Santanu.
Guwahati, Wednesday, June 11, 2003
How Cooch Behar was merged with Bengal
By Ajit Patowary
GUWAHATI, June 10 — Cooch Behar was merged with West Bengal on January 1, 1950 after about four mouths of Machiavellian exercises. The erstwhile princely State was integrated with the Indian Union under the Cooch Behar Merger Agreement, 1949. This Agreement was signed between the Governor General of India and Maharaja Jagaddipendranarayana Bhup Bahadur of Cooch Behar. Subsequently, the princely State was made a Chief Commissioner’s province with effect from September 12, 1949.
Since June, 1949, the issue of merger of Cooch Behar either with Assam or West Bengal became a subject of “heated controversy”, said PK Bhattacharyya in his paper ‘Merger of Cooch Behar : A Case Study of the Differences of the Perspectives of the Government of Assam and West Bengal’. The paper was presented at the national seminar on ‘Sources of the History of North-east India’, organised jointly by the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), New Delhi and its North-east Regional Centre, Guwahati, with a three-day programme since March 12, 2002.
On June 20, 1949, the Premier of Assam on being requested, sent “an extract from the fortnightly letter dated June 18, 1949” to the Prime Minister of India, Bhattacharyya said. In his communication, the Assam Premier said that he had consulted the State’s Congress committee and its working committee on the issue. The Congress party of the State had adopted a resolution to the effect that the people of the State would welcome a merger of Cooch Behar with Assam “provided the people of Cooch Behar decided to do so”, said the communication.
Amanatulla Ahmed, president of Cooch Behar State Praja Congress (later known as Hitasadhani Sabha) and others in a letter to the adviser of States Ministry, New Delhi, dated August 8, 1949, said, “The entire people of Cooch Behar (excluding the microscopic Bengali element) are against the merger of the State with West Bengal. Cooch Behar (both Hindus and Muslims) unlike the Bengalis, have got peculiar characteristic of their own. Their spoken language, Rajbanshi dialect – having greater affinity with Assamese... manners and customs are similar to those of Assamese... there grew a natural dislike for Bengalies among the Cooch Beharis.
“The general election in June last clearly vindicated the verdict of the people — when 24 seats out of 25 had been captured by the Cooch Beharis. One set being captured by a Bengalee... To cast our lot with such a province (i.e. West Bengal) will be a sheer injustice to the people of Cooch Behar…,” said the letter as quoted by Bhattacharyya.
The above 24 members of the Cooch Behar Legislative Council also adopted a resolution opposing merger of Cooch Behar with West Bengal, as stated by the then Chief Minister of Cooch Behar HS Maheswari. But, in the meantime, the Intelligence Department of Cooch Behar was reorganised without the knowledge of the adviser of Cooch Behar State – i.e., the Governor of Assam. This created a gap of understanding between Maheswari and the adviser.
The then Joint Secretary AB Chatterjee submitted a report to the Ministry of States on the affairs in Cooch Behar, which was alleged manoeuvred by Maheswari to ensure electoral victory for Hitasadhini Sabha. It also maintained, “Cooch Behar has had more effinity with Bengal than Assam in the past … The language of the Cooch Behar people is only a direct dialect of Bengali, and Assamese is practically unknown in Cooch Behar”.
Meanwhile, the Intelligence Branch, New Delhi had in several reports, described the popular opinion in Cooch Behar for a plebescite on the merger issue as a Pakistani conspiracy. And the Government of India by the end of 1949 (around November) came to the conclusion that “the best interests of the people of Cooch Behar and the country would be served by its integration into the province of West Bengal”.
It was accordingly decided to merge Cooch Behar with West Bengal with effect from January 1, 1950. “Thus at one stroke, that is, with the merger of Cooch Behar with West Bengal, Sardar Patel (the then Union Home Minister) not only put the anti-national forces of Cooch Behar to flight but created a healthy atmosphere on political situation in West Bengal,” said Bhattacharyya.
