Pakistan Travelogue II

re: Manto`s post
``If there was a much higher death toll of Muslims as affirmed by Patel and Wavell, that proves that the Hindus had planned much earlier to teach Muslims a lesson. ``
NO, it does not.
It was only in Bengal that ML would benefit by the schism between the 2 communities. It was in Bengal that ML formed a govt. Calcutta formed a large immigrant community of various religious denominations with Hindus as majority, muslims as a significant minority.
Once riots were started by ML, the goons from HIndu, sikh community took over. It was not surprising that muslim death toll was more, given the demography.
Sridhar

re:#705 by Mantolives
Netizen already answered your question. Bengal was ruled by the ML (with Suhrawardy as the CM). CM was directly involved in mischief making (read my earlier posts), no doubt with silent acquiescence by Jinnah.
Sridhar

re:#700 by Mantolives

``PS: Just so that we are clear on this... I haven`t quoted Wolpert since 2001..``
Does that mean others should not quote Wolpert? I may consider Wolpert a good author. That is my choice.
Sridhar

re:#694 by Mantolives
There is so much untruth and myth making that is going on in Pak that one is not surprised that truth has become a casualty.
50 years later, it is difficult to say what happened but there are various pointers.
In calcutta of 1946, riots were started by the League but it quickly went out of control. Hindus were a majority there and the sikhs were powerful and controlled the transport. Muslims were probably affected much more due to the fact they were a minority. But the fact remains: ther riots were started by the League and Jinnah did nothing to stop them.
Sridhar

re: League politics and Calcutta riots
http://www.pukhtoonkhwa.com/factsAreSacredchapter15.htm
(August 16, 1946, was fixed as the day of direct action. There wasn’t much that the Muslim League could do anywhere save Bengal, where it had its ministry with Mr. Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy as the chief minister. (In fact the assembly there had 25 British members, but for whose support the Muslim League could not have attained the necessary majority to stay in power.) The provincial government thus itself announced direct action, and declared complete holiday on that day so that the whole government machinery could take part in organising meetings and processions it was an odd situation that the local administration itself was setting out to create a law and order problem. If the action was to cause Hindu-Muslim friction, its fires were bound to spread to the rest of the country. What would then happen in the provinces where Muslims were in a minority? It was characteristic of Muslim League politics that the party was strongest in the non-Muslim majority areas. Who would gain by communal riots there? And who would lose?

The Bengal chief minister thus himself led the direct action in his province – and it had its predictable consequences. Riots started. The Muslims had lit the fire, the Hindus fanned it, and the Sikh caused widespread devastation. Muslims were in a minority in Calcutta. Sikhs had virtual control over the city’s transport. Almost all taxis were run by them.)

( According to Hodson:
Whole streets were strewn with corpses – men, women and children of all communities – impossible to count, let alone identify. If the Muslims gave the provocations and started the holocaust, they were certainly its worst victims for they were in a minority in the city.)
sridhar

re: Calcutta riots of 1946
Why did the riot occur?
Who gained from it?
From what i have read, it seems difficult to point out who started it. It was out and out communal and Army (of the British) did not act immediately and forcefully to stop it.
The following article i thought was objective and discusses that riot:
http://www.banglapedia.org/HT/C_0019.htm

(What most distinguished the 1946 riot from previous outbreaks was its highly organised nature. The League mobilised all its frontal organisations to make the `Day` a success. Special coupons for gallons of petrol were issued in the names of League ministers to be used by their party functionaries. One month`s food ration for 10,000 people was allegedly drawn in advance to feed the League activists. Once the riot began the Chief Minister huseyn shaheed suhrawardy, accompanied by his political aids, spent considerable time in the Police Control Room to allegedly shield Muslims from police operations. On the other hand, Marwari merchants reportedly purchased arms and ammunitions from American soldiers, which were later used during the riot. Acid bombs were manufactured and stored in Hindu-owned factories long before the outbreak. Calcutta`s Hindu blacksmiths were mobilised to prepare spearheads and other weapons.)
Note: the article says League was directly involved but does not blame congress though some hindu organizations (like RSS ) might have been involved.

