Bengal

BENGAL, a province of British India, bounded on the east by Assam and Burma; on the south by the Bay of Bengal and Madras ; on the west by the province of Behar and Orissa ; and on the north by Nepal and Bhutan. It has an area (including the states of Cooch Behar and Tripura) of 82,955sq.m. and a popu lation (1931) of The name Bengal is derived from the ancient Banga or Vanga, a kingdom conterminous with the delta of Bengal to the south of the Ganges and to the east of the river Bhagirathi. It occurs in the form Vangalam in an inscription of the 1 1 th century at Tanjore, and in the form of Bangala it began to be used by Mohammedan writers in the latter part of the 13th century. Under Mohammedan rule the name applied specifically to the Gangetic delta, although the later conquests to the east of the Brahmaputra were eventually included within it. Under the English the name has at different periods borne very different significations. All the north-eastern factories of the East India company from Balasore, on the Orissa coast, to Patna, in the heart of Behar, belonged to the "Bengal establishment," and as British conquests crept higher up the rivers the term came to be applied to the whole of northern India. The presidency of Bengal eventually included all the British territories north of the Central Provinces, from the mouths of the Ganges and Brahmaputra to the Himalayas and the Punjab. The limits of the area bearing this designation have been reduced to their present dimensions by the formation of new provinces and the distribution of territory among them, viz., by the creation in 1836 of the North-Western Provinces now included with Oudh in the United Provinces, of Assam in 1874, and lastly of Behar and Orissa in 1912, when Bengal was made a presidency under a governor-in-council.

Physical Geography.

Bengal stretches from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal and, except for the mountains in Darjeeling district, the Sinchula hills in Jalpaiguri, the hill ranges of Chitta gong, the Chittagong hill tracts, and Tripura, consists of a densely populated alluvial plain comprising the combined delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra. A few slightly elevated tracts are found, viz., in the west of the Burdwan division, where the ground rises towards the Chota Nagpur plateau, and the areas called the Barind covering 2,5oosq.m. in the Rajshahi division and the Madhupur jungle in the Dacca division. Otherwise, Bengal is almost a level expanse intersected by numerous rivers with a very slight rise of level to the north. Calcutta, 86m. from the sea, is 2i ft. above sea-level, while Siliguri, 3oom. to the north of it, near the foot of the Himalayas, is only 400f t. above sea-level. Throughout these hundreds of miles not a single hill rises above the surface of the plain, and there is hardly an undulation to be seen. The monotony of the scenery is relieved, however, by the fresh verdure of the country, the belts of trees lining the rivers and streams and the clumps of bamboo in which the villages are em bowered. To the north a belt of forest stretches across the submontane country known as the Tarai, and to the south lie the Sundarbans, a maze of tidal livers or estuaries, which enclose a number of swampy islands covered with dense forests growing in soft mud partly in and partly out of the water. In the northern dis tricts the rivers debouching from the Himalayas receive the drainage from the country on either side, absorb broad tribu taries, and flow southwards with an in creasing volume. But near the centre of the province the rivers enter upon a new stage of their career. Their main channels bifurcate, and each new stream so created throws off its own set of distributaries to right and left. The country which they thus enclose and intersect forms the delta of Bengal. It stretches out as a vast dead level, in which the rivers find their velocity checked and their current no longer able to carry along the silt which they have brought down. The streams, accordingly, deposit their alluvial burden in their channels and upon their banks, so that by degrees their beds rise above the level of the surrounding country. In the depressions between them are basins, sometimes of such a low level that they are mere swamps. As the rivers creep farther down the delta they become more and more sluggish and their bifurcations and interlacings more complicated. The last scene of all is a wilderness of swamp and forest, where the net work of channels merges into the sea.

The physical characteristics of the greater part of the country have been determined by the eastward march of the Ganges. This great river, on entering Bengal, originally found its way to the sea by the channels of the Bhagirathi and Hooghly. As this channel silted up, the main stream, unable to deflect westwards owing to the rocky barrier of the Rajmahal hills, made its way eastward, cutting through the soft friable soil. In this way the Ichamati, Jalangi, and Matabhanga became in turn its chief dis tributary, until it found an outlet by the present channel of the Padma. The Brahmaputra, on the other hand, has moved west ward. It formerly flowed south-east through the centre of Mymensingh to Bhairab Bazar, but in the beginning of the 19th century it broke westwards and joined the Ganges near Goalundo.

