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F R I DA Y , O C T O B ER 2 6 , 2 0 1 2

October 2012: Have we forgotten

Noakhali 1946 Genocide of Hindus

?

R E M E M B E R I N G LA K S H M I P U J A I N B E N G A L !

The Truth Plagiarized in Noakhali

Worst of all was the plight of women.

Several of them had to watch their

husbands being murdered and then be

forcibly converted and married to some of

those responsible for their death. Thosewomen had a dead look. It was not

despair, nothing so active as that. It was

blackness.the eating of beef and

declaration of allegiance to Islam has

been forced upon many thousands of as

the price of their lives

This is what Miss Muriel Leister, member of a relief

committee sent to Noakhali wrote on 6th November,

1946,(V.V. Nagarkar Genesis p 446). The

words have an eerie similarity to the outburst of

Annie Beasant after the moplah riots but belong to

an entirely different holocaust. These riots had

started about a month earlier in Muslim dominated

twin districts of Noakhali and Tipperah. Since the

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noakhali1946.blogspot.in 2

Muslim League government was architect of the

riots, news was suppressed for as long as possible.

Amrita Bazar Patrika on 23/10/46 reported,

For the 13th day today, about 120

villages in Ramganj, Lakshmipur, Raipur,

Begumganj and Senbag thanas (police

stations) in Noakhali district with a Hindu

population of 90,000 and nearby 70,000

villagers in Chandpur and Faridganj

thanas in Tippera (Comilla) districtremained besieged by hooligans. Death

stares the people of these areas in their

face and immediate rushing of supply to

these areas with the help of military, who

alone could do it, would save the lives of

these people, most of whom have been

without food for the last few days.
http://hinduawaken.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/vultures-feeding-on-corpses-lying-abandoned-in-alleyway-after-bloody-roiting-between-hindus-and-muslims-calcutta-kolkata-1946-1.jpg

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The riots had started on 10/10/1946, but the ML

government acknowledged the fact only on

15/10/1946, a criminal delay of five days in which

thousands of lives could have been saved and

women could have been saved from being raped by

gangs. Today, after six decades the present

secular governments have gone even further. The

deganga riots have gone totally unreported in main

stream media.

On 16/10/1946, The Statesman reported:

In an area of about 200 sq miles the inhabitants

surrounded by riotous mobs, are being massacred,

their houses being burnt, their womenfolk being

forcibly carried away and thousands being

subjected to forcible conversion. Thousands of

hooligans attacked the villages, compelled them

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(Hindus) to slaughter their cattle and eat. All places

of worship in affected villages have been

desecrated. The District Magistrate and the Police

Superintendent of Noakhali took no step to prevent

it.

Noakhali and Tipperah (Comilla)

The two neighbouring districts are present in the

present day Bangladesh and were a part of Bengal

before partition of our motherland. The province of

Bengal was under the rule of Muslim League. The

league had chosen these districts to teach Hindus a

lesson. This district was chose because of its more

then 80% Muslim population and it was far removed

from media glare of Calcutta. Likewise the

neighbouring Tipperah district had more then 77%

Muslim population.

The unknown riots

By the year 1946, the freedom struggle had been

totally hijacked by media savvy and opportunistic

politicians. These were lick spittles of the british

and for them the acts of Martyrs like Udham Singh,

Bhagat Singh, Ashfaqullah Khan were actions of

misguided youths and they hoped that 'that it will

not have far-reaching repercussions on politicalfuture of India'. To them the political future of India

meant their own political future. Neta Ji Subhash

Chander Bose, Veer Savarkar and Shyama Prasad

Mukherjee were sidelined.

These opportunists were good event managers and

were able to get the control of turncated India on a

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silver platter.

Most of the modern day Indians do not know what

happened few months before the partition of our

motherland. The reason is the systemic

whitewashing of our history to hide the horrendous

blunders of so called freedom fighters. These

include the khilafat movement, quit India movement,

the direct action day and noakhali riots and the

horrors of partition.

The Beginning

A meeting was conducted by ML leader Gulam

Sarowar, an ex-M.L.A. on 10th October at

Begumganj Bazar. He gave an inflammatory strong

anti-Hindu speech by quoting verses of Quran
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exhorting to kill the Kafirs and idolators during the

presence of the local Police Inspector who kept

mum. After the meeting came to an end the agitated

and excited Muslim mob in great numbers attacked

the Hindu shops in the market and set them to fire

after looting. Another group went to the house of

local Hindu leader and landlord Surendra Kumar

Bose. He was killed very cruelly and then the mob

set to fire his office and palace. Hundreds of

Hindus, men women and children had taken shelter

there after fleeing from various places. Most of

them were burnt alive. Those who could luckily

escape the fire of the burning house were chopped

down by the awaiting people outside.

The Valiant Warrior

The last gang went to siege the house of Noakhali

District Bar President and renowned Hindu

intellectual of Bengal, Rajendra Lal Roy in Karpara

village. But he was a real hero. Along with his sons

and brothers he united the local Hindus and gave a

strong resistance. The attackers fled for their life.

Angered at being pushed back they attacked the

local Hindu villages, burnt them and desecrated the

temples. Meanwhile Mr. Roy had informed the

Police station and sought protection but blatantly

denied. He sent his sons to see if there were anyescape route. They returned and described the

hopeless situation as the village roads were

patrolled by armed Muslims and all boats were

stopped from plying on the river. However they

pledged to each other that they will fight to the end.

Next day morning at 8 o clock a larger crowd came

to attack but the Hindus under the able leadership

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of Mr. Roy stood up once again and fired from guns

and threw stones and bricks like rain to drive them

away. Still no government relief came but their

ammunition of the besieged Hindus were used up!

Next the ferocious mob at being resisted again and

again came under the personal command of Gulam

Sarowar and first attacked Mr. Roy and killed him

mercilessly. All others panicked and stopped

fighting. Then one by one his relatives and the

other Hindus who had taken refuge there were

butchered

(Amrita Bazar Patrika 23/10/46).

The severed head of Rajendra Lal Roy

was gifted to Gulam Sarowar in a silver

plate. At Gulams order his two trusted

lieutenants took the two beautiful

daughters of Mr. Roy as the booty

(Binoy Bhusan Ghosh Two Nation Theory and

Bengalee p 68).

