Who is a Bengali, and What Defines Being Bengali?
“Singing the song of victory,
surging like a roaring stream in wild commotion,
braving desert paths and rugged mountains,
all those who once arrived—
they all abide within me now,
none is distant, none estranged.
In the throb of my very blood
echoes the diverse melody of their presence.”
A millennium of history, an intermingling of bloodlines, and a unique geographical terrain have together forged this Bengali nation.
But who is a Bengali, and What Defines Being Bengali?
The answer lies in our anthropological roots, the political foresight of the Sultanate era, and a vast frontier sculpted by nature.
Anthropological Identity: Bengalis as a Composite Population
Anthropologists argue that Bengalis do not originate from a single, unmixed ethnic stock; rather, they are a composite, admixed population. Over thousands of years, diverse ethnic groups migrated to this deltaic region, settled down, and assimilated into the local populace.
The bedrock of the Bengali population was established through the synthesis of pre-Dravidian Negrito and Proto-Australoid groups with ancient indigenous communities such as the Santhal, Oraon, Munda, Kora, and Lodha. Among these indigenous peoples, the Santhals were the first to settle in this region and remain the largest indigenous group to this day. Subsequently, various Dravidian strains from South India, Mongoloid groups such as the Koch and Mech who crossed the Himalayas, Alpine strains from the Mediterranean realm, as well as Semitic, Persian, and Turkic elements from the Middle East and Central Asia, merged to coalesce into the modern Bengali population. In later periods, the gene pool and culture of this group were further augmented by European contact (Portuguese, Dutch, and British). The greater the degree of genetic admixture within a population, the higher its intellectual adaptability and resilience for survival; hence, Bengalis hold an unmatched position across India in terms of intellect and culture. Globally, Bengalis form the third-largest ethnolinguistic group, trailing only the Han Chinese and the Arabs.
Early History
Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a Copper Age civilization exceeding 4,000 years in antiquity across Rarh and the broader region of Bengal. In present-day Bangladesh, documentation of Paleolithic settlements has been identified in Rangamati and Feni districts in the form of stone tools and hand axes. The Wari-Bateshwar civilization in Narsingdi, Bangladesh, dates back to approximately 2500 BCE and is believed to have been a subterranean fortified city. Owing to its proximity to the river, this port city is thought to have been actively engaged in maritime trade with ancient Rome, Southeast Asia, and other regions. The inhabitants of this civilization resided in brick structures, traversed wide paved avenues, and utilized silver coinage alongside iron weaponry. It is regarded as the oldest urban center in Bengal and the eastern subcontinent.
According to the Pali chronicles of Ceylon, the Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa, Vijaya Singha, an exiled prince of Vanga, conquered Lanka and married a Ceylonese princess in events dated to 543 BCE. Even today, physical and anthropological affinities remain evident between the people of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Bengalis. The narrative of Vijaya’s conquest resonated so profoundly across the Indian populace that centuries later, the conquest of Ceylon was depicted in the Ajanta cave paintings, where Vijaya’s expedition occupies a preeminent position among Ajanta’s peerless murals.
When the Greek conqueror Alexander invaded India in 327 BCE, he withdrew after conquering the Punjab. He received intelligence that the King of Gangaridai in Bengal was awaiting his arrival with a formidable force comprising 80,000 cavalry, 200,000 infantry, 6,000 war elephants, and 8,000 war chariots. Gripped by panic upon learning this, Alexander’s army forced him to abandon his eastern campaign and retreat.
In Dandin’s Dashakumaracharita, written during the sixth or seventh century CE, an account is given of a naval engagement in the Bay of Bengal between a warship of the independent Suhma state and a foreign vessel commanded by a captain named ‘Rameshu.’ This suggests that pirates from the Mediterranean realm ventured into the Bay of Bengal to plunder Bengali merchant vessels, prompting the navy of the independent Suhma (Tamralipta) state to conduct maritime patrols in response.
Evidence of Bengali heroism is also preserved in the history of Kashmir, Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, written in 1148–49 CE. To avenge the murder of their sovereign, a small band of soldiers from Gauda marched from Bengal all the way to distant Kashmir and launched an assault on the Parihasa-Keshava temple. Inside the temple, mistaking a golden icon of Vishnu for that of Parihasa-Keshava, the Gauda soldiers dislodged and smashed the idol from its pedestal. Meanwhile, waves of Kashmiri troops arriving from Srinagar set upon the outnumbered Gauda force. Ignoring their imminent demise, the soldiers from Gauda continued to crush the statue to powder and scatter it to the winds. Though ultimately overwhelmed and killed due to their meager numbers, the Rajatarangini bestows glowing praise on the extraordinary valor demonstrated that day, noting: ‘What the Gaudiyas accomplished on that day, even the Creator himself could scarcely have achieved.‘
Origin of the Name:
The name Vanga appears frequently in ancient Indian literature. According to mythological accounts, five sons—Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, Pundra, and Suhma—were born to the sage Dirghatamas, and they became the founders of these five respective realms. It is estimated that the sage Dirghatamas flourished around 1690 BCE.
