East India - History

History

The region was the historical centre of the Nanda, Maurya, Kharavela, Sunga, Kalinga, Gupta and Pala empires that ruled much of the Indian sub-continent at their prime. In medieval India, it was incorporated into the Mughal and then the British empire. After independence in 1947, the states joined the Indian Union and took their current form after the States Reorganization Act of 1956. Today, they continue to face problems of overpopulation, environmental degradation and pervasive corruption despite significant economic and social progress.

East India was at the heart of the ancient Sena, Magadha, Mithila, Maurya and Kalinga empires.

After the Kalinga War The Maurya king Ashoka send out emissaries to spread Buddhism across Asia. The famous university of Nalanda was in East India. Chinese travellers visited Buddhist and Hindu temples and libraries in the universities of Magadha Empire. The Emperor of Kalinga Mahameghavahana Aira Kharavela was one of the most powerful monarchs of ancient India. The Jain thirkhankar Mahaveer was born here and founded Jainism.

Islamic invasions in the 13th century resulted in the collapse of Hindu kings and most Buddhists, especially in East Bengal, converted to Islam. East India including Bihar and West Bengal was part of the Mughal Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries. Orissa remained a powerful Hindu dynasty under the rule of Soma/Keshari Dynasty, Eastern Ganga Dynasty, Surya Dynasty till the end of 16th century. The mighty Nalanda University existed at Nalanda which was destroyed by Bakhtiar Khilji during 12th century and also defeated Sena Dynasty. Sher Shah Suri, who became king of India after defeating Humayun, founded the city of Patna on the ruins of ancient Patliputra.

With the arrival of the Europeans in the 17th century, outposts were established in Orissa Coast and Bengal. The European traders established their trade centers in the famous ports of Balasore, Pipili, Palur in the Orissa Coast during the rule of the last independent Hindu king Gajapati Prataprudra Dev. The Portuguese were in Chittagong, Dutch in Chinsura, French in Pondicherry and the English founded Calcutta. In 1756, the British East India Company defeated the local Indian Muslim rulers in Plassey and established British Rule in the subcontinent. Its capital Calcutta grew into one of the world's greatest ports. Tea from Calcutta was off-loaded by American separatists in the American War of Independence in the 1770s. In the 19th century, Calcutta's traders and merchants traded with the rest of the British Empire, continental Europe, the United States and China. Indentured Indian labourers from Bihar, sailed to new homes in Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Surinam and South Africa.

India's independence movement had strong roots in East India. The feudal land system, established through the Permanent Settlement of Bengal, was unpopular among the peasant cultivators and the numerous agricultural labourers found all over Bihar and Bengal (Khetmazdoors). The Indian War of Independence in 1857 started in Bengal. British war propaganda asserted there were atrocities by the mutinous soldiers in the Black Hole of Calcutta. Eventually the British prevailed and Calcutta remained capital of Britain's Asian dominions until 1911. The Indian National Congress was founded in Calcutta. During Gandhi's freedom movement, the Bihari village of Champaran was an important supporter of non-violent resistance. Great poets of the stature of Rabindranath Tagore championed the movement for self-rule.

The Partition also had its roots in undivided Eastern India. The Muslim League was founded in Dhaka in 1906. In the 1937 provincial elections, it came to power in Bengal in alliance with the Krishak Praja Party. in 1944, it gained an absolute majority in the Bengal Assembly, and Hussein Suhrawardy became the Chief Minister. After widespread communal violence during the Direct Action Day protests in Calcutta, leading to further communal violence across British India, the creation of Pakistan became inevitable. In 1947, further communal violence displaced millions as independence and partition of British India occurred. Some Bihari and Bengali Muslims fled to the newly created East Pakistan. Most East Bengal Hindus fled to India.

The 1950s saw industrial progress in East India. These were cut short with the conflict in neighbouring East Pakistan and by the Communist movement at home. In 1971, in the course of Bangladesh's independence struggle, millions of refugees poured into East India. From the turn of the century West Bengal's economic recovery flew through its roofs and now racks second largest GDP contributor after Maharastra according to List of Indian states by GDP and is now the third fastest growing economy.

Bihar and Orissa struggled with economic issues but developed steadily. Jharkhand became a separate state on 15 November 2000. The economic boom since 2005 started to spread new malls, highways, airports and IT office complexes, but not evenly across the region.