View source for Bakarganj (Backergunge)

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This article has been extracted from <br/>

THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908.<br/>

OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS.
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[[Category:Bangladesh|B]]
[[Category:Places|B]]
''Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts.Many units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value. ''

=Bakarganj = 

(Bakarganj, ' Mart of Agha Bakar '). — Southern- 
most District of the Dacca Division, Eastern Bengal and Assam, lying 
between 21 49' and 23 5' N. and 89 52' and 91 2' E., with an area 
of 4,542 square miles. It is bounded on the north by Fandpur ; on 
the east by the Meghna and Shahbazpur rivers, whi
ch separate it from 
Noakhali ; on the south by the Bay of Bengal ; and on the west by 
the Baleswar river and its estuary the Haringhata, which divide it from 
Khulna. 
 
==Physical aspects==
Backergunge is a typical part of the alluvial delta formed by the three 
great river systems of Eastern Bengal. The District consists partly of 
mainland and partly of islands in the estuary of the 
Meghna, the largest being Dakhin Shahbazpur, and sweets 
forms an unbroken plain intersected by a network of 
sluggish and muddy tidal rivers and channels, with a slight decline from 
the east towards the west and north-west. Along the coast-line of the 
Bay lie the Sundarbans, a group of half-reclaimed islands separated by 
tidal creeks, which cover an area in this District of 897 square miles. 
The Meghna estuary, here some 8 miles in breadth, sweeps past the 
east of the District, and is divided by the Dakhin Shahbazpur island 
into an eastern branch called the Shahbazpur, and a western known as 
the Tetulia river. The Arial Khan is a branch of the Ganges ; it crosses 
the north-east coiner of the District, and joins the Meghna through the 
Mashkata and Kalinga channels. The river system consists of offshoots 
from the Meghna estuary and the tributaries and distributaries of the 
Arial Khan and Baleswar (as the MadhumatI is called in its lower 
reaches), which ramify into channels intersecting the District in every 
direction. 

A perplexing multiplicity of names extends even to the 
smaller watercourses, which are often known by different names to 
villagers living on opposite banks, while the Meghna estuary itself is 
known in different parts of its course as the Satbaria, the Ilsa, the 
Tetulia, and the Shahbazpur. Most of the rivers and water-channels 
are navigable throughout the year and are subject to tidal action, which 
however is powerless during the freshes of the rainy season to arrest the 
seaward flow of the immense volume of rain-water pouring down the 
big rivers. Alluvion and diluvion are constantly taking place, especially 
towards the east, where the District is washed by the Meghna. On the 
north and east of the island of Dakhin Shahbazpur, the land is being 
rapidly cut away, while on its western shore a corresponding formation 
is taking place and large alluvial accretions are being thrown up in the 
estuary, the names of which indicate their recent origin. There is a very 
strong bore at spring tides in the estuary of the Meghna, and at that 
season boatmen seldom venture on the river. 

The District lies low and, except in the east, most of the country is 
inundated during the rains. There are extensive depressions in the 
north and north-west, where the water remains all the year round, the 
principal being the Satla, Dalbaira, Jhanjhania, Rampur Chechri, 
Adampur, and Kalaraja bits or swamps. 

The District is covered by recent alluvium, consisting of sandy clay 
and sand along the course of the rivers and fine silt consolidating 
into clay in other parts of the river plain, while in the marshes beds of 
impure peat commonly occur. During the rainy season, only the river banks and the artificial 
mounds on which habitations are situated escape inundation. Where 
not occupied by gardens, these patches of high ground are densely 
covered with a scrubby jungle of semi-spontaneous species, from which 
rise bamboos, areca and coco-nut palms, with a few taller trees, among 
which the commonest is Odina Wodier and the most conspicuous the 
red cotton-tree {Bombax malabaricum). 

The surface of the marshes 
either shows huge stretches of inundated rice or is covered by matted 
floating islets of sedges and grasses, and with various water-lilies, the 
most striking of these being the makana {Euryale ferox). Backergunge 
contains no Government forests, but the Sundarbans in the south pro- 
duce many kinds of timber and an abundant supply of firewood. The 
chief trees are the sundri [Heritiera littora/is), haritakl ( Terminalia 
Chebu/a), gab (Diospyros embryopteris), keord {Sonneratia apetaed), 
kripa {Lumnitzera racemosa), gardn (Ceriops Boxbitrghianus), gamhdr 
(Gmclifia arborea), and karanj (Galedupa indica). 

