Sylhet Referendum
| Sylhet Referendum | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Should Sylthet join East Bengal? | |||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Sylhet, Assam, British Raj | ||||||||||||||||||
| Date | 6 July 1947 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Sylhet Referendum was a referendum held in Sylhet to decide whether Sylthet would remain in Assam and join the new country of India or would join East Bengal and the new country of Pakistan. The referendum was decided in favor of joining Pakistan.
The partition of India was to happen along religions lines. The Muslim Majority areas would form Pakistan while the Hindu Majority areas would form India. Sylhet was a Muslim majority district in Assam which was a Hindu Majority province. People in Sylhet spoke Sylheti or Bengali while those in rest of the province spoke Assamese. The Government of Assam believed removing Sylhet would make it more homogeneous and stronger as a result. Assam’s Prime Minister Gopinath Bordoloi said in 1946 that his wish was to “hand over Sylhet to East Bengal”.
The Government of British Raj declared on 3 July 1947 that a referendum would be held to decide the future of Sylhet on 7th July 1947. H. C. Stock was appointed the commissioner of the referendum.
The majority of the population voted to join East Bengal. It was implemented in the Article 3 of the India Independence Act of 18 July 1947. The Radcliffe line published on 12 August 1947 gave some areas of Sylhet mainly in Karimganj to India, while the rest of Sylthet joined East Pakistan. India received three thana and half of one thana from Sylthet. The Areas India received has a majority Bengali Muslim population. The Result was welcomed in Assam.
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