History of Bangladesh
History of Bangladesh ,The history of Bangladesh as a civilized nation goes back for more than four millennia to the Chalcolithic. The country's early recorded history is characterized by a succession of Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms and empires that fought for control of the Bengal region.
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Following the decline of the Mughal Empire in the early 1700s, Bengal became a semi-independent state under the Nawabs of Bengal, ultimately led by Siraj ud-Daulah. It was later conquered by the British East
India Company at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Bengal directly contributed to the Industrial Revolution in Britain but led to its deindustrialization. The Bengal Presidency was later established.
The borders of modern Bangladesh were established with the separation of Bengalay between India and Pakistan during Partition of India in August 1947, when the region became East Pakistan as a part of the newly formed State of Pakistan following the end of British rule in the region. Proclamation of Bangladeshi Independence in March 1971 led to the nine-month long Bangladesh Liberation War, that culminated with East Pakistan emerging as the People's Republic of Bangladesh. In 1971, Bangladeshi independence was declared by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Ancient period
Prehistoric Bengal[edit]
The Oxford History of India categorically claims that there is no definitive information about Bengal before the third century BCE.[citation needed] It is believed that there were movements of Indo-Aryans, Dravidians and Mongoloids, including a people called Vanga, into Bengal.One view contends that humans entered Bengal from China 60,000 years ago. Another view claims that a distinct regional culture emerged 100,000 years ago. There is weak evidence for a prehistoric human presence in the region. There is scant evidence of a human
presence during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic eras. This could be because of the shifts in the rivers' courses.The Bengali climate and geography is not suitable for tangible archaeological remains. Due to lack of stones the early humans in Bengal probably used materials such as wood and bamboo that could not survive in the environment. South Asian archaeologists have tended to focus on other parts of the subcontinent. Archaeologists interested in Bengal have focused on more recent history.
Archaeological discoveries are almost entirely from the hills around the Bengal delta. Industries of fossil-wood manufacturing blades, scrapers and axes have been discovered in Lalmai, Sitakund and
Chaklapunji. These have been connected with similar findings in Burma and West Bengal.] Large stones, thought to be prehistoric, were constructed in north eastern Bangladesh and are similar to those in India's nearby hills.West Bengal holds the earliest evidence of settled agrarian societies.
Agricultural success gave ground in the fifth century BCE for a stationary culture and the emergence of towns, cross-sea trade and the earliest polities. Archaeologists have uncovered a port at Wari-Bateshwar which traded with Ancient Rome and Southeast Asia. The archaeologists have discovered coinage, pottery, iron artefacts, bricked road and a fort in Wari-Bateshwar. The findings suggest that the area was an important administrative hub, which had industries such as iron smelting and valuable stone beads. The site shows widespread use of clay. The clay, and bricks, were used to build walls.The most famous terracotta plaques, made by clay, are from Chandraketurgah and depicts deities and scenes of nature and ordinary life.The early coinage discovered in War-Bateshwar and Chandraketugarh (West Bengal, India) depict boats.
Archaeological excavations in Bangladesh revealed evidences of the Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW or NBP) culture of the Indian Subcontinent (c. 700–200 BC), which was an Iron Age culture developed beginning around 700 BC and peaked from c. 500–300 BC, coinciding with the emergence of 16 great states or mahajanapadas in Northern India, and the subsequent rise of the Mauryan Empire.
Well developed towns had emerged by 300 BCE such as Tamralipti ( present-day Tamluk, West Bengal, India), Mahasthan and Mainamati. Instead of the seaside, main towns sprang up by the riversides. Mahasthan contains the earliest piece of writing in Bangladesh, a stone inscription. It indicates that the site was an important town in the Maurya empire. Mahasthan is believed to have then been a
provincial centre The inscription, in Prakrit, apparently contains a command to stock up supplies in case of an emergency. The inscription is called the Mahasthan Brahmi Inscription. Bengal was the eastern frontier of the Mauryan empire. Western Bengal with its port of Tamralipti achieved importance under the Mauryas.