In the central portion of the Gangetic delta the process of land formation has practically come to an end owing to the Ganges having deserted its former channels. The beds of the rivers down which it passed have silted up and their mouths have become choked to a greater or less degree. Consequently they no longer receive the volume of water which, spilling over the banks in times of flood, used to enrich the land with silt deposit. Their own distributaries have similarly degenerated, and except during the rains they have little or no current and they have become reaches of stagnant water choked by vegetation. Land is no longer being built up and as it is deprived of the natural manuring it used to receive the productive capacity of the soil has been reduced. In the east, however, the country watered by the Padma, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna is in active process of formation, for every year during the rains the rivers overflow their banks and leave their silt upon the adjacent flats. Thousands of square miles are annually enriched by a top-dressing of virgin soil—a system of natural manuring which renders elaborate tillage un necessary. During the annual inundation the rice fields to the extent of many hundreds of square miles are submerged. The country is then a sheet of water from which the village sites and scattered trees alone stand out.

Rivers.

The Ganges in its course through Bengal is known as the Padma and the Brahmaputra as the Jamuna. The other chief rivers are the Meghna, Tista, Damodar, Rupnarain and Hooghly. The Meghna bears the name of the Surma in the upper portion of its course. It receives the Padma, and with it the waters of both the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, between Narayanganj and Chandpur. It then expands into a broad estuary, which near the Bay of Bengal encloses two large islands Hatia and Dakshin Shahbazpur; the neighbouring island of Sandwip was probably formed by its silt. The Tista drains the state of Sikkim and, flow ing through North Bengal, joins the Brahmaputra in Rangpur district. It was formerly an affluent of the Ganges but deserted its old channel and cut out its present bed in 1787. The Damodar (368m. long) flows from Chota Nagpur through west Bengal and joins the Hooghly shortly before it falls into the sea. It drains an area of 2, 5oosq.m. and is liable to sudden floods : in 1913 it laid r,2oosq.m. in Bengal under water and destroyed or damaged the houses of 250,000 people. The Rupnarain is another river of western Bengal and also an affluent of the Hooghly. The Hooghly is simply a continuation of the Bhagirathi, that name being applied to the river in the last r 2om. of its course. Its importance as a highway of commerce is out of all proportion to its length.

Climate.

The climate is distinguished by high humidity caused by moist winds from the Bay of Bengal, especially during the rainy season. The proportion of vapour in the air then ranges from 83 to 88 (roo representing saturation). The western districts come within the range of hot west winds from the Gangetic valley, but they do not penetrate further. A maximum temperature of 117° has been recorded at Midnapore and Ban kura. In the province as a whole the annual mean varies from 80° at those two places to 75° at Jalpai guri. The coolest month is January, when the mean is 65°. The annual average rain fall varies from 5o to 75in. in west, south west and centre of Bengal, and from 75 to r loin. elsewhere, except at the foot of the Himalayas, where the fall is over 200 inches.

Cyclones from the Bay of Bengal occa sionally cause widespread disaster, espe cially if accompanied by a storm-wave. The cyclone of 1864 caused 48,000 deaths and that of 1876, with an awful storm wave, ioo,000. In more recent times the cyclone of 1919 killed over 3,00o persons and 40,000 cattle, besides doing enormous damage to property.

Geology.

Bengal is of little interest from a geological point of view, for the greater part of it is occupied by alluvial deposits. The bulk consists of new ium ; old alluvium is found in the Barind and the Madhupur jungle. The great thickness of the Gangetic alluvium is shown by a borehole at Calcutta, which was carried to a depth of 481 ft. without entering any marine deposit. The wana system of deposits is represented in the Burdwan and Bankura districts, where the Raniganj strata tain valuable coal measures, while ironstone shales yield iron ore. The People.—In respect of population no less than of physical geography Bengal is remarkably homogeneous, for 96% of the people belong to the distinctive Bengali races speaking the Bengali language. It draws largely on other parts of India for its labour force, and the immigrant population accounts for the presence of 1 millions speaking Hindi and Urdu. The province of Behar and Orissa alone sends i 4 million of its people to Bengal. Apart from immigrants, the constituents of the population other than indigenous Bengalis are few. The number of Arakanese speakers is 86,000 and of Nepalese 134,000, while the Tipperas and Chak mas, hill tribes in the southeast, number 191,00o and 89,000. Mohammedans, representing 54% of the population, outnumber the Hindus by 5-1 millions and account for one-third of the total number of Mohammedans in India. They are increasing more rapidly than the Hindus, and their religious life is stimulated by revivalist movements, notably in eastern Bengal, where in many parts one cannot travel a mile without seeing a mosque, often a humble structure of corrugated iron. Buddhism is the faith of 330,00o persons, mainly in the Chittagong division and Darjeeling. Christianity is professed by 183,00o persons. The country is densely populated considering its dependence on agriculture and the absence of large industries except in a few areas. The average density is 615 per sq.m. (compared with 684 in England and Wales) and rises to over i,000 in a rural block of 9,000sq.m. in eastern Bengal.

