Bengal (people)
As a Bengal ( Bengali বাঙালি , Bangali , [Bangali] ) call themselves people whose native language Bengali and in the historic region of Bengal live or come from there. The Bengali self-image is overlaid by the state ( Indian or Bangladeshi ) and religion (usually Hindu or Muslim ), but is firmly embedded in the Indian cultural tradition . The Bengali language forms a continuum of understanding with the neighboring Indo-Aryan languages of northern India. Even ethnic Bengali population corresponds to that in northern India; only a darker skin color is a little more common, and one encounters occasional tibeto- Burmese features.
Outside of Bengal, larger groups also live in various major Indian cities, especially New Delhi , as well as in Pakistan , the United Kingdom and the USA , among others . Also, many workers in the Arab Emirates are Muslim Bengali.
history
antiquity
The evidence of civilization in the mouth of the Ganges (Padma) goes back over 4000 years. A population using the Dravidian and Munda languages is believed to be in the period immediately prior to the Indo-Aryan expansion. The exact origin of the word Bangla or Bengal is unknown. One possible interpretation would be the derivation from the Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang, who lived in 1000 BC. Lived in this area. After the arrival of the Indo-Aryans , the Anga, Vanga and Magadha kingdoms were established in and around Bengal. They were made 1000 BC. First named in the Atharvaveda. Since the 6th century BC Magadha expanded and claimed large parts of the regions of today's Bihar and Bengal for itself. Magadha was one of the four main kingdoms of India at the time of the historical Buddha. It was also one of the 16 Mahajanapadas. Under the Mauryat Empire, which was founded by Chandragupta Maurya , the Magadh Empire spread over almost all of South Asia, including parts of Persia and Afghanistan. The empire reached its highest dimensions under the Buddhist emperor Ashoka around 300 BC. The first European reference to Bengal was the mention of the country Gangaridai by the Greeks around 100 BC. It is speculated that the word Gangaridai was derived from the word Ganghard (land with the Ganges in the heart) with an allusion to a region in Bengal. Later, during the 3rd century to the 6th century, the Kingdom of Magadhda served as the seat of the Gupta Empire .
middle Ages
The first named king of Bengal was Shashanka, who ruled the country in the early 7th century. After an age of anarchy, 750 Gopala came to power through democratic elections. He founded the Bengali Buddhist Pala empire, which ruled the region for nearly 400 years and stretched over large parts of South Asia, from Assam in the northeast, to Kabul in the west, and to Andhra Pradesh in the south. After the end of the Pala dynasty , the Hindu Sena dynasty ruled , although it remained in power for a much shorter time. In the 12th century, Sufi missionaries introduced Islam to Bengal. Subsequent Muslim conquests helped spread Islam in the region. Bakhtiar Khilji , an Afghan general of the slave dynasty from the Sultanate of Delhi , defeated the Bengali ruler Lakshman Sen of the Sena dynasty and conquered large parts of Bengal. As a result, the region was ruled by a dynasty of sultans and feudal lords led by the Delhi Sultanate that lasted several hundred years. In the 16th century, the Mughal general Islam Khan conquered Bengal. Thereupon the court of the Mughal Empire granted the area limited independence and self-government under the leadership of the Nawab of Murshidabad , who, however, had to recognize the supremacy of the Grand Mughal in Delhi.
Renaissance
The Bengali Renaissance refers to a social reform movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the Bengal region of undivided India during the period of British rule. The Bengali Renaissance began with Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1775–1833) and ended with Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), although there were many loyal followers who embodied certain aspects of unique intellectual and creative achievements, Bengal was one in the 19th century unique mix of religious and social reformers, scholars, literary greats, journalists, patriotic speakers and scholars. They all mingled with one another and formed a picture of the Renaissance, which represented the change from the Middle Ages to the modern age.
Indian independence movement
Bengal also played a decisive role in the Indian independence movement. Many of the early supporters of the freedom struggle and subsequent leaders in the movement were Bengali such as Chittaranjan Das , Surendranath Banerjea , Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose , Prafulla Chaki , Khudiram Bose and Rashbehari Bose . Some of these leaders, such as "Netaji" Subhash Chandra Bose, disagreed with the actions of Mahatma Gandhi , who saw peaceful nonviolent resistance as the best way to achieve independence for India. They engaged in armed resistance against the British. Netaji was the co-founder and leader of the Indian National Army (not part of the British Indian Army ) which fought British forces in some parts of India. He was also head of state of a parallel regime, the Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind, which acted as a supporter of the Axis powers.
Among the Muslims, AK Fazlul Huq and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy were the most prominent Bengali leaders of the British-Indian independence movement.
As a state people of Bangladesh
The detachment of Bangladesh from Pakistan in bloody independence struggles in 1971 had no Bengali nationalist motives. In addition to social, the reasons were mainly political, as the Pakistani government prevented attempts to enforce federal principles. This included the election of a Bengali president for the whole of Pakistan and the full recognition of the Bengali language as an official language with equal rights. The fighting was supported by India. If today Bengal highlight their culture, such as B. the Bengali poet Tagore , because they see it as an important part and root of Indian culture.
