ABSTRACT
Although Pakistan eventually accepted Bangladesh’s independence, and they shared a Muslim heritage (83% of Bangladeshis and 97% of Pakistanis are Muslim), their violent parting left many issues in dispute between them. And although Bangladesh owed its independence to India, they, too, had disputes – particularly over Bengali migration into Assam, and over India’s diversions of water from the Ganges. (The huge Ganges delta forms a large part of Bangladesh’s territory.)
Meanwhile, India had laid out new state boundaries, mainly based on linguistic regions: Kerala, for speakers of Malayalam; Tamil Nadu, for Tamil; Andhra Pradesh, for Telugu; Karnataka (until 1973 Mysore) for Kannada; Gujarat, for Gujarati-speakers; Maharashtra, for Marathi; Orissa, for Oriya; West Bengal, for Bengali; Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar for Hindi and its variants. The part of Punjab left to India by partition was redivided in 1966: the mainly Hindi-speaking part became Haryana, the Himalayan foothills went to Himachal Pradesh, the residual Punjab being mainly Punjabi-speaking (and 63% Sikh).