Only the youngest brother of Mr. Roy, Professor

M.L. Roy escaped the carnage as he was in a

Kolkata college and said:

Muslims wanted to convert whole

Noakhali into Islam so they targeted first

the Hindu leaders who could offer some

resistance. The cause of death of myentire family is only due to it


Bengal Press Advisory Committee in its report of

October, 1946 mentioned all these and other

horrible conditions of Hindus in eastern Bengal

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after the murder of Mr. Roy. After the Hindus

became leaderless the torture on them increased to

boundless proportions. In Panchgao village of

Begumganj police station, lived a Brahmin family of

four brothers. On the day of Kurbani a cow was

sacrificed on their temple and the beef (forbidden

for Hindus) was sent to them. The family members

in pain and agony started vomiting. But the Muslims

cursed them and asked how the kafirs could reject

their sacrificial beef to Allah. They were taken for a

village judgement by the Moulavi of the local

mosque who was however very liberal and fined Rs

250 (a large amount in those days) to settle the

matter. B.P.A.C got those information by searching

the diaries in various police stations there. For

ensuring safety B.P.A.C did not mention the names

of many of the victims.

Beasts unleashed

Phani Bhusan Sur was one of the few

from Noakhali who could escape and

took shelter in Bangabasi College at

Kolkata. He said that in his Hajiganj

village the riots were lead by Peshawari

Muslims. Each had long swords with

them and under their direction the

murders, loot and rapes were organized


Journalists back from Noakhali reported that,

the heads of miscreants were Ex-

servicemen and they organized the raids

in military fashion. The people

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knew how to dig up roads and cut

communication


Professionalism in its highest virtue was manifested

in Noakhali. So that Hindus couldnt escape, the

roads were dug, boats used to form barricade oncanals and rivers and through which areas there

were any slight chance of escape armed Muslims

were at guard

(V.P. Menon Transfer of Power p 322).

Mr. Simpson, I.C.S wrote on the incidents that

it has been known from authenticsources that at a place 400 and at

another 300 women were mass raped by

Muslims. To the Muslim crowd, violation

of the honour of Hindu women meant the

exposure of the most protected aspect of

the Hindu identity and religion


Bengalee p 64)

A little refugee girl of Ramganj thana told

me the incident. On10th October morning

a crowd came to their house and

demanded Rs. 500 as subscription for

Muslim League and threatened that if

their demand was not met the entire

family will be butchered. Fearing life her

father paid the huge amount. After

sometime the crowd came again with

more people and when a certain guardian

of the family, a lawyer tried to calm them

he was beheaded before saying

anything. Then they killed the oldest

member, the grandfather of the girl. The

father of the girl was next laid on the

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dead body of his grandpa and when they

were about to kill him her grandmother

jumped on his body and begged mercy.

But this angered the mob and they hit the

old lady on the head with a rod and threw

her unconscious body away. The

terrorized girl by then was standing and

looking on but now to save her father

rushed out with her jewelry and Rs. 400

which was at home and putting all on the

hands of the killer pleaded to leave her

father. The person took the valuables

with the left hand and at once severed

the head of her father with the right hand!

(The Statesman, 26/10/46)

The Viceroy when asked to intervene, refused to do

so and when informed about the plight of Hindu

women, responded that:

Large scale abduction of Hindu women

(by Muslims) was quite natural since

Hindu women were more handsome than

Muslim women.

(Gandhi, his life and his thought, pp. 286)

When the correspondent of 'Amrit Bazaar Patrika'

S.L.Ghosh reached noakhali, he reported:

"The horror of the Noakhali outrage is

unique in modern history in that it was nota simple case of turbulent members of the

majority community (Muslims) killing off

helpless members of the minority Hindu

community, but was one whose chief aim

was mass conversion, accompanied by

loot, arson and wholesale devastation...

No section of the Hindu community has

been spared, the wealthier classes being

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dealt with more drastically. Abduction and

outrage of Hindu women and forcible

marriages were also resorted. The

slogans used and the methods employed

indicate that it was all part of a plan for

the simultaneous establishment of

Pakistan."

The earlier experiment of Muslim League in

Calcutta in the form of the 'direct action' day, started

on 16th August, 1946 had failed as the Hindus were

able to retaliate, despite the state machinery of the

League government clandestinely helping its

Muslim goons. Learning from this experiment,

Noakhali was chosen because it had anoverwhelming majority of more then 80% of

Muslims. Again to quote from Anand Bazaar

Patrika:

The four days delay in receiving the

news indicates at once the magnitude of

preparations of the lawless elements as

well as the criminal inefficiency of the

administration machinery. It took ten

days, fraught with horror, disgrace and

torture for nearly two lakhs of Hindus for

the Army to reach the neighbourhood of

disaster, another ten days for them to

move into the inner fringe of the disturbed

area, and over a month to comb the

interior of the devastated countryside."

Acharya Kriplani, the president of Congress, who

went to noakhali to assess the situation, after a few

days of the outbreak reported;

Next morning (October 22, 1946) we

visited the interior of one of the affected

areas. The place was Charhaim.

Charhaim village and the surrounding

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areas are occupied by Namasudras

(scheduled castes) numbering about

20,000. It was completely destroyed.

Most of the houses were burnt. People

were living in sheds, built from the ruins

of their houses. All their property had

been looted. Cash, ornaments, utensils

and clothes, and cattle also, had been

taken away by the raiders. All the males

and females had only the clothes they

were wearing. They had no food to eat.

Their condition was pitiable in the

extreme. There had been cases of

murder, but it was not possible during the

short time at our disposal to ascertain the

number of the killed. Cases of abduction

were reported to us. Even after looting

and arson the villagers were obliged to

embrace Islam; they had to perform

Namaz and recite the Kalma All

the images of the houses were broken

and temples looted and destroyed. The

conch-shell bangles of women and

vermillion marks, signs of their married

life, were removed. This was a fairlyrepresentative area.

Acharya Kripalani concluded in his report that:

1. The attack on the Hindu population in the

districts of Noakhali and Tipperah was

previously arranged and prepared fro. It was

deliberate, if not directly engineered by ML. It

was a direct result of ML propaganda. the

prominent league leaders had a large hand in

it.

2. The authorities had warnings about what was

coming. The warnings were conveyed to them

orally and in written by prominent Hindus in

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the area concerned.

3. The Muslim officials connived at the

preparations and a few encouraged. There

was a general belief among the Mussalmans

that the government would take no action if

anything was done against the Hindus.

4. The modus operandi was for the Muslims to

collect in batches of hundeds and sometimes

thousands and to march to Hindu villages or

Hindu houses in mixed population. They first

demanded subscriptions for the ML and

sometimes for the Muslim victims of the

Calcutta riots. These enforced subscriptions

were heavy, sometimes amounting to `10,000

and more. Even after the subscriptions were

paid, the HIndu population was not safe. The

same or successive crowd appeared on the

scene later an looted the Hindu houses. The

looted houses in most of the cases were burnt.

