History

On 15th August 1947, India attained Independence by separating a unified land into India and Pakistan. The North-Western part of India and a major portion of the Bengal Province, both constitute the new nation Pakistan. Two states of India got divided - the Punjab and Bengal for which a large scale refugee migration took place on both sides of the border.   The map of undivided Bengal 

 

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The Bengal province is the home of the Bengali community on a vast tract of land with its distinct identity mentioned in the Indian mythology and ancient travel documents dated back to the invasion by the Greeks. At the beginning of the 14th Century, major European Colonies - the Dutch,  the Danish, the French, the English, the Portuguese and traders from Central Asia, from Iran, the Armenians and the Turks, established their trading posts and later formed small kingdoms throughout the Bengal. Out of them, the British succeeded in establishing their vast colony, with the myth of establishing the modern Calcutta city, a major trading and political centre rule the next 190 years of India and other South and South-East Asia countries. It was the most flourished state in the South & South Asia region, which attracted the foreign traders backed by political intentions to venture into Bengal.

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Islamisation was fast spread in the Bengal province and the majority of the population had faith in that culture and next followed by people of Hindu faith. People of other religious affinities constitute a small population. On the arrival of foreign traders, there was a complete shift of culture and traditions in the province. Modern education fast spread in this region with the most English speaking people in India. The spread of modern education has literally enlightened the people of this region that at the end of the 19th century, they formed the first power base with the seed of the Independence movement Bengalis took an active part in the struggle for Independence and the fast pace of modern education on the American War of Independence and the French Revolution.

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Hindus and Muslims both took an active part in the armed struggle for Independence, and thousands were martyred. After the end of the Second World War, the tired British Government, under PM Attlee, decided India's Independence but based on religious faith. Two Nations Theory was the basis of the partition in which the Hindus and Muslims will govern the place according to their majority influence. The idea of Pakistan for Muslims and Indians for the rest was propounded for the partition. 

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In due process, overnight, millions of people of both faiths were refugees in their homeland and turned hostile to each other, the largest human holocaust in the history of the savage world.  Large scale killings, arsonists hounded for the blood of another faith, millions lost their homes, women raped and killed, children slaughtered was no exception in the divided Bengal. East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) was formed due to the Muslim majority land cut out of the Bengal Province and the rest is now West Bengal in India. Three million Hindu refugees migrated largely to Bengal, Assam for permanent settlement and in small numbers in other states. Indian Government allowed the people to become a citizen of the new country. The maximum refugee migration was in West Bengal and was followed by Assam. Both the states are neighbours of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) due to the similarity of language and culture, offering the people a sense of distraught homeland. 

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The refugee flows continue till 1971 and suddenly there was a surge of it due to the Liberation War of Bangladesh. The refugees migrated mainly to West Bengal, Assam and some North-Eastern states of India. At the end of the war, a small refugee population, stayed in India and subsequently the Government of India, issued citizenship of India.