Tigers, leopards, deer, buffaloes and wild hog abound in the Sun- 
darbans, and crocodiles swarm in the rivers and are very destructive. 
Nearly 300 persons are killed annually by wild beasts and snakes. 

Backergunge is remarkable for its uniform temperature and for the 
high humidity prevailing from April to October ; the mean temperature 
remains almost stationary between 83°and 85°from April to September, 
but falls in the cold season to 67 . The annual rainfall averages 
83 inches, of which 8-i inches fall in May, 16-3 in June, 18-7 in July, 
15-3 in August, io-6 in September, and 5-9 in October. 

Backergunge is peculiarly liable to cyclones accompanied by storm 
waves. The most disastrous in recent times were those of 1822 and 
1876. In the former, 40,000 human beings and 100,000 cattle perished, 
and the Collectorate records were swept away. In the latter, Dakhin 
Shahbazpur and some thanas of the Patuakhali subdivision were sub- 
merged to a depth of from 10 to 45 feet, and 124,000 persons were 
drowned or died in the cholera epidemic which ensued ; there was also 
an enormous mortality among the cattle. 

 
==History==

In prehistoric times Backergunge appears to have formed part of the 
old kingdom of Banga or Samatata. Its people, who are described in 
the Raghubansa as living in boats, were clearly the 
ancestors of the Namasudras or Chandals, who are 
still numerous in the north-west of the District. Authentic history dates 
only from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Pargana Chandradwlp, or 
Bakla, was long the seat of a line of Hindu zambidars, belonging to the 
group of chiefs known as the Bara Bhuiya, who were poetically known 
as ' the twelve suns of Bengal.' These zamindars first ruled in Kachua 
and subsequently in Madhabpasa, where the Durga Sagar, a large tank 
still in existence, is associated with them. One of the scions of their 
family married a daughter of the famous Raja Pratapaditya of Jessore. 

When or how Musalmans first came into the District in any numbers 
is uncertain, but relics of their early settlements exist in the ruins of 
mosques at Blbl Chini and Kasba. During the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries the Arakanese (locally known as Maghs) made 
regular raids in fleets of armed vessels up the rivers of Eastern Bengal ; 
and as late as 1770, when Major Rennell surveyed the District, he 
described the southern half of it as a wilderness devastated by the 
Maghs. In order to defend the country against these incursions, the 
Mughal governor of Bengal in 1608 transferred his capital to Dacca, 
and his successor Shah Shuja, the brother of Aurangzeb, built a fort 
(since completely washed away by the Nalchiti river) at Shujabad, 
5 miles south-west of Barisal. Early in the eighteenth century, pargana 
Buzurgumedpur came into the hands of Agha Bakar, a servant of the 
Nawab of Murshidabad, who has given his name to the village and 
District of Backergunge. After Agha Bakar's death, Raja Raj Ballabh 
of Rajnagar, one of the most famous men of his time, got possession of 
the property ; and it was he who first invited Portuguese Christians 
from Bandel and Goa in order to coerce his refractory tenants, and 
settled them in the Sibpur taluk, where their descendants, known as 
Firinghls, still reside. 

British rule in the District dates from the Company's accession to the 
Dlwani in 1765. Until 181 7 the District formed part of the Dacca 
Collectorate, but was administered by a Judge and Magistrate of its 
own, who was stationed at the town of Backergunge near the junction of 
the Krishnakati and Khairabad rivers. In 1801 the administrative 
head-quarters were transferred to Barisal. Numerous changes of 
jurisdiction have since occurred, the most important being the transfer 
of the island of Dakhin Shahbazpur from Noakhali to Backergunge 
in 1859, and that of the greater part of the Madarlpur subdivision 
from this District to Farldpur in 1874. 

