From Jahangirnagar to Dhaka
THIS year marks Dhaka's 400th anniversary as a capital city. However, Dhaka's history as a town or an urban settlement goes back much further, and it is very difficult to say exactly how old Dhaka city is.
King Srigupta of north Bangladesh laid down the foundation of the illustrious Gupta Empire (320-550AD). Harisen, the poet-laureate of Emperor Shamudragupta, who was the grandson of Srigupta, mentioned Dabaka in Allahabad Prashasti, in his eulogy for the Emperor, written in the 4th century A.D. The Dabaka mentioned in that inscription refers to today's Dhaka.
King Ballal Sen, the second ruler of the Sen Dynasty (1159-1179) built the Dhakeswari temple in Dhaka more than 800 years ago. No trace of that temple remains, but the four Siva temples erected by Raja Man Singh, the commander-in-chief of Emperor Akbar, at the site of that temple in the wake of 17th century still stands. Man Singh stayed in Dhaka from 1602-04 when he was fighting against Isa Khan, the leader of the Bara Bhuiyan -- the independent petty kings of Bangladesh.
The oldest brick structure that still exists in Dhaka is the one-dome Binot Bibi Mosque at Narinda, built in 1457. Though the mosque survived the onslaught of time and climate for about 550 years, it is now unfortunately being demolished. We are destroying the oldest structure in Dhaka to build a bigger mosque and a madrasa on the site.
The second-oldest brick structure in Dhaka city is the Mirpur Majar mosque, also one-domed, built in 1487.
Dhaka is located close to two ancient capitals of Bengal, Vikrampur and Sonargaon. So, it was only natural that this place was pivotal to the defense of these two capitals and, as a result, grew into a cantonment town as well as a business centre.
Tavernier visited Dhaka in 1666, and wrote: "Dhaka is a great town … The length of this town is about two leagues." Captain Bowrey, who came to Dhaka about twelve years after Tavernier, wrote: "The city of Dhaka is very large and spacious…" As a capital, Dhaka started flourishing in trade and commerce, which attracted many foreign traders.
At the partition of Bengal in 1905, Dhaka was made the capital of the newly formed province of East Bengal and Assam. But it was short-lived. In 1912 King George V at Delhi Darbar annulled the partition of Bengal, and Kolkata became the capital of united Bengal; at the same time the capital of the British-India Empire was transferred from Kolkata to Delhi.
The British left the Indian sub-continent in 1947, and Dhaka became the capital of East Bengal -- the eastern wing of Pakistan. In 1956, East Bengal was known as East Pakistan, and later, with the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country in 1971, Dhaka has become the capital of the country.
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