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East Bengali refugees

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A signficant number of refugees and migrants left East Bengal following the partition of Bengal as part of the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947. Bengal was partitioned into the Indian state of West Bengal and the Pakistani province of East Bengal (later renamed East Pakistan, which subsequently broke away from Pakistan to form the independent country of Bangladesh in 1947. Most of Sylhet district in Assam also joined East Pakistan and was subsequently considered to be East Bengal. The majority of East Bengali refugees settled in the new state of West Bengal, but a signficant number also moved to the Barak Valley of Assam and the princely state of Tripura which eventually joined India in 1949. Around 0.5 million were also settled in other parts of India including Dandakaranya, the East Pakistan Displaced Persons' Colony (EPDP) in Delhi (subsequently renamed Chittaranjan Park) and Orissa. The estimated 0.5 million Bengalis in Delhi and 0.3 million in Mumbai are also largely comprised of East Bengali refugees and their descendents.

The vast majority of East Bengali refugees and migrants were Hindus, though a significant number of Bengali Muslims opted to make their permanent base in West Bengal after partition despite having origins in what fell in the new Pakistan. Their reasons included ideology (in that they opposed the division of India on the basis of the Two-Nation theory emphasizing incompatibility of Hindus and Muslims), as well as professional and family ties.

Number of East Bengali refugees and migrants

The exact number of refugees has never been officially collected and estimates vary considerably.

In the immediate aftermath of partition, commonly attributed figures suggest around 3 million East Bengalis migrating to India and 864,000 migrants from India to East Pakistan. Indian government estimates suggest around 2.6 million migrants leaving East Bengal for India and 0.7 million migrants coming to East Pakistan from India.

In 1950, it is estimated that a further 1 million refugees crossed into West Bengal. The 1951 Census of India recorded that 27% of Kolkata's population comprised of East Bengali refugees.

Migration continued, primarily from East Pakistan to India, right up to the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, both on an on-going basis and with spikes during periods of particular communal unrest such as the 1964 riots and the 1965 India-Pakistan War, when it is estimated that 600,000 refugees left for India. Estimates of the number of refugees up to 1970 are over 5 million to West Bengal alone, with around 4.1 million coming between 1946-1958 and 1.2 million coming between 1959 and 1971.

Another major influx came in 1971 during the Bangladesh Liberation War. It is estimated that around 10 million East Bengali refugees entered India during the early months of the war, of whom 1.5 million may have stayed back after Bangladesh became independent.

The outflow of Hindus from East Bengal had a particularly negative effect on the Hindu community of East Pakistan and subsequently Bangladesh, as a significant portion of the region's educated middle class and political leadership left. The heights reached by many of the East Bengali migrants and their descendents, including Amartya Sen's Nobel Prize and Meghnad Saha's pioneering work in Astrophysics are considerable.

List of prominent East Bengali refugees and migrants

(please add to this list!)

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