Partition of 1947 and East Pakistan

This article covers the division of Bengal in 1947 and the period in which the eastern half of the province formed part of Pakistan, from 1947 until the general election of December 1970 and its aftermath. Within that period the language question became the central political issue, provincial elections were held in 1954, a local-government system was introduced in 1959, and an autonomy movement that took shape in the 1960s was followed by the arrest and trial of opposition figures in 1968 and a general election in 1970. On the question of who sought the partition of Bengal, sources used here take opposed positions, recorded below.

The decision to divide Bengal

Within 36 years of the annulment of the first partition, the province was divided in 1947 into two halves along broadly the same geographical lines, mainly on communal consideration; Hindu-majority West Bengal became part of the Indian Union and Muslim-majority East Bengal part of Pakistan ¹.

The retrieved entry records a reversal of roles between the two partitions: Hindus largely opposed the 1905 partition and most Muslims supported it, but by 1947 it was the Hindus, especially the Hindu Mahasabha, who proposed the partition of Bengal, while Muslim leadership first opposed and later accepted it sullenly ¹. H. S. Suhrawardy, chief minister of Bengal, made a last-moment attempt to keep Bengal united with the status of an independent state, but his move for a United Independent Bengal foundered ¹.

The British Cabinet Mission Plan of May 1946 envisaged a loose Indian federation under a three-tier A, B, C formula ¹. At the Leaders’ Conference of 2 June 1947 the partition plan presented by Lord Mountbatten was agreed by the seven leaders recorded by the entry as Nehru, Patel and Kripalani of the Congress, Jinnah, Liaquat and Abdur Rob Nishtar of the Muslim League, and Baldev Singh ¹. The plan published on 3 June laid down procedures including separate notional voting by the Hindu-majority and Muslim-majority areas of the Bengal Legislative Assembly sitting separately, a referendum in the Surma Valley of Assam and in the North-West Frontier Province, and a Boundary Commission to demarcate adjoining areas ¹.

The votes of 20 June and the Sylhet referendum

On 20 June 1947 the Bengal partition issue was decided by the members of the Assembly ¹. On the question of joining the present Constituent Assembly, that is the Indian Union, the division of the joint session stood at 126 votes against and 90 in favour ¹. The members of the Muslim-majority areas, East Bengal, in a separate session passed a motion by 106 votes to 35 against partitioning Bengal and for joining a new Constituent Assembly, that is Pakistan, as a whole ¹. The members of the non-Muslim-majority areas, West Bengal, in a separate meeting voted by 58 to 21 for partition of the province ¹.

In a referendum held on 7 July, the electorate of Sylhet voted by a majority of 55,578 votes — 2,39,619 for joining East Bengal against 1,84,041 for remaining in Assam — in favour of Pakistan ¹.

The Indian Independence Act of the British Parliament, dated 15 July 1947, stipulated that British rule in India would end on 15 August 1947 and appointed a chairman for a Boundary Commission consisting of the chairman and two nominees each from India and Pakistan ¹. Power was finally transferred to Pakistan and India on 14 and 15 August 1947 respectively ¹.

The Radcliffe award

The Boundary Commission was headed by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, and the entry records that it was practically the chairman of the commission who completed the boundary on paper in haste within fifteen days ¹. According to East Bengal Land Records and Survey of 1951, of the total area of 257,478 square kilometres of the old province of Bengal, the newly created province of East Bengal received 130,383.19 square kilometres from undivided Bengal and 12,393.15 square kilometres from Assam, mainly the district of Sylhet; East Bengal contained a population of 39.11 million, of which 11.4 million were Hindus ². West Bengal received an area of about 72,520 square kilometres with 21.19 million people, of whom nearly 5.3 million were Muslims ².

