A report on Bengali Hindus, Bengalis and Assam

Durga Puja, the most notable Hindu festival for Bengali Hindus.

The ancient political divisions of the Ganges delta.

Devi Durga Sculpture by Sandalwood. Found in Murshidabad, West Bengal. Now kept in Indian Museum, Kolkata.

Parts of the Charyapada, a collection of ancient Buddhist hymns which mention the Bengalis, in display at the Rajshahi College Library.

Map of Eastern Bengal and Assam during 1907–1909

Dancing Ganesha sculpture from North Bengal, 11th century CE, Asian Art Museum of Berlin (Dahlem).

Depiction of Gangaridai on a map by 11th-century polymath Ptolemy.

A map of the British Indian Empire in 1909 during the partition of Bengal (1905–1911), showing British India in two shades of pink (coral and pale) and the princely states in yellow. The Assam Province (initially as the Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam) can be seen towards the north-eastern side of India.

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the founder of Gaudiya Vaishnavism

Atiśa is recognised as one of the greatest figures of classical Buddhism, having inspired Buddhist thought from Tibet to Sumatra.

Showing a historical incident at Kanaklata Udyan, Tezpur

Swami Vivekananda was a leading figure of the Bengal Renaissance Vivekananda at the Parliament of the World's Religions (1893)

Ghazi Pir is thought to have lived in the Sundarbans some time between the 12th to 13th century.

Signature dish of Bengali: Fish And Rice.

15th-century Portuguese painting of "Bengalis".

Savitri-Satyavan story on Kalighat Painting, 3rd quarter of the 19th century.

The Bengali artillery at the Battle of Plassey in 1757.

Blooming of Kopou Orchid marks the beginning of the festive season of Bihu in Assam.

Durga Puja, the largest festival of Bengali Hindus

A painting by Shaikh Muhammad Amir of Karraya displaying a syce of Bengal holding two carriage horses.

A Bengali woman in Dhaka clad in fine Bengali muslin, 18th century.

People gathered at Kamakhya Temple for the Ambubachi Mela

Rath Yatra at Dhamrai in Dhaka district, Bangladesh

W.C. Bonnerjee, co-founder and first president of Indian National Congress.

Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, the co-founder and inaugural president of the Awami League.

The Bengali Hindu diaspora celebrate Durga Puja all over the world.

Dean Mahomed is credited for introducing shampoo to the Europeans.

7th–8th century specimen of Assamese (Kamarupi) literature

Ichhai Ghosher Deul at Gourangapur in Paschim Bardhaman, West Bengal. (India)

Large numbers of Bengalis have settled and established themselves in Banglatown.

Dhakeshwari Temple in Dhaka. (Bangladesh)

I'tisam-ud-Din was the first educated Bengali and South Asian to have travelled to Europe.

1. Tinskia 2. Dibrugarh 3. Dhemaji 4. Charaideo 5. Sivasagar 6.Lakhimpur 7. Majuli 8. Jorhat 9. Biswanath 10. Golaghat 11. Karbi Anglong 12. Sonitpur 13. Nagaon 14. Hojai 15. Karbi Anglong West 16. Dima Hasao 17. Cachar 18. Hailakandi 19. Karimganj 20. Morigaon 21. Udalguri 22. Darrang 23. Kamrup Metro 24. Baksa 25. Nalbari 26. Kamrup 27. Barpeta 28. Chirang 29. Bongaigaon 30. Goalpara 31. Kokrajhar 32. Dhubri 33. South Salmara Mankachar 34. Bajali

Baro-chala Buro Shiva temple at Jalshara in Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal. (India)

Regional dialects form one of the determiners to the social stratification of Bengalis.

Devi Manasa with her husband Jaratkaru & son Astik flanked by Nagas, 11th century Pala period statue from Bengal

Bengali schoolboys in the port city of Chittagong.

The image represent's Dimaraji proposed state map

A sculpture of the Nawab of Bengal's Royal Peacock Barge in Murshidabad.