Sometimes before a house was looted, the

inmates were asked to embrace Islam.

However, even conversion did not give

immunity against loot and arson. The slogans

raised by the attacking Muslim crowds were

those of the ML, such as ' ',

' ', ', '

'('league Zindabad', 'Pakistan

Zindabad', Larhke lenge Pakistan, 'Markelenge Pakistan')

5. All those who resisted were butchered.

Sometimes they were shot, for the rioters had

a few shot-guns with them. Sometimes people

were killed even when there was no resistance

offered or expected I have on record cases

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where 50 to 60 members of one family were

brutally murdered. Some families lost all their

male members.

6. (Is about the description and habitat of those

who indulged in these crimes.)

7. Even after looting, arson and murder the

Hindus in the locality were not safe unless

they embraced Islam. The Hindu population

therefore to save themselves had to embrace

Islam en masse All the images of gods

in Hindu houses were destroyed and all the

Hindu temples of the affected area were looted

and burnt.

8. There have been cases of forcible marriages.

There have been cases of abduction.

9. For obvious reasons it was not possible for me

to ascertain the cases of rape. But women

complained to Mrs. Kirpalani of having been

roughly handled, their conch-shell bangles, the

symbol of their married life, having been

broken and vermillion marks removed. At one

place they were thrown on the ground by the

miscreants who removed their vermillion marks

with the toes of their feet.

10. about post riot conditions.

11. about post riot conditions


13. about post riot conditions14. The police did not function during the riots.

They are doing merely patrol duty now. They

say that they had and have no orders to fire

except in self-defence. The question of

defending themselves never arose, because

they did not interfere with the rioters.

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The areas visited had already been devastated

and all that I could see were burnt houses and

helpless Hindu villagers whether converted or not.

Scouting any suggestion that the trouble may be

economic the Acharya added,

Not a single rich Muslim house had beenlooted. To me it appeared to be

absolutely communal and absolutely one-

sided.

The Congress Working Committee meeting came

soon after at Delhi, and its resolution on East

Bengal contained the following observations:

Reports published in the press and

statements of public workers depict a

scene of bestiality and medieval barbarity

that must fill every decent human being

with shame, disgust and anger.

British correspondent of The Statesman remarked,

Experience of the second world war has

made my nerve quite strong. But even

war is not such barbaric. It is middle age

type insanity. And it was given a horrible

shape

The Hindu retaliation and the Political

chameleons

When Shyama Prasad Mukherjee urged Nehru on

18/10/1946 to intervene at Noakhali, explaining that

the police was not helping the victims, his demand

was rejected under the pretext that law and order

was a state subject. As a result the carnage of

hapless Hindus continued for months.

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The Bengal government tried its best to hide the

carnage and ultimately when the news came out,

the nation was shocked. On 29/10/1946, major

newspapers announced that on learning the

atrocities in Noakhali, Hindus and Sikhs in Bihar

retaliated and started paying back the Muslims in

the same coin. Now, the same Nehru, came to

Bihar along with Liaqat Ali (who became the first

premier of Pakistan) and started threatening the

Hindus in his 'peace' speeches. He said,

"Some people believe they are takingrevenge for atrocities in East Bengal. It

was bad enough. Culprits must be

punished immediately. The government

had to follow such a course by firing

machine guns and bombing the people.

No government could tolerate such

lawlessness.

Just 25 days earlier, the same Nehru was talking ofnot intervening into state matters but now had

changed his colours like a chameleon.

Today, his great grand son, uses the same forked

tongue in defaming Hindu organisations. Men of

Security forces are getting killed at the hand of

Islamic fanatics but that will never invite a statement

condemning 'Islamic terror' or 'Green terror'.

How could Gandhiji 'our apostle of non violence' be

left behind in this magnum opus. After all he was a

veteran of encashing such religious sentiments

since the time of khilafat riots, which led to the
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petition of malabar ladies to lady reading.

On this very day, i.e. 29/10/1946, he had arrived in

Calcutta to express his solidarity to the sufferers of

Bengal riots. He was planning to visit Noakhali,

probably for the benefit of media but on hearing the

trouble in Bihar, he immediately abondoned his visit

to Noakhali and instead reached Bihar. According

to Kripalani, he had faith that Hindus would listen to

his words and stop attacking Muslims. He did not

stop the government from using force in the name

of non-violence. Rather he asked the center and

provincial government to do everything they could

do to control the situation. (J.B. Kripalani - Gandhi,

His Life and Thought - p 260).

Contrast this with what he had done earlier when

Hindus were being butchered and their women and

daughters gang raped. On 24th October at Dalit

meeting in Harijan Colony in Delhi a large

procession of Hindu Mahasabha approached

Gandhi to take steps to prevent Hindu genocide in

Noakhali and elsewhere in eastern Bengal. But he

rejected the demand as usual citing that there

would be unnecessary blood spill if Muslims were

to be resisted! So Mahatma the true one advised,

To get killed, but not to kill (Amrita Bazar Patrika

25/10/46).

If the readers are wondering as to why such a major

tragedy has not come to light, they should thank

Nehru and subsequent Congress governments.

Ignoring world renowned and respected historians

like R.C.Majumdar, all educational institutions like
http://malabarpetition.blogspot.com/

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NCERT & ICHR have been given to Marxists and

Muslims like Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, Gopal

Krishan and R.S.Sharma. Their common

qualification is their hatred for Hindu dharm and

everything that it stands for.

POSTED BY EAST BENGAL FOUNDAT IONAT 8:21 A M

NO COMMENT S:

W E DN E S DA Y , M A Y 3 0 , 2 0 1 2

1946 : The Great Calcutta Killings

AND The Noakhali Genocide

1946 : The Great Calcutta Killings

ND The Noakhali Genocide

---A Historical Study

by Dinesh Chsndra Singha and Ashok

Dasgupta

Please visit the following link for this

well researched document

http://www.eastbengal.org/bengal194

6_calcutta_noakhali_killing.pdf

POSTED BY EAST BENGAL FOUNDAT IONAT 1:51 PM

NO COMMENT S:

T U E S D A Y , A U G U S T 2 , 2 0 1 1

Noakhali riots: Truth sacrificed

The Truth Plagiarized in Noakhali
http://noakhali1946.blogspot.in/2011/08/noakhali-riots-truth-sacrificed.htmlhttp://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2477680083903008602&postID=239023099367645140http://noakhali1946.blogspot.in/2012/05/1946-great-calcutta-killings-and.htmlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09435229031269962423http://www.eastbengal.org/bengal1946_calcutta_noakhali_killing.pdfhttp://noakhali1946.blogspot.in/2012/05/1946-great-calcutta-killings-and.htmlhttp://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2477680083903008602&postID=5896720627417923920http://noakhali1946.blogspot.in/2012/10/october-2012-have-we-forgotten-noakhali.htmlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09435229031269962423

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Worst of all was the plight of women.

