Opinion All Bengal Day versus West Bengal Day: The history and politics of Bengali sub-nationalism
The declaration and consequent celebration of West Bengal Day to remember the separation of the Legislative Assembly of Bengal into two wings — East Bengal and West Bengal on June 20, 1947 — goes against the idea of All Bengal Day. Bengalis never commemorated West Bengal Day but lamented its tragic consequences
The Bengal Pact of 1923 was the final attempt to unite Bengali Hindus and Muslims initiated by Chittaranjan Das. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) 
Two thousand agitated people gathered in Shraddhananda Park, Calcutta, on March 29, 1939, under the leadership of Tulsi Charan Goswami, a major leader in the Bengal Legislative Assembly, accompanied by Ashrafuddin Ahmad Chawdhury, General Secretary of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee (BPCC) and Hemanta Kumar Bose, Secretary of the North Calcutta Congress Committee. The source of this outrage was Bengal’s resentment over the “unconstitutional” and “undemocratic” repression by “right-wing” leaders of the Congress, including Mahatma Gandhi and G B Pant, during the Tripuri Congress session. In the session, Subhas Bose was elected party president but was made to give up the post after interventions by Gandhi and others. Amidst this uproar, Bengali Congress leaders like Atul Chandra Kumar, and Lakshmi Kanta Maitra continued condemning the rightist Congress leaders for their coercive methods and attacking anti-Subhas/pro-Gandhi factional leaders like Prafulla Chandra Ghosh as traitors. Sarat Chandra Bose, brother of Subhas, began considering M N Roy’s suggestion that the Bengal Congress must sever its connection with the All India Congress Committee (AICC). They floated the idea of getting out of the influence of the non-Bengali leaders of AICC concerning the politics and policies related to Bengal with the support of Bengali Muslims. A resolution to recognise April 2, 1939, as ‘All Bengal Day’ was conceived and eventually passed in the gathering at the Shraddhananda Park based on the discussion of the Tripuri injustice.
The Bengal Pact of 1923 was the final attempt to unite Bengali Hindus and Muslims initiated by Chittaranjan Das. Nevertheless, as it was established that Bengal was a province with a Muslim majority, the “sub-nationalist” fervour began to wane. Abul Mansur Ahmed, in his autobiography Amar Dakha Rajnitir Ponchash Bochhar (‘The Fifty Years of Politics I have Witnessed’) argued that latent Islamophobia was the key reason for the change in tone of the urban-Hindu-upper caste bhadralok discourse. In essence, it went from “sub-national” to “national” speech, and the latter carried a definite Hindu undertone. The declaration of All Bengal Day was perhaps united Bengal’s last attempt at “sub-nationalist” pride, given that the Muslim League failed to win a single seat in the 1937 elections.
The 1940s were a bad decade for Bengal. Fazlul Haq’s Krishak Praja Party (KPP) was unable to form an alliance with the Congress and got support from the Muslim League. Soon, the League seized power, which prompted the communalisation of the lower classes. The communalisation of the relief by the Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha after the 1943 famine was a precursor to what would follow in Bengal politics. The Great Calcutta Killing of 1946, as a result of the Muslim League’s call on Direct Action Day, was the final straw.
Bengal Congress leaders like Sarat Chandra Bose, Bidhan Chandra Roy and Kiran Shankar Roy continued to believe in the feasibility of an Undivided Bengal Scheme with the support provided by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Abul Hashim of the Muslim League. But it was too late. M A Jinnah disagreed with Suhrawardy. That was something both the League and AICC were unwilling to accept. In the hope that a free Bengal would join the British Commonwealth, Suhrawardy even invited Kiran Shankar Roy to join the government. But Syama Prasad Mookerjee opposed the Undivided Bengal Scheme while the Forward Bloc and Communist Party of India backed it. However, the “sub-nationalist” tone of Kiran Shankar Roy and Sarat Chandra Bose failed to stem the flood of communalism.
Coupled with radical sectarian politics, Bengal’s last opportunity at “sub-nationality” was destroyed before Partition.
Bengal after independence, or perhaps we should say West Bengal after Partition, has always rung with the broken hope of “Bengaliness”. M N Roy’s idea, conveyed to Sarat Chandra Bose in 1939, was fulfilled in 1967 when Ajay Mukherjee founded the Bangla Congress and partnered with the Left Front. Prafulla Chandra Ghosh, who had backed a right-wing Gandhian position against Subhas Chandra Bose, ironically became the last Chief Minister with a centripetal inclination. Since then, Bengali politics under the Left and now the TMC has retained a hint of the sub-national tendency. Given Congress’s national character, the Left and TMC kept alive Bengali identity. In fact, the Left in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura aimed to embrace a “sub-nationalist” tone to win elections, despite their frequently-touted internationalist outlook.
Bengaliness has been more overtly articulated in the TMC’s political rhetoric and its “vernacular secularism”. This is partly because it does not have an interest in national administration like the Congress or BJP. For instance, Narendra Modi portrayed himself in 2002 as the personification of “Gujarati Asmita” — a sub-national figure — following the tradition of Chimanbhai Patel. As Prime Minister, Modi was able to transform into ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat’ thanks to the Hinduisation of Gujarati sub-nationalism. After the 2021 assembly election, when Modi said that BJP lost against Bengali Asmita, it became clear that he was aware of the state’s sub-national consciousness.
So, is the Bengal BJP using the Gujarat model to convert sub-nationalism into Hindu nationalism? ‘West Bengal Day’ appears to be evidence of this. The declaration and consequent celebration of West Bengal Day to remember the separation of the Legislative Assembly of Bengal into two wings — East Bengal and West Bengal on June 20, 1947 — goes against the idea of All Bengal Day.
Bengalis never commemorated West Bengal Day but lamented its tragic consequences.
The writer is associate professor of History, Diamond Harbour Women’s University, Kolkata
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