A Bengali man sporting a simple black sherwani.

A tea garden in Assam: tea is grown at elevations near sea level, giving it a malty sweetness and an earthy flavor, as opposed to the more floral aroma of highland (e.g. Darjeeling, Taiwanese) teas

Artistes from Purulia district of West Bengal performs Chhau dance

Assamese women busy planting paddy seedlings in their agricultural field in Pahukata village in the Nagaon district of Assam

Satyajit Ray, eminent film director who has made Bengali films popular all over the world

A group of 'Husori' for the occasion of Assamese Bohag Bihu in their traditional attire.

Gitanjali intro featuring its author Rabindranath Tagore

The application of mehndi onto one's hand hosts a ceremony of itself during Bengali wedding seasons.

A Bengali groom partaking in a supplication during his wedding.

Girl in traditional Mekhela chador dress with a Dhol wrapped with Gamosa

A decorative Assamese Jaapi laid over a Gamosa

Qazi Azizul Haque is recognised for his contributions to the development of modern fingerprint biometrics, a discovery of worldwide importance.

Meghnad Saha, J C Bose, J C Ghosh, Snehamoy Dutt, S N Bose, D M Bose, N R Sen, J N Mukherjee, N C Nag

A sculpture honoring Fazlur Khan at the Willis Tower

Mising girls dancing during Ali Ai Ligang (Spring Festival)

A lathi khela event taking place in Tangail.

Actors of Abinaswar Gosthi performs the play "Surjya Mandirot Surjyasta" directed by Dipok Borah

A Nouka Baich competition taking place in the monsoon season.

Mohammed Salim, the first South Asian footballer to play for a foreign club. Due to playing in bare feet, he is having them bandaged by Jimmy McMenemy in 1936.

An ethnic preparation of Ghost chili chicken curry of Assam

Cricketer Shakib Al Hasan is currently crowned the world's best all-rounder in all formats for ODI cricket, and one of the greatest of all times.

Lakshminath Bezbaroa, one of the foremost figures of Assamese literature.

Imaginary portrait of Srimanta Sankardeva by Bishnu Prasad Rabha

School girls in the classroom, Lakhiganj High School, Assam

National Institute of Technology, Silchar

Jorhat Engineering College of Assam Science and Technology University

Statue of Bishnu Prasad Rabha, Jyoti Prasad Agarwala and Phani Sarma at District Library, Guwahati.

A folio from the Hastividyarnava manuscript

<center>A page of manuscript painting from Assam; The medieval painters used locally manufactured painting materials such as the colours of hangool and haital and papers manufactured from aloewood bark</center>

Bell metal made sorai and sophura are important parts of culture

The current population is divided between the independent country Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and parts of Assam, Meghalaya and Manipur.

- Bengalis

Bengali Hindus, who live primarily in West Bengal, Tripura, Assam's Barak Valley, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, generally follow Shaktism or Vaishnavism, in addition to worshipping regional deities.

- Bengalis

In India, they tend to identify themselves as Bengalis while in Bangladesh they tend to identify themselves as Hindus.

- Bengali Hindus

The Raj, however, carried out some restructuring, and carved out Bengali Hindu majority districts like Manbhum, Singbhum, Santal Pargana and Purnia awarding them to Bihar and others like Cachar that were awarded to Assam, which effectively made the Bengali Hindus a minority in the united province of Bengal.

- Bengali Hindus

Assam also has a large number of Bengali Hindu population as according to government data, It is being reported that 7.5 million Bengali Hindus live in Assam, thus constituting 25% of the state population as per 2011 census report.

- Assam

Durga Puja, a festival introduced and popularised by Bengalis, is widely celebrated across the state.

- Assam

5 related topics with Alpha

Bengal

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Geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predominantly covering present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.

On a clear day, the snowy peaks of the Himalayas in Nepal and Sikkim can be seen from northern Bangladesh and Darjeeling district of West Bengal

A 2015 census of Sundarbans Bengal tigers found 106 in Bangladesh and 76 in West Bengal.