==Population==
The population increased from 1,887,586 in 1872 to 1,900,889 
in 1881, to 2,153,965 in 1891, and to 2,291,752 in 1901. Progress 
Population. was checked between 1872 and 1881 by the disastrous cyclone of 1876. 
During the decade ending 1901 the greatest increase of population 
took place in the swampy thanas in the north 
(Gaurnadi 14-8 per cent, and Swarupkati 13-7), where 
reclamation is steadily going on as fresh deposits of silt gradually 
replace water by mud. Two of the three Sundarban thanas, Amtali 
and Galachipa, in which cultivation is rapidly extending, also showed 
large increases. The climate is not unhealthy, except after the close 
of the rains, when fever is prevalent. The chief statistics of the 
Census of 1901 are shown below : — 

 

[[File:  gazaters12.png   | |frame|500px]] 
Includes 897 square miles comprised in the Sundarbans, which are not included 
in the subdivisional figures. 

The District contains a large but sparsely inhabited tract in the 
Sundarbans. If this be excluded, the density of population rises from 
505 to 629 per square mile ; it is greatest in the Pirojpur and Jhalakati 
thanas, where there are respectively 1,128 and 1,193 inhabitants to the 
square mile. The principal towns are Barisal, the head-quarters, 
Pirojpur, Jhalakati, and Patuakhali. A great influx of labourers 
takes place at the winter rice harvest from Farldpur, Dacca, and 
Noakhali. The language of the District is the dialect of Bengali known 
as Musalmanl. Musalmans number 1,565,024, or more than 68 per 
cent, of the total, and Hindus 713,800 ; among the remainder there are 
7,220 Buddhists and 5,591 Christians. 

Of the Musalmans more than ii millions call themselves Shaikhs, 
and are doubtless in the main derived from the aboriginal race repre- 
sented at the present day by the Hindu Namasudras, who number 
318,000 and live an almost amphibious life in the swamps in the north- 
west of the District. After the Namasudras, Kayasths (78,000), 
Brahmans (52,000), Napits and Sudras (each with 36,000), and 
Kaibarttas (26,000) are the most numerous Hindu castes. The 
Buddhists are Maghs who have resided in this part of the Sundarbans 
for more than a century ; they adhere to their own mode of living, 
intermarry strictly among themselves, and build their dwellings on piles 
on the model of Burmese houses. Of the total population, no less than 
81 per cent, are dependent on agriculture; industries support 9-6 per 
cent., commerce 0-5 per cent., and the professions 2-3 per cent. 

Missions of various denominations are active ; the number of native 
Christians has nearly doubled since 1881 and now exceeds 5,000. They 
are mainly recruited from the ranks of the despised Namasudras. The 
Portuguese colony at Sibpur has already been mentioned ; a Roman 
Catholic mission was established at this place 200 years ago under the 
patronage of the King of Portugal, and there is another more recent 
mission subordinate to the Bishop of Dacca. The Baptist Mission has 
some 3,000 converts, and connected with it is a Zanana Mission, which 
maintains a large boarding-school for girls at Barisal. The Bengal 
Evangelistic Mission, whose head-quarters are at Farldpur, and the 
Oxford Mission have branches in this District ; and a sisterhood is 
engaged in medical, educational, and proselytizing work among native 
women in Barisal. 

The higher ground in the east produces sugar-cane, pulses, the 
pan creeper {Piper Beth), and a little jute ; the rest 
of the District is fertilized by rich deposits of silt A e nculture - 
and forms with Noakhali the most important rice-producing tract in 
Eastern Bengal. 

The chief agricultural statistics for 1903-4 are shown below, areas 
being in square miles : — 

 [[File:gazaters13.png   | |frame|500px]] 
 

Includes 897 square miles in the Sundarbans. 
Rice is grown over an area of 2,205 square miles, or 83 per cent, of 
the total cultivated area. The winter rice, which covers 78 per cent, of 
the net cropped area, is sown in April or May, transplanted from the 
beginning of June to the middle of August, and reaped in November 
and December. The early rice crop is sown in spring and the 
early part of the hot season, and reaped in August ; in some parts it is 
transplanted, but in the north it is sown broadcast. The spring crop, 
although not equal in importance to the others, is cultivated to a con- 
siderable extent on the alluvial accretions along the river banks and in 
the swamps. It is generally sown broadcast in December and reaped in 
April or May ; it is sometimes transplanted. Pulses are sown in the 
cold season and harvested in the spring. Til {Sesamum indicum) and 
linseed are also cultivated, the latter chiefly in the Dakhin Shahbazpur 
subdivision. There is very little jute, but betel-nut and coco-nut 
palms are grown extensively all over the District ; and it is estimated 
that the number of betel-nut trees is altogether about 2 7 millions, and 
that the annual out-turn is 6,000 million nuts. 