Several of them had to watch their

husbands being murdered and then be

forcibly converted and married to some of

those responsible for their death. Those

women had a dead look. It was notdespair, nothing so active as that. It was

blackness.the eating of beef and

declaration of allegiance to Islam has

been forced upon many thousands of as

the price of their lives

This is what Miss Muriel Leister, member of a relief

committee sent to Noakhali wrote on 6th November,

1946,(V.V. Nagarkar Genesis p 446). The

words have an eerie similarity to the outburst of

Annie Beasant after the moplah riots but belong to

an entirely different holocaust. These riots had

started about a month earlier in Muslim dominated

twin districts of Noakhali and Tipperah. Since the

Muslim League government was architect of the

riots, news was suppressed for as long as possible.

Amrita Bazar Patrika on 23/10/46 reported,

For the 13th day today, about 120

villages in Ramganj, Lakshmipur, Raipur,

Begumganj and Senbag thanas (police

stations) in Noakhali district with a Hindu

population of 90,000 and nearby 70,000

villagers in Chandpur and Faridganjthanas in Tippera (Comilla) district

remained besieged by hooligans. Death

stares the people of these areas in their

face and immediate rushing of supply to

these areas with the help of military, who

alone could do it, would save the lives of

these people, most of whom have been

without food for the last few days.

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The riots had started on 10/10/1946, but the ML

government acknowledged the fact only on

15/10/1946, a criminal delay of five days in which

thousands of lives could have been saved and

women could have been saved from being raped by

gangs. Today, after six decades the present

secular governments have gone even further. The

deganga riots have gone totally unreported in main

stream media.

On 16/10/1946, The Statesman reported:

In an area of about 200 sq miles the inhabitants

surrounded by riotous mobs, are being massacred,

their houses being burnt, their womenfolk being

forcibly carried away and thousands being

subjected to forcible conversion. Thousands of

hooligans attacked the villages, compelled them

(Hindus) to slaughter their cattle and eat. All places

of worship in affected villages have been

desecrated. The District Magistrate and the Police

Superintendent of Noakhali took no step to prevent

it.

Noakhali and Tipperah (Comilla)

The two neighbouring districts are present in the

present day Bangladesh and were a part of Bengalbefore partition of our motherland. The province of

Bengal was under the rule of Muslim League. The

league had chosen these districts to teach Hindus a

lesson. This district was chose because of its more

then 80% Muslim population and it was far removed

from media glare of Calcutta. Likewise the

neighbouring Tipperah district had more then 77%

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Muslim population.

The unknown riots

By the year 1946, the freedom struggle had been

totally hijacked by media savvy and opportunistic

politicians. These were lick spittles of the british

and for them the acts of Martyrs like Udham Singh,

Bhagat Singh, Ashfaqullah Khan were actions of

misguided youths and they hoped that 'that it will

not have far-reaching repercussions on political

future of India'. To them the political future of India

meant their own political future. Neta Ji Subhash

Chander Bose, Veer Savarkar and Shyama Prasad

Mukherjee were sidelined.

These opportunists were good event managers and

were able to get the control of turncated India on a

silver platter.

Most of the modern day Indians do not know what

happened few months before the partition of our

motherland. The reason is the systemic

whitewashing of our history to hide the horrendousblunders of so called freedom fighters. These

include the khilafat movement, quit India movement,

the direct action day and noakhali riots and the

horrors of partition.

The Beginning

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A meeting was conducted by ML leader Gulam

Sarowar, an ex-M.L.A. on 10th October at

Begumganj Bazar. He gave an inflammatory strong

anti-Hindu speech by quoting verses of Quran

exhorting to kill the Kafirs and idolators during the

presence of the local Police Inspector who kept

mum. After the meeting came to an end the agitated

and excited Muslim mob in great numbers attacked

the Hindu shops in the market and set them to fire

after looting. Another group went to the house of

local Hindu leader and landlord Surendra Kumar

Bose. He was killed very cruelly and then the mob

set to fire his office and palace. Hundreds of

Hindus, men women and children had taken shelter

there after fleeing from various places. Most of

them were burnt alive. Those who could luckily

escape the fire of the burning house were chopped

down by the awaiting people outside.

The Valiant Warrior

The last gang went to siege the house of Noakhali

District Bar President and renowned Hindu

intellectual of Bengal, Rajendra Lal Roy in Karpara

village. But he was a real hero. Along with his sons

and brothers he united the local Hindus and gave astrong resistance. The attackers fled for their life.

Angered at being pushed back they attacked the

local Hindu villages, burnt them and desecrated the

temples. Meanwhile Mr. Roy had informed the

Police station and sought protection but blatantly

denied. He sent his sons to see if there were any

escape route. They returned and described the

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hopeless situation as the village roads were

patrolled by armed Muslims and all boats were

stopped from plying on the river. However they

pledged to each other that they will fight to the end.

Next day morning at 8 o clock a larger crowd came

to attack but the Hindus under the able leadership

of Mr. Roy stood up once again and fired from guns

and threw stones and bricks like rain to drive them

away. Still no government relief came but their

ammunition of the besieged Hindus were used up!

Next the ferocious mob at being resisted again and

again came under the personal command of Gulam

Sarowar and first attacked Mr. Roy and killed him

mercilessly. All others panicked and stopped

fighting. Then one by one his relatives and the

other Hindus who had taken refuge there were

butchered


The severed head of Rajendra Lal Roy

was gifted to Gulam Sarowar in a silver

plate. At Gulams order his two trusted

lieutenants took the two beautiful

daughters of Mr. Roy as the booty


Bengalee p 68).

Only the youngest brother of Mr. Roy, Professor

M.L. Roy escaped the carnage as he was in a

Kolkata college and said:

Muslims wanted to convert whole

Noakhali into Islam so they targeted first

the Hindu leaders who could offer some

resistance. The cause of death of my

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entire family is only due to it


Bengal Press Advisory Committee in its report of

October, 1946 mentioned all these and other

horrible conditions of Hindus in eastern Bengal

after the murder of Mr. Roy. After the Hindus

became leaderless the torture on them increased to

boundless proportions. In Panchgao village of

Begumganj police station, lived a Brahmin family of

four brothers. On the day of Kurbani a cow was

sacrificed on their temple and the beef (forbidden

for Hindus) was sent to them. The family membersin pain and agony started vomiting. But the Muslims

cursed them and asked how the kafirs could reject

their sacrificial beef to Allah. They were taken for a

village judgement by the Moulavi of the local

mosque who was however very liberal and fined Rs

250 (a large amount in those days) to settle the

matter. B.P.A.C got those information by searching

the diaries in various police stations there. For

ensuring safety B.P.A.C did not mention the names

of many of the victims.

