The land that is now West Bengal has been settled for thousands of years, shaped by the Ganges and its delta. Ancient texts refer to the region under names such as Vanga and Gauda. Excavations at Chandraketugarh, north east of Kolkata, have revealed terracotta plaques, coins and pottery suggesting a thriving urban centre from around the 3rd century BCE onward. Tamralipta, near present day Tamluk, was a famous ancient seaport. Parts of Bengal came under the Mauryan Empire and later the Gupta Empire.
In the early 7th century, Shashanka ruled as king of Gauda and is often described as the first major independent ruler of Bengal. From the 8th century the Pala dynasty, founded by Gopala, governed much of Bengal and Bihar for around four centuries. The Palas were great patrons of Buddhism. They were followed by the Sena dynasty, who favoured Hindu traditions and Sanskrit learning. Around the beginning of the 13th century, the Turkic general Bakhtiyar Khalji overran the Sena capital at Nadia, opening a new chapter of Muslim rule in the region.
For much of the medieval period Bengal was an independent sultanate with capitals at Gaur and Pandua. The vast Adina Mosque at Pandua and the ruined gateways, mosques and towers of Gaur in Malda district still recall this era. In 1486 the saint Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was born in Nabadwip, and his devotional movement left a deep mark on Bengali culture. In the west, the Malla kings of Bishnupur built remarkable terracotta temples in the 17th century that draw visitors today. The Mughals annexed Bengal in the late 16th century, and in the early 18th century the Nawabs of Bengal ruled from Murshidabad, where Hazarduari Palace and other monuments line the Bhagirathi river.
European trading companies arrived from the 16th century onward. The Dutch settled at Chinsurah, the French at Chandernagore, the Danes at Serampore and the British around Calcutta, which grew from villages acquired in the 1690s. In 1757 the East India Company under Robert Clive defeated Nawab Siraj ud Daulah at the Battle of Plassey, and after the Battle of Buxar in 1764 the Company gained revenue rights over Bengal. Calcutta became the capital of British India and remained so until 1911. The city was the heart of the Bengal Renaissance, associated with figures such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.
Bengal was also a powerful centre of the freedom movement. The partition of Bengal ordered by Lord Curzon in 1905 sparked the Swadeshi movement and widespread protest, and it was reversed in 1911. Leaders such as Subhas Chandra Bose came from Bengal. The Victoria Memorial, Fort William and the colonial buildings around Dalhousie Square remain vivid reminders of the period.
When India became independent in 1947, Bengal was partitioned. The western, largely Hindu majority districts formed the Indian state of West Bengal, while the eastern part became East Pakistan and later, in 1971, Bangladesh. The princely state of Cooch Behar merged with West Bengal in 1950, and the former French enclave of Chandernagore joined the state in the 1950s. Under the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 West Bengal gained some territory from Bihar, including the Purulia area. Kolkata has been the capital throughout, and the city's English name was officially changed from Calcutta to Kolkata in 2001.
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Photo: Syed Sajidul Islam, CC BY-SA 4.0