The area under cultivation is spreading rapidly as the swamps silt up 
in the north and the jungle is reclaimed in the south. The area not 
available for cultivation is returned at 1,121 square miles; it lies mainly 
in the Sundarbans, and much of it is covered with the water of the great 
estuaries. In Wards' and Government estates European vegetables and 
improved varieties of native crops have been introduced to a small 
extent. Owing to the fertility of the soil and the general prosperity of 
the cultivators, there is little need for Government loans, but Rs. 17,000 
was advanced under the Agriculturists' Loans Act after the cyclone 
of 1893. 

The District cattle are poor. Attempts have been made by Govern- 
ment and public bodies to improve them by importing bulls from Bihar, 
but without success. 

==Trade and Communication==

Backergunge is not a manufacturing District ; but oil, coarse cloth, 
mosquito nets, gunny-bags, sacrificial knives and other iron instruments, 
mats of various kinds, earthenware, agricultural im- 
communications pigments, and molasses are manufactured for local con- 
sumption. The weavers of Wazlrpur and Banaripara 
make dhotis of the Dacca pattern ; the mosquito nets manufactured at 
Madhabpasa command a large sale among the middle classes, and the 
Maghs weave coloured cloth for their own use. Machine-made cloth is 
gradually driving the local weavers from their looms, and the rapidly 
growing taste for European pottery and enamelled ironware is depriving 
the local potters of their best customers. Wazlrpur and its neighbour- 
hood has a local reputation for daos and other iron implements, and 
boats are built all over the District. Brick-making is carried on to a 
considerable extent in the neighbourhood of Barisal, and a large 
oil-mill at Jhalakati has an annual out-turn valued at Rs. 25,000. 

Rice is exported to the Twenty-four Parganas, Dacca, and Mymen- 
singh, and 2,000,000 tons of rice find their way annually to the Calcutta 
market; other articles exported are betel-nuts and coco-nuts to Calcutta, 
Dacca, Noakhali, and Chittagong, and timber and mats to Calcutta. 
The betel-nut crop is especially large and profitable ; and it is estimated 
that the trees in the District bring in annually nearly 44 lakhs of rupees 
to the growers. Most of the crop is sent to Calcutta, but some portion 
of it is also prepared for the Burmese market. The principal imports 
are salt, kerosene oil, coal, European piece-goods, cotton twist, molasses, 
sugar, corrugated iron, oil, tobacco, and flour. The chief trade centres 
are Jhalakati and Nalchiti on the main steamer route to Calcutta, 

Daulatkhan, and Sahibganj ; rice is also exported from Baga, 
Bauphal, Niamati, Bhandaria, Kaukhali, Kalaia, Chaulakati, Chara- 
maddi, and Bhuria. Large annual fairs are held at Kalisuri, Kalaskati, 
and Lakutia. The traders belong chiefly to the Gandhabanik, Saha, 
Teli, and Patikar castes. Goods are carried by both country boats and 
steamers, the main trade route being via the Sundarbans to Calcutta. 

There is no railway in the District, and the roads are little used for 
goods traffic except in the Dakhin Shahbazpur subdivision. Wherever 
constructed, they are largely used by foot-passengers, especially on 
market days. Excluding 487 miles of village tracks, the District con- 
tains only 307 miles of road, of which 17 miles are metalled. The 
most important road runs from the northern boundary via Barisal and 
Backergunge to Patuakhali. Barisal is also connected on the west with 
Banaripara and Nabagram, and on the south-west with NalchitI and 
Jhalakati, while another main road runs from Pirojpur to Sapleja, via 
Tushkhali, along the west of the District. A good road traverses the 
island of Dakhin Shahbazpur. 

