Greater Bangladesh
Conspiracy theory about an expanded Bangladesh From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Greater Bangladesh (Bengali: বৃহত্তর বাংলাদেশ, romanized: Brihôttôr Bangladesh;[1] among other names, see below) is a conspiracy theory that Bangladesh has aspirations of territorial expansion in the Bengal region, to include the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and parts of Assam as part of its own territory in the years to come.[2][3][4][5]
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It has especially been popularized by leaders of the Indian Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, who allege that Bengali Hindu regions in India are being Islamised and becoming more similar or amenable to integration with Bangladesh through illegal immigration and political maneuvering.[6][7][8][9][10]
It is also reportedly advocated as an irredentist concept by some Islamist militant groups in Bangladesh, whose claims further extend into northeastern India. Mahfuj Alam, an adviser in the government of Bangladesh, drew controversy on 16 December 2024 with a Facebook post that showed northeastern India and parts of the Indian state of West Bengal as part of Bangladesh while declaring the need for "a new geography and system" and claiming that the cultures of northeastern India and Bangladesh had been suppressed in India.[11][12][13] The post was later deleted and faced criticism from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.[13][14]
Names
It is known by various names in Bengali: বৃহত্তর বাংলাদেশ, romanized: Brihôttôr Bangladesh;[1] বৃহৎ বাংলাদেশ, Brihôt Bangladesh;[15] মহাবাংলাদেশ, Môhabangladesh;[16] বড় বাঙ্গালা, Boro Bangala and বিশাল বাংলা, Bishal Bangla.[17]
Background
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After the Battle of Plassey, the Bengal region became an administrative division of British India with Bengal's capital Calcutta acting as the Indian capital. The Bengal Presidency was formed in 1765, and in 1905, the presidency was divided into Bengal province and Eastern Bengal and Assam province. Assam and the Lushai Hills became part of the Province of Assam in 1912. In 1912, Bengal was separated into two states of the British empire after the Indian independence movement began to arise. These new provinces were Bihar and Orissa and East Bengal and Assam. These provinces were partitioned again in 1947 into the Hindu-majority West Bengal and Muslim-majority East Bengal (now Bangladesh) to facilitate the creation of the separate Muslim state of Pakistan, of which East Bengal became a province.[18]
Partition of Bengal (1905)
During the 1905 partition of Bengal - when the ruling British Raj had the province of Bengal (of undivided India) split into two parts, many Bengali intellectuals joined cultural and political movement against the partition. The partition took place in October 1905 and separated the largely Muslim eastern areas from the largely Hindu western areas. The Hindus of western Bengal who dominated Bengal's business and rural life complained that the division would make them a minority in a province that would incorporate the Bihar and Orissa Province. It was during this time the Mother Bengal was an immensely popular theme in Bengali patriotic songs and poems and was mentioned in several of them, such as the song "Dhana Dhanya Pushpa Bhara" and "Banga Amar Janani Amar" (Our Bengal Our Mother) by Dwijendralal Ray. These songs were meant to rekindle the unified spirit of Bengal, to raise public consciousness against the communal political divide.
Partition of Bengal (1947)
The partition of Bengal in 1947, part of the partition of India, divided the British Indian province of Bengal based on the Radcliffe Line between the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The Hindu-majority West Bengal became a state of India, and the Muslim-majority East Bengal (now Bangladesh) became a province of Pakistan.
On 20 June 1947, the Bengal Legislative Assembly met to decide the future of the Bengal Presidency on being a United Bengal within India or Pakistan or divided into East and West Bengal. At the preliminary joint session, the assembly decided by 120-90 that it should remain united if it joined the new Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. Later, a separate meeting of legislators from West Bengal decided 58-21 that the province should be partitioned and that West Bengal should join the existing Constituent Assembly of India. In another separate meeting of legislators from East Bengal, it was decided 106-35 that the province should not be partitioned and 107-34 that East Bengal should join Pakistan in the event of Partition.
On 6 July 1947, the Sylhet referendum decided to sever Sylhet from Assam and merge it into East Bengal.
