Question

The British Viceroy who ordered Partition of Bengal was _______________.
A. Lord Curzon
B. Lord Irwin
C. Lord Minto

Answer 1

Hint: Partition of Bengal occurred on 16th October 1905, where the presidency was divided into western part comprising Bihar, Orissa with Calcutta as capital and the eastern part consisting Assam and present-day Bangladesh with Dhaka as capital.

Complete answer: Partition of Bengal was ordered by the British Viceroy Lord Curzon, who cited excessive administrative work as a reason for the same. Lord Curzon came to India in the wake of severe famines and droughts which led him to bring in urgent administrative reforms. He then came up with the plan to divide into religious lines with the formation of Muslim majority Bengal along with Assam.
This resulted in severe resistance from the nationalist who believed the actual cause was first to alienate Hindus and Muslims creating communal rifts. This was done by government pretence to be in solidarity with Muslim and ensuring them opportunities equivalent to Hindus. The second reason was to undermine the nationalist movement gaining momentum with Bengal as its chief centre.
Partition proposals were announced to the public in 1903 which triggered an immediate anti-partition movement under the leadership of nationalist leaders as Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Surendranath Banerjee, Bipin Chandra Pal, etc. Several petitions were sent to the government, along with holding protests and rallies. Curzon ignoring this presented the plan in July 1905 and in August, Swadeshi Movement was launched. Well, this couldn’t stop the partition, but the people saw it as a day of mourning, observing fast and bathing in Ganga. The movement continued and even spread to the Bombay presidency and other areas through support of local leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, Ajit Singh, etc. The extremist elements developed more radical strategies such as shop picketing, burning British goods, etc.
Hence, the option (A) is correct.

Note: Bengal was reunited on 12th December 1911 by Lord Hardinge because of the continuous pressure from nationalist and Swadeshi movement. Now Assam, Orissa and Bihar formed a separate province so very clearly, this division was on sharp linguistic lines.