The drains along the side of many of the roads are used as waterways ; 
and throughout the greater part of the District there are few villages 
which cannot be reached by boat, especially during the rains. In 
Dakhin Shahbazpur, however, few villages are accessible by boats, except 
in the rainy season. Regular lines of steamer ply along the larger 
rivers, the most important being the daily Sundarbans dispatch service 
from Cachar to Calcutta, via Narayanganj, Chandpur, Barisal, NalchitI, 
and Jhalakati, and another which carries the mails between Barisal and 
Khulna. Daily services connect Barisal with Narayanganj, Madari- 
pur, and Patuakhali. A steamer runs to Noakhali four times a week. 
There are numerous ferries across the principal rivers and to the islands. 

==Administration==
For general administrative purposes the District is distributed into 
four subdivisions, with head-quarters at Barisal, Pirojpur, Patua- 
khali, and Dakhin Shahkazpur. At Barisal is 
stationed the District Magistrate-Collector, who is also 
ex-officio collector of tolls and supervisor of the additional navigable 
channels under (Bengal) Act V of 1864. He is assisted by a staff of 
one Joint Magistrate or Assistant Collector and five Deputy-Magistrate- 
Collectors. Each of the other subdivisions is under a 1 )eputy-Magis- 
trate-Collector, and a Sub-deputy-Collector is in charge of the sub- 
treasury at Pirojpur. There are also three kdnungos, and a special 
Deputy-Collector in charge of the Government estates. 

The civil courts, besides that of the District and Sessions Judge, are 
those of an additional District and Sessions Judge, of two Sub-Judges, 
and of sixteen regular Munsifs, of whom six are stationed at Barisal, two 
at Bhola, three at Pirojpur, four at Patuakhali, and one wherever the 
pressure of work is greatest. Criminal courts include those of the 
District and Sessions Judge, the District Magistrate, and the above- 
mentioned Deputy-Magistrates. The practice of subinfeudation has 
brought into existence a large body of middlemen between the revenue- 
payer and the actual cultivators, who are continually fomenting land 
disputes, and the District is notorious for agrarian riots. These were so 
frequently attended by gun-shot murders that the District was disarmed 
in 1896, a measure which was attended with remarkable success. The 
order was relaxed in 1904, and gun licences are now granted to 
persons of position and good character. Many crimes of violence also 
arise out of marriage disputes, which are rife among the lower classes 
Muhammadans. 

In the first settlement of Bengal, made in 1582 by Raja Todar Mai, 
Backergunge was included in sarkar Bakla ; but at the subsequent 
settlements, made by the Muhammadan rulers, it was comprised in the 
province of Dacca. It was constituted a separate District in 1797 by 
Regulation VII of that year, but it was not till 181 7 that an indepen- 
dent Collector was first appointed. In 1903-4 the current land revenue 
demand was 16-94 lakhs, payable by 3,634 estates, of which 3,019 with a 
demand of 10-05 lakhs were permanently settled, 278 paying 2-65 lakhs 
were temporarily settled, and the others were managed direct by Govern- 
ment. At the time of the permanent settlement there were extensive 
areas of waste land which remained unsettled. These have since been 
largely brought under cultivation and now form valuable Government 
estates. Owing to this circumstance, the incidence of revenue is 
Rs. 1-2-6 per cultivated area, as compared with only R. 0-8- iS in 
Farldpur and R. 0-6-1 1 in Dacca. 

Subinfeudation is carried to extreme lengths, and there are said to be 
as many tenures as there are ryoti holdings. The system was originated 
by zamlndars and ta/ukddrs, who, finding themselves unable to clear the 
large tracts of unreclaimed land included in their properties, divided 
them into lots and placed each lot in the haola or charge of an indi- 
vidual ; the haoldddr repeated the process to sub-lessees, who in their 
turn sublet portions of their tenures, until these became of manageable 
size. This system of reclamation tenures is universal in the half-cleared 
tracts of Eastern Bengal, but in Backergunge it has been overlaid by 
a bewildering maze of more or less fictitious tenures, which owe their 
origin to land-jobbing. The grant of a tenure of any description com- 
mands a heavy salami or premium ; and a landlord's favourite method 
of raising money is to create an intermediate tenure between himself 
and the ryot or tenure-holder immediately subordinate to him, at a rent 
slightly lower than he has been receiving, the premium paid to him 
being equivalent to the capitalized value of the reduction in rent. 

