The first Partition of Bengal, implemented on October 16, 1905, was reversed on this day.
Widespread protests, including that from several armed groups, and the Swadeshi movement, had followed the Partition and the colonial powers had to give in. As a result, Britain’s King George V announced the dissolution of the Partition on this day at the Delhi Durbar.
The Partition had been done along Hindu-Muslim communal lines — criticised as the “divide-andrule” policy.
The nationalists saw the Partition as a strategy to break Hindu-Muslim unity in Bengal, with the territory divided into a Muslim-majority east and a Hindu-majority west.
Even as the Partition was revoked, another pronouncement was made at the Delhi Durbar that would change the history of Bengal forever.
The decision to shift the capital of British India from Calcutta to Delhi was announced on this day too.