A report on West Bengal, Bengali language and Bengalis

The ancient political divisions of the Ganges delta.

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

Present-day distribution of Indo-European languages in Eurasia. Bengali belongs to easternmost spoken Indo-European language family

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

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

Indo- Iranian language family, Bengali marked yellow

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

Firoz Minar at Gauḍa was built during the Bengal Sultanate.

The descent of proto-Gauda, the ancestor of the modern Bengali language, from the proto-Gauda-Kamarupa line of the proto-Magadhan(Magadhi Prakrit).

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

Silver coin of Maharaj Gaudeshwar Danujmardandev of Deva dynasty, circa 1417

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

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

Silver coin with proto-Bengali script, Harikela Kingdom, circa 9th–13th century

15th-century Portuguese painting of "Bengalis".

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

A mural with Bengali letters in Hamtramck-Detroit, United States

The Bengali artillery at the Battle of Plassey in 1757.

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

An example of handwritten Bengali. Part of a poem written in Bengali (and with its English translation below each Bengali paragraph) by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in 1926 in Hungary

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

An 1855 Dobhashi manuscript of Halat-un-Nabi written by Sadeq Ali using the Sylheti Nagri script.

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

A hut in a village in the Hooghly district

A map of Bengal (and some districts of Assam and Jharkhand) which shows the dialects of the Bengali language.
Eastern Bengali Manbhumi dialect
Varendri dialect Rarhi dialect
Sundarbani dialect
Rajbanshi dialect/language*
Chittagonian dialect/language*
Sylheti dialect/language*
(those marked with an asterisk * are sometimes considered dialects or sometimes as separate languages)

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

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

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

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

Dean Mahomed is credited for introducing shampoo to the Europeans.

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

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

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

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

Jamdani Sari of Bangladesh is very popular in West Bengal.

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

Salt Lake Stadium / Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata

Bengali schoolboys in the port city of Chittagong.

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

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

Kolkata Metro, India's first metro rail system

University of Calcutta, the oldest public university of India.

A Bengali man sporting a simple black sherwani.

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

Artistes from Purulia district of West Bengal performs Chhau dance

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

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

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.

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

A lathi khela event taking place in Tangail.

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.

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.

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

- West Bengal

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

Most of them speak Bengali, a language from the Indo-Aryan language family.

- Bengalis

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

- Bengali language

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

- West Bengal

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 language

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Bengal

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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

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.

Bangladesh

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Country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of either 148460 km2 or 147570 km2, making it one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Bangladesh shares land borders with India to the west, north, and east, and Myanmar to the southeast; to the south it has a coastline along the Bay of Bengal. It is narrowly separated from Bhutan and Nepal by the Siliguri Corridor; and from China by 100 km of the Indian state of Sikkim in the north. Dhaka, the capital and largest city, is the nation's economic, political, and cultural hub.

Vanga Kingdom and erstwhile neighbours in ancient South Asia

7th century buddhist monastery. Known as Somapura Mahavihara

The Sixty Dome Mosque is the largest mosque in the UNESCO protected Mosque City of Bagerhat.

Choto Sona Mosque, built during the reign of Sultan Alauddin Hussain Shah

Shipbuilding was a major industry in the Bengal Sultanate and later in Mughal Bengal

The Bibi Mariam Cannon (Lady Mary Cannon) was used by the Mughals to defend their bases.

Lalbagh Fort was the residence of the Mughal viceroy Shaista Khan.

Portuguese envoys (top left) at the imperial court of emperor Akbar. The Portuguese settlement in Chittagong flourished until the Mughals expelled the Portuguese in 1666.

Lord Clive meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, which led to the overthrow of the last independent Nawab of Bengal

Founding conference of the All India Muslim League in Dhaka, 1906

The Dominion of Pakistan in 1947, with East Bengal its eastern part

Women students of Dhaka University marching in defiance of the Section 144 prohibition on assembly during the Bengali Language Movement in early 1953

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (left) and Munier Chowdhury (centre) visiting Matiul Islam (right), an East Bengali student at Harvard during the late 1950s

Sheikh Mujib casting his ballot during a general election. He was given the popular title of Bangabandhu (Friend of Bengal) and is regarded as Bangladesh's founding leader.

Ziaur Rahman with members of the Dutch royal family in 1978

Muhammad Yunus (center) celebrating the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 with his family in Oslo, Norway

Rohingya refugees entering Bangladesh from Myanmar

A Bengal tiger, the national animal, in the Sundarbans

Bangabhaban, the official residence of the President of Bangladesh, was built in 1905 during the British Raj for use by the Viceroy of India and the Governor of Bengal.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during bilateral talks with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Prime Minister's Office in Dhaka

Map of Bangladesh UN Peacekeeping Force deployments

First South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) meeting in 1985 in Dhaka (l-r, top row: the presidents of Pakistan and the Maldives, the king of Bhutan, the president of Bangladesh, the prime minister of India, the king of Nepal and the president of Sri Lanka)

U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry meeting Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her residence in Dhaka in April 2021

The Rapid Action Battalion has been sanctioned by the United States for human rights abuses

Historical development of GDP per capita

Construction of Padma Bridge, the longest bridge on the Ganges, by China Major Bridge Engineering Co. Ltd. The bridge was designed by AECOM.

Hotels and office blocks in an upmarket neighborhood of Dhaka

Paddy fields dominate the country's farmland. Bangladesh is a top global producer of rice (3rd), potatoes (7th), tropical fruits (6th), jute (2nd), and farmed fish (5th).