The entry records that Radcliffe accepted some cardinal principles of the Congress: that the two parts should contain as large a population as possible of the total Muslim and non-Muslim population of Bengal, and that the ratio of Muslims to non-Muslims in one zone should be nearly equal to the ratio of non-Muslims to Muslims in the other, so that the award created two states in which the ratio of majority to minority population was almost exactly the same ². He accepted Congress arguments about the importance of the Murshidabad and Nadia river system for the survival of the Hughli and gave the whole of Murshidabad to West Bengal; he decided Khulna would go to East Bengal except for those parts west of the River Mathabhanga; and he decided the tea-producing districts of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri would go to West Bengal except for five Muslim-majority thanas of the Boda–Debiganj–Panchagarh area ². The entry also records that he did not overlook the arguments of the Muslim League, giving on the principle of contiguity the thana of Boalia in Rajshahi and a portion of Nadia to East Bengal, but that his package resembled the Congress proposals on partition ².

The award led to discontent among both Hindus and Muslims: Muslims in Murshidabad and Navadwip were recorded as furious to find themselves in West Bengal, and Hindus in five southern thanas of Jalpaiguri expressed bitterness at their inclusion in East Bengal ². The entry states that the award generated controversy and remained surrounded by uncertainties, and that the hastily drawn border still remains to be properly defined ².

East Pakistan: language, elections and local government

East Bengal was made the eastern part of Pakistan and renamed East Pakistan, erasing the historical name Bengal ³. The basis of the partition was Muslim nationalism, and the entry records the contradiction that while West Bengal had a large Muslim population, East Bengal also had a large Hindu population ³. Hindu–Muslim relations remained largely cordial and cooperative until the Communal Award was declared in 1932, under which interest groups — Muslims, Hindus, Scheduled Castes and Europeans — rather than political parties were given the right to contest elections under a separate-electorate system; after the 1937 elections the Bengal Legislative Assembly consisted of as many as thirteen interest groups ³. A. K. Fazlul Huq was ousted from power in 1943 by Jinnah when Huq formed a ministry with the support of Congress and Hindu Mahasabha members of the Legislative Assembly ³.

The Lahore Resolution was moved in a general session of the All India Muslim League by A. K. Fazlul Huq on 23 March 1940, supported by Choudhury Khaliquzzaman and others, and adopted on 24 March 1940 ⁴. It stated that the areas where Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the north-western and eastern zones of India, should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign ⁴. It was incorporated as a creed in the constitution of the All-India Muslim League at its Madras session on 15 April 1941 ⁴. At the Delhi Convention of Muslim Legislators on 7 April 1946 the resolution used the word state in the singular, replacing states; the entry records that Abul Hashim claimed to have raised a point of order against what he argued was an amendment of the Lahore Resolution, and that Jinnah at first took the plural s to be an obvious printing mistake but found the plural under his own signature when the original minute book was checked ⁴.

The language movement began in 1948 ⁶. See Bengali Language Movement.

The election to the East Bengal Legislative Assembly was held between 8 and 12 March 1954 and was contested by the United Front, an alliance composed mainly of the Awami League, the Krishak Sramik Party, Nizam-e-Islam and Ganatantri Dal ⁷. The Front campaigned on a twenty-one point programme adopted in November 1953, demanding full regional autonomy including delegation to the eastern province of all subjects except defence, foreign affairs and currency, recognition of Bangla as a state language, release of political prisoners, transformation of Burdwan House into Bangla Academy, construction of Shaheed Minar at the site of the 1952 police firing, declaration of 21 February as a public holiday, and more autonomy for Dhaka and Rajshahi universities ⁷. The United Front won 223 of 309 Muslim seats, and all five members of the Muslim League ministry including the chief minister were defeated; 1,285 candidates contested, and turnout for Muslim constituencies was 37.6 per cent ⁷. United Front leader A. K. Fazlul Huq was invited on 3 April 1954 by the provincial governor to form the government; of the 223 members elected under the United Front banner 130 belonged to the Awami League, and the Front disintegrated within about a year after the election ⁷. The retrieved Election entry records that the 1954 election to the provincial legislature in East Bengal was the first to be held on the basis of universal franchise and the last on the basis of separate electorates ¹¹.