(While the Congress and Hindu Mahasabha put the entire blame on the League, the Muslim League argued that the Congress fomented the trouble to create a situation which would force the dismissal of the League government and imposition of Governor`s rule. But what needs to be emphasised is the role of British officials during the 1946 riot. The Bengal Governor`s ratification of the League ministry`s decision to declare a public holiday for the 16th contradicted sharply with his counterpart`s action in Sind, the only other province where the League held political power. Again, in sharp contrast to the anti-imperialist disturbances of November 1945 and February 1946, the army was not summoned until 24 hours after the outbreak of the hooliganism. Curfew orders were not strictly enforced on the first few nights. The conduct of the Bengal Governor and European officials was `culpable` in so far as a timely intervention might have averted the violence.)

(Communalism at the popular level provided a new turn to India`s institutional politics. The Muslim League warned that civil wars on the Calcutta scale would occur in other parts of the country unless its brief for the Partition was accepted and the Congress suffered a setback and its leadership, except Gandhi and Badshah Khan, accepted Partition of the country along religious lines as the `only alternative`. The turn that events had taken afterwards made a peaceful solution through an agreement between the Congress and the Muslim League a far cry.)
The last para leaves nobody in doubt as to who benefitted. AFter the riot of 1946, League could always argue that the 2 communities cannot live together and demand a seperate homeland for muslims more forcefully.
Manto has to realize that in these cases, the top leadership is never involved directly. It is the action not the speech that matters. Jinnah might not have agreed with the violent tactics of the League`s lower cadre but he did look the other way when violence was unleashed by League in Calcutta. As i said, the riot did achieve the political objective of forcefully projecting Jinnah as the undisputed leader of muslims (with propensity to create problems when necessary) and highlight the fact that the shism between the 2 communities was too deep for any solution other than partition of India.
M.J Akbar is a journalist i admire. He is objective and usually meticulous. Listen to what he has to say (he is talking about how politicians of the subcontinent use violence when it suits them):
http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/india_ayodhya/viewpoint.html

(In 1946 the Muslim League government in Calcutta, and the rest of the party across the undivided subcontinent, found the ``evidence`` it needed for its two-nations theory in the riots it inspired in Calcutta. In 1984 the Congress Party more or less condoned with a shrug the massacre of Sikhs. The Muslim League got its Pakistan, and the Congress was re-elected in the general elections that followed the Sikh slaughter. But the consequences of both ``achievements`` have haunted this subcontinent.)
How true!
Sridhar

Re: # 727

``All you guys laboriously dredging up dirt from the past must be middle aged, pudgy and old, ``

hahaha...not me. I just want to get Manto out of his Gandhi/pre-partition Congress-phobia. Sometimes if you don`t confront the propaganda, it becomes the truth.

``Let the dead past bury the past and long live pakistan, `cause our lives would have been hell if the interactions on this site are anything to go by!!!. ``

i agree. We already have many other important issues at hand.

All you guys laboriously dredging up dirt from the past must be middle aged, pudgy and old, `cause why would anyone young and open-minded waste their drivel over something that happened a long time ago?.Thank God india is changing.We are making a concerted effort to get over the past.Let the dead past bury the past and long live pakistan, `cause our lives would have been hell if the interactions on this site are anything to go by!!!.

I am still unable to understand this discrepancy that why Muslims turned out to be the biggest victims if they planned it and had the government muscle behind them?

Why does Pakistan take on India inspite of knowing that India has 5 times the muscle power as Pakistan?

Because Pakistan believes 1 Muslim = 10 Hindus. Samething must have happened in Calcutta too.

While these ``Innocent Hindus`` massacred ``Muslim Goons`` , not a voice of protest was heard from the Mahatma of Nonviolence... or any of the other leaders....

Manto, now you have totally lost it.

It was Gandhi`s presence in Calcutta that stopped the riots.

Re: # 723

``The fact remains that Muslim League was set to lose from violence in Calcutta.``
What was ML going to lose?
Suharwardy lost his job, replaced by another Leagei. The riots just hastened partition of bengal and india.
So you think Gandhi wanted to trigger riots and then give a very good reason to partition the country?
Regarding the ``gloating`` issue, can you present the letter. Just presenting the facts doesn`t mean gloating. Also, gloating over others misery is immoral but doesn`t mean behind it.