On the other hand, Abrahamic genealogists posited that Bang was a grandson of Ham, the son of Noah. Ham was among the survivors of the Great Deluge. Following the Deluge, under Noah’s direction, Ham, along with his sons Hind and Sind, migrated to the Indian subcontinent. It is believed that the terms ‘Hindu’ originated from Hind, and ‘Sindhu’ from Sind. The first-century Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus asserted that the descendants of Ham populated various regions of Asia. Bang was the son of Hind, and the kingdom he established came to be known as Vanga (or Bang) after his name.
The earliest textual reference to the word Vanga occurs in the Aitareya Aranyaka, traditionally dated to around 3000 BCE. The Baudhayana Dharmasutra also mentions Vanga as a distinct ethnic group or community. The Ramayana records diplomatic alliances between Ayodhya and Vanga, while the Mahabharata notes that the kingdom of the Vangas extended all the way to the sea. References to Vanga are likewise found in Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsha and Kautilya’s Arthashastra. However, nowhere in these early texts do the names Bangala or Bangali appear.
During the medieval period under Muslim rule, the Arabic-Persian suffixes -al and -ali were appended to the name Bang. From Bang evolved Bangal and Bangali, which ultimately gave rise to the terms Bangla (Bengal) and Bangali (Bengali).
Shah-i-Bangalah Ilyas Shah: The Father of Bengali Nationalism
Although the anthropological structure of Bengalis is ancient, the political identity of the ‘Bengali’ was established during the medieval period. The paramount protagonist of this historic achievement was Sultan Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah.
Following his accession to the throne of Lakhnauti in 1342 CE, he sequentially conquered Satgaon and Sonargaon. Before Ilyas Shah, Bengal was fragmented into sub-regions such as Rarh, Gauda, Pundra, Vanga, Samatata, and Harikela. In 1352 CE, he brought the entirety of Bengal under a unified administrative framework, integrating these isolated settlements to form a sovereign state named ‘Bangalah.’ From that point onward, the name ‘Bangla’ became firmly established as the designation for a unified political region. Foreign travelers and historians likewise began referring to ‘Bangla’ as a distinct geopolitical entity.
Sultan Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah adopted the titles ‘Shah-i-Bangalah‘ (Emperor of Bengal) and ‘Sultan-i-Bangaliyan‘ (Sultan of the Bengalis), addressing the citizens of this consolidated Bengal as Bengalis. In doing so, Ilyas Shah politically transformed and institutionalized the social and linguistic identity of the inhabitants of the Bengal region. Since then, people across the Indian subcontinent and beyond have designated the inhabitants of this land—that is, us—as Bengalis.
He was the first to name the inhabitants of this Bengal Sultanate, or Bengali state, as Bengalis. As a consequence of this geographical and political unification, the people of Bengal’s varied sub-regions gained the opportunity to emerge ethnically as ‘Bengalis.’ Prior to this, the residents of Bengal possessed no singular regional designation; rather, they were divided by sub-regional identities such as Rarhi, Gaudi, and Varendri. In his contemporary chronicle Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi, the Delhi historian Shams-i-Siraj Afif referred to Ilyas Shah’s subjects collectively as ‘Bengalis’ for the very first time. Through this, the inhabitants of a deeply fragmented land attained a specific and unified geographical and political identity for the first time in history.
Ilyas Shah can be regarded as the architect of Bengali nationalism in medieval history. To preserve Bengal’s independence against the authority of Delhi and consolidate his own power, he recognized the necessity of forging a unified nation. Language served as the foundation of this nation-building process. Being a son born of a Bengali mother, Ilyas Shah issued directives to conduct official state business in the Bengali language, initiating the process of uniting the entire Bengali nation on a linguistic basis. It was during his reign that Bengalis first emerged as a distinct nation. From Ilyas Shah onward, all the Sultans of Bengal identified themselves as ‘Bengalis.’ This was true not only of the sovereigns, but also of the elites and officials of the Bengali state, who identified as ‘Bengalis’—regardless of whether their ancestral origins were Arab, Turkic, Pathan, Baloch, Iranian, or Tajik. In the wider world, they presented themselves under the banner of ‘Bengali.’ The armed forces of the Bengali state came to be known across India and the world as the ‘Paik-i-Bangalah.’ In essence, whoever belonged to Bengal was a Bengali; whether one was racially Arab, Turkic, or otherwise was immaterial.
Shaykh Nur Qutb ul-Alam, a descendant of the famous Arab commander of Islam, Khalid ibn al-Walid, served as the Grand Mufti (chief Islamic legal authority) of the Shahi Bengal Empire. Worldwide, he was known as ‘Shaykh Nur Bangali’ (despite being of Arab descent). Later, in the sixteenth century, when the Mughal Emperor Akbar of Delhi promulgated the Din-i-Ilahi, the Muslim intelligentsia and Ulema of Bengal mounted a fierce opposition against it. The Qazi of Bengal denounced it as un-Islamic, sparking widespread debate across South Asia. The Bengali Muslim intellectuals did not stop at merely opposing Akbar; numerous Bengali scholars (Alim-Ulema) traveled to various parts of India to preach Islam and protect Muslims from the influence of Din-i-Ilahi. Outside Bengal, all of them identified themselves firmly as Bengalis. For instance, Ali Sher Bangali went to Gujarat, Osman Bangali to Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh, and Yusuf Bangali to Burhanpur in Madhya Pradesh to propagate Islam. This underscores the independent intellect and defiant spirit of the Bengali intelligentsia.
