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Predominance of Muslims in East Bengal was discovered only after the first census of Bengal in 1872;

62.6% of the population of 21,626,445 in the districts of East Bengal were Muslims while 37% were Hindus, 48.76% of Bengal's total population of 36,111,228 were Muslims.⁷⁶ The most interesting fact revealed by the census of 1872 was the enormous host of Muhammadans resident in lower Bengal, not

72 Peter Heehs, 'Revolutionary Terrorism' in History of Bangladesh 1704-1971, Vol. I, p. 170.

73 Premen Addy and Ibne Azad, op. cit., p. 94.

74 Mohammad Shah, op. cit., p. 593; Sirajul Islam, 'Political History in Perspective', pp. 18-23.

75 J. H. Broomfield, op. cit., p. 180.

76 H. Beverley, Report on the Census of Bengal 1872 (The Bengal Secretariat Press, Calcutta 1872), pp. 12-18.

85 massed around the old capitals, but in the alluvial plains of the delta.⁷⁷ The Bengali speaking Muslims were almost invisible during the pre-colonial Muslim nawabi regimes when Hindu merchants and zamindars, and the administrative aristocracy of high caste Hindus and Muslims of foreign descents dominated the socioeconomic hierarchy.⁷⁸ It was not until the latter half of the nineteenth century that a part of the Bengali Muslims rose to some socioeconomic prominence. Commercialization of agriculture especially in the eastern districts of Bengal led to the accrual of surplus at the hand of rural intermediaries and rich peasants in forms other than rent i.e. from commodity market and expanding credit. Although the traditionally organized moneylenders (mahajans) in most parts of Bengal were the Hindu Sahas and the Suvarna Vanikas, by the late nineteenth century, a new group of financiers emerged from among the rich peasants who took up money lending as a supplementary source of income. Majority of wholesale jute traders who forwarded cash advances to cultivators were Muslims.⁷⁹

As most of the zamindars (landlords) had become absentees, their linkage with the villages was progressively weakening with the corresponding rise of the rich and powerful jotedars⁸⁰ (rich peasants).

After the Bengal Tenancy act (1885), the peasant society became fluid enough for upward and downward mobility as agricultural land was getting concentrated in the hands of a few jotedars and the dispossessed raiyats (peasants) were turning into sharecroppers or landless cultivators; the village became a multi-tiered production and social unit. The jotedars soon began to compete with the older zamindari elites.⁸¹ Their political influence derived from their powerful economic patronage networks vis-a-vis wage labourers, sharecroppers, marginal farmers and creditors in the countryside and placed them in suitable positions to take advantage of the devolution of power to the district and local boards as of the enlargement of the provincial legislature and the extension of franchise.⁸²

77 James Wise, 'The Muhammadans of Eastern Bengal,' in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 63(1894), p. 28 cited in Richard M. Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760 (Oxford University Press seventh impression, New Delhi 2011), p. 120.

78 Sirajul Islam, 'Political History in Perspective', p. 13.

79 Mustafa Nurul Islam, Samayik Patre Jivan O Janamat, 1901-1930 (in Bengali, Dhaka 1977), pp 298-99 cited in Ratan Lal Chakraborty, op. cit., p. 443.

80 A jotedar was a tenant of an arable land that was large enough to be parcelled out as under tenures.

81 Willem Van Schendel, op. cit., p. 526.

82 J. H. Broomfield, op. cit., p. 192.

86 The Bengal Legislative Council had remained a small consultative body under tight British control until the Act of 1919 introduced Dyarchy⁸³ in the provinces of India. A million new voters from the urban lower middle class and prosperous peasants, many of whom were Muslims⁸⁴ were enfranchised to elect representatives to Bengal Legislative Council; Four million additional peasants were enfranchised in 1935.⁸⁵ While only three percent of Bengal's population had been voters in 1919, ratio of voters increased to 14% in 1935; number of members of the assembly also rose from 139 to 250.⁸⁶ As the enfranchisement gradually increased, the zamindari class correspondingly lost power and the jotedars started to send their representatives to local boards, district boards and to the legislative assembly, and made their influence felt nationally.⁸⁷

The emergence of a Muslim jotedar class,⁸⁸ the prosperity of Muslim jute traders (paikars) who also forwarded cash advances to cultivators,⁸⁹ and well to do Muslim peasants who thrived on jute in the prewar years⁹⁰ enabled the Bengali Muslims to assume an important role in the restructuring of society as well as in the national politics. They could afford to send their children to nearby towns for English education that was the passport for entry to professions, jobs and government services. There was a substantial rise in the number of Muslim students in primary and secondary schools in East Bengal, the total rising to 575,700 in 1911-12.⁹¹ The door of higher education also opened up for the Muslims of East

83 The provincial subjects were divided into two categories namely, reserved and transferred. The ministers of reserved subjects reported to the governor while the ministers of transferred subjects reported to the legislature. Syed Serajul Islam, op. cit., p. 227.

84 Zaheda Ahmad, op. cit., p. 99.

85 J. H. Broomfield, op. cit., p. 192.

86 Harun-or-Rashid, 'Bengal Ministries 1937-1947' in History of Bangladesh 1704-1971, Vol. I, p. 195.

87 Sirajul Islam, 'Social and Cultural History in Perspective', p. 21.

88 Rehman Sobhan, 'Economic Basis of Bengali Nationalism' in History of Bangladesh 1704-1971, Vol. II, p. 593-94.

89 Supra, FN 79.

90 Zaheda Ahmad, op. cit., p. 95.

91 Ibid., p. 94.

87 Bengal especially after the founding of Dhaka University⁹² in 1921 to make the reunification of Bengal a little more palatable to the Bengali Muslims.⁹³ The number of students at Dhaka University Muslim Hall increased steadily; they formed the backbone of the emerging Muslim middle class in East Bengal. A major portion of them came from villages, the sons of petty landlords, jotedars and well to do peasants⁹⁴ who retained their establishments in villages in order to monopolize rural resources and power while their offspring tended to move to towns.⁹⁵