Railway Administrative Management during Bengal Partition

in Published Volumes

Author:

Sudipta Sardar
Vice Principal
Rabindra Bharati Mahavidyalaya
Kolaghat,purba Medenipur,West Bengal

Email: profsudipta.history@gmail.com

Abstract:: Partition of Bengal was a turning point of Bengal in terms of administrative control
and its development during the first decade of twentieth century. Historians saw partition as a
divide and rule policy and their view point’s gets perfectly justified by the existing documents
and historical evidences where the colonial government time and again stressed over the fact
that the geographical space of undivided Bengal was so huge to exercise effective governance.
However many saw it as a degradation of Bengal province and by dividing Bengal the colonial
government broke the unity of the province and made it weaker for their own profit. Whatever
might be the outcome of the event but one significant thing that these historians have neglected
by overly focusing on the partition event and its consequences was the railways administrative
growth and its consequent effort of centralizing the management board for smooth and better
performances. For the first time there was a formation of an autonomous Railway Board, there
was establishment of several different posts for that purpose. Not only that, the crucial role
played by railways behind the growth of Bengal was also neglected, the mainstream historians
seemed to have overlooked the fact that it was because of the railways that the partition was
possible. All such things had not been given proper importance and mention by the historians.

Key Words:Assam Bengal Railway ,Development, Establishments, Overlook, Partition etc