Mughal Bengal alone out-produced western Europe, by one estimate
Under the Mughals, the province of Bengal is said to have generated almost half the empire's output and about 12 percent of the world's, more than all of western Europe combined. That wealth sits in a long story for East India, the region of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal that also cradled several of India's greatest empires.
The land varies widely. Bihar and West Bengal lie on the fertile Indo-Gangetic plain, Jharkhand on the Chota Nagpur plateau, and Odisha across the Eastern Ghats. The region borders Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, fronts the Bay of Bengal, and links to India's northeastern states only through the narrow Siliguri Corridor. Kolkata is its largest city, at the heart of the country's third-largest metropolitan area, and the region ranks fourth among India's regions by economic output.
People have lived here a very long time. Traces of habitation about 42,000 years old have been found below the Ajodhya Hills, cave paintings at Isko date from roughly 9,000 to 5,000 BCE, and a farming settlement at Dihar dates to around 2700 BC. The Nanda, Maurya, Gupta and Pala dynasties, which at their height ruled much of the subcontinent, were centred here. The Maurya king Ashoka sent Buddhist envoys across Asia after his war in Kalinga, the famous university at Nalanda drew Chinese scholars, and Mahavira, founder of Jainism, was born in the region.
From the 14th century the Bengal Sultanate brought prosperity that Europeans praised as the richest land to trade with. Portuguese, Dutch, French and English traders set up posts in the 17th century, the English founding Calcutta. After the East India Company's victory at Plassey, the city grew into one of the world's great ports; tea shipped from there was dumped by American rebels in the 1770s, and until 1911 Calcutta served as the seat of British rule in India. Labourers from Bihar sailed to new lives in Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana and South Africa.
The region fed India's freedom movement. The 1857 rebellion started in Bengal, the Bihar village of Champaran backed Gandhi's non-violent campaign, and Rabindranath Tagore championed self-rule. The states took their present shape after the 1956 States Reorganisation Act, and Odisha in particular has grown quickly in recent years.
Source: East India
