History of Dhaka - East Bengal/Pakistan's Capital

East Bengal/Pakistan's Capital

Following the Partition of India on August 1947, Dhaka became the capital of East Bengal of the newly formed country, Pakistan. The city witnessed serious communal violence that left thousands of people dead. A large proportion of the city's Hindu population departed for India, while the city received hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants from the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Bihar. Population increased from 335,925 in 1951 to 556,712 in 1961 registering an increase of 65.7 percent. As the centre of regional politics, Dhaka saw an increasing number of political strikes and incidents of violence. The proposal to adopt Urdu as the sole official language of Pakistan led to protest marches and strikes involving hundreds of thousands of people in Bengali Language Movement. The protests soon degenerated into widespread violence after police firing killed students who were demonstrating peacefully. Martial law was be imposed throughout the city for a long period of time.

The arrest of the Bengali politician Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1968 would also spark intensive political protests and violence against the military regime of Ayub Khan. The 1970 Bhola cyclone devastated much of the region, killing numerous people. More than half the city of Dhaka was flooded and waterlogged, with millions of people marooned. The following year saw Sheikh Mujib hold a massive nationalist gathering on March 7, 1971 at the Race Course Ground that attracted an estimated one million people. Galvanising public anger against ethnic and regional discrimination and poor cyclone relief efforts from the central government, the gathering preceded declaration of Bangladesh's independence on March 26, 1971. In response, the Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight, which led to the arrests, torture and killing of hundreds of thousands of people, mainly Hindus and Bengali intellectuals. The fall of the city to the Indian Army on December 16, 1971 marked the creation of the independent state of Bangladesh.

Several prominent architectural development took place in Dhaka during this period. Holy Family Hospital was built in March 1953. New Market was established in Azimpur in 1954. Dhaka College was moved to Dhanmondi in July 1956.