Beasts unleashed

Phani Bhusan Sur was one of the few

from Noakhali who could escape and

took shelter in Bangabasi College at

Kolkata. He said that in his Hajiganj

village the riots were lead by Peshawari

Muslims. Each had long swords with

them and under their direction the

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murders, loot and rapes were organized


Journalists back from Noakhali reported that,

the heads of miscreants were Ex-

servicemen and they organized the raids

in military fashion. The people

knew how to dig up roads and cut

communication


Professionalism in its highest virtue was manifested

in Noakhali. So that Hindus couldnt escape, the

roads were dug, boats used to form barricade on

canals and rivers and through which areas there

were any slight chance of escape armed Muslims

were at guard

(V.P. Menon Transfer of Power p 322).

Mr. Simpson, I.C.S wrote on the incidents that

it has been known from authentic

sources that at a place 400 and at

another 300 women were mass raped by

Muslims. To the Muslim crowd, violation

of the honour of Hindu women meant the

exposure of the most protected aspect of

the Hindu identity and religion


Bengalee p 64)

A little refugee girl of Ramganj thana told

me the incident. On10th October morning

a crowd came to their house and

demanded Rs. 500 as subscription for

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Muslim League and threatened that if

their demand was not met the entire

family will be butchered. Fearing life her

father paid the huge amount. After

sometime the crowd came again with

more people and when a certain guardian

of the family, a lawyer tried to calm them

he was beheaded before saying

anything. Then they killed the oldest

member, the grandfather of the girl. The

father of the girl was next laid on the

dead body of his grandpa and when they

were about to kill him her grandmother

jumped on his body and begged mercy.

But this angered the mob and they hit the

old lady on the head with a rod and threw

her unconscious body away. The

terrorized girl by then was standing and

looking on but now to save her father

rushed out with her jewelry and Rs. 400

which was at home and putting all on the

hands of the killer pleaded to leave her

father. The person took the valuables

with the left hand and at once severed

the head of her father with the right hand!

(The Statesman, 26/10/46)

The Viceroy when asked to intervene, refused to do

so and when informed about the plight of Hindu

women, responded that:

Large scale abduction of Hindu women

(by Muslims) was quite natural since

Hindu women were more handsome than

Muslim women.

(Gandhi, his life and his thought, pp. 286)

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When the correspondent of 'Amrit Bazaar Patrika'

S.L.Ghosh reached noakhali, he reported:

"The horror of the Noakhali outrage is

unique in modern history in that it was not

a simple case of turbulent members of the

majority community (Muslims) killing off

helpless members of the minority Hindu

community, but was one whose chief aim

was mass conversion, accompanied by

loot, arson and wholesale devastation...

No section of the Hindu community has

been spared, the wealthier classes being

dealt with more drastically. Abduction and

outrage of Hindu women and forcible

marriages were also resorted. Theslogans used and the methods employed

indicate that it was all part of a plan for

the simultaneous establishment of

Pakistan."

The earlier experiment of Muslim League in

Calcutta in the form of the 'direct action' day, started

on 16th August, 1946 had failed as the Hindus were

able to retaliate, despite the state machinery of the

League government clandestinely helping its

Muslim goons. Learning from this experiment,

Noakhali was chosen because it had an

overwhelming majority of more then 80% of

Muslims. Again to quote from Anand Bazaar

Patrika:

The four days delay in receiving the

news indicates at once the magnitude of

preparations of the lawless elements as

well as the criminal inefficiency of the

administration machinery. It took ten

days, fraught with horror, disgrace and

torture for nearly two lakhs of Hindus for

the Army to reach the neighbourhood of

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disaster, another ten days for them to

move into the inner fringe of the disturbed

area, and over a month to comb the

interior of the devastated countryside."

Acharya Kriplani, the president of Congress, who

went to noakhali to assess the situation, after a few

days of the outbreak reported;

Next morning (October 22, 1946) we

visited the interior of one of the affected

areas. The place was Charhaim.

Charhaim village and the surrounding

areas are occupied by Namasudras

(scheduled castes) numbering about

20,000. It was completely destroyed.Most of the houses were burnt. People

were living in sheds, built from the ruins

of their houses. All their property had

been looted. Cash, ornaments, utensils

and clothes, and cattle also, had been

taken away by the raiders. All the males

and females had only the clothes they

were wearing. They had no food to eat.

Their condition was pitiable in theextreme. There had been cases of

murder, but it was not possible during the

short time at our disposal to ascertain the

number of the killed. Cases of abduction

were reported to us. Even after looting

and arson the villagers were obliged to

embrace Islam; they had to perform

Namaz and recite the Kalma All

the images of the houses were brokenand temples looted and destroyed. The

conch-shell bangles of women and

vermillion marks, signs of their married

life, were removed. This was a fairly

representative area.

Acharya Kripalani concluded in his report that:

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1. The attack on the Hindu population in the

districts of Noakhali and Tipperah was

previously arranged and prepared fro. It was

deliberate, if not directly engineered by ML. It

was a direct result of ML propaganda. the

prominent league leaders had a large hand in

it.

2. The authorities had warnings about what was

coming. The warnings were conveyed to them

orally and in written by prominent Hindus in

the area concerned.

3. The Muslim officials connived at the

preparations and a few encouraged. There

was a general belief among the Mussalmans

that the government would take no action if

anything was done against the Hindus.

4. The modus operandi was for the Muslims to

collect in batches of hundeds and sometimes

thousands and to march to Hindu villages or

Hindu houses in mixed population. They first

demanded subscriptions for the ML and

sometimes for the Muslim victims of the

Calcutta riots. These enforced subscriptions

were heavy, sometimes amounting to ` 10,000

and more. Even after the subscriptions were

paid, the HIndu population was not safe. The

same or successive crowd appeared on the

scene later an looted the Hindu houses. Thelooted houses in most of the cases were burnt.

Sometimes before a house was looted, the

inmates were asked to embrace Islam.

