Maybe. If there is a united Bengal province, many will wonder why they are not just a part of India at that point, as those same people will suspect that the idea of Bengal going alone might be supported by British to help further "divide" the subcontinent. But yes, IMO anything after 1942-ish would likely be too late to prevent civil war.
Would a United Bengal fall into civil war ?
- Thread starter walmart
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it wouldn't be decolonizing without keeping the european monarch??
Also, the issue with indian nawabs and prices is that they were the ones who gave up their country to the british. People would always have this though that the back of their heads that the nawabs would give up the country again.
ahmedali
Banned
The Maharaja of Kashmir and the Hyderabadi regime attempted independence and the first would have succeeded
This would not be a common idea in the era of decolonization and is in fact an idea mostly planted by the Indian Congress and the Muslim League to legitimize themselves.
(With some truth in the case of Murshidabad being a descendant of the one who betrayed Siraj-ud-Dawla, the Nawab of Bengal)
(And the fact that population exchange made the populations of the two countries less attached to the princely states, which facilitated their abolition)
More Indian princely states would have become independent if some things had gone differently
(Tripura, Khanate of Kalat, Kashmir, Travancore, Mysore are more likely if the collapse of the Raj went differently and less peaceful because their people did not hate them and in the case of Kashmir geography helps in that)
It could have helped the collapse of the British Raj during 1943 or 1944
(Subhas Bose is more successful with Japan, smarter and less crazy, to give some princely states the option to go their own way when the Raj collapses inland.)
Or, for example, a crushing Indian victory in the Indo-Pakistan war left Pakistan dead
(With Khan granting Qalat independence and becoming King of Balochistan, Afghans grant Pashtun lands and support independence of Dogra Kashmir)
Perhaps, but then you could also ask why East Pakistan should not have been part of India? Then Bengal could be one unified state within the republic.
Well the whole reason for East Pakistan existing was because it was a Muslim-majority part of India, just one that happened to be isolated by the rest of the Indo-Gangetic Plain from West Pakistan. If all of Bengal is included, IIRC that would make this Bengal a very large Hindu-minority nation (something like 1/3 Hindu based on current population IIRC). The focus of this hypothetical nation would then be purely Bengali, which historically was not very powerful in the Indian independence movement.
Okay, that's fair. I wonder why this article exists, though. Did a Bengal regionalist write it or was it just a local ideology that didn't have a lot of popularity. I also wonder if there were any such movements in other regions of India at the time of independence, besides the princely states.
United Bengal - Wikipedia
BiasHangover
Banned
If we get a united Bengal, why not Punjab, Kashmir, or etc. I would wonder why some regionalism would work but others not, despite the Hindu-Islam divide.
So this is just random social media research and not scholarship, but this thread is interesting:
How accurate is this? heck if I know, but it's gotten quite some pushback from other commentators, e.g.
How accurate is this? heck if I know, but it's gotten quite some pushback from other commentators, e.g.
Interesting links
indianexpress.com
"‘What is the use of Bengal without Calcutta’? Jinnah’s Advocacy for an Independent Bengal, 1947" from the Journal of the Punjab University Historical Society
A third dominion? How the plans for a United Bengal fell through
The proposal of a United Bengal and its rejection thereafter though, was rooted in years of communal conflict that had emerged in the province, especially since the mid-1930s.
indianexpress.com
Not strictly related to the OP. But has anyone ever discussed a TL where the partition of India results in the princely states & the provinces of the Raj each becoming an independent country as opposed to India, Pakistan (and subsequently Bangladesh) - something along the lines of the Pakistan declaration?
That would definitely be a TL I’d be interested in butterflies & all
That would definitely be a TL I’d be interested in butterflies & all