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The Making and Unmaking of Assam-Bengal Borders and the Sylhet Referendum*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2012

ASHFAQUE HOSSAIN
ASHFAQUE HOSSAIN*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Dhaka Email: ashfaq@univdhaka.edu
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Abstract

The creation of Assam as a new province in 1874 and the transfer of Sylhet from Bengal to Assam provided a new twist in the shaping of the northeastern region of India. Sylhet remained part of Assam from 1874 to 1947, which had significant consequences in this frontier locality. This paper re-examines archival sources on political mobilization, rereads relevant autobiographical texts, and reviews oral evidence to discover the ‘experienced’ history of the region as distinct from the ‘imagined’ one. The sub-text of partition (Sylhet) is more intriguing than the main text (Bengal), because events in Sylhet offer us a micro-level study. Generations of historians—writing mostly in Bengali and relying on colonial archives—have tended to overlook the mindset of the people of Sylhet. This paper, on the basis of an examination of combined sources, argues that the new province was implicated in overlapping histories, across Bengal-Assam borders. The voice of the indigenous—mostly Hindus but partly Muslim—elites were dominant from 1874 onwards. However, the underdogs—particularly ‘pro-Pakistani’ dalits (lower-caste Hindus) and madrasa-educated ‘pro-Indian’ maulvis—emerged as crucial players in the referendum of 1947. Hardly any serious study, however, has focused on the Sylhet referendum—a defining moment in the region. This study of the Sylhet referendum will reveal a new dimension to the multiple responses to these issues and provide a glimpse of the ‘communal psyche’ of the people in this frontier district, rather than a binary opposition between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ forces.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , January 2013 , pp. 250 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

I am immensely indebted to the anonymous reviewers whose critical comments made it possible to put my arguments into proper perspective. This revised version of the paper was read by Professor Colin Heywood, Professor Fakrul Alam, and Dr Iftekhar Iqbal whose comments were also much appreciated. All limitations of course are mine.

References

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10 Haji Mohammed Younus, interviewed in Goodmayes, Essex, 12 April 2008, and Abul Mal Abdul Muhith, interviewed in West London, June 2008. Haji Mohammed Younus also showed me some family papers on land tax in the 1940s. Both were active campaigners in the Sylhet referendum. Muhith is now the finance minster of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. Sadly Haji Mohammed Younus died just two days after his interview took place.

11 I was the principal investigator in an oral history project on the life history of Dewan Mohammed Azrof in 1996. Abdul Gaffur, now a banker, was also an investigator. While preparing this paper, I reread these interviews, which are still unpublished. The two of us undertook many interviews that are still fresh in my memory.

12 Major General (retired) C. R. Dutta was interviewed in Dhaka, November 1997. In 1997, I published a book on resistance movements, focusing on the Liberation War of Bangladesh, which took place in Moulvibazar district, one out of four districts of Sylhet. Numerous interviews, including one with Major General Dutta, were conducted in that period.

13 Nurul Islam was interviewed at 32 Gibson Road, Dagenham, London, on 14 October 2006 and on 2 January 2007. Born in 1930 in Sylhet, he is a writer who wrote the first vernacular history of the Sylhetis abroad. He can discuss the living history (eyewitness tales) of his community under three flags—the late British period, the Pakistani period, and the Bangladeshi period. Islam's two maternal uncles went to Calcutta to become seamen and one of them died in the Second World War. Islam, Nurul, Probashir Kotha (The Tale of the Immigrants), Probashi Publications, Sylhet, 1989Google Scholar.

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24 In fact, Assam came under British rule for the first time in the 1820s—before that Sylhet was last eastern frontier of the British Raj. The Anglo-Burmese War in 1824 and the victorious British treaty of Yandaboo signed in 1826 resulted in the shifting of the colonial boundary.