However, even conversion did not give

immunity against loot and arson. The slogans

raised by the attacking Muslim crowds were

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those of the ML, such as ' ',

' ', ', '

'('league Zindabad', 'Pakistan

Zindabad', Larhke lenge Pakistan, 'Marke

lenge Pakistan')

5. All those who resisted were butchered.Sometimes they were shot, for the rioters had

a few shot-guns with them. Sometimes people

were killed even when there was no resistance

offered or expected I have on record cases

where 50 to 60 members of one family were

brutally murdered. Some families lost all their

male members.

6. (Is about the description and habitat of those

who indulged in these crimes.)

7. Even after looting, arson and murder the

Hindus in the locality were not safe unless

they embraced Islam. The Hindu population

therefore to save themselves had to embrace

Islam en masse All the images of gods

in Hindu houses were destroyed and all the

Hindu temples of the affected area were looted

and burnt.

8. There have been cases of forcible marriages.

There have been cases of abduction.

9. For obvious reasons it was not possible for me

to ascertain the cases of rape. But women

complained to Mrs. Kirpalani of having beenroughly handled, their conch-shell bangles, the

symbol of their married life, having been

broken and vermillion marks removed. At one

place they were thrown on the ground by the

miscreants who removed their vermillion marks

with the toes of their feet.

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10. about post riot conditions.




14. The police did not function during the riots.

They are doing merely patrol duty now. They

say that they had and have no orders to fire

except in self-defence. The question of

defending themselves never arose, because

they did not interfere with the rioters.

The areas visited had already been devastated

and all that I could see were burnt houses and

helpless Hindu villagers whether converted or not.Scouting any suggestion that the trouble may be

economic the Acharya added,

Not a single rich Muslim house had been

looted. To me it appeared to be

absolutely communal and absolutely one-

sided.

The Congress Working Committee meeting came

soon after at Delhi, and its resolution on East

Bengal contained the following observations:

Reports published in the press and

statements of public workers depict a

scene of bestiality and medieval barbarity

that must fill every decent human being

with shame, disgust and anger.

British correspondent of The Statesman remarked,

Experience of the second world war has

made my nerve quite strong. But even

war is not such barbaric. It is middle age

type insanity. And it was given a horrible

shape

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The Hindu retaliation and the Political

chameleons

When Shyama Prasad Mukherjee urged Nehru on

18/10/1946 to intervene at Noakhali, explaining that

the police was not helping the victims, his demand

was rejected under the pretext that law and order

was a state subject. As a result the carnage of

hapless Hindus continued for months.

The Bengal government tried its best to hide the

carnage and ultimately when the news came out,

the nation was shocked. On 29/10/1946, major

newspapers announced that on learning the

atrocities in Noakhali, Hindus and Sikhs in Bihar

retaliated and started paying back the Muslims in

the same coin. Now, the same Nehru, came to

Bihar along with Liaqat Ali (who became the first

premier of Pakistan) and started threatening the

Hindus in his 'peace' speeches. He said,

"Some people believe they are taking

revenge for atrocities in East Bengal. It

was bad enough. Culprits must be

punished immediately. The government

had to follow such a course by firing

machine guns and bombing the people.

No government could tolerate such

lawlessness.

Just 25 days earlier, the same Nehru was talking of

not intervening into state matters but now had

changed his colours like a chameleon.

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Today, his great grand son, uses the same forked

tongue in defaming Hindu organisations. Men of

Security forces are getting killed at the hand of

Islamic fanatics but that will never invite a statement

condemning 'Islamic terror' or 'Green terror'.

How could Gandhiji 'our apostle of non violence' be

left behind in this magnum opus. After all he was a

veteran of encashing such religious sentiments

since the time of khilafat riots, which led to the

petition of malabar ladies to lady reading.

On this very day, i.e. 29/10/1946, he had arrived in

Calcutta to express his solidarity to the sufferers of

Bengal riots. He was planning to visit Noakhali,

probably for the benefit of media but on hearing the

trouble in Bihar, he immediately abondoned his visit

to Noakhali and instead reached Bihar. According

to Kripalani, he had faith that Hindus would listen to

his words and stop attacking Muslims. He did not

stop the government from using force in the name

of non-violence. Rather he asked the center and

provincial government to do everything they could

do to control the situation. (J.B. Kripalani - Gandhi,

His Life and Thought - p 260).

Contrast this with what he had done earlier when

Hindus were being butchered and their women and

daughters gang raped. On 24th October at Dalit

meeting in Harijan Colony in Delhi a large

procession of Hindu Mahasabha approached

Gandhi to take steps to prevent Hindu genocide in

Noakhali and elsewhere in eastern Bengal. But he
http://malabarpetition.blogspot.com/

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rejected the demand as usual citing that there

would be unnecessary blood spill if Muslims were

to be resisted! So Mahatma the true one advised,

To get killed, but not to kill (Amrita Bazar Patrika

25/10/46).

If the readers are wondering as to why such a major

tragedy has not come to light, they should thank

Nehru and subsequent Congress governments.

Ignoring world renowned and respected historians

like R.C.Majumdar, all educational institutions like

NCERT & ICHR have been given to Marxists and

Muslims like Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, Gopal

Krishan and R.S.Sharma. Their common

qualification is their hatred for Hindu dharm and

everything that it stands for.

POSTED BY EAST BENGAL FOUNDAT IONAT 8:50 A M

NO COMMENT S:

LABELS: NOAKHALI RIOT S: T RUTH SA CRIFICED

F RI D A Y , M A Y 7 , 2 0 1 0

Noakhali's Darkest Hour

ndrew Whitehead

Indian Express

-------------------

On the outskirts of the once mainly Hindu village of

Jayag is a zamindar's house,

ringed by fish ponds and patrolled by monitor

lizards so large that the hens

squawk in alarm at their approach. The house is

now an ashram - the centre of
http://noakhali1946.blogspot.in/2010/05/noakhalis-darkest-hour-indian-exptess.htmlhttp://noakhali1946.blogspot.in/search/label/Noakhali%20riots%3A%20Truth%20sacrificedhttp://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2477680083903008602&postID=6017005961886035533http://noakhali1946.blogspot.in/2011/08/noakhali-riots-truth-sacrificed.htmlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09435229031269962423

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social development programmes, of handicrafts,

and community schemes. Every

morning and evening, people gather for a prayer

meeting in a room which still

contains mementoes of Gandhi's visit here in

January 1947. It's a living memorial

to the most remarkable of Gandhi's partition peace

missions.

Jayag lies in Noakhali district of southern

Bangladesh. That name, Noakhali, holds

a sombre place in the annals of India's

disintegration. When the Calcutta tinderbox exploded in August 1946 the sparks alighted on

this poor, remote region which

exported labour to the provincial capital. From

Noakhali, the flames spread to

Bihar and on to the killing fields of Punjab.

