The 1905 Partition of Bengal

Bengal was India's largest presidency, stretching into areas now in Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Assam. Viceroy Curzon proposed to partition (divide) it.

The official reason was better administration. The chapter names the real one: 'divide and rule', a split between Bengal's largely Muslim eastern part and largely Hindu western part.

The plan was widely opposed, and Curzon announced it anyway in 1905. Leaders including Rabindranath Tagore, Surendranath Banerjee, Bipin Chandra Pal and Ashwini Kumar Dutt united people across communities against what they saw as an attack on their identity and unity.

It had two results. The first was expected: a sharper division between communities, with most Muslim leaders defending the partition, drawn by Curzon's promises of development in East Bengal and more government posts.

The second was not in the colonial plan at all.

Calcutta filled with meetings, processions and rallies, often joined by students. Vande Mataram was sung in the streets, until the authorities banned singing it in public. People tied rakhis on each other's wrists as a symbol of Hindu–Muslim unity, answering the British division with its opposite.

Two kinds of mass action came out of it: Swadeshi ('of one's own country') and boycott. Foreign goods were burnt in street bonfires, and wearing Indian-spun and woven cloth became a symbol of self-reliance. The boycott also targeted British schools, colleges and courts, but its effect there was limited, because India's own institutions were not yet ready to take their place.

Swadeshi was not brand new. Jamsetji Tata's Swadeshi Mills came in 1886, the Punjab National Bank in 1895 with only Indian capital, and Prafulla Chandra Ray's Bengal Chemicals in 1901, all aimed at breaking the British hold on business.