25 Pal, Memories of My Life and Times, p. 1.

26 Islam interviews, London, 2006, 2007.

27 Bhuyia, Abdul Musabbir, Jalalabadi Nagri: A Unique Script and Literature of Sylheti Bangla, Jalalabadi Press, Badarpur, Assam, 1999Google Scholar.

28 This script has 32 letters with no conjunctions and evolved between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Moulvi Abdul Karim, an eminent Sylheti educationist, designed the typeface in the1860s and printed texts appeared in the 1870s. This helped to spread the uses of the script. By the early twentieth century there were three presses, one in Calcutta and two in Sylhet. By the 1950s the script had become almost extinct.

29 Allen, B. C., Assam District Gazeeters: Sylhet, Government of Assam, Calcutta, 1905, Vol. II, p. 74Google Scholar.

30 Basu, Nagandra Nath, The Social History of Kamrupa, Northern Book Centre, Calcutta, 1983, Vol. III, pp. 139–40Google Scholar.

31 Bhuyia, Jalalabadi Nagri, pp. 2–5.

32 The Bengali associations in Britain, led by Sylhetis, acted as agencies for raising political consciousness from the 1950s. In the late 1960s Shiekh Mujibur Rahman was arrested by the Pakistani military rulers and expatriate Sylhetis set up a Sheikh Mujib Defence Fund and sent Sir Thomas Williams, QC, to Dhaka to argue for the defence. In 1970, the first foreign branch of the Awami League was formed in the Britain and Ghous Khan was elected as the president and Taybur Rahman as secretary, both of whom were Sylhetis. In 1971, London became the outside hub of the Bangladesh freedom struggle. See Ashfaque Hossain, ‘Historical Globalization and its Impact: A Study of Sylhet and its People, 1874 to 1971’, PhD thesis, University of Nottingham, 2010, pp. 142–52. Sarah Glynn, ‘The Home and the World: Bengali Political Mobilization in London's East End and a Comparison with the Jews’ Past’, PhD thesis, University College, London, 2003. Gardner, Katy, Global Migrants, Local Lives: Travel and Transformation in Rural Bangladesh, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995Google Scholar.

33 Lindsay, Robert, Anecdotes of an Indian Life, Oriental Miscellanies, British Library, London, 1840, Vol. IV, pp. 98–99Google Scholar. Lindsay was the administrator in Sylhet from 1788 to 1790. His autobiography provides important information on the region. David Ludden argued that merchants brought cowries from the Maldives to Chittagong and Calcutta, stored them in Dhaka, and carried them to Sylhet by water and returned downstream with rice, fish, and upland products. See Ludden, ‘The First Boundary of Bangladesh’, pp. 14–15.

34 Shankar (whose real name is Mukherjee, Mani Shankar) is a popular writer in the Bengali language. Shankar, Banga Basundhara [Bengal and World], Dey's Publishing, Calcutta, 1999, pp. 294–95Google Scholar. The Sylhetis’ seafaring traditions stretched back at least two centuries, and evidence suggests that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were groups of Sylheti men in London's East End, Liverpool, Cardiff, and other port cites. See Hossain, ‘Historical Globalization and its Impact’, pp.142–55.

35 Shamim Azad, interviewed in Grants Hill, Essex, 6 April 2008.

36 Hossain, ‘Historical Globalization and its Impact’, p. 5.

37 Chaudhury, Smriti and Pratiti, pp. 132–33.

38 Proceedings of the Assam Legislative Council (henceforth PALC), Shillong, August 1924, Assam Gazette, Part IV, p. 568.

39 National Archives of Bangladesh (hereafter NAB), No. Pol-1917-5585. Details were given in The Letter of the Government of Assam, dated 30 October 1924.

