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[[File:East_Bengal_Map.png|thumb|200px|right|Map of [[East Pakistan]], which later became [[Bangladesh]].]]
The '''East Pakistan Renaissance Society''' was a political organisation formed to articulate and promote culturally and intellectually the idea for a [[Two-Nation Theory|separate Muslim state]] for [[Indian Muslims]] and specifically for the Muslims of [[Bengal]].<ref name="A">{{cite book|title=Pakistan: A Modern History|author=Ian Talbott|pages=[https://archive.org/details/pakistanmodernhi00talb/page/88 88–92]|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=1998|isbn=978-0-312-21606-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/pakistanmodernhi00talb/page/88}}</ref> The organisation's founders and leaders included [[Abul Kalam Shamsuddin]], the society president, [[Habibullah Bahar Chowdhury]] and [[Mujibur Rahman Khan]].<ref name="A"/><ref>{{cite book |author=Harun-or-Rashid |author-link=Harun-or-Rashid |year=2003 |orig-year=First published 1987 |title=The foreshadowing of Bangladesh: Bengal Muslim League and Muslim politics, 1906–1947 |edition=Rev. and enl. |publisher=University Press |page=167 |isbn=978-984-05-1688-9}}</ref><ref name="B">{{cite book|title=Encyclopaedia of Bangladesh|author=Nagendra Kr. Singh|pages=180–82|publisher=Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd.|year=2003|isbn=978-81-261-1390-3}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite web|last1=Ahmed|first1=Wakil|title=East Pakistan Renaissance Society|url=http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=East_Pakistan_Renaissance_Society|website=Banglapedia|publisher=Bangladesh Asiatic Society|access-date=25 October 2022}}</ref>

==History==
The "[[Two-Nation Theory]]", which argued that the [[Hindus]] and [[Muslims]] of India were not a common nation and could not live together as a nation, had been propagated by Muslim politicians and intellectuals such as [[Sir Muhammad Iqbal]], [[Choudhary Rahmat Ali]] and [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah]], the president of the [[All India Muslim League]].<ref name="winks2001">{{cite book | author=Robin W. Winks, Alaine M. Low | date=2001 | title=The Oxford history of the British Empire: Historiography | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IRB52ijcgMMC |publisher=Oxford University Press | isbn=978-0-19-924680-9 }}</ref><ref name="khan1940">{{cite book | author=Liaquat Ali Khan | date=1940 | title=Pakistan: The Heart of Asia | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=swIYjzJOx5wC | publisher=Thacker & Co. Ltd. | isbn= 978-1-4437-2667-2}}</ref> The demand for a separate state for Indian Muslims took definite shape when the All India Muslim League adopted the [[Lahore Resolution]] (also known as the Pakistan Resolution) on 23 March 1940. The resolution called for the Muslim-majority provinces of [[British India]] to be constituted as separate, independent states – it did not specify a single state.<ref name="A"/>

===Foundation===
At a meeting held on 30 August 1942, at the offices of [[the Azad]] newspaper in [[Kolkata]], Bengali Muslim activists decided to form the East Pakistan Renaissance Society as a platform to advocate the idea of a Muslim state on a cultural and intellectual basis. The society held regular weekly meetings where articles would be presented and different issues discussed. Despite the focus on [[Islam]], the meetings were not restricted to Muslims.<ref name=":0" /> [[Manabendranath Roy]] delivered a speech on ''Pakistan and Democracy'', which highlighted the inevitability of self-rule for [[Indian Muslims]].<ref name=":0" /> In September 1944, Mujibur Rahman Khan along with economist M Sadeq, published a booklet, ''Eastern Pakistan: Its Population, Delimitation and Economics'' which This contained a description of the government, economy, population, geographic boundary and security of a future state of [[East Pakistan]].<ref name=":0" />

The society held its first council at the [[Maulana Azad College|Islamia College]] in Kolkata in July 1944. Among those present at the inaugural occasion were [[Khwaja Nazimuddin]], [[Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy]], Hasan Suhrawardy, [[Nurul Amin]], [[Mohammad Akram Khan]], [[A K Fazlul Huq]], Abul Quasem, [[Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan]], [[Shahadat Hossain]], [[Golam Mostofa (poet)|Golam Mostofa]], [[S. Wajid Ali|S Wajid Ali]], [[Abujafar Shamsuddin|Abu Jafar Shamsuddin]], Abul Hussain, Golam Kuddus, [[Subhash Mukhopadhyay (poet)|Subhas Mukhopadhyay]], Gopal Halder.<ref name=":0" />

==Philosophical differences==
The Muslim League and most other advocates of Pakistan had demanded a single state of Pakistan consisting of the British Indian provinces of [[Punjab (British India)|Punjab]], [[Khyber Pakhtunkhwa]] (then Northwest Frontier Province), [[Sindh]], [[Balochistan]] and [[Bengal Presidency|Bengal]], and sought the [[Urdu language]] to be the only official language and ''lingua franca'' of Muslims.<ref name="A"/> However, the East Pakistan Renaissance Society not only argued that Muslims were a separate nation from Hindus, it also advocated that the [[Bengali Muslims]] were distinct from the Muslims of other parts of India, on an ethnic, cultural and geographical basis.<ref name="A"/><ref name="B" /> Unlike religion, the society argued that ethnicity and cultural differences cannot cross geographic boundaries.<ref name="A"/><ref name="B"/> The society and its supporters in the Bengal Muslim League asserted that Bengali Muslims should constitute an independent state, as an "Eastern Pakistan" rather than part of a single state of Pakistan.<ref name="A"/><ref name="C">{{cite book |author=Harun-or-Rashid |author-link=Harun-or-Rashid |year=2003 |orig-year=First published 1987 |title=The foreshadowing of Bangladesh: Bengal Muslim League and Muslim politics, 1906–1947 |edition=Rev. and enl. |publisher=University Press |pages=170–171 |isbn=978-984-05-1688-9}}</ref> The society asserted the importance of the Bengali culture and language, which many advocates of Pakistan criticised as being "Hinduised" and "Sanskritised."<ref name="A"/><ref name="G">{{cite journal
| last = Oldenburg | first = Philip |date=August 1985
| title = "A Place Insufficiently Imagined": Language, Belief, and the Pakistan Crisis of 1971
| journal = The Journal of Asian Studies | volume = 44 | issue = 4 | pages = 711–733 | issn = 0021-9118 | doi = 10.2307/2056443
| jstor = 2056443 }}</ref>

==Aftermath==
The society dissolved after the [[partition of India]] in 1947, which also partitioned Bengal to create the Muslim-majority [[East Bengal]] (also known as East Pakistan), which became part of Pakistan; Hindu-majority [[West Bengal]] and [[Assam]] became part of India. Several of the society's leaders were leading activists in the [[Bengali language movement]] (1953–1956), which was a mass struggle in East Pakistan for the recognition of the Bengali language as the second official language of Pakistan, along with Urdu.<ref name="A"/><ref name="B" />

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Bangladesh liberation}}
{{Pakistan Movement}}

[[Category:Pakistan Movement]]
[[Category:Causes and prelude of the Bangladesh Liberation War]]
[[Category:Organisations based in Kolkata]]
[[Category:Organizations established in 1942]]
[[Category:East Pakistan]]
[[Category:1942 establishments in India]]

East Pakistan Renaissance Society - Revision history

Bot at 04:26, 20 June 2022