Basic Democracies was a local government system introduced in the early 1960s, during the presidency of Ayub Khan, under the Basic Democracies Order of 1959 ⁸. It was initially a five-tier arrangement: union councils in rural areas and town and union committees in urban areas; thana councils in East Pakistan and tehsil councils in West Pakistan; district councils; divisional councils; and a provincial development advisory council ⁸. The union council consisted of a chairman and usually about 15 members, two-thirds elected and one-third nominated, the nomination being abolished by an amendment in 1962; its elected representatives were called basic democrats, and the total number of such councils was 7,300 ⁸. There were 655 thanas and tehsils in Pakistan, 74 district councils and sixteen divisional councils ⁸. The system formed a national electoral college consisting of 80,000 members from East and West Pakistan for the elections of the President and of members of the national and provincial assemblies ⁸. In the referendum for presidential elections held on 14 February 1960 the basic democrats voted for Ayub Khan ⁸. The retrieved entry states, as its own assessment, that as a political institution basic democracy not only failed to legitimise the government but also lost its legitimacy after the fall of General Ayub in 1969 ⁸.

The autonomy movement and the Agartala case

The Agartala Conspiracy Case was a case framed by the Pakistan Government in 1968, during the presidency of Ayub Khan, against Awami League chief Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and some in-service and ex-service army personnel and senior government officials, accused of involvement in a conspiracy to secede the East wing from Pakistan with the help of the government of India ⁹. The petition alleged that the conspiracy was concocted between the Indian party and the accused at Agartala in Tripura, and the entry records that the demand for autonomy placed through the six-point programme of the Awami League chief received the spontaneous support of the people of East Pakistan ⁹. See Disputed points on the six points themselves.

The Home Department of Pakistan declared through a press note issued on 6 January 1968 that the government had detected in December 1967 a conspiracy detrimental to the national interest of Pakistan, disclosing the arrest of 8 persons including 2 CSP officers, and through a separate declaration issued on 18 January 1968 implicated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had been detained in jail since 9 May 1966 ⁹. The government resolved to frame charges against 35 political personalities and senior government officials under civil law in the interest of the proper holding of the general elections of 1970; the hearing began on 19 June 1968 under Sections 121-A and 131, with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman enrolled as accused No. 1 in the case entitled State vs Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and others ⁹. The charge-sheet consisted of 100 paragraphs against the 35 accused, and there were 227 witnesses including 11 approvers, of whom 4 were declared hostile by the government ⁹. Sergeant Zahurul Haq, the 17th accused, was shot dead while in confinement in Dhaka Cantonment, and in the face of a mass movement the Ayub government withdrew the case on 22 February 1969, all the accused including Sheikh Mujibur Rahman being released unconditionally; on the following day a public reception was held at Paltan Maidan in Dhaka, where Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was vested with the appellation Bangabandhu ⁹ (বঙ্গবন্ধু).

The 1970 general election

The National Assembly election was held on 7 December 1970: of 29,479,386 voters, 17,005,163 cast votes, a turnout of 57.68 per cent, for 300 seats with 16 contesting parties ¹¹. The Awami League contested 162 seats, won 160, obtained 12,338,921 votes and 74.9 per cent of the votes cast ¹¹. The Provincial Assembly election was held on 17 December 1970 for 300 seats; the Awami League contested 300 and won 288, with 89 per cent of the votes ¹¹.

The Provisional Constitution of Bangladesh Order of 1972 declared the members elected to the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies of Pakistan in the elections held in December 1970 and March 1971 as the Constituent Assembly of the Republic ¹⁰.

