Background
The province of Bengal had an area of 189,000 miles2 and a population of nearly 8 crores (80 million). It included the Hindi-speaking regions of Bihar, the Oriya-speaking regions of Orissa as well as the Assamese-speaking region of Assam, making it a huge administrative entity. Moreover, the capital Calcutta was the capital of the entire British India. With the growing efforts of the Indian National Congress to secure the independence of India, Lord Curzon decided to address both these problems by partitioning Bengal into two entities, which would result in a Muslim-majority in the eastern half, and a Hindu-majority in the western half. This he hoped would reduce the administrative pressures as well divide the population on religious grounds, quelling the Indian Independence Movement.
Read more about this topic: Partition Of Bengal (1905)
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