The toll in Noakhali was modest compared to the

barbarity of the Great Calcutta

Killing, and the Hindu backlash which followed in

Bihar. But the communal

bitterness, the rapes, the migration of capital and

the forced conversions made a

deep impact across India. The frenzy unleashed bythe Muslim League's Direct

Action Day in Calcutta was proving to be not an

aberration, but part of a pattern.

Jharna Chowdhury, the one-woman Gandhian

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dynamo who now runs the ashram, was nine

years old and living a Noakhali village when the

rioters surrounded her home. It

was mid-October 1946. "In the morning at around

nine o'clock, hundreds of people

came to our house with flaming torches. They were

shouting 'Allah-oh-Akbar'. We

fled and hid in a nearby garden. Then they set the

house on fire. There were so

many attackers. But I remember that among them,

I saw people from my own village,

people whom I knew."

The large Hindu minority in Noakhali at that time

included most of the big

landlords, the lawyers and moneylenders, the

Government babus and the businessmen.

There is little doubt that the economic

marginalisation of local Muslims was the

root cause of the riot. And local politicians triggered

the violence.

Talking today to the elderly in Noakhali's villages

and bazaars, Hindus and

Muslims alike - Hindus make up close on 10 per

cent of the population here, as

across Bangladesh - one name crops up repeatedly.

Ghulam Sarwar was an elected

member of the provincial assembly, a member of a

much revered Muslim religious

family, and a mesmerising figure.

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By all accounts it was this pir whose fiery speeches

about the pogrom of Muslims

in Calcutta encouraged local villagers to take

revenge.

Chandra Pal, now 74 and still living in Noakhali,

hurried home from Mymensingh

when he heard news that Hindu homes had been

ransacked. "My parents' house had

been attacked and looted, but luckily, lives were

spared. But our neighbours'

houses, the big zamindars' houses, and those of the

big business families - those

houses had been looted like anything, people had

been massacred, and their women

taken away. That happened on a massive scale. It

seemed the rioters wanted

vengeance against those with money and power."

"Many people jumped into ponds to save

themselves," recalls M. K. Majumdar, a

retired school teacher. "They tried to hide under the

water hyacinths. But the

attackers killed them with fishing spears. Therioters were very organised.

There was the Ghulam Sarwar group, then there

was the Hashmi group. And another

group of rioters, the Akbar Fauj, came up to our

house and tried to loot it. They

were given some money and went away."

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For weeks, Hindu men were forced to offer namaz

and adopt Muslim names. Some had

beef stuffed into their mouths. There were attempts

to marry off eligible Hindu

women to Muslim grooms. Ashoka Gupta, whose

husband was then a judge serving in

Chittagong, was among the first outsiders to reach

Noakhali to provide relief -

she remembers above all the fate of one village

woman. "Every night she was being

carried away by the same group of men. Her

husband said: I am so helpless, pleasehelp me. I went to the police station, but I was not

able to help her at all."

Gupta was at Chandpur when Gandhi arrived in

Noakhali by boat. "We rowed along in

a small boat to that steamship and we were allowedto board. And we attended

Gandhi's prayers. Later, Gandhi told us all: 'I

understand that you a want to

work, but have you thought of what caused this?

Have you come only to help the

Hindus? I'm going to the interior, and I'll find out

what was the real cause andhow I'll be able to help."'

Gandhi visited dozens of villages in his four months

in the area. The trouble had

largely burnt itself out by the time he arrived in

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early November. But there's no

doubt that his calming presence and message, the

concern he showed for both

communities, and the sight of India's foremost

leader, barefoot, negotiating the

narrow bamboo bridges, had an immense impact.

Abdul Rauf took me to the spot just outside his

small hamlet where he watched

Gandhi pass by more than half a century ago. "I was

standing right here," he said

with a sense of pride. "Gandhi came from that

direction, from the north. I

remember he was wearing two pieces of khadi cloth,

and there was a watch at his

waist. He took support from the shoulders of two

women. All the Muslims were

pleased to see him, and respected him."

But Raufs own testimony suggests that not all in

Noakhali welcomed the Mahatma.

Goats were provided to keep Gandhi supplied with

milk. "In another nearby

village," he says, with a giggle, "local Muslims stole

that goat. And ate it!"

Some of Gandhi's disciples stayed behind in Jayag

after the Mahatma left. They were the nucleus of

the Gandhi ashram and for decades endured the

suspicion and worse of first the East Pakistani and

then the Bangladeshi authorities.

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Jharna Chowdhury, dressed in white khadi and

irrepressibly cheerful, says things

are much better now. The ashram's programmes

are encouraged by officials. But

many of the local Hindus admit to some lingering

sense of apprehension - how

ustified or otherwise, it's impossible to say.

One man showed me round the ruins of a Hindu

mandir in the market town of

Dattapara, pulled down in retaliation to the

Ayodhya demolition. "It looks like

one crime has given way to ten other crimes," he

bemoaned. "As the days are going

by, worse and worse things are happening. There's

nobody to protest, nobody to

resist such things."

Fifty years after Gandhi's peace mission, Noakhali

is still not at ease.

(Andrew Whitehead has made a BBC Radio series

on partition)

20 May 1997


NO COMMENT S:

M O N D A Y , D E C E M BE R 2 8 , 2 0 0 9

Qut Noakhali Or Die, Gandhi

Warns Hindus
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QUIT NOAKHALI OR DIE, GANDHI

WARNS HINDUS

----------------------

New Delhi, April 7 (AP)

New York Times--April 8, 1947, Tuesday----Page 23, 148 words

Mohandas K. Gandhi, who has been attempting to

insure communal peace in the Bengal and Bihar

areas, said today religious strife in the troubled

Noakhali section of bengal seemed to call for

Hindus to leave or perish "in the flames offanaticism."

Meanwhile, a one-day strike of workers throughout

Bombay Province appeared likely to be called by the

Provincial Trade Union Congress to express

sympathy with the two-week-old strike of 8,500

transport workers in the city of Bombay.

Mr. Gandhi halted his walking tour of Bengal and

Bihar at the invitation of the new Viceroy, Viscount

Mountbatten, for discussions on departure of the

British from India by June, 1948. Today he released

telegrams from COngress party workers in

noakhali, which is predominantly Moslem, in which

they described attempts to burn Hindus alive.

http://www.eastbengal.org/april8_1947.pdf

(Source : The New York Times)

POSTED BY EAST BENGAL FOUNDAT IONAT 11 :58 AM

1 COMMENT:
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S U N DA Y , J A N U A R Y 4 , 2 0 0 9

Refugees Tell of Terror in Bengal

As Hindu-Moslem Rioting Goes On

Refugees Testify to Bengal Terror

Special to The New York TimesCalcutta, India, Oct. 18 (London Times

dispatch)--

Unofficial reports reaching Calcutta indicate that

acts of violence are continuing on an alarming scale

in the districts of Noakhali and Tippera. This is

despite the local Government's assurance that the

communal situation in eastern Bengal had shown

some improvement during the last twenty-four

hours.