Regarding the riots happening in calcutta only, when you have the chief minister/gov. itself going on hartal who is going to man the streets.

Re: # 722
Netizen,

I think both your answers are bankrupt on several counts... saying that they didn`t expect Hindu reprisals is just a joke.... The fact remains that Muslim League was set to lose from violence in Calcutta.... which ever way you put it.

``Observers`` who were wondering how could Jinnah not have known of the consequences, should have explained why Delhi remained peaceful despite an extremely successful Direct Action Day campaign.... or Lahore for that matter. They should`ve known... since they were praising Jinnah for it... In any event Harish hyd`s marauding crowds in the ``week long violence`` were clearly Hindus and not Muslims.

Now tell me why the Muslims should have accepted Congress`s claims to represent all Indians, when one of its biggest leaders was gloating over More Muslims dying than Hindus?

Re: # 720

``I am still unable to understand this discrepancy that why Muslims turned out to be the biggest victims if they planned it and had the government muscle behind them? ``

May be they didn`t anticipate hindu reprisals. The same thing happened during mumbai riots. Hindu areas which were never affected by riots before also witnessed arson/loot.

Netizen...

Please continue to post.... atleast now we are having a proper discussion.

I will respond to your posts tomorrow.... as I want to spend some time with family as well...

Re: # 719]

Time was notorious for its pro-Congress stance .... but even it is forced to accept that the action was supposed to be Peaceful

What is notoriously absent from this story is why Calcutta was chosen.... why not Delhi or Bombay or Lahore where the League had much more muscle...


Here is what the Congress Mouthpiece Blitz said:

The worst enemies of the Muslim League cannot help envying the leadership of Mr Jinnah. Last week`s cataclysmic transformation of the League from the reactionary racket of the Muslim Nawabs, Noons, and Knights into a revolutionary mass organisation dedicated, by word if not be deed, to an anti-Imperialist struggle, compels us to express the sneaking national wish that a diplomat and strategist of Jinnah`s proven calibre were at the held of the Indian National Congress. There is no denying the fact that by his latest master-stroke of diplomacy Jinnah has outbid, outwitted and outmaneuvered the British and Congress alike and confounded the common national indictment that the Muslim League is a parasite of British Imperialism.


Why would Congress` mouthpiece laud Jinnah`s move ? The fact is that it was extremely successful all over India...

I am still unable to understand this discrepancy that why Muslims turned out to be the biggest victims if they planned it and had the government muscle behind them?

It can`t be explained... because the truth is clear.

Re: # 718

Foreign News
Direct Action
Aug. 26, 1946
India suffered the biggest Moslem-Hindu riot in its history. Moslem League Boss Mohamed Ali Jinnah had picked the 18th day of Ramadan for ``Direct Action Day`` against Britain`s plan for Indian independence (which does not satisfy the Moslems` old demand for a separate Pakistan). Though direct, the action was supposed to be peaceful. But before the disastrous day was over, blood soaked the melting asphalt of sweltering Calcutta`s streets.
Rioting Moslems went after Hindus with guns, knives and clubs, looted shops, stoned newspaper offices, set fire to Calcutta`s British business district. Hindus retaliated by firing Moslem mosques and miles of Moslem slums. Thousands of homeless families roamed the city in search of safety and food (most markets had been pilfered or closed). Police blotters were filled with stories of women raped, mutilated and burned alive. Indian police, backed by British Spitfire scouting planes and armored cars, battled mobs of both factions. Cried Hindu Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (who is trying to form an interim government despite the Moslems` refusal to enter it): ``Either direct action knocks the Government over, or the Government knocks direct action over.``

By the 21st day of Ramadan, direct action had killed some 3,000 people and wounded thousands more. Said one weary police officer: ``All we can do is move the bodies to one side of the street.`` Vultures tore into the rapidly putrefying corpses (among them, the bodies of many women & children).

Like other Indian leaders, Jinnah denounced the ``fratricidal war.`` But most observers wondered how Jinnah could fail to know what would happen when he called for ``direct action.`` Shortly before the riots broke out, his own news agency (Orient Press) reported that Jinnah, anticipating violence, was sleeping on the floor these nights—to toughen up for a possible sojourn in jail.