As for the creation of the new province, it was intended to facilitate the compulsory emigration of the people from the plains, who would be driven to work on the Englishmen's tea plantations in the far-off jungles of Assam.

Reports of this kind were well calculated to alarm both the _Zemindars_, who had waxed fat on the Permanent Settlement, and the credulous _rayats_, whose labour is indispensable to the _zemindar_ squirarchy.

In the towns, on the other hand, the masses were told that Partition was an insult to the "terrible goddess" Kali, the most popular of all Hindu deities in Bengal, and, in order to popularize the protest amongst the small townsfolk, amongst artisans and petty traders, the cry of _Swadeshi_ was coupled with that of _Bande Mataram_.
The spirit of revolt against Western political authority had been for some time past spreading to the domain of economics.

_Swadeshi_ in itself and so far as it means the intelligent encouragement of indigenous is perfectly legitimate, and in this sense the Government of India had practised _Swadeshi_ long before it was taken up for purposes of political agitation by those who look upon it primarily as an economic weapon against their rulers.

It was now to receive a formidable development.