A report on West Bengal, Bangladesh and Bengalis

Bengal ( বাংলা/বঙ্গ, ) is a 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.

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

Bengali Muslims (বাঙালি মুসলমান; ) are adherents of Islam who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis.

Bengali Muslims make up the majority of Bangladesh's citizens, and are the largest minority in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam.

East Pakistan was a 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.

East Pakistanis were popularly known as "Pakistani Bengalis"; to distinguish this region from India's state West Bengal (which is also known as "Indian Bengal"), East Pakistan was known as "Pakistani Bengal".

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

It is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and the second most widely spoken of the 22 scheduled languages of India.

Within India, Bengali is the official language of the states of West Bengal, Tripura and the Barak Valley region of the state of Assam.

The Bengali Language Movement was a popular ethno-linguistic movement in the former East Bengal (today Bangladesh), which was a result of the strong linguistic consciousness of the Bengalis to gain and protect spoken and written Bengali's recognition as a state language of the then Dominion of Pakistan.

Bengali Hindus (বাঙ্গালী হিন্দু/বাঙালি হিন্দু) are an ethnoreligious population who make up the majority in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jharkhand, and Assam's Barak Valley region.

In Bangladesh, they form the largest minority.

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

The Bengal Subah (সুবাহ বাংলা; ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal (মোগল বাংলা), was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire (and later an independent state under the Nawabs of Bengal) encompassing much of the Bengal region, which includes modern Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, Indian state of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odissa between the 16th and 18th centuries.

Bengali peasants rapidly learned techniques of mulberry cultivation and sericulture, establishing Bengal Subah as a major silk-producing region of the world.

Rabindranath Tagore (রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter.

His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla".

They were Pirali Brahmin ('Pirali’ historically carried a stigmatized and pejorative connotation) originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal.

This festival is celebrated on 14 April in Bangladesh and 15 April in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, and Assam (Barak Valley) by Bengalis regardless of religious faith.

Bengali Buddhists (বাঙালি বৌদ্ধ) are a religious subgroup of the Bengalis who adhere to or practice the religion of Buddhism.

Bengali Buddhist people mainly live in Bangladesh and Indian states West Bengal and Tripura.

Kazi Nazrul Islam (কাজী নজরুল ইসলাম, ; 26 May 1899 – 29 August 1976) was an Indian and later Bangladeshi poet, writer, musician, and is the national poet of Bangladesh.

Born into a Bengali Muslim Kazi family hailing from Burdwan district in Bengal Presidency (now in West Bengal, India), Nazrul Islam received religious education and as a young man worked as a muezzin at a local mosque.

His writings greatly inspired Bengalis of East Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War.