Inscriptions on the Adina Mosque proclaim the builder Sikandar Shah as "the wisest, the most just, the most perfect and most liberal of the Sultans of Arabia, Persia and India."

A woman in Dhaka clad in fine Bengali muslin, 18th century.

The Battle of Plassey in 1757 ushered British rule

The former royal palace of Hill Tippera in Agartala

Shaheed Minar in Dhaka commemorates the 1952 Language Movement

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman led Bengali's decade long independence struggle including the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971

Bangabhaban (the House of Bengal) is the official residence of the president of Bangladesh

Writers' Building, the official seat of the Government of West Bengal

Biman Bangladesh Airlines is the largest airline based in the Bengal region

New Mooring Terminal, Port of Chittagong

The strategically important city of Chittagong is home to the busiest port on the Bay of Bengal

A silver coin with Proto-Bengali script, 9th century

Rabindranath Tagore, known as the Bengali Shakespeare, being hosted at the Parliament of Iran in the 1930s

Bangladeshi paintings on sale at an art gallery in Dhaka

Bungalows originated from Bengali architecture

A sculpture on Fazlur Rahman Khan at the Sears Tower in the United States

A Baul musician. The Baul ballads of Bengal are classified by UNESCO as humanity's intangible cultural heritage

A mustard and date palm farm in West Bengal

Kanchenjunga from Singalila National Park, West Bengal

Gangaridai in Ptolemy's map, 1st century

At its greatest extent, the Bengal Sultanate's realm and protectorates stretched from Jaunpur in North India in the west to Tripura and Arakan in the east

Colonial Eastern Bengal and Assam, early 20th century

Flag of the Bengal Subah (15-18th Century)

Flag of Bengal Presidency, under British rule

Flag of Bangladesh during Bangladesh Liberation War and after

Today, Bengal is divided between Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal; the historical region encompassed the modern-day states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Assam, among others in India, and some parts of Myanmar or Burma (Rakhine State).

The predominant ethnolinguistic group is the Bengali people, who speak the Indo-Aryan language of Bengali.

Bengali Hindus make up the second largest linguistic community in India.

West Bengal

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West Bengal (, Bengali: Poshchim Bongo,, abbr.

Coin of the King Shashanka, who created the first separate political entity in Bengal, called the Gauda Kingdom

The Pala Empire was an imperial power during the Late Classical period on the Indian subcontinent, which originated in the region of Bengal.

Firoz Minar at Gauḍa was built during the Bengal Sultanate.

Subhas Chandra Bose, he was a leading freedom fighter of India

The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.

Many areas remain flooded during the heavy rains brought by a monsoon.

A hut in a village in the Hooghly district

The Grand Hotel in Kolkata. Tourism, especially from Bangladesh, is an important part of West Bengal's economy.

Freshly sown saplings of rice in a paddy; in the background are stacks of jute sticks.

Satyajit Ray, a pioneer in Bengali cinema along with Ravi Sankar.

Panchchura Temple in Bishnupur, one of the older examples of the terracotta arts of India.

Jamdani Sari of Bangladesh is very popular in West Bengal.

Salt Lake Stadium / Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport is a hub for flights to and from Bangladesh, East Asia, Nepal, Bhutan and north-east India.

Kolkata Metro, India's first metro rail system

University of Calcutta, the oldest public university of India.

The front entrance to the academic block of NUJS, Kolkata.

Prajna Bhavan, housing the School of Mathematical Sciences and School of RKMVU.

It also borders the Indian states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim and Assam.

The state's main ethnic group are the Bengalis, with the Bengali Hindus forming the demographic majority.

East Pakistan

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Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which nowadays is split up between India and Bangladesh.