Agriculture.

The staple crop of the province is rice, which, being a semi-aquatic plant requiring a thin covering of water for successful growth, finds almost ideal conditions in Bengal. It is cultivated on four-fifths of the cropped area. There are three harvests in the year—the boro, or spring rice ; aus, or autumn rice ; and aman, or winter rice. Of these the last or winter rice is by far the most extensively cultivated and forms the great harvest of the year. In marshy areas a species is grown which is adapted to their peculiar conditions, for its growth keeps pace with the rise of the water. The stem grows to a height of i o to 2oft. and the grains are reaped from boats. Bengal is the most important rice-producing area in northern India and raises more than enough for local consumption, the balance being exported overseas and to other parts of India. On the other hand, the cultivation of pulses, which are grown on 7% of the area under food crops, is not sufficient for the needs of the people and large quantities have to be imported from Behar and the United Provinces. Bengal has almost a monopoly of jute cultivation, which yields an immensely valuable crop, as the sacks of the world are made from its fibre. The area devoted to it expands or contracts according to the market price, but the normal area is over two million acres. Oil seeds, such as rape. mustard and linseed, cover 12 million ac. and sugar cane 220,000 acres. Bengal is the chief tobacco-growing province in India; the plant is cultivated chiefly in Rangpur, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar ; the leaf supplies local demands and is also exported to Burma, where it is converted into the well-known Burma cheroots. Other special and valuable crops are cinchona, which is grown by Government for quinine manufacture in Darjeeling and the narcotic-producing hemp called ganja (Cannabis sativa), which is grown in a carefully regulated area in the Rajshahi district. Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts are important tea-producing districts with 30o tea gardens; tea is also grown on a small scale in Chittagong.

Manufactures and Mines.

There are three industrial areas in Bengal. The first is of a semi-agricultural character, consisting of the tea gardens of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri, which manu facture as well as grow tea. The second consists of the west of the Burdwan district, where metallurgical industries have been established in close proximity to the Raniganj coal field. This field, in which the first Indian coal mine was opened in 1821, was till 1905 the most important in India but since then has been surpassed by the Jharia field in Behar and Orissa. It extends into Bankura, Birbhum and Manbhum, and the Bengal portions had an output in 1921 of 42 million tons, raised in 268 mines. The iron ore found in the neighbourhood was first worked on a large scale in 1874. The largest pottery works in Bengal are also in this area. The third industrial tract is found along the banks of the Hooghly river, which are studded with tall factory chimneys. Here numerous manufacturing concerns are clustered together, such as jute mills, cotton mills, oil mills, flour mills, engineering workshops, etc. Jute is now the important manufacture in Ben gal, employing (1925) 300,000 operatives and consuming about two-thirds of the jute produced in the province.

Administration.

The administration of the province, or, as it is officially designated, the Presidency of Fort William in Ben gal, is conducted by a governor, acting in some branches with an executive council of three members and in others with two min isters. The legislative council consists of 139 members, of whom 113 are elected. For administrative purposes the province is divided into 27 districts, which are grouped in five divisions, each under a commissioner, viz., Burdwan, Presidency, Dacca, Chitta gong and Rajshahi.

Commerce.