Could not verify

No Banglapedia entries were retrievable under the titles East Pakistan, East Bengal, One Unit, Six Point Movement, Election of 1970, Constitution of 1962, Martial Law or Mass Movement 1969. Consequently no retrieved page supplied the provisions or adoption date of the One Unit scheme; the 1956 Constitution’s provisions beyond the state-language amendment of 16 February 1956; the imposition of martial law in 1958; the provisions of the 1962 Constitution; the six numbered points of the Six Point Programme, to which only the "Agartala Conspiracy Case" entry refers; a dated chronology of the 1969 mass movement; or the seat tallies, turnout or dates of the 1970 election beyond those given by the "Election" entry above.

Related articles

Bengali Language Movement · Bangladesh Liberation War · Partition of Bengal, 1905 · History of Bangladesh

Disputed points

The positions below are reported as their holders state them. This reference does not take a position on the disagreement, and none of the positions is presented as the default.

Who sought the partition of Bengal in 1947. Two positions are recorded. The "Partition of Bengal, 1947" entry, by Harun-or-Rashid, states that it was the Hindus, especially the Hindu Mahasabha, who proposed the partition in 1947 and that Muslim leadership first opposed and later accepted it sullenly; the basis offered is the voting record of 20 June 1947, with West Bengal’s non-Muslim-majority members voting 58–21 for partition and East Bengal’s Muslim-majority members voting 106–35 against, together with the collapse of Suhrawardy’s United Independent Bengal ¹. The "Partition Politics" entry, by Sirajul Islam, attributes the decision to communal factionalists among the Hindu bhadralok and the Muslim ashraf who, it states, voted for the partition of Bengal to serve their own interests, and states that both partition measures were the results of colonial and communal politics about which the majority of the people of Bengal were least concerned; the basis offered is the Communal Award of 1932, the separate-electorate system and the interests-group factionalism of the Bengal Legislative Assembly from 1937 to 1947 ³. [disputed]

Whether the partitions were structurally determined or contingent. The "Partition Politics" entry states that the failure of the two partition measures indicates the events were not a natural outcome of historical developments but outcomes of colonial and communal politics; the "Partition of Bengal, 1947" entry presents the 1947 division as flowing from communal considerations and the two-nation theory; and the "Partition of Bengal, 1905" entry records the colonial government’s own administrative rationale for 1905. The retrieved pages do not reconcile these framings ¹³. [disputed]

The Muslim League’s tally in the 1954 election. The "United Front" entry states the League captured only 9 seats, while the "Muslim League" entry states it could win only 8; both pages agree the United Front won 223 seats ⁷⁵. [disputed]

The Awami League’s 1970 seat tally. The "Election" entry records 162 seats contested and 160 won out of a 300-seat National Assembly ¹¹, while the "War of Liberation, The" entry records 167 seats out of 169 ⁶. The two entries do not reconcile, and the discrepancy is not explained by the retrieved pages. See Bangladesh Liberation War. [disputed]

The wording of the Lahore Resolution and the 1946 Delhi Convention. The entry records Abul Hashim’s claim, as his own claim, that the Convention was not competent to alter the Lahore Resolution, that Jinnah assured Bengal League leaders the Resolution was not amended, and that in asking for independent states the spokesmen of the League were far from clear what was intended ⁴. [disputed]

Sources

11 sources cited. Tiers: T1 official or primary, T2 scholarly or curated, T3 media of record.

1. Partition of Bengal, 1947 — Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Partition_of_Bengal,_1947
2. Radcliffe Award — Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Radcliffe_Award
3. Partition Politics — Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Partition_Politics
4. Lahore Resolution — Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Lahore_Resolution
5. Muslim League — Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Muslim_League
6. Language Movement — Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Language_Movement
7. United Front — Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/United_Front
8. Basic Democracies — Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Basic_Democracies
9. Agartala Conspiracy Case — Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Agartala_Conspiracy_Case
10. Constitution — Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Constitution
11. Election — Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine) (T2, accessed 2026-09-19). https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Election

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Every factual claim above is attributed to a numbered source. Figures marked “as of” were retrieved on that date. Not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation.