Timeline
16 October 1905
The partition took effect on under a notification that created the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam (capital Dacca), with a Muslim majority of rough…
7 August 1905
The partition catalysed the Swadeshi Movement and the Boycott Movement, formally inaugurated at a meeting in the Calcutta Town Hall on , where the boycott of…
30 December 1906
The agitation simultaneously sharpened communal lines: the partition's perceived benefit to East Bengal Muslims contributed to the founding of the All-India…
12 December 1911
Sustained protest, revolutionary violence and the political costs led the British to annul the partition on at the Delhi Durbar, when King George V announce…
Positions at a glance
Indian National Congress
The partition catalysed the Swadeshi Movement and the Boycott Movement, formally inaugurated at a meeting in the Calcutta Town Hall on 7 August 1905, where the boycott of British goods was resolved. Rabindranath Tagore composed Amar Sonar Bangla (later Bangladesh's national anthem) and proposed Raksha Bandhan as a symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity. Leaders including Surendranath Banerjee, Bipin Chandra Pal, Aurobindo Ghosh and the Lal-Bal-Pal triumvirate channelled the agitation into wider demands, while the movement also spawned revolutionary terrorism through groups such as Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar. The Swadeshi phase encouraged indigenous enterprise—the Bengal National College (1906) and Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works among them—and shifted the Indian National Congress toward more assertive politics, exposing the Moderate–Extremist rift that culminated in the Surat Split of 1907.
All-India Muslim League
The agitation simultaneously sharpened communal lines: the partition's perceived benefit to East Bengal Muslims contributed to the founding of the All-India Muslim League at Dacca on 30 December 1906 under the Nawab of Dhaka (Salimullah), and shaped the demand for separate electorates conceded in the Morley-Minto Reforms (Indian Councils Act, 1909). Sustained protest, revolutionary violence and the political costs led the British to annul the partition on 12 December 1911 at the Delhi Durbar, when King George V announced both the reunification of Bengal and the transfer of the imperial capital from Calcutta to Delhi—the latter partly to insulate the Raj from Bengali agitation. Bihar and Orissa were carved out as a separate province and Assam reverted to a Chief Commissionership. Many Muslims regarded the annulment as a betrayal, a grievance that deepened separatist sentiment.
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Viceroy Lord Curzon implemented the Partition of Bengal on 16 October 1905, prompting Rabindranath Tagore to lead a Raksha Bandhan procession in Calcutta symbolising Hindu-Muslim solidarity against the division.
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