Until the partition of India, Bangladesh was part of eastern India and the area has a shared history.

Around the 7th century BC. Aryanization may have reached the Ganges delta region in Bangladesh. In the Mahabharata, an Aryan kingdom by the name of Varendra, which was located in Bengal, is mentioned. This kingdom was from the 2nd century BC. part of the Maurya Empire. Emperor Asoka was probably responsible for the spread of Buddhism to Bengal. However, little is known about the history of Bengal until the arrival of the Guptas in the 4th century AD. After the disintegration of the Gupta Empire in the 7th century, much of present-day Bangladesh was united by Shashanaka, its founder. of the Gaudar Empire. However, the empire was short-lived.

In 750, the local rulers in the area of Bangladesh gathered to elect a “chakravartin”, a ruler over all who would put an end to chaos and strife. They elected Gopala, the first ruler of the Pala Empire, to whom he gave his name. Under the Palas (Gopala and his successors), Varendra grew into an important center of Buddhist knowledge and culture. A large sangha (religious community) of monks was made possible in Bengal through the gifts of a prosperous class of merchants and craftsmen, less numerous elsewhere in northern India. Dharmapala, the son and successor of Gopala, had the Somapura Vihara built, the largest Buddhist monastery in South Asia. The dominant current in this and other centers of learning was Mahayana, the form of Buddhism that seeks enlightenment for the entire population. Unlike other Buddhist denominations, Mahayana is characterized by a large pantheon of gods and demons, similar to Hinduism. The Buddhist clergy did not try to dissuade the originally Hindu population from worshiping gods, but incorporated these gods into Mayana theology. This is undoubtedly an important reason why Buddhism was able to replace Hinduism as the dominant religion. Buddhism also spread further from the Pala Empire. Monks from the Pala Empire converted Tibet and other areas in and beyond the Himalayas and founded new centers of learning in Southeast Asia. The monasteries of the Pala Empire were the cradle of Tantrism, a smaller branch of Buddhism that sees, among other things, self-flagellation and sexual rites as ways to achieve nirvana.

At their peak (in the 9th century), the Palas ruled an empire that covered most of the north of the Indian Subcontinent including Bangladesh. However, the later kings were more interested in acquiring religious knowledge than in preserving the conquered territories. In the 12th century, the last Pala king was expelled by the Hindu Senas, a new dynasty. The Senas oversaw a return to Hinduism and a gradual decline of Buddhism, a development which, incidentally, took place throughout South Asia. The caste system was reintroduced and Buddhist learning centers fell into disrepair. Only in the area around Chittagong, which still has a significant Buddhist minority today, did Buddhism remain important.

The last Sena king, Lakshman Sena, was ousted in 1203 by Muhammad Khilji, a Turkish Muslim warlord subordinate in name to the Afghan sultan Muhammad Ghuri. Khilji is said to have quickly captured the area’s two main cities, Nabadwip and Gaur, with only a handful of warriors. He destroyed the University of Nalanda, possibly because he considered the building complex for a military establishment. This sealed the decline of Buddhism. Three years later, however, Khilji was killed in a failed campaign to Tibet. In the following centuries, Bengal was ruled by Muslim rulers, who were more or less indebted to the sultan of Delhi. However, from Delhi, Bengal was a remote corner. The Bengali rulers ruled independently, especially at times when central authority in Delhi faltered. Under the Ilyas Shahi dynasty, who came to power in 1348, trade, art and science flourished and a new Bengali cultural identity emerged.

The conversion of the population to Islam, as elsewhere in the Indian subcontinent, was a gradual process, which was not actively encouraged by most rulers. Only from the Mughal era (from the 17th century) Muslims were the largest population group. Conversion brought social and financial benefits, which especially attracted the urban middle class of merchants. The fact that in Bengal a larger part of the population was converted

than elsewhere can be partly explained by the fact that more traders lived in the area. In the Mughal era the population of the countryside also converted on a large scale, mainly in opposition to the powerful Hindu landowners.

The Delhi sultanate was subjugated in the 16th century by the Mughals, a new dynasty from Central Asia. After the fall of the Delhi sultanate, Bengal was independent for several decades, until Mughal Emperor Akbar defeated the Bengal sultan, Daud Karrani, in 1575 and added the area to the Mughal Empire. The administrative capital of the province of Bengal was moved from Gaud to Dhaka in 1608. Under the Mughals trade and industry grew. The area of Bangladesh became an important export center for overseas trade. Therefore, Bengal attracted the interest of European traders, who arrived at the end of the 15th century. The English, French, Portuguese and Dutch made agreements with the Mughals and their governors in Bengal (the “nawabs”) and were allowed to establish trading posts.

