Bengali Hindus () are adherents of Hinduism who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. They make up the majority in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Assam's Barak Valley region and make up the largest minority in Bangladesh. Comprising about one-third of the global Bengali population, they are the largest ethnic group among Hindus. Bengali Hindus speak Bengali, which belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and adhere to the Shaktism school of thought of Hinduism (majority, the Kalikula tradition) or Vaishnavism (minority, Gaudiya Vaishnavism and Vaishnava-Sahajiya) of their native religion Hinduism with some regional deities. There are significant numbers of Bengali-speaking Hindus in different Indian states..
Around the 8th century, the Bengali language branched off from Magadhi Prakrit, a derivative of Sanskrit that was prevalent in the eastern region of the Indian subcontinent at that time. During the Sena period (11th – 12th century) the Bengali culture developed into a distinct culture, within the civilisation. Bengali Hindus and Muslims were at the forefront of the Bengal Renaissance in the 19th century; the Bengal region was noted for its participation in the struggle for independence from the British rule.
At the time of the independence of India in 1947, the province of Bengal was partitioned between India and East Pakistan, part of the Muslim-majority state of Pakistan. Millions of Bengali Hindus numbering around 2,519,557 (1941–1951) have migrated from East Bengal (later Bangladesh) and settled in West Bengal and other states of India. The migration continued in waves through the fifties and sixties, especially as a results of the 1950 East Pakistan riots, which led to the migration of 4.5 million Hindus to India, according to one estimate. The massacre of East Pakistanis in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 led to exodus of millions of Hindus to India.
Ethnonym The Hindus are a religious group, native to the Indian subcontinent, speaking a broad range of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages and adhering to the native belief systems, rooted in the Vedas. The word Hindu is popularly believed to be a Persian exonym for the people native to the Indian subcontinent. The word is derived from Sindhu, the Sanskrit name for the river Indus and it initially referred to the people residing to the east of the river. The Hindus are constituted into various ethno-linguistic subgroups, which in spite of being culturally diverse, share a common bond of unity.
The word Bengali is derived from the Bengali word bangali. The English word Bengali denoting the people as well as the language is derived from the English word Bengal denoting the region, which itself is derived ultimately from the Bengali word Vanga which was one of the five historical kingdoms of Eastern India. According to Harivamsa, Bali, the king of the asuras had five sons from his wife Sudeshna through sage Dirghatama. The five sons namely Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, Pundra and Sumha went on to found five kingdoms of the same name in the eastern region of the Indian subcontinent. In ancient times Vanga proper consisted of the deltaic region between Bhagirathi, Padma and Madhumati, but later on extended to include the regions which now roughly comprise Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.
In India, they tend to identify themselves as Bengalis while in Bangladesh they tend to identify themselves as Hindus. In the global context, the terms Indian Bengali and Bangladeshi Hindu are respectively used. In India, Bengali generally refers to Bengali Hindus, excluding a significant number of Bengali Muslims who are also ethnically Bengalis. The 'other' is usually identified as 'non-Bengali', a term that generically refers to the Hindu people who are not Bengali speaking, but sometimes specifically used to denote the Hindi speaking population.
Ethnology The Bengali Hindus constitute of numerous endogamous castes, which are sometimes further subdivided into endogamous subgroups. The caste system evolved over centuries and became more and more complex with time. In the medieval period, several castes were boycotted by the ruling classes from time to time and this isolation continued till the 19th century. These social boycotts were somewhat discriminatory in nature. After the Renaissance, the rigidity of the caste system ceased to a great extent, so much so that the first celebrated intercaste marriage took place as early as in 1925.
The Bengali Hindu families are patriarchal as well as patrilocal and traditionally follow a joint family system. However, due to the Partition and subsequent urbanisation, the joint families have given way to the nuclear families. The Bengali Hindus were traditionally governed by the Dāyabhāga school of law, as opposed to the Mitākṣarā school of law, which governed the other Hindu ethno-linguistic groups. In India, after the promulgation of the Hindu code bills, the Bengali Hindus along with other Hindus are being governed by a uniform Hindu law.
There are two major social subgroups among the Bengali Hindus – the ghotis and the bangals. The Bengali Hindus who emigrated from East Bengal (Bangladesh) at the wake of the Partition and settled in West Bengal, came to known as the bangals, while the native Bengali Hindus of West Bengal came to known as ghotis. For several decades after partition, these two social subgroups possessed marked difference in their accents and their rivalry was manifested in many spheres of life, most notably in the support for the football clubs of East Bengal and Mohun Bagan respectively. Several such differences have eased with passing years.
History
Prehistoric period 20,000-year-old stone weapons including small axes, potteries and charcoal remains have been unearthed from Chandthakurer Danga in Haatpara mouza, 8 km northeast of Sagardighi in Murshidabad. Microliths dating to 10000 BC has been excavated from Birbhanpur, situated in Paschim Bardhaman district on the Damodar River valley near Durgapur. Microliths, potteries, copper fishhooks and iron arrowheads have been found at Pandu Rajar Dhibi.