40 India Office Records (hereafter IOR), L/P&J/9/59, pp. 30–31.

41 Baruah, Sanjib, India Against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1999, p. 59Google Scholar.

42 Baruah, India Against Itself, p. 40.

43 PALC, August 1924, p. 569. Also see IOR/L/P&J/9/59, p. 31.

44 IOR/L/P&J/9/59, p.12.

45 PALC, August 1924, p. 568.

46 PALC, August 1924, pp. 572–73.

47 PALC, August 1924, pp. 569–70.

48 Bhuyan, Arun Chandraet al., Political History of Assam 1920–1939, Government of Assam, Guwahati, 1978, Vol. 2, p. 292Google Scholar.

49 PALC, August 1924, p. 570.

50 PALC, August 1924, pp. 586–87.

51 PALC, August 1924, p. 589.

52 PALC, January 1926, p. 126.

53 PALC, January 1926, p. 41. In the 1920s, Muhammad Saadulla was the education minster of Assam. He was later knighted and after 1935 served as Assam's prime minister for three terms.

54 PALC, January 1926, p. 60.

55 PALC, January 1926, pp. 27–28.

56 PALC, January 1926, pp. 26–27.

57 Ali, Mahmud, Resurgent Assam, National Press, Dhaka, 1967, p. 93Google Scholar.

58 Shibly, Atful Hye, Abdul Matin Chaudhury: Trusted Lieutenant of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Dhaka, Juned A Choudhury, 2011, pp. 161–66Google Scholar.

59 IOR/L/PJ/9/59, p. 13.

60 IOR/L/PJ/9/59, p. 23.

61 Richard Austen Butler became the under-secretary of state for India in 1932 and after a period at the Ministry of Labour, he became an under-secretary at the Foreign Office. He was chancellor of exchequer from 1951 to 1955.

62 IOR/L/P&J/9/59, p. 1.

63 IOR/L/P&J/9/59, p. 2.

64 IOR/V/11/976. Letter from the government of Assam, No. Pol.-1917 -5585, 30 October 1924. This letter was included in Appendix A, PALC, January 1926, p. 53.

65 Foley, E. G., The Surma Valley Magazine, 1 (9), 1927, p. 17Google Scholar. Foley wrote that in the 1920s his father opened Kewacherra garden for H. C. Sutherland, the deputy commissioner in Sylhet. Another example is John Henry Kerr, a noted Indian Civil Service officer, who was the son of John Smith Kerr, a tea merchant from Scotland. He joined the Service in 1892, was the chief secretary to the government of Bengal in 1915, and governor of Assam from 1922–27.

66 Cotton, Indian and Home Memories, p. 275.

67 Cotton, Indian and Home Memories, p. 276.

68 Letter from C. Gimson, Esq., I.C.S. Deputy Commissioner, Sylhet to the Commissioner, Surma Valley and Hill Divisions, No. 5451R, dated Sylhet, 24 June 1925. The Gimson letter was included in Appendix A, PALC, January 1926, pp. 62–63.

69 PALC, January 1926, p. 62.

70 The Assam Review, November 1928, p. 144. G. P. Stewart, district commissioner of Sylhet in the 1930s, observed, ‘Sylhet town was a large Indian town. The district of Sylhet was the biggest in Assam. . . throughout the District in almost all of the tea gardens the Managers, Assistant Managers and Engineers are Europeans, and this meant that in Sylhet Town, there was a much frequented Europeans Tea Planters Club.’ See Stewart, The Rough and the Smooth, p. 35.

71 Shah Jalal, the mystic Sufi of the subcontinent in the fourteenth century, ushered a new era for Sylhet and northeastern India. Sri Chaitanya grew up in Sylhet in his maternal grandparents’ house and was famous in the Anti-caste Movement.

72 Hossain, ‘Historical Globalization and its Impact’, pp. 75–76.

73 The Census Report of India, Vol. IX, 1941, Assam, pp. 38–41.

74 IOR/R/3/1/158, pp. 4–5. Liaquat Ali Khan's letter to Lord Mountbatten.

75 IOR/R/3/1/158, p 55.

76 Government of India, Annual Report on Inland Emigration to the Districts of Assam, Cachar and Sylhet during the year ended 31 March 1876 (Calcutta, 1877), p. 4.