A prominent view in scholarship is that the Mauryan and Gupta empires exercised authority over most parts of the Bengal delta. The incomplete evidence which exists suggests that Bengal's western rather than eastern regions were parts of larger empires.The cient zones in Bengal were the Bhagirathi-Hooghly basin, Harikela, Samatata, Vanga and Varendra.Vanga is believed to be central Bengal, Harikela and Samitata
were apparently Bengal's eastern zones and Varendra was northern Bengal. The names of sites indicate that Tibeto-Burman, Austro-Asiatic and Dravidian languages were spoken by the majority of people. Indo-European languages became prominent from 400 BCE.
The Vanga Kingdom was a powerful seafaring nation of Ancient Bengal. They had overseas trade relations with Java, Sumatra and Siam (modern day Thailand). According to Mahavamsa, the Vanga prince Vijaya Singha conquered Lanka (modern day Sri Lanka) in 544 BC and gave the name "Sinhala" to the country. Bengali people migrated to the Maritime Southeast Asia and Siam (in modern Thailand), establishing their own settlement there.
Early Middle Ages[edit]
Bengal was left on its own after Mauryan power declined. Little is known of the period after that although parts of Bengal were probably under the Pataliputra-based Sunga dynasty. During this time Pundra was still a significant Buddhist location. Local rulers retained power while paying tribute to the Gupta Empire in the 300s and 400s. The Bengal delta became the kingdom of Samatata; its hub near the contemporary Chandpur. A Gupta inscription indicates that the Gupta empire possessed influence in Samatata without ruling it directly. Bengal remained a frontier despite its rare associations with the Indian heartland. Several dynasties changed during the next few centuries. While not much information is available about them, plates and other forms of evidence obtained from the Comilla district indicate that Gopachandra ruled the area in the early 500s. The Khargas became rulers in the next century. They were followed by the Deva dynasty, Harikela kingdom, Chandras and the Varmans.[16] They were based in different sites of the Comilla district and Dhaka district's Vikrampur.[23] Around that time, Bengalis first ruled in Varendra. Gaur was ruled by Sasanka in the early 600s. He was based in Karnasuvarna in modern-day Murshidabad district. Contemporary Chinese reports and coinage suggest that he was a firm
Shaivite who was vehemently opposed to Buddhism. Opposition to Buddhism and a commitment to Brahminism apparently continued under the Sura dynasty, founded by Adisura around 700 CE. Around the middle of the eighth century a firm Buddhist, Gopala, assumed power in Bengal, possibly supported by Buddhist chiefs who were opposed to the effects of the Suras and Sasanka's faithful Brahmanism.[23] During this time, the kingdoms of the Bay of Bengal were trading with the nations of nearby South Asia and Southeast Asia,[24] thereby exporting Buddhism into Sri Lanka to the south and both Hinduism and Buddhism into Indonesia, Thailand,Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines to the east.
Gauda Kingdom[edit]
By the 6th century, the Gupta Empire, which ruled over the northern Indian subcontinent had largely broken up. Eastern Bengal splintered into the kingdoms of Vanga, Samatata and Harikela while the Gauda kings rose in the west with their capital at Karnasuvarna (near modern Murshidabad). Shashanka, a vassal of the last Gupta Emperor proclaimed independence and unified the smaller principalities of Bengal (Gaur, Vanga, Samatata). He vied for regional power with Harshavardhana in northern India after treacherously murdering Harsha's elder brother Rajyavardhana. Harsha's continuous pressure led to the gradual weakening of the Gauda kingdom founded by Shashanka and finally ended with his death. With the overthrow of Manava (his son), Bengal descended into a period marked by disunity and intrude once more.