In short, ‘Bengali’ emerged as a civic identity representing citizenship within the state of Bengal. Whosoever resided in Bengal and embraced its land, its people, the Bengali language, its nature, and its culture was a Bengali. Thus, from that era onward, all inhabitants across every region of Bengal—Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Brahmin, and Chandala alike—came to be known as Bengalis, and foreign nations similarly addressed them as Bengalis.
Bengali is a Nation
According to historians, Bengalis constitute a distinct nation. This is because the developmental precursors to nationhood—such as clan, tribal, or caste-group identities—eroded among Bengalis centuries ago. Having discarded tribal affiliations many centuries prior, Bengalis historically associated their identity with geographical or sub-regional designations, identifying themselves as Gaudiyas, Vangiyas, Rarhis, or Varendris. Subsequently, from the reign of Sultan Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah onward, these localized identities dissolved, and we have consistently identified ourselves as Bengalis.
In contrast, clan societies and caste-group identities remain intensely prevalent among other ethnic communities in India to this day. For instance, although the Marwaris and Rajputs are both inhabitants of Rajasthan, they take greater pride in identifying themselves as Marwaris or Rajputs rather than as Rajasthanis. Therefore, while other ethnic groups in India may lack the sociological grounds to claim nationhood, Bengalis possess every right to assert themselves as a distinct nation.
Territorial Homeland of the Bengalis — The Natural Boundaries of Bengal
The political or state borders of a land do not always coincide with its natural or geographical boundaries. Political frontiers are inherently fluid; they expand or contract in tandem with the ebb and flow of state power, or due to other geopolitical factors.
Regardless of political shifts, however, it is typically within the contours of a distinct natural framework that the unity and character of a nation and its language take shape. This was precisely the case in ancient Bengal. As reflected in the accounts of classical and medieval poets and chroniclers—as well as in geographical reality—the homeland of the Bengali nation was a vast and diverse domain.
Bengali historians have delineated the natural boundaries of the Bengali homeland as follows:
To the north lie the Himalayas and the Himalayan realms of Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan; to the northeast, the Brahmaputra River and its valley; to the northwest, Darbhanga, the Son River, and the plains extending north parallel to the Bhagirathi up to Rohtasgarh; to the east, the mountain ranges of the Garo, Khasi, Jaintia, Tripura, and Chittagong hills stretching down to the southern sea; to the west, the rugged, forested plateau encompassing Rajmahal, Santhal Parganas, Chota Nagpur, Manbhum, Dhalbhum, Keonjhar, and Mayurbhanj; and to the south, the Bay of Bengal.
Enclosed within these natural boundaries were the historic Janapadas of ancient Bengal—Gauda, Pundra, Varendra, Rarh, Suhma, Tamralipta, Samatata, Vanga, Vangala, and Harikela. Here lay the villages, towns, meadows, hills, and dense forests of Bengal, nurtured by the Bhagirathi, Karatoya, Brahmaputra, Padma, Meghna, and countless more rivers. This geography served as the locus of Bengali historic achievements, spiritual pursuits, and cultural life. Soaring mountains on one side, rugged highlands on two sides, an expansive ocean on the fourth, and a balanced alluvial plain at its heart—this constituted the geographical destiny of the Bengali people.
Yet today, the Himalayas belong to us in name alone; even the sea feels like little more than a distant memory, and Tamralipta remains a genuinely poignant relic of the past.
As the poet laments:
‘The Himalayas are but a name,
Where has our ocean gone?
Only the dim lights of two lesser ports flicker in the dark.
No daring ocean-bound vessels anchor there anymore;
—Tamralipta is a poignant memory.’“
Conclusion:
We are Bengalis because in our veins flows the blood of diverse peoples from across the world. We are Bengalis because the vast expanse of this natural domain taught us magnanimity, and the rivers imparted to us momentum. And visionary rulers like Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah endowed us with a distinct political and cultural identity.
Today, though Bengalis may be divided across various states or borders due to geopolitical circumstances, the indelible bond of a thousand-year-old culture, language, and shared history will preserve the Bengalis as a unique and unconquerable nation on the world stage for eternity.
বাংলা এবং বাঙালির জন্য লড়াইকে এগিয়ে নিয়ে যেতে আমাদের সাহায্য করুন।
আমরা কোনো কোটিপতি বা বড় কোনো কোম্পানি নই – আমাদের পাঠকরাই আমাদের সমর্থন করেন। আমাদের এই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ এবং সাহসী প্রচেষ্টার জন্য অনুদান দিয়ে আমাদের পাশে থাকুন।
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