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Events on Monday 16 October 1905 1
1905 – 1911The Partition of BengalDivide and rule, stated plainlyLord Curzon splits Bengal into a Muslim-majority east and a Hindu-majority west, arguing administrative efficiency for a province of seventy-eight million. Indians read it as an attempt to break the most politically active population in the empire, and the Swadeshi movement — boycott of British goods, promotion of Indian ones — is the response. It is the moment Indian nationalism becomes a mass movement rather than a petitioning society. The partition is reversed in 1911. The line drawn returns in 1947.