The sea-borne trade of Bengal is almost entirely concentrated at Calcutta, which serves as the chief port, not only for Bengal but also for Assam, the United Provinces, and Behar and Orissa. The port of Chittagong is, in a minor degree, an outlet for the produce of Assam and of adjoining districts, but its trade is not comparable with that of Calcutta, which has prac tically a monopoly of the exports of jute and coal, and is the main distributing centre for imports brought from overseas. The principal imports are cotton piece goods, railway materials, metals and machinery, oils, sugar, cotton, twist and salt ; and the prin cipal exports are jute, tea, hides, rice, oil-seeds and lac. The inter-provincial trade is mostly carried on with Behar and Orissa, Assam, the United Provinces and the Central Provinces. The frontier trade of Bengal is registered with Nepal, Sikkim, Tibet and Bhutan, but except with Nepal the amount is insignificant. There are few commercial centres of any importance apart from Calcutta and Chittagong except those connected with the indus trial area in Burdwan, such as Asansol and Raniganj, and river marts connected with the jute collecting trade, such as Naray anganj, Madaripur and Chandpur. In the interior, most of the towns merely supply local needs, and much of the trade is trans acted in weekly or biweekly village markets.

Railways and Transport.

Bengal is well supplied with rail ways, of which three have the seaport of Calcutta as the centre of the system. The East Indian connects Bengal with northern India, the Bengal-Nagpur with the Central Provinces and Mad ras, and the Eastern Bengal State railway with Assam and, by connecting with the Bengal and north-western railway, with the north Gangetic districts of Behar and Orissa and the United Provinces. The Assam-Bengal railway, with its terminus at Chittagong, also links the south-east of the province with Assam.

Rivers and other waterways still carry a large part of the traffic of Bengal, especially in the delta. Inland steamer services ply along the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and other rivers, and eastern Bengal is connected with Calcutta by a route through the Sundar bans consisting of waterways and navigable channels (some arti ficial) of a total length of nearly 1,200 miles. In many parts of the provinces the rivers, streams and creeks are the natural means of communication; in eastern Bengal most villages can be reached by boats and some by boats alone.

The northern part of the province of Behar (q.v.) constituted the ancient kingdom of Magadha, the nucleus of the successive great empires of the Mauryas, Andhras and Guptas. Its chief town, Patna, is the ancient Pataliputra (the Palimbothra of the Greeks), once the capital of India. The Delta or southern part of Bengal lay beyond the ancient Sanskrit polity, and was gov erned by a number of local kings belonging to a pre-Aryan stock. The Chinese travellers, Fa Hien in the 5th century, and Hsiian Tsang in the 7th century, found the Buddhist religion prevailing throughout Bengal, but already in a fierce struggle with Hinduism, which ended about the 9th or loth century in the general establishment of the latter faith. Until the end of the i 2th century Hindu princes governed in a number of petty principalities, till, in 1199, Mohammed Bakhtiyar Khilji was appointed to lead the first Muslim invasion into Bengal. The Mohammedan conquest of Behar dates from A.D. From this time until 134o Bengal was ruled by governors appointed by the Mohammedan emperors. From 134o to 1539 its governors asserted a precarious independence. From 154o to 1S76 Bengal passed under the rule of the Pathan or Afghan dynasty but on the overthrow of this house by Akbar, Bengal was incorporated into the Mogul empire, and administered by governors appointed by the Delhi emperor, until the treaties of 1765, which placed Bengal, Behar and Orissa under the administration of the East India Company. The company formed its earliest settlements in Bengal in the first half of the 17th century. In 1696 factors purchased from the grandson of Aurangzeb the villages which have since grown up into Calcutta. During the next so years the British had a long and hazardous struggle alike with the Mogul governors of the province and the Mahratta armies which invaded it. In 1756 this struggle culminated in the great outrage known as the Black Hole of Calcutta, followed by Clive's battle of Plassey and capture of Calcutta, which avenged it. During the subsequent years of confused fighting, British military supremacy was established in Bengal, and procured the treaties of 1765, by which the provinces of Bengal, Behar and Orissa passed under British administration. Warren Hastings (1772-85) consolidated the British power and Lord Teignmouth (I 786-93) formed a regular system of Anglo-Indian legislation. The landholders under the native system had started, for the most part, as collectors of the revenues, and gradually acquired certain prescriptive rights as quasi-proprietors of the estates entrusted to them by the Government. In 1793 Lord Cornwallis declared their rights perpetual (the Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue). But the Cornwallis code, while defining the rights of the pro prietors, failed to give adequate recognition to the rights of the under-tenants, and the cultivators. After half a century of rural disquiet, the rights of the cultivators were at length carefully formulated by Act X. of 1859. This measure, now known as the land law of Bengal, effected for the rights of the under holders and cultivators what the Cornwallis code in 1793 had effected for those of the superior landholders. In Bengal the Indian Mutiny (q.v.) began at Barrackpore, was communicated to Dacca in Eastern Bengal, and for a time raged in Behar, producing the memorable defence of the billiard-room at Arrah by a handful of civilians and Sikhs. Since 1858, when the country passed to the crown, the history of Bengal has been one of steady progress. Five great lines of railway have been constructed, and the coalfields and iron ores have opened up prospects of still further internal development.

