"The History of Bangladesh" Taken From The 'Foreword' Of The Book: The rapid expansion of electronic media has brought the world in men's fist. The most negative approach of this media is the circulation of false or imaginary information. The circulation of Western media is irresistably wide spread. The different media including B.B.C. and C.N.N. are circulated even to the remote country side. In causing harm to a person, religion or a race these media act as antibiotic. Alexan invations of India and his Chief Commander Selecus's envoy Megasthenes' visit to the court of Emperor Chandra Gupta are very notable events of the ancient time. He wrote an account of India named Indika in four volumes during the last decade of the 3rd century B.C. Strabo in the last part of the 1st century B.C. Pliny in 79 A.D. and Arrian in 150 A.D. wrote books on India. Pliny wrote in Latin and the rest in Greek language. The Arabian, Turk, English, Greek, French and Bengali historians while writing the history of their countries or colonies tended to serve the interest of their nation and religion. So, a subtantial part of information they dealt with is fabricated and baseless. Again, many titles on history provides the scope for ensuring everlasting conflits between different nationalities or communities. History should not be cultivated to attain a commercial goal. It should be committed to need and conscience. So, the books on history are still encircled within the limits of a covered area. It is necessary to provide diversity in dealing with history so that the readers and investigators can save their time and get relishment in reading history books. I am not a student of history, but I like to know the facts of history and to collect the historical information. From this points of view, I absorved myself in deep study and cultivation of history for last two decades. I got the opportunity of going through many titles on history authored by the Bengali historians. Manny of them may appear to be biased. I found inspiration for writing history of whole of Bengal from the successful publication of three historical tilles - on a Thana, a district and a division composed by me. I dedicated my all savings earned through hard toiling and time in composing four history books without cherishing any desire to build a dwelling at Baridhara or Gulshan. I spent days after days in the British Library and the Lester Library in collecting materials for the books I published. The religion of the ancient inhabitants of Bengal was 'Kaum'. Hindu or Islam are not ancient religion of Bengal. The Kaum religion was followed by Jainism, Buddhism and Brahmanism. The name 'Hindu' was originated from Sindhu. King Perumal had embraced Islam by going to Makkah where he was initiated by the Prophet himself before the 6th century A.D. He sent the message of Islam to his subjects in India. He built a number of mosques. Investigators and readers cannot but read some pages of any book to find out the name and the year of foundation of any kingdom. So, with a view to relieving the investigators of wasting their time I have included in this book the names of ancient kingdoms and their capitals, the list of the states existed during the period of Muslim rule and the list of religions. The Bengalis of Assam Myanmar and Tripura are generally slighted. I have tried to give prominence to their history and heritage. It is a painful experience that many Bangali historians release their books in the name of History of Bengal by including discussion on some kingdoms of their own neighbourhood. This book includes short discussion on about 49 kingdoms of Bengal, different names of Banga and Gauda, and list of about 70 number of copper and other plates and inscriptions. No book on the history of Bengal has included such information herein before. In the sixth century B.C. the founder of Jainism, Mahavira and that of Ajivika religion also came to Bengal. In 637, the Muslim expeditions were led to Thane,Broach and Debal religions of western coast. In 712 A.D. Muhammad bin Qasim led an expedition to Sind of modern Pakistan. Sabuktagin, the sultan of Ghazni invaded India in 976-77.
Sultan Mahmud, the son of Sultan of Ghazni of Afghanistan invaded India for 17 times during the period from 1000 A.D. to 1026 A.D. In the second battle of Tarain fought in 992 Muhammad Ghori won the victory and thus the Muslim rule was introduecd in India. In 1204, Bakhtiyar Khilji founded the Muslim rule in Gauda. The Muslim rule was not extended to Bengal (Banga) at that time. The Bengal of the ancient time is East Bengal. The Bengal of the medieval period is West Bengal. The Bengali language has developed in the model of the language of East Bengal. Muslims' loitering commenced in India in about sixth century A.D. During the period of two hundred years following the Battle of Plassey the Muslim society was reduced to backward class consequent upon the destruction of the Muslim rulers and feudal lords and the educational institutions. Right from the begining of the British rule in India, a class of historians with a well planned design twisted the history by including some fabricated information upto an extent of character assassination of the Muslim rulers and denying any contribution of Muslims which made a large number of people inimical to Muslim. During the period from 1204 to 1765, seventy six Muslim rulers ruled Banga (Bengal) and Gauda. Passing through many ups and downs during the period of the British rule continued for about two hundred years Bangal was divided into two separate regions. One portion of the divided Bengal was included to India and the other to Pakistan. Former East Bengal assuming the name of Bangladesh achieved independence in 1771. As a result Bangladesh has acquired a position of a state in the map of the world, but West Bengal survives still as one of 28 states of Indian Union. In the Freedom movement of India, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was in favour of armed straggle while others were in support of the policy of appeasement. Netaji had given a clarion call: “Give me blood, I promise to give you freedom”. In the field of the liberation war of Bangladesh M.A.G. Osmani was the Commander-in-Chief. Both of them are valiant heroes. Both the heroes are treated with indifference by present generation.