<Li> <P> 1909 Percentage of Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains . </P> </Li> <P> 1909 Percentage of Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains . </P> <P> In 1905, viceroy, Lord Curzon, in his second term, divided the largest administrative subdivision in British India, the Bengal Presidency, into the Muslim - majority province of East Bengal and Assam and the Hindu - majority province of Bengal (present - day Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha). Curzon's act, the Partition of Bengal--which some considered administratively felicitous, and, which had been contemplated by various colonial administrations since the time of Lord William Bentinck, but never acted upon--was to transform nationalist politics as nothing else before it . The Hindu elite of Bengal, among them many who owned land in East Bengal that was leased out to Muslim peasants, protested fervidly . The large Bengali Hindu middle - class (the Bhadralok), upset at the prospect of Bengalis being outnumbered in the new Bengal province by Biharis and Oriyas, felt that Curzon's act was punishment for their political assertiveness . The pervasive protests against Curzon's decision took the form predominantly of the Swadeshi ("buy Indian") campaign and involved a boycott of British goods . Sporadically--but flagrantly--the protesters also took to political violence that involved attacks on civilians . The violence, however, was not effective, as most planned attacks were either preempted by the British or failed . The rallying cry for both types of protest was the slogan Bande Mataram (Bengali, lit: "Hail to the Mother"), the title of a song by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, which invoked a mother goddess, who stood variously for Bengal, India, and the Hindu goddess Kali . The unrest spread from Calcutta to the surrounding regions of Bengal when Calcutta's English - educated students returned home to their villages and towns . The religious stirrings of the slogan and the political outrage over the partition were combined as young men, in groups such as Jugantar, took to bombing public buildings, staging armed robberies, and assassinating British officials . Since Calcutta was the imperial capital, both the outrage and the slogan soon became nationally known . </P> <P> The overwhelming, but predominantly Hindu, protest against the partition of Bengal and the fear, in its wake, of reforms favouring the Hindu majority, now led the Muslim elite in India, in 1906, to meet with the new viceroy, Lord Minto, and to ask for separate electorates for Muslims . In conjunction, they demanded proportional legislative representation reflecting both their status as former rulers and their record of cooperating with the British . This led, in December 1906, to the founding of the All - India Muslim League in Dacca . Although Curzon, by now, had resigned his position over a dispute with his military chief Lord Kitchener and returned to England, the League was in favour of his partition plan . The Muslim elite's position, which was reflected in the League's position, had crystallized gradually over the previous three decades, beginning with the 1871 Census of British India, which had first estimated the populations in regions of Muslim majority . (For his part, Curzon's desire to court the Muslims of East Bengal had arisen from British anxieties ever since the 1871 census, the first comprehensive census there--and in light of the history of Muslims fighting them in the 1857 Mutiny and the Second Anglo - Afghan War--about Indian Muslims rebelling against the Crown .) In the three decades since that census, Muslim leaders across northern India, had intermittently experienced public animosity from some of the new Hindu political and social groups . The Arya Samaj, for example, had not only supported Cow Protection Societies in their agitation, but also--distraught at the 1871 Census's Muslim numbers--organized "reconversion" events for the purpose of welcoming Muslims back to the Hindu fold . In the United Provinces, Muslims became anxious when, in the late 19th century, political representation increased, giving more power to Hindus, and Hindus were politically mobilized in the Hindi - Urdu controversy and the anti-cow - killing riots of 1893 . In 1905, when Tilak and Lajpat Rai attempted to rise to leadership positions in the Congress, and the Congress itself rallied around symbolism of Kali, Muslim fears increased . It was not lost on many Muslims, for example, that the rallying cry, "Bande Mataram", had first appeared in the novel Anand Math in which Hindus had battled their Muslim oppressors . Lastly, the Muslim elite, and among it Dacca Nawab, Khwaja Salimullah, who hosted the League's first meeting in his mansion in Shahbag, was aware that a new province with a Muslim majority would directly benefit Muslims aspiring to political power . </P>

One way in which the partition of india in 1947 and the breakup of yugoslavia