Chandra dynasty[edit]
The Chandra dynasty were a family who ruled over the kingdom of Harikela in eastern Bengal (comprising the ancient lands of Harikela, Vanga and Samatata) for roughly a century and a half from the beginning of the 10th century CE. Their empire also encompassed Vanga and Samatata, with Srichandra expanding his domain to include parts of Kamarupa. Their empire was ruled from their
capital, Vikrampur (modern Munshiganj) and was powerful enough to militarily withstand the Pala Empire to the north-west. The last ruler of the Chandra Dynasty, Govindachandra, was defeated by the south Indian Emperor Rajendra Chola I of the Chola dynasty in the 11th century.
Sena dynasty[edit]
The Sena dynasty started around 1095 but only finally defeated the Palas around 1150. They apparently originated in Karnataka. Vijayasena took control of northern and western Bengal, removed the Palas from the former regions and based his rule in Nadia. The greatest ruler from the dynasty was Lakshmanasena.
He established the dynasty's writ in Orissa and Benares. In 1202, Ikhtiyarrudin Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji took Nadia from the Senas, already having taken Bihar. Lakshmanasena left for Vikrampur in southeastern Bengal. His sons inherited the dynasty, which came to an end around 1245 because of feudal revolts and Muslim pressure.
The dynasty has been staunchly Brahminist and had attempted to restore Brahminism to Bengal. They also established the system of kulinism in Bengal; through which higher caste males could take lower caste brides and enhance the status of these women's children. Some postulate that the dynasty's suppression of Buddhism became a cause for the conversions to Islam, especially in eastern Bengal.
Deva Kingdom[edit]
The Deva Kingdom was a Hindu dynasty of medieval Bengal that ruled over eastern Bengal after the collapse Sena Empire. The capital of this dynasty was Bikrampur in present-day Munshiganj District of Bangladesh. The inscriptional evidences show that his kingdom was extended up to the present-
day Comilla-Noakhali-Chittagong region. A later ruler of the dynasty Ariraja-Danuja-Madhava Dasharathadeva extended his kingdom to cover much of East Bengal.
Late Middle Ages
Muslim rule in the region was inaugurated with the taking of Nadia in 1202. Initially, Bengal was administered by the Delhi Sultanate's governors, then by independent sultanates and then was under the rule of the Mughal empire. While Muslims had advanced into Sindh in the 700s, it was in Afghanistan that the ultimate Muslim conquest of South Asia originated from, starting with the raids by Mahmud of Ghazni in the early 11th century. The Afghanistan-based Ghurids replaced the Ghaznavids and they started expanded into the Ganges region. As part of this eastward expansion Ikhtiyaruddin Muhammad Bakhtiar Khan defeated the Palas in Bihar and in 1202 was victorious over the Senas in Nadia. In 1206, the Delhi
Sultanate was created. It was not a true dynasty but the rulers was known as Mamluk. The Sultanate continued till 1290. The conquest of Nadia did not entail swift conversions to Islam. The authority of the Senas persisted in Vikrampur till 1245 and a large part of eastern Bangladesh had neither been conquered nor converted.
Four dynasties based in Delhi succeeded the Slave dynasty. The Khaljis ruled from 1290 to 1320. The Tughluq dynasty's rule lasted until 1413. Sayyid rule ran from 1414 to 1451. The Lodhi dynasty ruled in the 1451-1526 period. But the writ of the Delhi Sultanate had been weak in its outer regions and Bengal like other similar areas turned into an independent region.Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah became the ruler of independent Bengal in 1342 and his dynasty ruled until 1486, barring a short interlude. He had come to power after a Bengali revolt against the Tughluq dynasty's governor. Shamsuddin drove up the Ganges to contest Tughluq rule. The Tughluqs, in return drove Ilyas Shah out of Pandua into eastern Bengal.
Shamsuddin reclaimed Pandua and continued ruling Bengal. Shamsuddin's heir repelled Tughluq incursions and like his predecessor expanded the dynasty's authority into Bihar.
The dynasty constructed grand buildings in Pandua. They built India's biggest mosque, the Adina mosque. Richard Eaton cites diplomatic accounts about the grandeur of Pandua's buildings. Eaton observes the influence of both Islamic and pre-Islamic Persian courts. Hindu landlords possessed a large quantity of land even under the Muslim rulers. The Hindu domination was opposed by the Muslim leadership, exemplified by the Faraizi campaign and leaders like Titu Mir in the 1800s.
