East India
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
East India, more properly eastern India, is a region of India consisting of the states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Orissa. It is geographically between North India and North-East India, and shares many cultural and linguistic characteristics with Bangladesh, which formed part of this region before Partition. The population of this region is about 220 million.
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[edit] Confusion about the term
The term East India was used in the 14th to 18th century by European traders and adventurers to refer to the East Indies region. This included the Indian subcontinent plus present-day Indonesia and the rest of South-East Asia. The history of the term came from Christopher Columbus' belief, when he reached the Americas in 1492, that he had reached India, a much sought-after sea version of the profitable Spice Route. After Columbus' death, West Indies became the term for the Caribbean islands while East Indies referred to India and neighboring states. The British East India Company, Dutch East India Company, French East India Company were all constituted to advance their home countries' commercial and colonial interests in the entire East Indies region.
In the present day, East India refers to eastern India only.
[edit] Languages
Bengali is the dominant language of this part of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, being spoken by well over 80 million people in West Bengal plus neighbouring states. Hindi has the largest number of speakers at over 90 million but its profile has been limited by Bihar's economic woes. Other important languages are Oriya and Assamese.
The Indo-Aryan languages spoken in this region descend from the Magadhi Prakrits spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha. Of these, Magadhi and Oriya, which remain virtually unchanged for over a thousand years, are considered the most direct descendants. Bengali and Assamese emerged as distinct languages from Magadhi Prakrit around 9/10th century A.D.
Many of the minority adivasis (indigenous tribal people) of East India belong to the Munda branch of the Austro-Asiatic language family. Major representatives of this group include the Munda, Santal, and Ho peoples.
[edit] Religion and culture
The majority of the population of East India is Hindu with Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and Sikh minorities.
Durga and Jagannath are particularly popular Hindu deities in this region. Puri is the eastern center for pilgrimage in Hinduism, and Bhubaneswar is considered to be the city of temples.
[edit] Urban areas
West Bengal's capital Kolkata, the capital of British India till 1911, is the biggest metropolis and economically dominant city of the region. However, the mid-sized cities of Cuttack and Puri in Orissa, and Bihar's capital Patna, were historically more prominent in the medieval periods.
In the 21st century, India's economic boom is resulting in the growth and development of towns such as Patna, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Siliguri and Asansol.
[edit] Economy
Agriculture continues to be the largest sector of the economy and employs the majority of the working population. In the 20th century Industrial development was concentrated in southern West Bengal and in Jamshedpur. In recent years the IT industry has developed in Orissa and West Bengal.
[edit] History
East India was at the heart of the ancient Magadha and Maurya empires.
It was the birthplace of Buddhism. Gautam Buddha received enlightenment in Bodh Gaya. 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 Bihar and Bengal.
The great Bengal dynasties of Senas and Palas rules for centuries.
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 was part of the Mughal Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.
With the arrival of the Europeans in the 17th century, outposts were established in Bengal. 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 1770's. In the 19th century, Calcutta's traders and merchants traded with the rest of the British Empire, continental Europe, the Unites States and China. Indentured Indian labourers from Bihar and Bengal sailed from Calcutta 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. 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 Congress was founded in Calcutta. During Mahatma 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 East India. The Muslim League was founded in Dhaka. The Muslim League government of Bengal in the 1940's started the atrocities of the Direct Action Day in Calcutta, which after brutal killings across the country, resulted in the acceptance of Pakistan and the partition. In 1947 bloody communal riots displaced millions as India independence and partition occurred together. Some Bihari and Bengali Muslims fled to Pakistan. Most East Bengal Hindus fled to India.
The 1950's 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. In 1977 the Communist party came to power in West Bengal.
Bihar and Orissa struggled with economic issues but developed steadily. Jharkhand became a separate state in the 1990's. The economic boom since 1991 started to spread new malls, highways, airports and IT office complexes, but not evenly across the region.