The partition, with power transferred to Pakistan and India on 14–15 August 1947, was done according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan, or the Mountbatten Plan. Indian independence, on 15 August 1947, ended over 150 years of British influence in the Indian subcontinent. East Bengal became the independent country of Bangladesh after the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
United Bengal
In January 1947, Sarat Chandra Bose resigned from the Indian National Congress, partially in protest against the partition of Bengal. He called for an independent state of Bengal separate from both India and Pakistan.[19] Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Abul Hashem, two Bengali leaders of the Muslim League, also advocated for an independent state of Bengal comprising both the eastern and western parts of Bengal (now Bangladesh and West Bengal, respectively).[20]
Mohammad Akram Khan and Khawaja Nazimuddin, two other Muslim League leaders, wanted a United Bengal as part of Pakistan. Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha and Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of Bharatiya Jana Sangh which later was succeeded by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), opposed the idea of an independent Bengal or a United Bengal.[21] Hindu Mahashabha and Mookerjee were concerned about Bose and Suhrawardy discussing a sovereign state of Bengal. Jawaharlal Nehru, then a leader of the majority faction of the Congress, was opposed to a United Bengal unless it was a part of India.[22] Post Bangladeshi independence, Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani had advocated for the merger of Assam, West Bengal and Tripura into Bangladesh as a registration of protest against the Indo-Bangla Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Peace.[23]
Conspiracy theories
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At the turn of the 21st century, Indian political circles started to take a serious look at Bangladeshi illegal immigration into India.[2] Achieving a "Greater Bangladesh" as Lebensraum (additional living space) is alleged to be the reason for large-scale illegal immigration from Bangladesh into India's states.[3] Similarly it is alleged that illegal immigration is actively encouraged by some political groups in Bangladesh as well as the state of Bangladesh to convert large parts of India's northeastern states, particularly Assam and West Bengal into Muslim-majority areas that would subsequently seek to separate from India and join Muslim-majority Bangladesh.[3] The proposition is that the state of Bangladesh is pursuing a territorial design seeking a Lebensraum for its teeming population and trying to establish a Greater Bangladesh.[2] There also is an alleged parallel threat of turning Assam into a part of a Greater West Bengal.[24]
Bangladesh denies that encouraging migration is its state policy.[25][2] The figures of Bangladeshi migrants in India might be too far-fetched to accord the theory any credence.[25] Conspiracy theorists also fail to comprehend that supporting rebels in a plot to carve out a Greater Bangladesh would bring very little strategic dividend to Bangladesh.[25][26] According to Jyoti M. Pathania of the South Asia Analysis Group, the reasons for Bangladeshi immigration to India are: basic need theory i.e. food, shelter and clothing, economic dictates i.e. employment opportunity, better wages and comparatively better living conditions, demographic disproportion especially for minorities (Hindus) in this densely populated country having roughly a density of 780 per km2 as against half that number on Indian side of the border, and being cheap labor the Bangladeshis find easy acceptance as "domestic helps" in Indian homes, which keeps proliferating by ever increasing demand for domestic helps.[27]
Sinha Report
In 1998, Lieutenant General Srinivas Kumar Sinha, then the Governor of Assam, wrote a report to K.R. Narayanan, then the President of India claiming that massive illegal immigration from Bangladesh was directly linked with "the long-cherished design of Greater Bangladesh," and also quoted pre-1971 comments from late Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and late President of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman endorsing the inclusion of Assam into East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).[3][28] Anxiety and popular anger over illegal immigration increased political unrest and criticism in the state of Assam, over the Indian government's failure to secure its borders with Bangladesh and stop illegal immigration.[3][28]
Militant groups
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Accoding to Indian journalists and security analysts, militant Islamist groups from Bangladesh seek the expansion of Bangladeshi hegemony in northeastern India, including the states of Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura, as well as the Arakan Province of Burma (Myanmar), where there is a considerable population of Rohingya Muslims, through the creation of a Greater Bangladesh.[1][3][29] Bangladesh has been under pressure from India to curb immigration which is perceived as a source of insurgency in northeastern India.[25]
In 2002, nine Islamic groups including Indian militant organizations Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA), Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA) and Muslim Volunteer Force (MVF), Pakistani militant organization Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), Myanmar groups Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) and Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front of Myanmar (ARIFM), and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh formed a coalition that declared the formation Greater Bangladesh as one of their aims.[1][30]
After the 2014 Burdwan blast, it was reported that the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, and other militant groups such as the Ansarullah Bangla Team and Al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent had plans to establish a Greater Bangladesh.[31]
See also
Quotations related to Greater Bangladesh at Wikiquote- Nellie massacre, 1983 massacre of Bengali Muslims caused by fears of illegal migration
- Illegal immigration to India
- Bangladesh–India border
- Love jihad conspiracy theory
References
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