Pravasi Bharatiya Divas

What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale

The host State

West Bengal

West Bengal is where the Himalaya, the Ganga delta and the Bay of Bengal meet inside a single State — a state that has shaped Indian literature, science, reform and cuisine out of all proportion to its size. It is this unique state that will host the 19th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention in January 2027.

01

History

West Bengal sits at the head of the Bay of Bengal, where the Ganga fans out into the largest delta in the world. The region has been a centre of learning, trade and craft for more than two thousand years, and the ports of the delta carried Bengali cotton and silk to Rome, Arabia and South East Asia.

Successive kingdoms — the Palas, the Senas, the Sultans of Gaur — left behind a distinct architectural and literary tradition.

02

The Bengal Renaissance

The nineteenth century brought a period of reform and creativity that is still referred to as the Bengal Renaissance. Writers, scientists, social reformers and educationists working out of Kolkata reshaped how the subcontinent thought about religion, education and the place of women in public life.

The movement produced India’s first modern university graduates, its first women physicians and a body of literature, music and theatre that remains in daily use.

03

Land and rivers

The State runs from the snow line of the eastern Himalaya down to mangrove forest at sea level, a range of terrain that few places of its size can match. In between lie tea gardens, the alluvial plain of the Ganga and the Rarh uplands.

The Sundarbans, a rich ecosystem that spans both West Bengal and Bangladesh, is the largest mangrove forest on Earth and the only mangrove habitat of the Royal Bengal Tiger.

04

Agriculture

Agriculture remains the largest employer in the State. West Bengal is among the leading producers of rice, potato, jute and vegetables in the country, and its horticulture belt supplies mango, litchi and pineapple to markets across India.

Freshwater fisheries in the delta and the inland districts make fish a staple rather than a luxury.

05

Industry and commerce

Kolkata was the commercial capital of British India and the base of its jute, tea and engineering trade. That industrial base has since widened to iron and steel, leather, chemicals, cement and food processing.

The State is the eastern gateway to Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and the wider ASEAN region, and its position on that corridor shapes much of its trade policy.

06

Handicrafts and handlooms

Weaving, terracotta, kantha embroidery, dokra metal casting, sholapith and patachitra scroll painting are all living crafts here rather than museum pieces. Entire villages work in a single medium and pass the technique down through families.

Baluchari and Jamdani saris, woven in Bishnupur and Nadia, carry geographical indication status.

07

Cuisine

Bengali cooking is built on rice, freshwater fish, mustard oil and a restrained use of spice that lets individual ingredients stay recognisable. A meal is served in a fixed order, from bitter through to sweet.

The sweet course is a subject in itself — rosogolla, sandesh, mishti doi and the winter preparations made with date palm jaggery.

08

Education and science

Kolkata houses some of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the country, and the State has an illustrious record of excellence in mathematics, statistics, physics and the social sciences.

Research institutes in Kolkata, Kalyani and Siliguri work across diverse fields like basic science, agriculture and public health.

09

Tourism

Visitors flock to the hill stations of Darjeeling and Kalimpong, the beaches at Digha and Mandarmani, the terracotta temples of Bishnupur, the Buddhist circuit in the north and the boat routes of the Sundarbans.

Kolkata itself is the point of arrival for most of them, and the convention venue sits within easy reach of the city’s principal sites.