The Birth of Kushtia District

When Pakistan was founded on 14 August 1947, the present Kushtia district became part of East Bengal as a Muslim-majority area. Before that, the present Kushtia district had been undivided; it was a part of Nadia district, one of the districts of the Presidency Division of Bengal.

When the British East India Company acquired the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1765, Nadia came under their rule. From ancient times Nadia had been renowned for learning and scholarship. From the closing years of the twelfth century, Nadia was the capital of Lakshman Sen, the last independent Hindu king of Bengal. In 1201 [some say 1203] a Muslim commander named Ikhtiyar Uddin Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khilji seized Lakshman Sen's capital at Nadia with only eighteen mounted soldiers, ushering in the first Muslim rule in Bengal.

During the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar, the dynasty of zamindars founded by Bhabananda Majumdar of Bagowan in Meherpur [childhood name Dirgadash Samaddar] came to be known as Nadia. The zamindari territory of the Nadia Raj covered 3,151 square miles. It comprised the southern parts of the Sadar and Ranaghat subdivisions of present-day Nadia district in West Bengal, parts of Meherpur district, the south-eastern parts of Bangaon and Jessore Sadar under Jessore, and the western Satkhira region.

At the time of the Permanent Settlement [1796], the Satsaika parganas and the Saraswati riverine lands came under the Nadia Raj. Although the boundaries of Nadia and Jessore were fixed in 1796, they were subsequently redrawn many times between the two districts. The ties between Nadia and the Kushtia district on one side and Jessore on the other are old. In 1799 Mirzanagar was annexed to Jessore. In 1802 the Anwarpur zamindari of the Twenty-four Parganas district, and in 1812 the Taki and Sukhsagar thanas, were joined to Nadia from Jessore. Until 1823 the Chuadanga and Meherpur areas were administered as part of Jessore district. In 1863 the Kushtia subdivision, taken from Pabna, and in 1871 the Kumarkhali subdivision were attached to Nadia. In 1827 the Khoksa thana was transferred from Jessore to Pabna, and in 1871 the Kumarkhali subdivision was incorporated into Nadia district.

The undivided Nadia district had five subdivisions, namely –
Krishnanagar [Sadar], Ranaghat, Chuadanga, Meherpur and Kushtia.

At the time of the partition of the country in 1947, the present Kushtia district was formed out of the Kushtia, Chuadanga and Meherpur subdivisions and parts of them. At first the newly formed district was named Nadia, and the Nadia district of West Bengal was renamed Nabadwip district. The first District Magistrate of the newly formed Nadia district [the present Kushtia] was Nasir Uddin Ahmed, and it was he who named the new district Nadia. But his successor, District Magistrate Syed Murtaza Ali [from October 1947], renamed it Kushtia district, because the name caused difficulties at work and confusion in correspondence.

The establishment of the Kushtia subdivision was first announced in 1860. Sir John Peter Grant, then Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, travelled in 1860 from Kolkata by steamer by way of the Kumar river route of Kushtia to the district headquarters at Pabna, in the wake of the indigo revolt. At a gathering of the indigo planters of Pabna he announced the establishment of the Kushtia subdivision, in order to remove the hardship the tenants of the Kushtia region faced in travelling to Pabna. Before that, Kushtia was a thana, and the thana headquarters was located in the village of Mazimpur.

When Pabna district was established in 1828, the Kushtia thana came under Pabna district. Before Pabna district was formed, most of the present Kushtia district, except for parts of Meherpur, lay within the Rajshahi zamindari. Work of the Kushtia subdivision began in 1862, but the Kushtia subdivision was placed under Nadia district in 1863. In 1857 the Kumarkhali subdivision was set up with the Pangsha and Baliakandi thanas of Faridpur district and the Khoksa and Kumarkhali thanas of Pabna district, and placed under Pabna. After the subdivision was established at Kumarkhali, a munsif was appointed there. The first munsif of Kumarkhali subdivision was Ishan Chandra Datta [father of the famous Indian historian R. C. Datta]. In 1871 the Kumarkhali and Khoksa thanas of Kumarkhali subdivision were brought under the Kushtia subdivision and attached to Nadia. The Pangsha and Baliakandi thanas were likewise attached to Faridpur district in 1871.

The headquarters of Nadia district was at Krishnanagar. The Kushtia subdivision had five thanas: Kushtia, Kumarkhali, Bhaluka, Bhadalia, Nawapara and Daulatpur. The Bheramara thana was established later. Later the Kushtia subdivision was formed with the thanas of Kushtia, Kumarkhali, Bheramara, Mirpur, Daulatpur and Khoksa. Before the thana was established at Kumarkhali there had been the Bhaluka thana; the Bhaluka thana came under the Kumarkhali thana. In the early days of British rule there was a police outpost at Poradaha, and in Nawabi times there was one at Bhadalia. The Chuadanga and Meherpur subdivisions were established in 1862. Some believe the Meherpur subdivision was established in 1857. Earlier, the headquarters of Chuadanga was at Damurhuda.