The 
new lessee makes a profit by squeezing an extra cess out of the man 
below him ; and the result is that an undue share of the produce of the 
soil goes to feed an army of middlemen who have no rightful place in 
the rural economy. This process is being constantly repeated by all 
grades of tenure-holders ; and there seems to be no limit to its develop- 
ment, save the capacity of the actual cultivator to bear the increased 
burden falling upon him. In spite of this, however, the system tends to 
diffuse wealth widely among the people ; many of the tenure-holders are 
men of the cultivating class and cultivate some portion of their tenures 
themselves ; they generally hold these tenures at fixed rates, the rents 
are moderate, and, as a class, they are very prosperous. The ryot again 
is only rack-rented where the tenure immediately above him is held by 
a strong and unscrupulous man, and such rack-renting is confined to 
certain localities in which the lowest grade of tenure is in the hands of 
a bad class of landlord. When the ryot finds his rent enhanced more 
than he can bear, or if he is influenced by attractive promises held out 
by an outsider, he will deny his relationship as tenant to his real land- 
lord, and will place himself under the protection, or zimba, of the 
outsider, acknowledging the latter as his landlord. This, with the 
infinitesimal division of shares, where no actual partition of the land 
can take place, has led to the agrarian riots and murders for which this 
District is notorious. To obviate these disputes, a general survey and 
record-of-rights is now being carried out throughout the District. The 
latest survey papers show that the rent per acre paid by the actual culti- 
vator to his immediate landlord for arable land varies from Rs. 2 to 
Rs. 10 per acre, the average being Rs. 5. High land suitable for 
homesteads commands a still higher rate. 

The following table shows the collections of land revenue and of 
total revenue (principal heads only), in thousands of rupees : — 

 [[File: gazaters14.png   | |frame|500px]] 
 

Outside the five municipalities of Barisal, Nalchiti, Jhalakati, 
Patuakhali, and Pirojpur, local affairs are managed by the District 
board, with subordinate local boards in each subdivision. In 1903-4 
its income was Rs. 3,32,000, of which Rs. 2,26,000 was derived from 
rates; and the expenditure was Rs. 3,21,000, including Rs. 1,96,000 
spent on public works and Rs. 61,000 on education. 

The District contains 16 police stations or thanas, and 11 outposts. 
The force subordinate to the District Superintendent in 1903 consisted 
of one Assistant District Superintendent, 8 inspectors, 66 sub-inspectors, 
38 head constables, and 541 constables ; 76 town chaukidars are 
employed for watch and ward duty in the five municipal towns, and 
there is also a rural police force consisting of 5,293 village watchmen 
and 508 head watchmen. The District jail at Barisal has accom- 
modation for 580 prisoners, and the subsidiary jails at the other 
subdivisions for 99. 

Education is widely diffused, and in 1901, 7-9 per cent, of the 
population (14-7 males and 0-9 females) could read and write. Musal- 
mans are more backward than Hindus, only 10 per cent, of their males 
being literate, compared with 24 per cent, in the case of Hindus. The 
total number of pupils under instruction rose from 75,859 in 1892-3 
to 86,456 in 1900-1, while 81,554 boys and 7,189 girls were at school 
in 1903-4, being respectively 46-2 and 4-2 per cent, of the children 
of school-going age. The number of educational institutions, public 
and private, in that year was 3,074, including an Arts college, 98 
secondary schools, and 2,497 primary schools. The expenditure on 
education was 3-51 lakhs, of which Rs. 27,000 was met from Provincial 
funds, Rs. 61,000 from District funds, Rs. 1,500 from municipal funds, 
and i-88 lakhs from fees. The chief educational institutions are in 
Barisal Town. 

In 1903 the District contained 41 dispensaries, of which 5 had 
accommodation for 68 in-patients. The cases of 331,000 out- 
patients and 1,060 in-patients were treated during the year, and 8,913 
operations were performed. The expenditure was Rs. 34,000, of which 
Rs. 2,000 was met from Government contributions, Rs. 21,000 from 

Local and Rs. 4,000 from municipal funds, and Rs. 6,000 from 
subscriptions. Though vaccination is compulsory only within the five municipalities, 
it has made great progress in recent years, the number of successful 
vaccinations in 1903-4 being 122,000, or 54-2 per 1,000 of the 
population. 

