As per the High Caste Hindu folks in Bengal, being born in Bengal and speaking Bengali language don't automatically make you a Bengali!!! You have to have the following additional characteristics to be considered as a Bengali in their book (Inside Bangladesh today; an eye-witness account by Basant Chatterjee, New Delhi, S. Chand, 1973):
- You have to be a High Caste Hindu
- You need to be literate in Bengali, Sanskrit etc.
- Can't work in the fields (e.g., farmer, craftsman, fisherman etc.)
- Need to own some lands
Hence, the Muslims in Bengal are by definition opted out!!! It's no wonder that Tagore, the Nobel Laureate Bengali poet and novelist, didn't have a single Muslim character from Bengal in his tons of literary works!!! When asked, his reply was simple: I don't know anything about the Muslims in Bengal!!! Interestingly, Tagores were one of the greatest landlords of Bengal, and 90% of their subjects were Muslims!!! BD Muslims were such an underclass in the British India under the Permanent Settlement!!! The creation of Pak let them live like a human being again!!!! No wonder they were first to backstab Pak, and that too on the basis of the Bengali nationalism!!!! What an irony of fate....