Looking for a miniature of a Bengali warrior.

[El Chintete]

Hello everybody,

A friend of mine is from Bangladesh and I'd like to gift him a miniature of a Bengali (Bangladeshi?) warrior. I don't know enough about Bangladeshi history to even know where to start looking. I'd like to gift him a mini of a "warrior" and not a "soldier", meaning that I would like to go further back in time to late medieval as opposed to a 19th/20th century time frame. I just think swords and bows look cooler than rifles 

I'd be grateful for any and all pointers.

[Triarii]

You're right in that it was formerly Bengal - the western part of that region is still in India.  The Bengal Sultanate was a local superpower. Bengal was incorporated into the Mughal empire in the C16th and taken over by the East India Company in the mid C18th, so there's a fairly broad window of the Bengali medieval era to draw on.
The Osprey books on Medieval Indian armies (Vol2 has a section on the Bengal Sultanate) or the Osprey Mughal India book will give a clue to what they looked like.

[Basementboy]

If you’re looking for late medieval I think you’d find more help elsewhere on the forum- but either way I have to second Osprey, they really are the go-to for these things.
If you’re only looking for the medieval period to avoid more modern weapons then I can recommend Perry Miniatures, they have some great Bengali mounted lancers that might be of use to you. Newline Miniatures produce miniatures of the same, though I’ve never bought from Newline so I can’t vouch for quality.

[Plynkes]

Bear in mind that the famous 'Bengal Lancers' get their name from being regiments of the army of the Bengal Presidency (one of three presidencies established to govern India by the HEIC, its remit extended as far as Punjab). It does not indicate that the troops were Bengali. All the most famous Bengal Lancer regiments seem to have been raised in north west India, I haven't come across any that are specifically stated to have recruited troops from Bengal itself, though there may have been some.

[Plynkes]

The iconic warrior for Bangladesh would have to be a Mukti Bahini guerrilla fighter, from their independence struggle in the early 70s.

However, the typical appearance of such fellows was a guy in a wife-beater and a pair of shorts carrying a Lee-Enfield, a far cry from a medieval warror with a cool sword. 

[Basementboy]

Bear in mind that the famous 'Bengal Lancers' get their name from being regiments of the army of the Bengal Presidency (one of three presidencies established to govern India by the HEIC, its remit extended as far as Punjab). It does not indicate that the troops were Bengali. All the most famous Bengal Lancer regiments seem to have been raised in north west India, I haven't come across any that are specifically stated to have recruited troops from Bengal itself, though there may have been some.

Had no idea they weren’t from actual Bengal, thanks for catching me up there