Today is #WestBengalDay - 74 years ago on this day, it was decided to partition Bengal in order to create a homeland for Bengali Hindus. At many levels it was a heart-wrenching decision, but Hindu Bengalis knew that they had no choice 1/n

Without Netaji, Bengalis Hindus lacked a clear leader. As independence approached, his elder brother Sarat Bose was somehow convinced by Suharwady to pitch for an independent but undivided Bengal. Jinnah supported this. 2/n

Syama Prasad Mookerjee immediately saw through the trap but he lacked the political muscle. So he reached out to Nalinaksha Sanyal who had been chief whip of the Congress in the provincial assembly of undivided Bengal 3/n

Nalinaksha Sanyal was former revolutionary of Bagha Jantin's Jugantar group, but brought into Congress by CR Das. The Jugantar group were close to Netaji but were opposed to his Left oriented supporters 4/n

SP Mookerjee and Nalikasha Sanyal had worked closely during the Bengal famine of 1943 to oppose colonial policies and the ML provincial government. NS had also been one of Ashutosh Mookerjee's students. 5/n

This working relationship came in great use as NS and SPM were able to turn many mid-level Bengal Congress leaders against Sarat Bose's plans. This is how West Bengal came into being. 6/n

Dr. Nalinaksha Sanyal was one of first Indians to get PhD in economics in 1928 from LSE (Ambedkar is possibly the first in '23). He wrote part of his thesis in a London jail after being arrested for leading pro-Independence protests. Incidentally, he is my great grandfather 7/n

The close relationship between SP Mookerjee and Nalinaksha Sanyal - which came in use opposing Sarat Bose and Suharwardy's independent Bengal plan - was the result of working closely during the Bengal Famine of 1943. See section from Rakesh Batabyal's book. 8/n

Suharwardy was trying to put the blame on local "hoarders" rather than scarcity of food. Nalinaksha Sanyal countered that food was being pumped out of Bengal and no amount of raids on hoarders would help. The problem was colonial scorch earth policy disguised as "free trade" 9/n

NS & SPM also worked together to oppose Suharwardy's communal Secondary Education Bill in April 1943 that aimed at creating separate communal education systems for Muslims, upper caste Hindus & low caste Hindus. This extract is also from Batabyal's Communalism in Bengal 10/n