The Bengali people: West Bengal, Bangladesh and the church.

One people, one language, two borders

Bengali (bangla) is the language of a people who live in the delta of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. In India, it is the language of West Bengal, Tripura and parts of Assam, and it was spoken by 97.2 million people in 2011. In Bangladesh, it is the language of about 98.8% of the population, according to the CIA World Factbook estimate for 2011. For basic phrases, see the Bengali guide.

How the border was drawn

In August 1947, British India was divided and the old province of Bengal was cut between two countries. The Hindu-majority part stayed with India, as West Bengal. The Muslim-majority part became East Pakistan, more than a thousand miles from the rest of Pakistan. The borders were drawn in about five weeks by a British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe.

The east was treated unequally by the government in the west, and the tension led to a war between Bengali nationalists and the Pakistani government. It began on March 26, 1971, a day after the Pakistani army launched a crackdown in East Pakistan, and ended on December 16, 1971, with the surrender of Pakistani troops and the birth of Bangladesh.

The numbers side by side

The religion figures are self-declared. In Bangladesh, Open Doors estimates about 950,000 Christians (0.5%), higher than the census figure.

The church in West Bengal

Christians were 0.72% of West Bengal in the 2011 census, well below the national average of 2.3%. This is the state where the pastor training of this project begins. William Carey arrived in Bengal in 1793 and, with Ward and Marshman, founded at Serampore the college that still grants theology degrees in India today. The story is in William Carey and does not need to be repeated here.

For this project, that small share makes pastor training in West Bengal all the more necessary. Serampore College remains important in this picture: more than 40 theological colleges and seminaries in the country depend on it to have their degrees recognized, according to a report by International Christian Concern published in September 2026. The same report says that, in some regions of India, more than 90% of church leaders have never had access to a seminary.

What is new is the climate. The state government changed in May 2026, and the news on this site has followed the pressure since then:

• In September 2026, Barnabas Aid reported two attacks on the same Sunday in the Medinipur region: a pastor was taken away by force during the service and made to sign a promise to stop leading prayer meetings, and a house church was vandalized. Read Extremists attack two worship services on the same Sunday.
• In October 2026, the Bengal Christian Council took the cases to three human rights commissions, according to Alt News. Read West Bengal Christians take the attacks to human rights commissions.

West Bengal does not have an anti-conversion law like the ones in other states. To understand the background, read the pages on the persecution of Christians and on where India's Christians live.

The church in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, Open Doors ranks the country 33rd on the 2026 World Watch List, down from 24th. The organization attributes the drop mainly to fewer recorded incidents of violence, but says the pressures on Christians remain high. According to Open Doors, converts from other religions are among the most vulnerable, and Christians may face assaults, false accusations and exclusion by their community.

One language, one course

Because both sides speak the same language, Bengali content can be watched by anyone who understands it in both countries. The theology course in Bengali has 22 planned subjects, and the lessons of Subject 1 are already on YouTube, free and made to watch on a phone. The course does not take a side of the border, and the content of the Word reaches whoever understands Bengali.