West Bengal
Area: 88,752 sq km
Capital: Calcutta
Language: Bengali
Districts: 18
West Bengal covers the bottleneck of India in the east stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south. It is bounded on the north by Sikkim and Bhutan, on the east by Assam and Bangladesh, on the south by the Bay of Bengal and on the west by Orissa, Bihar and Nepal.
Physiography: West Bengal has two natural divisions, the Himalayan north comprising the districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar and the alluvial plain that lies south of it.
History: The old Bengal (of which W. Bengal forms a part) known as Gauda or Vanga in ancient Sanskrit literature appears to have been celebrated from the epic period. The Mahabharata refers to the King of Vanga as an ally of the Kauravas in their war against Pandavas. Apparently at the time of Aryan penetration into the east, Vanga had a well-settled civilization and culture.In the 3rd century B.C. Bengal was part of the Mauryan Empire and from the 4th to the 6th centuries A.D., it was under the Gupta dynasty. By about A.D. 800, Bengal had its own dynasty of independent kings, the Palas. The Palas were very powerful and expanded their territories into the neighbouring countries of Bihar, Orissa and Assam.
At the height of their power they had diplomatic relations with the Indonesian King Sri Vijaya. In the 11th century, Bengal passed under the rule of a new
dynasty, the Senas. The Senas who ruled from their capital at Nadia were driven out by Qutbuddin, the Sultan of Delhi and Bengal became a part of the Delhi
Empire. With the death of Aurangzeb, the last of the great Mughals, Bengal became independent under its Muslim governors. Siraj Daula, the last independent Muslim ruler of Bengal, was defeated by the British at the battle of Plassey in 1757.
For about seven years the British were in a sort of dual control with the successors of Siraj Daula, Mir Jaffar and Mir Kasim. In 1764 Mir Kasim was routed at the battle of Buxar and the British took over the administration of
Bengal.When Bengal was first constituted by the British as a province it was a vast area, including present-day Bihar and Orissa and extended westwards upto Agra. In 1863 Agra was detached from Bengal but Assam was added to it. In 1874 Assam was formed into a separate province.
In 1905, Lord Curzon divided Bengal into two provinces. A new province called Assam and East Bengal with its capital at Dacca was carved out of old Bengal. The rest of the territory together with Bihar and part of Orissa formed Bengal. This event, known as the partition of Bengal, aroused the dormant patriotism of the Bengalis, who opposed the partition as an attempt at distintergrating Bengal. The rest of India stood by Bengal and troubles broke out.
Peace was restored in 1911, when the partition was abrogated by a declaration of King George V at the Royal Durbar in Delhi. Another change announced at the Durbar was the shifting of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi. The new Bengal did not include Assam or Bihar. It was a compact area of over 200,500 sq km.When India became independent in 1947, Bengal was partitioned between India and Pakistan. While Pakistan's share came to be called East Pakistan, India's share was called West Bengal. In 1950 the Princely State of Cooch Behar was merged into West Bengal. The former French enclave of Chandranagore was added on Oct. 2, 1954. Under the State Reorganization Act, some parts of Bihar were transferred to engal.
Administration: The legislature is unica-meral—the Legislative Assembly. The
state is divided into 19 districts.
Districts
- Bankura
- Birbhum
- Bardhaman
- Calcutta*
- Cooch Behar
- Darjeeling
- Hooghly
- Howrah
- Jalpaiguri
- Malda
- Midnapore
- Murshidabad
- Nadia
- Purulia
- North 24 Parganas
- South 24 Parganas
- Uttar Dinajpur
- Dakshin Dinajpur
Economy: Seventy per cent of W. Bengal's population is engaged in agriculture and it contributes over 30 per cent of the state's income. The state produces 15.3 per cent of the country's total output of rice. The area under rice cultivation in 1993-94 was 58.75 lakh hectares. The state accounted for 66.5 per cent of the country's jute (including mesta) and 22.2 per cent of tea. Potatoes, oilseeds, betelvine, tobacco, wheat, barley and maize are the other crops. One of the major industrial states in India, West Bengal had 10,236 registered and functioning factories (excluding defence factories) in 1995. Durga-pur and Burdwan have steel plants. Major industries include engineering, automobiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, aluminium, ceramics, jute, cotton textiles, tea, paper, leather, footwear, bonemeal, bicycle, dairy, poultry and timber-processing. Central public sector undertakings include locomotive, cable, fertiliser, ship-building and ordnance.
State undertakings include tea, sugar, chemicals, phyto-chemicals, agro-textile,
sugar beet, fruit and vegetable processing, electro-medical and other allied industries (including mineral development).Coal and china clay are two important
minerals being exploited. Calcutta's Metro Rail project, the first of its kind in the country, was commissioned in 1995. Railway route length was 5,105 km (1993-94).
Calcutta is the most important port followed by Haldia. Road length: 68,375 km., on Mar. 31, 1995.There is an international airport at Dum Dum near Calcutta. Other airfields in the State are Balurghat, Coochbehar, Malda, Bagdogra, Panagarh, Behala, Barrackpore and Kalaikunda.
Durga puja is the most important festival along with Kali puja or Diwali besides Vasant panchami, Lakshmi puja, Holi, Sivaratri, Janmashtami, and Id-ul-Fitr.
Universities:
- Bengal Engineering College, Howrah, Pin: 711 103;
- Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswa Vidyalaya, Mohanpur, Pin: 741 252;
- University of Burdwan, Burdwan, Pin: 713 104;
- University of Calcutta, Calcutta, Pin: 700 073;
- Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Pin: 721 302;
- Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta, Pin: 700 035;
- Jadavpur University, Calcutta, Pin: 700 032;
- University of Kalyani, Kalyani, Pin: 741 235;
- Netaji Subhash Open 'Varsity, Calcutta, Pin: 700 020;
- University of North Bengal, Darjeeling, Pin: 734 43 ;
- Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta, Pin: 700 050;
- Viswabharati, Santiniketan, Pin: 731 235;
- Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, Pin:721 102;
- West Bengal University of Animal & Fisheries Sciences, Calcutta, Pin: 700 037;
- West Bengal National University of Juridicial Sciences, Calcutta, Pin: 700 091.
headquarters of the State Government. It is the centre of industries like jute, tea, hides and skins, coal, lac, etc.
Places of interest, among others, are Victoria Memorial (Picture Gallery and Museum), Indian Museum, Zoological Garden, Pareshnath Temple (Jain Temple), Kalighat Temple (Architecture: Typical Mediaeval Bengal), Nakhoda Mosque, Dhakshineswar Temple, Nandan, Mahajati Sadan, Belvedere House (originally the residence of British Viceroys when they visited Calcutta, now turned into National Library), Raj Bhavan (official residence of State Governor), Marble Palace, Eden Gardens, Binoy Badal-Dinesh Bag (erstwhile Dalhousie Square), Ashutosh Museum of Arts (of the Calcutta University), Birla Industrial and Technological Museum, Birla Planetorium, Saheed Minar (formerly Ochterlony Monument), Fort William, Jorasanko Thakurbati (Birth place of Rabindranath Tagore), Rabindra Sarovar (Lake with swimming pool, Japanese Buddhist temple and Toy Train), Nehru Children's Museum, New Market, Howrah Bridge (renamed as Rabindra setu), etc.
India's first Science City was inaugurated in Calcutta on July 1, 1997.W.Bengal Govt. has renamed Calcutta as Kolkata. Labels: West Bengal