During the decade 18gI-1go' Bengal escaped the rigours of the famine and plague which afflicted central and western India, though there was a serious outbreak of plague at Calcutta, and in Patna in 1 goo—I. The earthquake of June 12, 1897, which had its centre of disturbance in Assam, was felt throughout Eastern and northern Bengal. Far more destructive to life was the cyclone and storm-wave that broke over Chittagong district on the night of Oct. 24, 1897. Apart from damage to shipping and buildings, the low-lying lands along the coast were completely submerged, and in many villages half the inhabitants were drowned. The loss of human lives was reported to be about 14,000. In 19os it was realized that Bengal had become too unwieldy for the administration of a single lieutenant-governor and the province was divided, in spite of bitter Hindu oppo sition. All the districts east of the Brahmaputra were constituted as a separate province (Eastern Bengal), and as a protest there was a firm boycott of British goods and demonstrations by the "National Volunteers" were common.

When Sir J. Bampfylde Fuller took up the administration as first lieutenant-governor of Eastern Bengal the usual addresses of welcome were omitted and Hindus abstained from paying the customary calls. After six months, however, it seemed as though things were settling down and it became obvious that the earlier agitation was largely artificial. In August, however, the lieutenant governor resigned owing to a difference with the central govern ment. Acting on a report of Dr. P. Chatterji, inspector of schools, dated Jan. 2, 1 906, the lieutenant-governor, on Feb. io addressed a letter to the registrar of Calcutta university recommending that the privilege of affiliation to the university should be with drawn from the Banwarilal and Victoria high schools at Sirajganj in Pabna, as a punishment for the seditious conduct of both pupils and teachers. Apart from numerous cases of illegal inter ference with trade and of disorder in the streets reported against the students, two specific outrages had occurred on Nov. 15: the raiding of a cart laden with English cloth belonging to Marwari traders, and a cowardly assault by some 4o or 5o lads on the English manager of the Bank of Bengal. All attempts to discover and punish the offenders had been frustrated by the refusal of the school authorities to take action. The secretary of the home department of the Government of India, however, refused to support Sir Bampfylde Fuller, who at once tendered his resignation (July I 5), which was accepted by the viceroy on Aug. 3. By the Anglo-Indian press the news was received with something like consternation, the Times of India describing the resignation as one of the gravest blunders ever committed in the history of British rule in India, and as a direct incentive to the forces of disquiet, disturbance and unrest. On Aug. 7 the day of Sit Bampfylde Fuller's departure from Dacca, a mass meeting of 30,00o Mohammedans was held, which placed on record their disapproval of a system of government "which main tains no continuity of policy," and expressed its feeling that the lowering of British prestige must "alienate the sympathy of a numerically important and loyal section of His Majesty's subjects." On Aug. 8, Calcutta was the scene of several large demonstrations at which the Swadeshi vow was renewed, and at which resolutions were passed declining to accept the parti tion as a settled fact, and resolving on the continuance of the agitation.

In 1 g 1 o the Government of the remainder of Bengal with Behar and Orissa was placed in the hands of the lieutenant-gover nor in council (three members). In accordance with the Govern ment of India Act (Iqig), the administration was, in 1921, vested in the governor with four executive councillors, two being Indians, for the "reserved" subjects, and in the governor with three Indian ministers for the "transferred" subjects. By an act of 1923, the Calcutta corporation was reconstituted with a mayor, chief execu tive officer and other officials, all of whom are elected by the corporation. (See CALCUTTA, BEHAR, ASSAM and INDIA : History, ad fin.) See C. E. Buckland, Bengal under the Lieutenant-Governors (igoi) ; Sir James Bourdillon, The Partition of Bengal (Society of Arts, i9o5) ; official blue-books on The Reconstitution of the Provinces of Bengal and Assam (Cd. 2658 and 2746), and Resignation of Sir J. Bampfylde Fuller, lieutenant-governor, etc. (Cd. 3242) ; L. J. S. O'Malley, History of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa under British Rule (1925).