77 Government of Bengal, Annual Report on Inland Emigration for the Year 1889 (Calcutta, 1890), p. 4.

78 Report of the Twelfth Indian National Congress Meeting held at Calcutta, 28 to 31 December 1896. See NAB, A Proceedings, Political (Home) 1896, Bundle No. 1.

79 Roy, Janmjit, ‘Notes on Sylhet Referendum’, in Ghosh, Sujit K. (ed.), Politics of Subversion of Sylhet, B. R. Publications, Delhi, 2000, p 23Google Scholar.

80 See <http://assamassembly.gov.in/mla-1946-52.html>, [accessed 15 May 2012].

81 IOR/R/3/1/158, p. 24.

82 Haji Mohammed Younus, interview, Essex, 2008, and A. M. A. Muhith, interview, London, 2008.

83 Nankars were bonded labourers of the local Zaminders. They were known by different names in agrarian Sylhet, such as Girdar or Kiran and in some areas Muslim Zaminders called their nankars ‘Ete Mandar’ while some Hindu Zaminders called them ‘Bhander’. Nankars were both Hindu and Muslims. The local communists led the Nankar movements with major success in the early 1950s.

84 Sharma, Sreehate Biplobbad, p. 221.

85 IOR/R/3/1/158, pp. 4–5.

86 Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj, pp. 219–20.

87 Ghosh, Politics of Subversion, p. 99. Gaffar Khan's Red Shirts recruited 100,000 members and became legendary in the northwest frontier of the subcontinent.

88 Azrof, Attajiboni, p. 110.

89 Notable names are Kumudananda Bhatacharjee, Mrinal Das, Sukumar Nandi, and Joy Kumar Nandi, all hailing from this village.

90 Sharma, Sreehate Biplobbad, pp. 218–19.

91 Jogendranath Mondal was appointed as the law minister of the governor general's interim government as a League nominee and leader of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. This suggests that Jinnah was genuine in his concern for the dalits of Pakistan. However, after the death of Jinnah, Mondal resigned from the cabinet and migrated to India. Mandal, Jagadiscandra, Mohapran Jgendranath Mondal, Calcutta, Jagadiscandra Mandal, 1975Google Scholar.

92 IOR/R/3/1/158, p. 61.

93 As soon as the referendum was over, the local communists were quick to compromise with the new state. Dewan Mohammad Azrof revealed in his 1996 interview that local left-wing activists regarded the Muslim League as a party of ‘have-nots’, but they did not recognize its ‘separate nationalism’.

94 Azrof, Attajiboni, p. 124.

95 Das, Sekaler Sylhet, p. 51.

96 Azrof, Attajiboni, p. 125.

97 Mahmud Ali, Resurgent Assam, pp. 80–81. Also see Azrof, Attajiboni, p. 120.

98 Syed Abdul Majid Qureshi, P/ADM/2/11-12-13, p. 21.

99 Ali, Resurgent Assam, p. 81. Das, Sekaler Sylhet, p. 50.

100 Wahed, Sylhet-e Gono Bhot, pp. 42–43. In his book, Wahed has reproduced a leaflet of a printed fatwa issued by Moulana Sahul Osmany.

101 Ali, Resurgent Assam, pp. 81–82.

102 Syed Abdul Majid Qureshi, P/ADM/2/11-12-13, p. 16.

103 Ali, Resurgent Assam, pp. 81–82. Azrof, Attajiboni, p. 125. Das, Sekaler Sylhet, pp. 49–51. Wahed, Sylhet-e Gono Bhot, pp. 57–68.

104 Wahed, Sylhet-e Gono Bhot, pp. 45–49.

105 IOR/R/3/1/158, p. 48.

106 IOR/R/3/1/158, p. 48.

107 IOR/R/3/1/158 pp. 48–49.

108 IOR/R/3/1/158, p. 49. During the referendum, Basanta Kumar Das, a Congress leader of Sylhet was the home minister in the Assam cabinet. Several vernacular writings suggest that he acted in favour of Sylhet District Congress.

