Bangladesh

From Buddhist Bengal and the wealth of the Mughals to the nation born in 1971.

The deltaic land of Bengal is one of the oldest cradles of civilisation in South Asia, ruled in turn by the Buddhist Pala emperors, the Hindu Senas, an independent Muslim sultanate and the fabulously wealthy Mughal province whose Dhaka muslin clothed the courts of the world. British conquest after the Battle of Plassey in 1757 reduced this rich land to a colonial periphery scarred by catastrophic famine. Partition in 1947 made it East Pakistan, but linguistic and political grievance — crystallised by the 1952 Language Movement and the 1970 election — erupted into the Liberation War of 1971. On 26 March 1971 independence was proclaimed and on 16 December the Pakistani army surrendered, founding the People's Republic of Bangladesh under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.