A centre of rice cultivation as well as fine cotton called Muslins[?] and the world's main source of jute[?] fibre, from the 1850s Bengal became one of India's principal centres of industry, concentrated in the capital Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) and its emerging cluster of suburbs. Most of the population nevertheless remained dependent on agriculture, and despite its leading role in Indian political and intellectual activity, the province included some exceptionally undeveloped districts, especially in the east.
India's most populous province, in 1905 Bengal was divided for administrative purposes into an overwhelmingly Hindu west (including present-day Bihar and Orissa) and a predominantly Muslim east (including Assam). Indian nationalists saw the move as a means of sowing disunity within a Bengali population united by language and history, and following a violent agitation the partition was reversed in 1912.
As partition of British India into Hindu and Muslim dominions approached in 1947, Bengal was again split along much the same lines as in 1905, into the Indian state of West Bengal and region of East Bengal[?] under Pakistan(later renamed East Pakistan in 1958). East Pakistan(East Bengal) later rebelled against Pakistani military rule to become independent republlic of Bangladesh or literally "Bengal Land" following a war of independence against the Pakistani army in (December 1971).
Bengal has experienced two devastating famines costing millions of lives, in 1770 and 1943. But the resillient people of Bengal has been able to rise above such disasters to rebuild their land in the fashion the noble leturate Bengali poet Tagore's description of the country as the "Golden Bengal".
See also: Bengali language - Bengali cuisine[?] -
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