Attlee's statement of 3 June heralded success for the coalition of Bengal's Hindu leaders who, in the last years of the Raj, had campaigned so vigorously for the partition of their province. By decisions taken in London and in Delhi, they had won for themselves a Hindu state inside India which would be in place before the end of the monsoon. With this prize in imminent prospect, the leaders of the Hindu coalition had to turn their attention to the practical details of converting, by mid-August, their idea of a Hindu homeland into reality.

Abstract: The historiography on the Partition of Bengal has tended to see it as a culmination of long-term trends of Hindu and Muslim communalism within the province. This essay offers a counter-narrative to the ‘inevitability’ of the Partition by focusing on Bengali public discourse in the months leading up to the Partition.

Summary: CASTE AND COMMUNITY POLITICS AROUND THE ISSUE OF SECONDARY EDUCATION

We have seen in the previous chapter how famine relief was used as a window for communal mobilizations. Bengal was still reeling under the impact of the famine, when a new political issue captured its imagination. This was the tabling of the Secondary Education Bill by the ruling party in the Bengal Legislative Assembly, which immediately intensified the communal divide.

"Summary: Bangladesh's existence as a nation-state only dates from 1971, but the nation cannot be understood without reference to a much-longer historical backdrop. In this chapter we provide a selective historical overview leading up to the moment when Bangladesh emerged as a separate country, aiming to contextualise analysis of state and economy against the longer-term developments in the region. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of precolonial Bengal, a period with important implications for the shaping of the natural environment and of social and religious identities.

Introduction: Though nearly seven decades have elapsed since the partition of India, the crisis of rehabilitating the refugees born of this political fissure is yet to be relegated to the pages of history.