“British Bangladeshi” in Search of Identity

Abstract

Even before the formation of the independent state of Bangladesh in 1971, its residents identified themselves either as “Muslims living in Bengal” or as “Muslim Bengalis”. In 1940 the accent on the religious factor of identity brought the East Bengalis together with the rest of Muslims of India and led to the formation of the independent state of Pakistan. In 1971 the national factor of Bengal identity played the major part in the separation of the independent state of Bangladesh from Pakistan. This article, drawing on the case of the Bangladeshi community in the Great Britain, presents a study of the ways in which the perception of their own identity by the Bengali, and later by the Bangladeshi, was changing through different historical periods.