West Bengal travel guide

Background

The land

Geography

Graphically described as being made up of “new mud, old mud and marsh”, most of West Bengal lies on the western delta of the Ganga. Its limited higher ground, the basalt Rajmahal Hills just west of Murshidabad, are an extension of the ancient rocks of the peninsula. All that remains of the dense forests that once covered the state are the mangrove swamps of the Sunderbans in the far south and a narrow wooded belt along the southern slopes of the Himalaya. The apparently unchanging face of the Bengali countryside is highly misleading. Rivers have constantly changed their courses and over the last 300 years the Ganga has shifted progressively east, leaving the Hugli as a relatively minor channel. Minor variations in height make enormous differences to the quality of land for farming. The chief variety in the landscape of the plains of Bengal, however, comes from the contrasting greens of the different varieties of rice, often producing startlingly attractive countryside. The dominating mountains to the north and the plateau and hills of the southwest provide far greater scenic contrasts though. The gently rising slopes which lead from the delta to the peninsular rocks of Bihar and Orissa, are the home of some of India’s most isolated tribal peoples, though their forest habitat has been severely degraded.

Climate

Hot and oppressively humid summers are followed by much cooler and clearer winters. Heavy storms occur in late March and April. These electric storms are marked by massive cloud formations, strong winds and heavy rain. Occasionally tropical cyclones also strike coastal areas at this time of year, though they are far more common between October and December. The monsoon hits between June and September, when large parts of Kolkata are knee-deep in water for hours at a time.

History

In prehistoric times Bengal was home to Dravidian hunter-gatherers. In the first millennium BC, the Aryans from Central Asia, who had learned the agricultural techniques and the art of weaving and pottery, arrived in Bengal, bringing with them the Sanskrit language. From about the fifth century BC trade in cotton, silk and coral from Ganga Nagar flourished. In the third century BC, Bengal was part of the Mauryan Empire, but it remained densely forested and comparatively sparsely populated.

The Guptas conquered Bengal in the fourth century AD and trade with the Mediterranean expanded for the next 200 years, particularly with Rome. The fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century led to a decline in Bengal’s fortunes. Only with the founding of the Pala Dynasty in AD 750 was the region united once again. Bengal became a centre of Buddhism and art and learning flourished. The Senas followed. They were great patrons of the arts and ruled for 50 years until deposed by the invading Turks, who began a century of Muslim rule under the Khaljis of the Delhi Sultanate. The most notable of the Pathan kings who followed the Khaljis was Sher Shah, who extended his territory from Bihar into Bengal, which was taken back by the Mughal emperor Akbar, anxious to obtain the rich resources of rice, silk and saltpetre in 1574-1576.

The increasing power of the Muslims spurred the Portuguese towards the subcontinent and they began trading with Bengal in the mid-16th century. Before long they faced competition from the Dutch and the British and in 1632 an attack on their port near Kolkata by Emperor Shah Jahan reduced their merchant power.

In 1690 the purchase of the three villages which grew into Calcutta enabled the British to build a fort and consolidate their power. In 1700, Bengal became an independent presidency and Calcutta prospered. The firmans (permits) granted were for trading from the ports but the British took the opportunity of gaining a monopoly over internal trade as well. After the death of Emperor Aurangzeb, the authority of Delhi slowly crumbled. In 1756, Siraj-ud-Daula, the then Nawab of Bengal, began to take note of Kolkata’s growing wealth. Finding the British strengthening the fortifications he attacked Fort William, finding little difficulty in capturing the city. Within a year, however, Clive took the city back and then defeated the Nawab at Plassey; a turning point for the British in India. Through the 19th century West Bengal became the economic and political centre of British India.

Calcutta developed as the principal centre of cultural and political activity in modern India. Bengali literature, drama, art and music flourished. Religious reform movements such as the Brahmo Samaj, under the leadership of Raja Ram Mohan Roy in the 1830s, developed from the juxtaposition of traditional Hinduism with Christian missionary activity at the beginning of the 19th century. Later, one of India’s greatest poets, Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), dominated India’s cultural world, breathing moral and spiritual life into the political movement for independence.

