The making of Bihar: 1912, 1936 and 2000

Ask most Biharis when their state was born and they will say 22 March 1912, the date celebrated as Bihar Diwas (बिहार दिवस). But the Bihar of 1912 included Orissa and the whole Chotanagpur plateau. It took two more partitions, in 1936 and 2000, to produce today's map. Each one moved not just a boundary but a large share of Bihar's resources.

BPSC asks this in two ways. Prelims wants dates, names and the Act that did what. Mains GS Paper I wants the story of regional identity, and increasingly the economic consequences of 2000, which link history to Bihar's economy paper.

Before 1912: a neglected corner of the Bengal Presidency

After the grant of the Diwani (दीवानी) of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the East India Company in 1765, Bihar was ruled from Calcutta as part of the Bengal Presidency (बंगाल प्रेसीडेंसी). By the late 19th century, educated Biharis saw this as a handicap:

• Government jobs in Bihar went largely to Bengalis, who had an earlier start in English education.
• Colleges, courts and the provincial capital were in Calcutta, so Bihar had no university and no high court of its own.
• Development spending and official attention followed the capital.

The demand was not anti-Bengali in spirit. It was a new Bihari middle class asking for its own administrative space.

The separation movement

Lawyers and journalists, many trained in England, led the movement. The names BPSC expects:

• Sachchidananda Sinha, the most persistent voice, who in December 1946 presided over the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly as its interim president;
• Mahesh Narayan, journalist and co-founder of the Bihar Times;
• Ali Imam and Hasan Imam, brothers and leading barristers;
• Mazharul Haque, later a leading figure of Bihar's Congress;
• Nand Kishore Lal and others.

The Bihar Times, started in 1894, argued the case in print; it later became the Bihari. The Bihar Provincial Conference (बिहार प्रांतीय सम्मेलन), whose first session met at Patna in 1908 under Ali Imam, gave the demand a public platform.

The opening came from outside Bihar. At the Delhi Durbar of 12 December 1911, King George V announced that the partition of Bengal (1905) was annulled, the capital would move from Calcutta to Delhi, and a new province of Bihar and Orissa would be created.

Timeline at a glance

1912: the province of Bihar and Orissa

On 22 March 1912 the new province (प्रांत) of Bihar and Orissa came into being, with Patna as capital. It combined three distinct regions: Bihar proper on the Gangetic plain, the Chotanagpur plateau and Santhal Parganas to the south, and Orissa on the coast. It began as a Lieutenant-Governor's province.

Institutions followed quickly: the Patna High Court in 1916 and Patna University in 1917. Under the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms it became a Governor's province, and in 1920 Lord S. P. Sinha became its Governor, the first Indian to govern a province.

1936: Orissa separates

An Oriya movement wanted one province for Oriya-speaking areas, then split across Bihar and Orissa, Madras and the Central Provinces. Under the Government of India Act, 1935, Orissa became a separate province on 1 April 1936 (still observed as Utkal Divas in Odisha). What remained was renamed Bihar, and this Bihar joined the Indian Union in 1947 with Shri Krishna Sinha as its first Chief Minister.

1956: small transfers to West Bengal

The States Reorganisation Commission recommended adjusting the Bihar–Bengal border. Under the Bihar and West Bengal (Transfer of Territories) Act, 1956, most of the Purulia area of Manbhum district and a strip of Purnia district went to West Bengal. The strip mattered because it gave West Bengal a land link between its northern and southern districts.

2000: Jharkhand

The demand

The tribal communities of Chotanagpur and the Santhal Parganas had a separate history, from the Santhal Hul (1855) to Birsa Munda's Ulgulan (see tribal revolts in the Bihar region). After independence, the sense grew that the plateau's coal, iron and mica fed industry elsewhere while its people stayed poor and displaced.

Jaipal Singh Munda, the Olympic hockey captain of 1928, led the Jharkhand Party, formed around 1949–50 out of the earlier Adivasi Mahasabha. From the early 1970s the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha carried the movement, and in the mid-1990s Bihar set up a Jharkhand Area Autonomous Council as an interim step.

The Act

Parliament passed the Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000 (बिहार पुनर्गठन अधिनियम). Jharkhand was formed on 15 November 2000, the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, as India's 28th state. It was the last of three states created that month, after Chhattisgarh (1 November) and Uttarakhand (9 November).

What 2000 did to Bihar

Bihar kept a little over half the area but roughly three-quarters of the people. Its population density (about 1,106 per sq km in 2011) is the highest among the major states. The residual state became mainly agrarian, dependent on the flood-prone Ganga plain, and lost mineral royalties and industrial tax revenue. This is the core of Bihar's case for special category status (see the special category status debate) and of the minerals picture in minerals and energy after 2000.

Mains answer framing

Question: "Trace the territorial evolution of Bihar from 1912 to 2000 and assess the economic impact of the last reorganisation." (Check the latest BPSC paper for marks and word limits.)

Outline:

1. Introduction: 22 March 1912, Bihar Diwas.
2. Separation movement: grievances, leaders, Bihar Times, 1908 conference, Delhi Durbar.
3. 1936 Orissa; 1956 transfers to West Bengal.
4. 2000: roots of the Jharkhand demand, the Act.
5. Economic impact: minerals, industry, density, revenue; special category demand.
6. Conclusion: identity won in 1912, economic base lost in 2000.

Model answer (short version):

Bihar's boundaries were drawn in three steps. In 1912 a Bihari middle class, led by Sachchidananda Sinha, Mahesh Narayan and the Imam brothers, won separation from the Bengal Presidency after the Delhi Durbar annulled the partition of Bengal. The new province of Bihar and Orissa soon gained a High Court (1916) and a University (1917). Orissa left in 1936, and small border transfers to West Bengal followed in 1956.

The deepest change came in 2000, when the Bihar Reorganisation Act created Jharkhand in answer to a long tribal demand. It left Bihar with about three-quarters of the population and little of the mineral and industrial base. A dense, agrarian and flood-prone state lost royalties and investment, which helps explain its low per capita income and its demand for special support.

Prelims practice (answers below)

1. Bihar Diwas is celebrated on: (a) 26 January (b) 22 March (c) 1 April (d) 15 November
2. Orissa became a separate province on: (a) 22 March 1912 (b) 1 April 1936 (c) 15 August 1947 (d) 1 November 1956
3. The newspaper that campaigned for Bihar's separation from Bengal, founded in 1894, was: (a) Searchlight (b) The Leader (c) Amrita Bazar Patrika (d) Bihar Times
4. Consider: (1) Jharkhand was formed on Birsa Munda's birth anniversary. (2) Jharkhand was formed before Uttarakhand. Which is correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) both (d) neither
5. After 2000, the strength of the Bihar Vidhan Sabha is: (a) 324 (b) 288 (c) 243 (d) 403

Answers:

1. (b) 22 March, for the 1912 separation from Bengal.
2. (b) 1 April 1936.
3. (d) Bihar Times.
4. (a) Uttarakhand was formed on 9 November, Jharkhand on 15 November.
5. (c) 243. 324 was the undivided figure; 288 and 403 belong to Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

What to do next

• Draw a rough map of undivided Bihar and shade what left in 1936, 1956 and 2000.
• Memorise the bold timeline rows and the five separation leaders.
• Revise the 2000 comparison table, then write the model answer in your own words, timed.