109 IOR/R/3/1/158, p. 54.

110 IOR/R/3/1/158, Telegram: Jogendranath Mondal, law member, Governor General Council, 7 July 1947, p. 64.

111 IOR/R/3/1/158, Telegram: Grade B: From Assam, Shillong, to Delhi and London, 8 July 1947, p. 73.

112 IOR/R/3/1/158, Telegram: Confidential 2248-S: From Governor, Assam, to Viceroy, 12 July 1947, p. 77.

113 Dewan Mohammad Azrof, interview, 1996. Also see Dewan Mohammad Azrof, Attajiboni, pp. 131–32.

114 IOR/R/3/1/158, Nehru's letter to Mountbatten, 13 July 1947, p. 85.

115 IOR/R/3/1/158, Mountbatten's letter to Nehru, 13 July 1947, p. 88.

116 IOR/R/3/1/158, Telegram: From Sir Akbar Hyderi to Nehru, 14 July 1947, pp. 89–90.

117 IOR/R/3/1/158, Nehru's letter to Mountbatten, 15 July 1947, pp. 95–96.

118 Sharma, Sreehate Biplobbad, pp. 220–21. Ghosh, Politics of Subversion, p. 99.

119 IOR/R/3/1/157, Telegram: From Governor of Assam to Viceroy, New Delhi, No. 175-MSG, 10 August 1947. p. 269.

120 IOR/R/3/1/157, Telegram: From Viceroy, New Delhi, to Governor of Assam, No. 3329-S, 11 August 1947, p. 275.

121 An outgoing British officer, H. Creed, wrote, ‘it appears desirable to have the entire boundary (mainly Karimgonj) with East Bengal (Sylhet) thoroughly surveyed, mapped and demarcated to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding in the future’: see IOR/V/24/2601-2602, Government of Assam, Annual Report of the Survey Department for the year ending the 30 September 1947 (Shillong, 1948), p. 3.

122 Islam interviews, 2006, 2007. Also see Choudhury, Yousuf, The Roots and Tales of the Bangladeshi Settlers, Sylheti Social History Group, Birmingham, 1993, pp. 36–39Google Scholar. Detailed statistics of Bariwallahs are given in Choudhury's book. The Sylheti Bariwallahs at Calcutta started their business in the late nineteenth century. In 1897, Ayan Ullah built a large house at the rear of his tailoring shop and turned it into a boarding house for seamen. In this makeshift Bari there was just enough space to accommodate 35 people. He soon became a central figure, helping his fellow Sylhetis to secure jobs on the merchant ships.

123 Sharma, Sreehate Biplobbad, p. 219.

124 Das, Sekaler Sylhet, p. 52.

125 Chaudhury, Smriti and Pratiti, pp. 152, 224–26.

126 Chaudhury, Smriti and Pratiti, p. 152.

127 For instance, in 1971 C. R. Dutta was a major in the Pakistan Army who revolted to lead the Bangladesh liberation force in the Sylhet sector. Information provided by General Dutta suggests that the number of personnel and regular army under his command stood at approximately 9,000 and 4,000 respectively in Sylhet. Dutta, interview, Dhaka, 1997. Sushasini Das, popularly known as Masima (Mother), took up Pakistani citizenship after the partition and fought against all kinds of discrimination, undertook social work, and ran a charitable organization in Sylhet. She published her autobiography in 2005 and died in 2009. See Das, Sekaler Sylhet.

128 IOR/R/3/1/158. On 17 July 1947, in his letter to Mountbatten, Calcutta-based Sylheti lawyer

Rabindranath Chaudhury argued, ‘It has not been a free and fair Referendum. Under the circumstances the very dignity of the Viceroy requires that he should arrange for a free and fair Referendum.’