Bihar facing discrimination
Er. Prabhat Kishore
At the time of partition of India in 1947, some areas of Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri in West Bengal were allotted to East Pakistan (now Bangaladesh). As a result, West Bengal was divided into two separate physical parts. The Government of West Bengal requested the Central Government to transfer the eastern part of the then Purnia district of Bihar State and the National Highway (NH) falling in it to Bengal so that physical contiguity between the two parts of the State might be established.
Accepting the claim of the Government of West Bengal, the State Reorganization Commission recommended the transfer of the portion of Kishanganj subdivision which was east of the Mahananda River and the portion of Gopalpur Revenue thana extending down to National Highway to West Bengal. Even after this, the two parts of Bengal could not be fully connected. After reconsidering the matter, it was decided that the entire length of National Highway of Kishanganj sub-division of Purnia district and Gopalpur police station should be transferred to the Government of West Bengal.
Accordingly, section 3 of the Bihar and West Bengal (Transfer of Territories) Act, 1950 was promulgated for demarcating the boundary – (1) the eastern portion of the boundary line of Kishanganj subdivision of Purnia district shall be included in the State of West Bengal, and (2) the boundary line will be two hundred yards to the west of Highway connecting Dalkola, Kishanganjand Chopra of Purnia district with Siliguri in Darjeeling disrict and two yards south or south-west of highway connecting Dalkola and Karandighi of Purnia district with Raiganj in West Dinajpur district. In the Kishanganj municipality area, its eastern boundary will be considered as the boundary line of the two states.
For the demarcation of the boundary line, V. Vishwanathan, ICS was appointed as Special Commissioner through Gazette of India Notification No.-12/3/56 SR-1, dated 7th September 1956. Based on Vishwanathan’s report, an area of 759 square miles, 913 villages and a population of 277288 of the three revenue thanasin Bihar state were transferred to West Bengal state with effect from 1st November 1958. In this, three police stations of Islampur revenue thana are respectively Thakurganj (58 sq miles area, 12 villages, 14357 population), Chopra (158 sq miles area, 129 villages, 52999 population) and Islampur (139 sq miles area, 123 villages, 59652 population), two police stations of Kishanganj revenue thana are Kishanganj(180 sq miles area, 285 villages, 66810 population) and Golpokhar (73 sq miles area, 95 villages, 36028 population) and one police station of Gopalpur revenue thana isKarandighi (151 sq miles area, 269 villages, 47492 population).
According to the final result of demarcation of boundaries published by the Government of Bihar on 12 January 1961 (vide letter no- SR/TT-01/60-432-C), certain amendments were reflected in the predetermined areas. A total area of 336.40 square miles of revenue thana Islampur, 246.79 square miles of revenue thana Kishanganj and 149.69 square miles of revenue thana Gopalpur, i.e. total area of 732.88 square miles, 906 villages and 2,70,666 population were cut off from Bihar and transferred to West Bengal. These include 12 villages with 14357 population of Thakurganj police station, 124 villages with 52858 population of Chopra police station, 120 villages with 57317 population of Islampur police station, 286 villages with 63743 population, 94 villages with 35226 population of GolPokhar police station and 270 villages with 47165 population of Karandighi Police Station.
Due to the transfer of a large area to West Bengal by the Central Government, the Bihar Government had to re-determine the boundaries of a number of police stations in the erstwhile Kishanganj and Katihar subdivisions. The remaining areas of Islampur and Chopra were merged to form the Pothia police station and a new Balrampur police station was created which included the remaining parts of Karandighi PS.
In the above process, although two separate parts of West Bengal were joined together, but some areas of Bihar were divided into two parts. In order to travel fromPurnia to Kishanganj, the people of Bihar have to pass through the area of Bengal from Dalkola to the border of Kishanganj municipality. At the same time, in those parts of Bihar which were transferred to West Bengal, the Bihari citizens have to face numerous problems in their daily life with Bengali culture, language, dialects, medium of instruction, administration etc.
In the light of the recommendations of the States Reorganization Commission, the transfer of Bihari region to West Bengal by the Government of India in the 1950s was discriminatory. Bihar lost its international border with then East Pakistan (now Bangla Desh). It was even more unfortunate that there was no opposition from the then Congress state government as well as political and social leadership.
The better solution today would be to return the territories of Bihar that have been transferred to West Bengal and at the same time make either Darjeeling a Union Territory or Sikkim and Darjeeling a unified state. This will also lead to a permanent solution to the year-long Gorkha Andolan for a separate state from West Bengal and all kinds of problems.
(The author is a technocrat and an academician. He holds Master in Engineering from M.N. Regional Engineering College, Allahabad/Prayagraj)
