Bhadralok (, literally 'gentleman', or 'well-mannered person') is Bengali for the new class of 'gentlefolk' who arose during British rule in India in the Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. Caste and class makeup According to Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, the Bhadraloks primarily, though not exclusively, belonged to "the three traditional upper castes of Bengal", Brahmin, Baidya and Kayastha. Wealth, English education, and high status in terms of administrative service were the factors which led to the rise of this 'new aristocracy' and since a large number of the three upper castes had administrative skills and economic advantages, they formed the majority of Bhadralok in 19th century Bengal, but the Bhadralok "was never a closed status group", rather in practice it was an open social group. Majority of the Brahmins and Kayasthas being poor and illiterate were not regarded as Bhadralok. By late 19th century many of middle ranking peasant and trading castes, who had gained affluency, had entered the rank of Bhadralok . Economy Among others, Joya Chatterji, Lecturer in History of Modern South Asia at Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College, accuses the Bhadralok class for the economic decline of the state of West Bengal after India's independence in 1947. She writes in her book, titled "The Spoils of Partition":In these ways, Bengal's partition frustrated the plans and purposes of the very groups who had demanded it. Why their strategy failed so disastrously is a question which will no doubt be debated by bhadralok Bengal long after the last vestiges of its influence have been swept away. Many excuses have already been made; and different scapegoats remain to be identified and excoriated. But perhaps part of the explanation is this: for all their self-belief in their cultural superiority and their supposed talent for politics, the leaders of bhadralok Bengal misjudged matters so profoundly because, in point of fact, they were deeply inexperienced as a political class. Admittedly, they were highly educated and in some ways sophisticated, but they had never captured the commanding heights of Bengal's polity or its economy. They had been called upon to execute policy but not to make it. They had lived off the proceeds of the land, but had never organised the business of agriculture. Whether as theorists or practitioners, they understood little of the mechanics of production and exchange, whether on the shop-floor or in the fields. Above all, they