[Sir W. W. Hunter, Statistical Account of Bengal, vol. v, and 

Geographical Notes appended to vol. i (1875) ; H. Beveridge, Backer- 
gunge (187 6) ; P. M. Basu, Settlement Reports of the Dakhin Shahbaz- 
pur and Tushkhali Government Estates (Calcutta, 1896 and 1898).]
=In 1931=
[http://gluedideas.com/Encyclopedia-Britannica-Volume-2-Annu-Baltic/Backergunge.html  Glued Ideas]

The population was returned in 1931 at 2,939,050. Seven-tenths are Mohammedans, among whom the Farazi sect is numerous. There is a Buddhist section consisting of Maghs, as the Arakanese are called in Bengal, who first settled in Backergunge about i800, and have made themselves very useful in the clearing of the Sundarbans. The soil is fertile, being annually enriched by the silt brought down by the rivers, and yields abundant harvests of rice, while the produce of coconut and betel-nut trees is a valu able source of income. Jhalakati is an important centre of trade, especially in betel-nuts. The climate is one of the healthiest in Eastern Bengal, owing to the flushing of the rivers and creeks by the tides, while the strong south-west monsoon, which comes up directly from the Bay of Bengal keeps the atmosphere cool. Barisal, the headquarters station had a population in 1921 of 35,716.
=Backergunge in 1946=
[http://bengalvoice.blogspot.in/2008/05/chapter-6-push-comes-to-shove-killings.html  Tathagata Roy, Bengal Voice]

The coastal district of Barisal, also known as Backergunge,  consisted [in 2008] of the districts of Barisal, Bhola, Pirojpur, Barguna, Patuakhali and Jhalakati of present-day [2008] Bangladesh. Barisal is literally a maze of perennial rivers, canals and water courses, with the result that it was one of the very few districts of British India without an inch of Railway line. 

Before 1947, to reach Barisal from the provincial capital of Calcutta one had to take a train to Khulna, and at Khulna board a steamer for an overnight voyage to Barisal. 

[Around AD 1900:  Barisal was the head-quarters of the
great rice-growing District of Backergunge, situated 187 miles east of
Calcutta. There were three alternative routes to Barisal. The one
generally followed is along the Bh�ngar canal and Sibsa river to Khulna,
and thence by the Bhairab river to Pirojpur and Barisal. An alterna-
tive route between Calcutta and Kaliganj on the Ichamat� river follows
Tolly's Nullah and the Bidyadhari river to Port Canning, and then
strikes north-eastward. This is called the Outer route, and two similar
alternative routes branch off southwards in Khulna District. The
main steamer route follows the Hooghly river as far as the Baratala
creek, and then turns east and north-east, meeting the two routes pre-
viously described at Pirojpur.]  

The soil of the district is incredibly fertile, and being close to the sea, conducive to cultivation of coconut, a cash crop. Everybody in the district who had even a chhitak (about 45 square feet) of land would grow paddy and coconut in profusion, without any fertiliser, with the minimum of labour. As a result, the people of the district were relatively well-to-do, the Hindus more so because of their white-collar occupations coupled with their landed wealth.

''The Hindu middle-class in 1946'' Barisal was the abode of the intellectual clans of the Guha Thakurta-s and the Ghosh Dastidars of Banaripara and Gabha villages respectively. It also had a strong Baidya community, with the names of Sengupta and Dasgupta, the only caste of doctors to be found anywhere in Hindu India. These people followed the hereditary practice of Ayurveda, the ancient Hindu science of medicine, which had given the world legendary physicians like Susruta and Charaka, and pathbreaking drugs such as Sarpagandha (Rawoulfia Serpentina), one of the first drugs to combat hypertension. 

The Baidyas had migrated in large numbers to cities like Calcutta and Dacca, and had become a very urbane and sophisticated people, a large number among whom followed intellectual pursuits. The district was also the home of a large number of lower-caste [sic[ Namahsudras and Kaibartas who were into fishing and allied trades.