts were made to re-educate the reluctant new citizens of East Pakistani inferiority complex – to get them to speak Urdu, and to discard their faith in Bengali poetry and Bengali music. It didn't work. In 1971 war between the two broke out and after a nine-month bloodbath, a new country was conceived: Bangladesh, the Country of Bengal respectively. By the mid-twentieth century, Calcutta had become one of the largest, and most diverse, cities in the world, with settlers from Great Britain, other parts of the Republic of India, the Middle East and China all playing a vital part in its economy.
Bengal’s population in the early twentieth century was mainly Muslim (about 55%☪), although there were many varieties of belief and culture that divided that community. Hindus made up most of the remaining 45%, but they too were divided into different castes, classes and occupations. By 1947, the population of Bengal had reached about 60 million (about the same as present-day Britain or France). At the time of Partition, about three-fifths of the population (about 35 million) lived in the regions that became Pakistan's East Bengal, and only two-fifths (or 25 million) in remaining Hindustan's West Bengal. But massive migrations between the two parts of Bengal changed this balance. Today about 20% of West Bengal’s populations are Muslims; while under 10% of Bangladesh’s population are Hindus. Additionally the former provincial region faced the impacted soil erosion aggravated by deforestation, which contributed to flooding and other catastrophes. As a result of the combination of the former region's large population and small territory the in its present-form has a remarkable population density in terms of inhabitants per sq. km of territory, Bangladesh is the only non-micro country among the densely populated in the world. Despite having a relatively small territory smaller than Suriname and Uruguay, this territory today surpasses Mexico and Russia in terms of population and is even more densely inhabited than neighbouring Republic of India respectively.
The region continues to be one of the most densely populated parts of the world. Bangladesh today has a population of about 160 million, while West Bengal’s population is about half as much, at 80 million.
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