A Boeing 777 of the national flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines

Coal and natural-gas fields in Bangladesh, 2011

In 2018, the first payload of SpaceX's Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket was the Bangabandhu-1 satellite built by Thales Alenia Space

The Charyapada scrolls are the oldest surviving text of the Bengali language. The photograph was taken at the Rajshahi College Library

Chakma alphabets are indigenous to the Chittagong Hill Tracts

Eid prayers for Muslims at Barashalghar, Debidwar, Comilla

Bangladeshis celebrating Pahela Baishakh as a mark of the beginning of Bengali new year

Faculty of Sciences at the University of Dhaka; The Curzon Hall

A Bangladeshi nurse in Kutupalong Refugee Camp

Historical development of life expectancy in Bangladesh

A preserved cloth of historic Bengali fine muslin, which is now extinct

Muslim feminist Begum Rokeya and her husband in 1898

The 18th century terracotta Hindu Kantanagar Temple in Dinajpur

A Baul from Lalon Shah's shrine in Kushtia

Embroidery on Nakshi kantha (embroidered quilt), centuries-old Bengali art tradition

Traditional Bangladeshi Meal: Mustard seed Ilish Curry, Dhakai Biryani and Pitha

Bangladesh team on practice session at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium

Anwar Hossain playing Siraj-ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal, in the 1967 film Nawab Sirajuddaulah

Beds of zamindars kept at the Bangladesh National Museum

The official language is Bengali, one of the easternmost branches of the Indo-European language family.

Bengalis make up 98% of the total population of Bangladesh, and the large Muslim population of Bangladesh makes it the third-largest Muslim-majority country.

At a separate meeting of legislators from West Bengal, it was decided (58 votes to 21) that the province should be partitioned and West Bengal should join the Constituent Assembly of India.

Rabindranath Tagore

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Tagore and his wife Mrinalini Devi, 1883

Tagore's house in Shilaidaha, Bangladesh

Tagore family boat (bajra or budgerow), the "Padma".

Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore

At the Majlis (Iranian parliament) in Tehran, Iran, 1932

Tagore performing the title role in Valmiki Pratibha (1881) with his niece Indira Devi as the goddess Lakshmi.

Cover of the Sabuj Patra magazine, edited by Pramatha Chaudhuri

Title page of the 1913 Macmillan edition of Tagore's Gitanjali.

Part of a poem written by Tagore in Hungary, 1926.

Tagore hosts Gandhi and wife Kasturba at Santiniketan in 1940

Kala Bhavan (Institute of Fine Arts), Santiniketan, India

Bust of Tagore in Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London

Rabindranath Tagore's bust at St Stephen Green Park, Dublin, Ireland

Rabindranath Tagore Memorial, Nimtala crematorium, Kolkata

Bust of Rabindranath in Tagore promenade, Balatonfüred, Hungary

Blue plaque in honor of Tagore, erected in 1961 by London County Council at 3 Villas on the Heath, Vale of Health, Hampstead, London NW3 1BA, London Borough of Camden.

Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata; the room in which Tagore died in 1941.

Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi, Phultala, Khulna, Bangladesh

Tagore Room, Sardar Patel Memorial, Ahmedabad, India

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.

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.

Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family.

Assam

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State in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys.

Map of Eastern Bengal and Assam during 1907–1909

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.

Showing a historical incident at Kanaklata Udyan, Tezpur

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

People gathered at Kamakhya Temple for the Ambubachi Mela

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

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

The image represent's Dimaraji proposed state map

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

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

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

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

A decorative Assamese Jaapi laid over a Gamosa

Mising girls dancing during Ali Ai Ligang (Spring Festival)

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

An ethnic preparation of Ghost chili chicken curry of Assam

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 state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur to the east; Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram and Bangladesh to the south; and West Bengal to the west via the Siliguri Corridor, a 22 km wide strip of land that connects the state to the rest of India.

Assamese and Bodo are the official languages of Assam, while Bengali is official in the Barak Valley.

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

Charyapada manuscript preserved in the library of Rajshahi College.

Bengali literature

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The tomb of Ghiyasuddin Azam Shah, under whose patronage were writers such as Shah Muhammad Sagir and Krittibas Ojha.

Lalon inspired and influenced many poets, social and religious thinkers including Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, and Allen Ginsberg.

Rabindranath Tagore, Asia's first Nobel laureate.

Kazi Nazrul Islam seated with Bengali Muslim littérateurs in Sylhet. Nazrul's contributions included the profuse enrichment of the Bengali gôzôl.

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's first novel Durgeshnandini was considered a benchmark in the history of Bengali literature.<ref name = sukumarsenengbankim>{{cite book |last=Sen|first=Sukumar|title= History of Bengali |edition=3rd|year=1979|orig-year=1960|publisher=Sahitya Akademi|location= New Delhi |isbn= 81-7201-107-5|pages=211–12}}</ref>

Shaheed Minar, Dhaka as displayed on the annual anniversary of Bengali Language Movement.

Hason Raja's poetry continues to be prominent in rural Bengal.

Bengali literature (বাংলা সাহিত্য) denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language.

The manuscript was discovered on a palm leaf in the Nepal Royal Court Library in 1907 by the Bengali linguist Haraprasad Shastri.

He received the Rabindra Puraskar, the highest literary award of Paschimbanga in 1955 for Krishnakali Ityadi Galpa.