When the dynasty's third ruler died in 1410 there was a conflict over the throne. Raja Ganesh, who was a Hindu feudal, used the successorship conflict to seize control of Bengal. He repelled an incursion on Bengal by the Jaunpur sultanate in north India. His son, who embraced Islam, and then his grandson ruled after him. In 1433, the latter was assassinated and the Ilyas Shahi dynasty was restored.
The dynasty began importing Abyssinian slaves. This population became more significant. They became so important that in 1486 an Abyssinian, Barbak Shahzada, seized power from Jalaluddin Fateh Shah. Barbak Shahzada's dynasty was short, lasting for the next seven years. The last Abyssinian ruler, Shamsuddin Muzaffar Shah, lost power to the Arab principal minister, Alauddin Husain.
The initiation in 1493 of the Hussain Shahi dynasty brought a period which has been considered Bengal's golden age. The government was genuinely Bengali and while land ownership remained concentrated in
Hindu hands, both religious groups had pivotal roles in the government. The sultanate expanded to acquire Cooch Behar and Kamrup. The Sultanate also dominated Orissa, Tripura and the Arakan region.
Babar defeated the Lodhis at Panipat in 1526 and the Mughals established India's greatest state since the time of the Mauryas. But during Sheh Shah Suri's rebellion against the second Mughal ruler Humayan, he triumphed over the Hussain Shahi dynasty's Ghiyasuddin Mahmud Shah in 1538, thus bringing an end to the independent status of Bengal. For a short time Humayun ruled Gaur.
Bengal along with other parts of eastern India was ruled by Sheh Shah Suri. He implemented many reforms such as introducing parganas. These were land survey based locl tax units. He is most famous for designing the Grand Trunk Road between Calcutta and Punjab. Humayun retook Delhi in 1556. But the Suris continued ruling Bengal until 1564 when they were replaced by the Karrani dynasty. Like the Suris, they were not native to Bengal. They had been raiders whom the Mughal armies had driven eastwards.
Turko Afghan rule[edit]
In 1204 CE, the first Muslim ruler, Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khilji, a Turko Afghan, captured Nadia and established Muslim rule. The political influence of Islam began to spread across Bengal with the conquest of Nadia, the capital city of the Sen ruler Lakshmana.
After capturing Nadia, Bakhtiyar advanced towards Gauda (Lakhnuti), another major city of the Sena kingdom, conquered it and made it his capital in 1205. In the following year, Bakhtiyar set out on an expedition to capture Tibet, but this attempt failed and he had to return to Bengal in poor health and with a reduced army. Shortly afterwards, he was killed by one of his commanders, Ali Mardan Khilji. In the meantime, Lakshman Sen and his two sons retreated to Vikramapur (in the present-day District in Bangladesh), where their diminished dominion lasted until the late 13th century.
Khiljis were Turko Afghan. The period after Bakhtiar Khilji's death in 1207 involved infighting among the Khiljis. This was typical of a pattern of succession struggles and intra-sultanate intrigues during later Turko Afghan regimes. In this case, Ghiyasuddin Iwaj Khilji prevailed and extended the Sultan's domain south to Jessore and made the eastern Bang province a tributary. The capital was established at Lakhnauti on the Ganges near the older Bengal capital of Gaur. He managed to make Kamarupa and Trihut pay tribute to him. But he was later defeated by Shams-ud-Din Iltutmish.
Sonargaon Sultanate[edit]
Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah ruled an independent kingdom in areas that lie within modern-day eastern and south-eastern Bangladesh from 1338 to 1349. He was the first Muslim ruler to conquer Chittagong, the principal port in the Bengal region, in 1340. Fakhruddin's capital was Sonargaon which emerged as the principal city of the region and as the capital of an independent sultanate during his reign.
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