Suhrawardy (middle) with US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles

Elizabeth II, seen here visiting Chittagong in 1961, was Pakistan's Queen until 1956.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman announcing the Six Points

President Ayub Khan (left) with Bengali industrialist Abul Kashem Khan (right) in Chittagong

Entrance to the Adamjee Jute Mills, the world's largest jute processing plant, in 1950

The Daily Ittefaq edited by Tofazzal Hossain was the leading Bengali newspaper in Pakistan

The first Bangladeshi flag was hoisted on 23 March 1971 across East Pakistan, as a protest on Republic Day

The Indo-East Pakistan border as shown by the U.S. Army, c. 1960.

Central business district in Dacca, 1960s

Baitul Mukarram Market Area, Dacca, 1967

Pakistani banknotes included Bengali script until 1971

A poster of the East Pakistan Helicopter Service

Third president of Pakistan, Yahya Khan with Richard Nixon in 1970

The largest ethnic group of the province were Bengalis, who in turn were the largest ethnic group in Pakistan.

Bengali Muslims formed the predominant majority, followed by Bengali Hindus, Bengali Buddhists and Bengali Christians.

East Pakistan was home to immigrant Muslims from across the Indian subcontinent, including West Bengal, Bihar, Sindh, Gujarat, the Northwest Frontier Province, Assam, Orissa, the Punjab and Kerala.

Tripura

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State in northeastern India.

Neermahal Palace is the royal palace built by Bir Bikram Kishore Debbarman of the Kingdom of Tripura.

Queen Kanchan Prabha Devi who signed the instrument of accession to India as president of the Council of Regency.

Rice is grown on Tripura's alluvial plains, which include lungas, the narrow valleys that are found mainly in the west of the state.

Ujjayanta Palace, built in the 19th century as a replacement for a former royal palace destroyed in an earthquake, was used until 2011 as the meeting place of Tripura's State Legislative Assembly.

Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, pictured, encompasses much of the state

Rice is the major crop in Tripura and accounts for 91 percent of the land under cultivation.

The border post between Bangladesh and India in Akhaura

Classrooms built of bamboo in a school. In 2010–11, Tripura had 4,455 schools run by the state government or private organisations. Instruction is mainly in English or Bengali.

Tripuri children preparing for a dance performance.

A Tripuri girl in her traditional attire

East Pakistan refugees (since Bangladesh was not formed yet) coming to Tripura during Bangladesh liberation war.

Durga Puja is the major festival of Tripura

A couple in traditional Tripuri costume.

Tripura girls in their traditional attire

The third-smallest state in the country, it covers 10491.69 km2 and is bordered by Bangladesh to the north, south, and west, and the Indian states of Assam and Mizoram to the east.

Since the partition of India, many Bengali Hindus have migrated to Tripura as refugees fleeing religious persecution in Muslim-majority East Pakistan, especially after 1949.

According to the 2001 census of India, Bengalis represented almost 70 per cent of Tripura's population while the Tripuri population amounted to 30 per cent.

Barak Valley

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A view of Silchar, the main city of the valley

Last Dimasa Kachari King, Raja Govinda Chandra Hasnu of Cachar Valley, 1832

(East Pakistan's Bengali Hindus of Sylhet Division coming to Barak's Cachar district as refugees, 1947)

Barak River, a natural scenaric beauty of valley

Baroduwar Dimasa Kachari Palace, Khaspur in Cachar dist

Proposed Barak state map comprising Southern parts of Assam in Northeast India.

Barman Dimasa girl while performing Baidima, the traditional dance of Dimasa tribe of Cachar valley.

The Barak Valley is located in the southern region of the Indian state of Assam.

The native Bengali people of Barak Region demanded a separate state for themselves within the Bengali majority areas of Assam, particularly Bengali majority Barak valley, comprising the three districts Cachar, Hailakandi, Karimganj, as well as historical Dima Hasao of Undivided Cachar Valley and Hojai district to meet the criteria for creating a separate state for themselves by carving out from Assam's Assamese majority Brahmaputra valley post NRC.

While Bengalis are Indigenous to only Karimganj district of Barak valley which have been consolidated into the valley during 1947 Sylhet's Partition.