UNSILENCED.
EN
ENESFRDEPTAR
Answer

Who colonized Bangladesh?

South Asia — the powers that ruled Bangladesh, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Bangladesh?

Britain, as Bengal within British India from 1757, then East Pakistan from 1947, until independence from Pakistan on 16 December 1971.

Bengal was the first territory the East India Company governed and the site of the two worst famines of the colonial era.

World map showing imperial possessions and spheres of rule in 1914
A world map of imperial possessions in 1914, offered as global context only. It is a single snapshot: countries that became independent earlier, later occupations, disputed borders and differences between colonies and protectorates require the chronology below.Source — Wikimedia Commons

How rule changed in Bangladesh

These periods describe different governing arrangements. The presence of a trading company, a military occupation and direct colonial government are not interchangeable; the notes preserve those distinctions where the record identifies them.

Political chronology

Rulers, periods and governing arrangements

PeriodRuler or administrationContext
before 1757Bengal SubahSee the chronology and context below.
1757–1947East India Company and British IndiaSee the chronology and context below.
1947–1971East PakistanSee the chronology and context below.

Periods may overlap where control differed by territory. A national independence date does not imply that every enclave or dependency changed status on that day.

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
Britain, Pakistan (1947–71)
Independence
16 December 1971
Deindustrialisation
Bengal's textile industry collapsed under Company trade policy
1770 famine
An estimated ten million dead, about a third of Bengal
1943 famine
About three million dead amid wartime export and requisition policy

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1757

    Plassey; the Company takes Bengal.

  2. 1770

    Great Bengal famine — roughly a third of the population dies.

  3. 1905

    First partition of Bengal.

  4. 1943

    Bengal famine kills around three million.

  5. 1971

    Liberation war and independence.

Context

What the record shows

The region entered British rule as one of the wealthiest manufacturing zones in the world and left it as one of the poorest places on earth.

Questions

Frequently asked

Who colonised Bangladesh?
Britain, as part of Bengal in British India, from 1757 to 1947. The territory was then East Pakistan until independence in 1971.
How many died in the Bengal famine?
About three million in 1943, and an estimated ten million in the earlier famine of 1770.
When did Bangladesh become independent?
16 December 1971.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Bangladesh

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.