Ancient period
In the ancient times, some of the Bengali Hindus were seafaring people as evident from the tales of merchants like Chand Sadagar and Dhanapati Saudagor whose ships sailed to far off places for trade and establishment of colonies in South East Asia. By the 3rd century B.C.E. they were united into a powerful state, known to the Greeks as Gangaridai, whose military prowess demoralised Alexander from further expedition to the east."When he (Alexander) moved forward with his forces certain men came to inform him that Porus, the king of the country, who was the nephew of that Porus whom he had defeated, had left his kingdom and fled to the nation of Gandaridai... He had obtained from Phegeus a description of the country beyond the Indus: First came a desert which it would take twelve days to traverse; beyond this was the river called the Ganges which had a width of thirty two stadia, and a greater depth than any other Indian river; beyond this again were situated the dominions of the nation of the Prasioi and the Gandaridai, whose king, Xandrammes, had an army of 20,000 horse 200,000 infantry, 2,000 chariots and 4,000 elephants trained and equipped for war".... "Now this (Ganges) river, which is 30 stadia broad, flows from north to south, and empties its water into the ocean forming the eastern boundary of the Gandaridai, a nation which possesses the greatest number of elephants and the largest in size." –Diodorus Siculus (c.90 BC – c.30 BC). Quoted from The Classical Accounts of India, .
Medieval period
In the middle of the 8th century, the Bengali Hindu nobility democratically elected Gopala as the ruler of Gauda, ushering in an era of peace and prosperity in Bengal, ending almost a century of chaos and confusion. The Buddhist Pala rulers unified Bengal into a single political entity and expanded it into an empire, conquering a major portion of North India. During this time, the Bengali Hindus excelled in art, literature, philosophy, mathematics, sciences and statecraft. The first scriptures in Bengali Charyapada was composed during the Pala rule. The Pala were followed by the Senas who made far reaching changes in the social structure of Bengali Hindus, introducing 36 new castes and orthodox institutions like Kulinism.
The literary progress of the Pala and Sena period came to a halt after the Turkish conquest in the early 13th century. Except for Haridas Datta's Manasar Bhasan no significant literary work was composed for about a century after the conquest. Even though the ruling classes resisted the invaders, Gauda, the centre of Bengal polity, fell to the Islamic invaders. During this period hundreds of temples and monasteries were desecrated. The next attack on the society came from the Islamic missionaries."When the Islamic missionaries arrived they found in several instances that the conquering armies had destroyed both the temples of revived Hinduism and the monasteries of the older Buddhism; in their place—often on the same sites—they built new shrines. Moreover, they very frequently transferred ancient Hindu and Buddhist stories of mir." Quoted in The Interaction of Islam and Hinduism . Retrieved 9 September 2015. Local chieftains like Akananda, Dakshin Ray and Mukut Ray, resisted the missionary activities.
During the Pathan occupation of Bengal, some regions were held in sway by different Bengali Hindu rulers. Islam religion gradually spread throughout the Bengal region, and many Bengali Hindus converted to Islam. When the Delhi-based Mughals tried to bring Bengal under their direct rule, the Bengali chiefs along with some Bengali Muslims consolidated themselves into confederacies and resisted the Mughals. After the fall of the confederacies, the Mughals brought a major part of Bengal under their control, and constituted a subah.
Early modern period During the decline of the Mughal Empire, Nawabs of Bengal (who were Muslim) ruled a large part of Bengal. During the reign of Alivardi Khan. a Nawab, the severe taxation and frequent Maratha raids made the life miserable for the ordinary Bengali Hindus.Chaudhuri, B.B. (2008). Peasant history of late pre-colonial and colonial India. Pearson Education India, p. 184. A section of the Bengali Hindu nobility helped the British East India Company in overthrowing the Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah regime. After obtaining the revenue rights, the East India Company imposed more oppressive taxation. In the famine of 1770, approximately one third of the Bengali population died.
The British began to face stiff resistance in conquering the semi-independent Bengali Hindu kingdoms outside the pale of Muslim occupied Bengal. In some cases, even when their rulers have been captured or killed, the ordinary people began to carry on the fight. These resistances took the form of Chuar (Chuar is a derogatory term used by the Britishers and local zamindars to denote the Bhumij peoples) and Paik Rebellion. These warring people were later listed as criminal tribes and barred from recruitment in the Indian army. In 1766, the British troops were completely routed by the sanyasis and fakirs or the warrior monks at Dinhata, where the latter resorted guerrilla warfare. Bankim Chandra's Anandamath is based on the Famine and consequential Sannyasi Rebellion.Bangali Charitabhidhan Volume I. Sansad, p. 489.
British rule