Thanks to a growing middle class of merchants and landowners, the central authority of the Mughal emperors declined sharply in the 18th century. After the death of Emperor Aurangzeb, the governor of Bengal declared its independence. The sultanate of Bengal would be subjugated by the British half a century later. Worried about the increasing power of the British, the nawab of Bengal, Suraj-ud-Daula, took the British trading post of Calcutta in 1757. The British residents, especially traders and East India Company (EIC) officials, were locked in a dark, small dungeon, where some died of asphyxiation. The British used the incident as a propaganda tool to stir public outrage in England. Under Robert Clive, the nawab was defeated and killed. Clive then appointed a new nawab, who was a puppet of the British.

For the British, Bengal was of special importance because of the large production of opium. In 1773 the government introduced a monopoly, under which Bangladeshi farmers could only supply their opium production to the EIC. The export of Indian opium to China then boomed: the volume increased from 13 tons in 1729 to 2,558 tons in 1839. Chinese attempts to curb this opium trade led to two opium wars in the 19th century.

The British East India Company controlled the region until 1858, when Bengal became a province of British India.

On July 3, 1946, the province was divided into a predominantly Hindu West Bengal and a predominantly Muslim East Bengal. With the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, West Bengal came as a state to India and East Bengal as a province to Pakistan. In 1955 East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan.

The surrender of West Pakistan in December 1971 marked the end of the Bengal War of Independence and the birth of the independent state of Bangladesh

East Pakistan was ignored by the central government in West Pakistan (present-day Pakistan) and the area was dominated by West Pakistanis. This gave rise to quarrels and led to a struggle for independence in 1971. On March 26, the Pakistan army began a bloody suppression of the insurgency, killing innocent men, women and children in large numbers. Major Mujibur Rahman declared the independence of Bangladesh. He made this statement on a homemade radio from the port city of Chittagong. This appeal sparked the Bangladesh Liberation War that killed more than a million Bengalis  and also created a refugee problem.

India intervened in December of the same year and the Pakistani army surrendered on December 16, 1971, after which Bangladesh became independent.

The state was built on the British model, with a parliamentary system. Sheikh Mujib became Prime Minister, and in January 1975 his Awami League regained an absolute majority. But the celebration of independence was followed by natural disasters, epidemics, explosive population growth and, as a result, more and more poverty and corruption. The Awami League eliminated every opposition.

On August 15, 1975, a group of officers seized power. Mujibur was assassinated, parliament dissolved and a state of emergency declared. More coups followed, such as that of General Zia Ur Rahman in 1977.

Zia got a hold of the land. He had a new constitution written, with a strong executive presidency for himself. This process was completed in 1979 with parliamentary elections. Zia’s GDP won two-thirds of the seats.

In 1981, Zia was killed in a failed coup. His successor Satar cautiously began a process of democratization, but was himself deposed in 1983.

From 1983 to 1991, Bangladesh was under the military rule of General Ershad. His government was eventually ousted by two women, who led the people in the demand for the restoration of democracy. They were Sheikh Hasina Wajed, daughter of Mujibur Rahman and leader of the Awami League, and Begum Khaleda Zia, widow of General Zia and head of the BNP.

The ladies’ cooperation ended with the restoration of democracy. Since then they did everything they could to prevent each other from ruling. Strikes, parliamentary boycotts, legal proceedings, etc. Constantly accusing each other of corruption, and presumably they were both right.

The Awami League was replaced in 2001 by the BNP, which was in fact led by its secretary general, Tarek Rahman, son of Zia. He surrounded himself with profiteers and flirted with Muslim fundamentalists to increase his power base.

In 2006, the Awami League refused to participate in the upcoming elections if they were to be organized by the BNP government. The widow Zia then resigned and President Iajuddin Ahmed formed an intermediate cabinet. That too was not accepted by the opposition and the political street violence at the end of 2006 and early 2007 threatened to turn into a civil war. Therefore, Ahmed declared a state of emergency and appointed the former governor of the Central Bank, Fakhruddin Ahmed, prime minister of what turned out to be a military government. Parliamentary elections have been postponed until further notice.

The new government prosecuted the two former prime ministers. Hasina, who was staying in London, was no longer allowed to enter the country, and Zia was imprisoned for some time. The spring 2006 bombers, leaders of the banned Islamist group Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, were convicted and hanged. Finally, general elections were held on December 29, 2008, which were won by an alliance led by Hasina. She was sworn in as Prime Minister on January 6, 2009.