page_title: Bengal
section_title: India
hierarchical_section_title: Bengal / History / Post-partition (1947–present) / India
caption_attribution_description: English: Ujjayanta Palace - Landmark of Agartala
context_page_description: Bengal is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Geographically, it is made up by the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, the largest such formation in the world; along with mountains in its north bordering the Himalayan states of Nepal and Bhutan and east bordering Burma.
  Politically, Bengal is currently divided between Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. In 2011, the population of Bengal was estimated to be 250 million, making it one of the most densely populated regions in the world. Among them, an estimated 160 million people live in Bangladesh and 91.3 million people live in West Bengal. The predominant ethnolinguistic group is the Bengali people, who speak the Indo-Aryan Bengali language. Bengali Muslims are the majority in Bangladesh and Bengali Hindus are the majority in West Bengal. Outside this region, Indian states of Tripura and Assam's Barak Valley has a Bengali majority population with significant presence in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Uttarakhand.
context_section_description: West Bengal
  West Bengal became one of India's most populous states. Calcutta, the former capital of the British Raj, became the state capital of West Bengal and continued to be India's largest city until the late 20th century, when severe power shortages, strikes and a violent Marxist-Naxalite movement damaged much of the state's infrastructure in the 1960s and 70s, leading to a period of economic stagnation. West Bengal politics underwent a major change when the Left Front won the 1977 assembly election, defeating the incumbent Indian National Congress. The Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) governed the state for over three decades, which was the world's longest elected Communist administration in history. Since the 2000s, West Bengal has experienced an economic rejuvenation, particularly in its IT industry.
  Tripura
  The princely state of Hill Tippera, that was under the suzerainty of British India. Following the death of Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Debbarman, the princely state acceded to the Union of India on 15 October 1949 under the Tripura Merger Agreement signed by Maharani Regent Kanchan Prava Devi. By the 1950s, the region had a Bengali majority population due to the influx of Hindu refugees from East Pakistan after partition. It became a Union Territory of India in November 1953. It was granted full statehood with an elected legislature in July 1963. An insurgency by indigenous people affected the state for several years. The Left Front ruled the state between 1978 and 1988, followed by a stint of Indian National Congress rule until 1993, and then a return to the Communists.
  Karimganj district of Assam
  Karimganj District joined the union of India after its partition from Sylhet as per the Sylhet referendum in 1947 and has been a part of Assam's Barak Valley. One of the most significant events in the region's history was the language movement in 1961, in which the killing of agitators by state police led to Bengali being recognised as one of the official languages of Assam. The issue of Bengali settlement in the state from has been a contentious part of the Assam conflict.
caption: The former royal palace of Hill Tippera in Agartala
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