In the plebiscite held under the Indian Independence Act in 1946, undivided Nadia was counted as a Muslim-majority district. When the all-India interim government was formed in June 1947, undivided Bengal was divided into Hindu-majority and Muslim-majority areas. This division was called the national division or National Division. Under this division the Muslim-majority districts were counted as part of East Bengal and the Hindu-majority districts as part of West Bengal. For this reason the Muslims of the Nadia and Murshidabad districts hoped to be included in Pakistan. But at the time of the partition of the country, more than half of Nadia district and the whole of Murshidabad district went to West Bengal.

According to the 1941 census, Muslims in Nadia numbered 61.25 per cent, Hindus 37.38 per cent and followers of other religions 1.37 per cent. In Murshidabad the Muslim inhabitants were 56.55 per cent.

On 30 June 1947 the then Governor General Lord Mountbatten announced the Boundary Commission for the states of Pakistan and India. The Bengal Boundary Commission, formed with the following persons to divide undivided Bengal, consisted of –

1. Sir Cyril Radcliffe [Chairman of the Commission]
2. Justice Abu Saleh Mohammad Akram [Member, Pakistan]
3. Justice S. A. Rahman [Member, Pakistan]
4. Justice B. K. Mukherji [Member, India]
5. Justice C. C. Biswas [Member, India]

In the Bengal Boundary Commission, Mr. Jinnah appointed no Bengali as a member on Pakistan's behalf. Although the members of the Bengal Boundary Commission met several times in session at Belvedere House in Kolkata in Sir Cyril's absence, they failed to reach agreement on demarcating the boundary. The members then requested that Chairman Radcliffe come from Britain to Kolkata. Sir Cyril Radcliffe came to India and issued his report without consulting the members of either side.

The partition of the country took place on 14 August 1947, but the Radcliffe Award was announced on 16 August. Because of this, the Muslims of the Krishnanagar and Ranaghat subdivisions mistakenly believed that the whole of Nadia district had been included in Pakistan and celebrated Pakistan Day. The then District Magistrate of Nadia formally hoisted the Muslim League flag [Pakistan's national flag had not yet been adopted] at Krishnanagar. Later, when Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan displayed the design of the national flag to the Pakistan Constituent Assembly, it was adopted by the Assembly.

Under the Radcliffe Award, the Krishnanagar Sadar and Ranaghat subdivisions of undivided Nadia district, the Chuadanga and Meherpur Sadar thanas, and the Kushtia subdivision were included in East Bengal. As difficulties arose in demarcating the boundary of undivided Bengal under the Radcliffe Award, a tribunal was formed with the following persons:

1. Mr. Algot Bagge – Chairman
2. Justice Sahab Uddin – Representative, Pakistan
3. Justice Chandra Shekhar Aiyar – Representative, India.

The report of the Bagge Commission published on 4 February 1950 read as follows –

"The line shall then turn South-East down the river Ganges to the point in the North-West corner of the district of Nadia where the channel of the river Mathabhanga takes off from the river Ganges. This line shall than run along that channel to the Northern-most point where it nets the boundary between the main channel shall constitute the actual boundary.

From this point the boundary between East and West Bangal shall run along the boundaries between the thana of Daulatpur Bangal shall run along the boundaries between the thana of daulotpur and Karimpur, Gangni and Karimpur, Meherpur and Tehatta, Meherpur and Chapra, Damurhuda and Chapra, Damurhuda and kirishnaganj, Jibonnagor and Hashkhali, Meherpur and Ranaghat, Meherpur and Bongoan and so on."

The area of undivided Nadia district was 2,841 square miles. Of this, the area of the present Kushtia is 1,371 square miles, and that of the Nadia district of West Bengal is 1,470 square miles. The Kushtia district at present has 6 thanas, 65 unions, 5 pourashavas (municipalities) and 1,580 villages. Kushtia district has a border line of 132 miles with West Bengal, which is extremely complex and problematic. On the border, some people's homes lie in Bangladesh, while their kitchen and farmland fall in West Bengal. Again, after the partition of the country, as many Hindus left Kushtia for India, education and trade and commerce here faced all manner of difficulties. Likewise, many Muslim families and Biharis from West Bengal, having lost everything, found it a hard task to arrange their rehabilitation and livelihood in Kushtia.

Kushtia was a new district. To solve the problem of housing government offices and courts and the residences of government employees, the homes of many people were forcibly taken over. Kushtia High School was cleared out and used as a police line for a long time. Even today the homes of many people are being used as government offices and residences for employees. Yet this small district, situated on the western border of Bangladesh, is overcoming all these problems and moving forward on the path of national progress.