West Bengal (West Bengal)
The area's early history featured a succession of Indian empires, internal squabbling, and a tussle between Hinduism and Buddhism for dominance. Ancient Bengal was the site of several major Janapadas, while the earliest cities date back to the Vedic period. The region was part of several ancient pan−Indian empires, including the Vangas, Mauryans, and the Guptas. The citadel of Gauḍa served as the capital of the Gauḍa Kingdom, the Pala Empire, and the Sena Empire. Islam was introduced through trade with the Abbasid Caliphate, but following the Ghurid conquests led by Bakhtiyar Khalji and the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate, the Muslim faith spread across the entire Bengal region. During the Bengal Sultanate, the territory was a major trading nation in the world, and was often referred by the Europeans as the "richest country to trade with". It was absorbed into the Mughal Empire in 1576. Simultaneously, some parts of the region were ruled by several Hindu states, and Baro-Bhuyan landlords, and part of it was briefly overrun by the Suri Empire. Following the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in the early 1700s, the proto-industrialised Mughal Bengal became a semi-independent state under the Nawabs of Bengal, and showed signs of the first Industrial revolution. The region was later conquered by the British East India Company at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and became part of the Bengal Presidency. From 1772 to 1911, Calcutta was the capital of British India. From 1912 to India's Independence in 1947, it was the capital of all of Bengal.
The region was a hotbed of the Indian independence movement and has remained one of India's great artistic and intellectual centres. Following widespread religious violence, the Bengal Legislative Council and the Bengal Legislative Assembly voted on the Partition of Bengal in 1947 along religious lines into two independent dominions: West Bengal, a Hindu-majority Indian state, and East Bengal, a Muslim-majority province of Pakistan which later became the independent Bangladesh. The early and prolonged exposure to British administration resulted in an expansion of Western education, culminating in developments in science, institutional education, and social reforms in the region, including what became known as the Bengali Renaissance. Several regional and pan−Indian empires throughout Bengal's history have shaped its culture, cuisine, and architecture.
Post-Indian independence, as a welfare state, West Bengal's economy is based on agricultural production and small and medium-sized enterprises. The state's cultural heritage, besides varied folk traditions, ranges from stalwarts in literature including Nobel-laureate Rabindranath Tagore to scores of musicians, film-makers and artists. For several decades, the state underwent political violence and economic stagnation before it rebounded. In 2021–22, the economy of West Bengal is the sixth-largest state economy in India with a gross state domestic product (GSDP) of inr 15360000000000, and has the country's 20th-highest GSDP per capita of inr 121267. Despite being one of the fastest-growing major economies, West Bengal has struggled to attract foreign direct investment due to adverse land acquisition policies, poor infrastructure, and red tape. In India, the state is ranked ninth for both ease of doing business and media exposure. West Bengal performs poorly in terms of lowering the poverty rate, with 14.88% of the population living below the national poverty rate. While the state performs poorly in terms of the rate of school enrollment and has high human trafficking incidences, it scores quite highly in terms of child nutrition, women's safety, and the literacy rate. It also has the 28th-highest ranking among Indian states in human development index, with the index value being lower than the Indian average. The state government debt of inr 5200000000000, or 34.41% of GSDP, is fifth highest India, but has dropped from 40.65% since 2010–11. There is moderate unemployment. West Bengal has two World Heritage sites and ranks as the seventh-most visited tourist destination in India.
The origin of the name Bengal (Bangla and Bongo in Bengali) is unknown. One theory suggests the word derives from "Bang", the name of a Dravidian tribe that settled the region around 1000BCE. The Bengali word Bongo might have been derived from the ancient kingdom of Vanga (or Banga). Although some early Sanskrit literature mentions the name Vanga, the region's early history is obscure.
In 1947, at the end of British rule over the Indian subcontinent the Bengal Legislative Council and the Bengal Legislative Assembly voted on the Partition of Bengal along religious lines into two separate entities: West Bengal, which continued as an Indian state and East Bengal, a province of Pakistan, which came to be known be as East Pakistan and later became the independent Bangladesh.
In 2011 the Government of West Bengal proposed a change in the official name of the state to Paschim Banga (পশ্চিমবঙ্গ Pôshchimbônggô). This is the native name of the state, literally meaning "western Bengal" in the native Bengali language. In August 2016 the West Bengal Legislative Assembly passed another resolution to change the name of West Bengal to "Bengal" in English and "Bangla" in Bengali. Despite the Trinamool Congress government's efforts to forge a consensus on the name change resolution, the Indian National Congress, the Left Front and the Bharatiya Janata Party opposed the resolution. However, the central government has turned down the proposal maintaining the state should have one single name for all languages instead of three and it should not be the same as that of any other territory (pointing out that the name 'Bangla' may create confusion with neighbouring Bangladesh).
Map - West Bengal (West Bengal)
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Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago. Their long occupation, initially in varying forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human genetic diversity. Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE. By, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest. (a) (b) (c), "In Punjab, a dry region with grasslands watered by five rivers (hence ‘panch’ and ‘ab’) draining the western Himalayas, one prehistoric culture left no material remains, but some of its ritual texts were preserved orally over the millennia. The culture is called Aryan, and evidence in its texts indicates that it spread slowly south-east, following the course of the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers. Its elite called itself Arya (pure) and distinguished themselves sharply from others. Aryans led kin groups organized as nomadic horse-herding tribes. Their ritual texts are called Vedas, composed in Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit is recorded only in hymns that were part of Vedic rituals to Aryan gods. To be Aryan apparently meant to belong to the elite among pastoral tribes. Texts that record Aryan culture are not precisely datable, but they seem to begin around 1200 BCE with four collections of Vedic hymns (Rg, Sama, Yajur, and Artharva)."
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
INR | Indian rupee | ₹ | 2 |
ISO | Language |
---|---|
AS | Assamese language |
BN | Bengali language |
BH | Bihari languages |
EN | English language |
GU | Gujarati language |
HI | Hindi |
KN | Kannada language |
ML | Malayalam language |
MR | Marathi language |
OR | Oriya language |
PA | Panjabi language |
TA | Tamil language |
TE | Telugu language |
UR | Urdu |