Until 1905 Bengal had included much of modern Bihar and Orissa, as well as the whole of Bengal. Lord Curzon’s short-lived Partition of Bengal in 1905 roused fierce opposition, and also encouraged the split between Muslims and Hindus which finally resulted in Bengali Muslim support for the creation of Pakistan in 1947. The division into the two new states was accompanied by the migration of over five million people and appalling massacres as Hindus and Muslims fled. West Bengal was again directly affected by the struggle to create Bangladesh, when about 10 million refugees arrived from East Pakistan after 25 March 1971. Most returned after Bangladesh gained its Independence in December 1971.

Modern West Bengal

From the mid-1960s until the 2009 Lok Sabha elections political life was dominated by the confrontation between the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (the CPI(M)) and the Congress Party. The CPI(M) has held power in the State Assembly since June 1977, making it the world’s longest-running democratically elected Communist government. The Congress, the second largest party, has performed better in the Lok Sabha parliamentary elections. Although the CPI(M) has lost some of its share of the urban vote, especially in Kolkata, Assembly elections have continued to be won convincingly by the CPI(M)-led Left Front under Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. This pattern continued in the 2006 State Assembly elections, when the CPM won 233 of the 293 Assembly seats. Dismayed by the slow pace of industialisation in West Bengal compared with many other Indian states the CPM decided to create Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in rural areas. However, the policy of acquiring farm land led to vigorous communal agitation, erupting in the village of Nandigram on 14 March 2007, when at least 12 protesters were killed in police firing. Proposed developments by both foreign and Indian companies, most notably the Indian multinational Tata’s plans to produce a new small car at Singur, were aborted. The CPM’s popularity slumped, and at the Lok Sabha elections of 2009 the CPM won only nine of the 42 seats, the Trinamool Congress winning 19 and the Congress six.

Culture

The majority of the people are Bengalis. Tribal groups include Santals, Oraons and Mundas in the plains and the borders of Chota Nagpur and Lepchas and Bhotias in the Himalaya. Over 85% of the population speak Bengali. Hindi, Urdu and tribal languages account for most of the remainder.

Bengalis are said to be obsessed about what they eat. The men often take a keen interest in buying the most important elements of the day’s meal, namely fresh fish. Typically, it is river fish, the most popular being hilsa and bekti or the widely available shellfish, especially king prawns. Bekti is grilled or fried and is tastier than the fried fish of the west as it has often been marinated in mild spices first. The prized smoked hilsa, although delicious, has thousands of fine bones. Maachh (fish) comes in many forms as jhol (in a thin gravy), jhal (spicy and hot), malai curry (in coconut milk, mildly spiced), chop (in a covering of mashed potato and crumbs) or chingri maachher cutlet (flattened king prawn ‘fillets’, crumbed and fried). Bengali cooking uses mustard oil and mustard which grows in abundance, and a subtle mixture of spices. Mishti (sweetmeats) are another distinctive feature. Many are milk based and the famous sandesh, roshogolla, roshomalai, pantua and ledikeni (named after Lady Canning, the wife of the first Viceroy of India) are prepared with a kind of cottage cheese, in dozens of different textures, shapes, colours and tastes. Pale pinkish brown, mishti doi, is an excellent sweet yoghurt eaten as a dessert, typically sold in hand-thrown clay pots.

You will only find the true flavour of Bengali cooking in someone’s home or at a few special Bengali restaurants.

Crafts

Silk has been woven in India for more than 3500 years and continues today with the weaving of the natural-coloured wild silk called tassar. Bengal silk, found as block-printed saris, has had a revival in the exquisite brocade weaving of baluchari, produced in the past under royal patronage, and is now carried out in Bankura. The saris are woven in traditional style with untwisted silk and have beautiful borders and pallu (the end section), which depict peacocks, flowers and human figures. Fine cotton is woven also.

The Bankura horse has become a symbol of pottery in West Bengal which still flourishes in the districts of Bankura, Midnapore and Birbhum. Soft soap stone is used for carving copies of temple images, while shell bangles are considered auspicious. Ivory carvers once produced superb decorative items, a skill developed in the Mughal period. Today, bone and plastic have largely replaced ivory in inlay work. Metal workers produce brass and bell- metal ware while the tribal dhokra casters still follow the ancient cire perdue method . Kalighat pat paintings are in a primitive style using bold colours.