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When the Senas replaced the Palas in the throne of Bengal,
history as if retreated to its starting point to repeat itself all
over again. The Sena
family originally belonged to Kamata in South India and came of a
'Brahma-Kshatriya'caste. Their
ancestors had come to West Bengal to hunt for fortune and fortuitously
made themselves the ruling dynasty.
Unlikd the Palas who came to power by the common consent of the
people, the Senas imposed their authority by ruthless wars and
conquests. The political
climate during the rise of the Senas had necessitated such brutal
measures as the self-seeking chiefs of Bengal had lost all
considerations for the country and engaged in furdierence of
self-interest only. These chiefs were whetted in their greed for power and
affluence when Rampala, a scion of the Pala dynasty, had made a number
of concessions to them in exchange of their support against the
defiant successors of Diva, a rebel high official of the Pala court,
in the third quarter of the I I di century A. D.
The
roughly two centuries of Sena rule in Bengal had accomplished
economic prosperity and administrative reforms unprecedented in the
country although the territorial wars and intrigues were very much
there. Sena king
Vijoysena was a great benevolent king who undertook many public works
and the first administrative reforms.
The five provinces of his domain were Vanga, Varendra, Radha,
Bagdi and Mithila. The
first three formed Bengal proper while Mithila corresponds to north
Bihar. As regards Bagdi,
it is generally identified with a portion of the Bengal presidency
division of British India including the Sunderbans.
The Sena power reached an outstanding height during the reign
of Laxmansena who had led many campaigns and increased the
territorial outline of Bengal surpassed by none but Dharmapala and
Devapala in the 9th century A. D. Laxmansena gave Bengal the power and
prestige to play important role in North Indian politics which she
would not play again until six hundred years later.
The Muslim invasion came towards
the end of the 12th century
when the Sena rule had begun to settle in tranqu ' il and
stability. The mvasion
jarred loose the military holds of the Senas over the kingdom and a
number of feudal chiefs declared independence.
The first defiance of the Senas was in 1 196 A. D. when a
feudal chief named Dammanpala pronounced independence in the Khadi
district. Afterwards,
Chief Ranvankarnalla Sri Harikeldeva set up his kingdom in Pattikera
in 1221 A. D. Deva family established its own kingdom beyond the
Meghna river and Damodara of this family ruled over districts of
Tippera, Noakhali and Chittagong between 1231 and 1243 A. D. A
latter-day king, Dasarathadeva, probably of the Deva family, also
ruled Dhaka district with Vikrarnpur as his capital until 1243 A.D.
The conquest of Bengal by the members of the Turkman tribe
under the leadership of Bhakhtyar Khwilji intiated a new chapter of
history laden with more violence, disorder and conspiracies than
before. Treachery and
dissension were rife amongst the invaders-a desperate band of warriors
who had fled their motherland for fortune-hunting in India.
Like any invading army, their foremost interest was to ensure
their own power and affluence in the conquered land and in the act of
doing so they unleashed a paroxysm of internecine conflicts which kept
Bengal in continuous chaos for many centuries.
For 362 years upto the Moghul conquest of Bengal, 47 sultans
sat on the throne of Bengal and their reign were not remarkable by any
.consideration but a monotonous repetition of betrayal and debauchery
over and over again as sultan after sultan rose to and fell from
power.
The political stability of Bengal would not be restored until
the Mughal rule in the early 17th century. During the Sultani period the wayward chiefs struggled to
remain outside the sphere of influence of the Delhi Sultanate which
had developed a special interest in Bengal in the background of
indiscipline and lawlessness in the land.
The geographical contour of Bengal varied under verious sultans
depending on the territorial campaigns undertaken by them.
However, the whole of Bengal was never conquered or even
visited by Muslim
armies of the Pre-Mughal days and Muslim rule was
not effective beyond Varendra till the founding of the independent
Bengal Sultanate under the house of Balbans in the first quarter of
the 14th century. It was
particularly difficult to establish effective Muslim control in the
areas beyond Varendra on account of Hindu resistance in those areas.
Under the impulse of neo-Hinduism the Koch, Mech, Tharu and
several other immigrant
Mongoloid tribes assumed the role of Kshatriyas, and proved an
effective barrier to the advance of Muslim amues in the tract between
the Karatoya and the Subarnasri rivers for
about
a century. Further
east the Shan invaders from upper Burma laid the foundation of the
Ahom Kingdom of Gauhati (1268-81) erecting another line of resistance
to Muslim advancement.
Hinduism with resurgence was able to convert the Shan Buddhists
to form the second line of defence against Islam.
The
vassalage of Bengal revolted a number of times against the
authority of Delhi only to be subjugated again until a treaty was
signed between Delhi sultan and Sikander Shah in 1359 to leave
Bengal alone with its own independent government.
For centuries since then Bengal would remain free until the
Mughals conquered her in the 16th century.
Bengal's independence had completely isolated her from the rest
of the world and history went into an eclipse for the following
hundred years after the conclusion of the treaty between
Delhi and Sikander. During
Akbar's reign, steps were taken to compile the dynastic histories of
Bengal for this period for incorporation in the Imperial Gazettier
which Abul Fazl was commissioned to write.
The Mugnal officers of Bengal could collect
only popular traditions and pious-legends from the pundits and the
keepers of the tombs of Muslim saints (Khadims) thus recreate somewhat
of an outline of the missing time.
This deplorable aposiopesis in the commentary of his-tory must
have deprived the historians of a significant period of Bengal's
history. For the first
time in history, Bengal had attained the status of a free territory
and its people had the freedom to conduct their own affairs.It would
have been interesting at least to know how they did so in the wake of
this new found independence.
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