Hundreds of refugees have reached Calcutta from

these districts and they have a grim picture of the

happenings there during the last eight days.

They say that a hundred villages have been burned

by hooligans, that hundreds of persons have been

butchered or maimed and destitute. They report

that both districts are infernos of communal fury,

and that unless the Government urgentlydispatches more troops and police whole minority

populations will be wiped out.

[In new Delhi Mohandas K. Gandhi repeated his

declaration to Indian women that they should

commit suicide rather than submit to dishonor.]
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Both Noakhali and Tipperah are predominantly

Moslem areas. The total population there is just

over 8,000,000 and of these only 2,000,000 are

Hindus.

The latest reports show that the scenes of the

disturbances since yesterday have been moving

from Noakhali into Tippera and that they are

concentrating in the Chandpur subdivision of that

district.

The capital town, Chandpur, is a large railway and

river junction toward which refugees are fleeing in

an attempt to escape into western Bengal. But most

of the roads and the river exits are being guarded by

armed rowdies and a large population of the

evacuees has cut into the jungles and swamps to

avoid molestation.

Thus far police and military action in the affected

areas has been confined to about six firings. The

casualties from this source are about twenty killed

and an equal number injured.

The total casualties from the riots will perhaps

never be known. Official sources [Moslem in

Bengal] remain silent over this point but unofficial

reports variously estimate the totals between 5,000and 6,000 killed and 1,500 to 2,000 injured. It is

reported that a further 50,000 to 60,000 have been

forcibly converted ot another faith or abducted.

There is grave public anxiety in Calcutta over the

inadequacy of the police and military forces

dispatched to the stricken areas by the Bengal

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Government. So far only two companies of troops

are known to have been sent to an area covering

several hundred square miles. During the August

Calcutta riots had at their disposal about 45,000

troops to protect the city.

Food is another urgent problem. With both railway

and river communications seriously dislocated and

trade completely at a standstill in most parts of

Noakhali and Tippera, thousands face starvation.

Local leaders have made urgent representations to

the Government to fly food to the starving villages.

They have also telegraphed to the Governor of

Bengal and the Chief Minister, who at present at

the hill resort of Darjeeling, jointly to visit the

affected areas.

The Secretary of the Bengal Hindu Mahasabha

party has just received from the Governor's private

secretary a message that the Governor proposed to

visit Noakhali soon.

Gandhi Advises Suicide

New Delhi, India, Oct. 18 (AP)-

Mohandas K Gandhi, "spiritual leader" of the

Hindu-led Congress party, again today advised

women in eastern Bengal to take their own livesrather than submit to dishonor. In Bombay the

provincial Congress party chief called for halting of

all business activity as a demonstration of sympathy

for riot victims.

Mr. Gandhi said he felt a "call" to go to the trouble

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areas as soon as the situation in new Delhi

permitted. He said that at his request Acharya

Kripalani, newly elected president of the Congress

party, and Sarat Chandra Bose, recently retired

member of the interim Government, had gone to

investigate the riot reports.

He was most emphatic in his instructions to

women, insisting it was "not an idle idea" and he

meant every word he said.

Last night he advised women to suffocate

themselves by holding their breath, but he said

tonight that he had been told by physicians that

suicide by that means was impossible.

"The only way known to medicine for instant self

immolation is strong poisonous doses," he siad he

was told. He added: "If this is so I would advise

every one running the risk of dishonor to take

poison before submission to dishonor."

http://www.eastbengal.org/oct19_1946.pdf


NO COMMENT S:

S A T U R D A Y , J A N U A R Y 3 , 2 0 0 9

NOAKHALI - The Past is PresentIt's difficult to imagine past horrors today,

says SUDEEP CHAKRAVARTI, but the

reality that almost defeated Gandhi--and his

mission--has not faded away.

It's a little joke between them. Sometimes, when
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Jharna Dhara Chaudhury receives visitors curious

about the past at the Gandhi Ashram in Jayag, a

small village deep inside Noakhali, she packs them

off to see Pirjada Syed Golam Hakkani Hussaini.

His father, she says by way of introduction, Golam

Sarawar Hussaini, an MLA from Noakhali for the

Muslim League in the undivided Bengal Assembly,

was the man who started it all off. The slaughter

that began with the killing of the Hindu landed

gentry in one of the worst affected areas of Bengal

in October 1946. It was the sordid second chapter to

a sordid first chapter in communal violence that

was scripted in August of that year with a burst of

mayhem that some history books still call, capital

letters blaring, The Great Calcutta Killing.

"Ask him about his father," she urges, this five-ft-

nothing lady who was all of 10 when Gandhi came

here that November by way of Calcutta to cool the

fires long after a way of life had burnt to ashes.

Retaliatory riots sparking off in Bihar even as he

wound his way to Noakhali.

"Jharnadi has sent you, has she?" chuckles

Hakkani saheb. "She's always trying to get me into

trouble." I have made my way to his vast estate in

Shampur village, an hour over dirt tracks turned to

slush with rain, snaking through impossibly green

fields of paddy, in a part of Bangladesh so

conservative that many women in burqa sometimesstill carry an umbrella to prevent strangers from

looking at them. "I wasn't even born then, but in

1952," drawls the hereditary pir who not too many

years ago was better known as a theatre personality

in Dhaka, often sunning himself by the pool of the

local Sheraton. "I have inherited a pirhood, but not

my father's politics."

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Noakhali was the sordid second

chapter to a

sordid first chapter scripted in

August 1946 in Calcutta.

"The past is a fact," he carries on in a rush, sitting in

a room where Gandhi spent some hours those

many years ago, come to make peace with a

politician. "It was a moment of anger. A lot of

people were not even clear about why they were

doing what they were doing. But I believe it was

good Gandhi came. Things cooled down after that."

For a while, perhaps for the first time in his life,

Gandhi himself was ready to give up. There is no

record of exactly how many people died in Noakhali

and in adjoining Tipperah district (now the state of

Tripura, and some districts in Bangladesh) --

estimates range from 500 (League sources) to

50,000 (other sources). Jharnadi, who now runs

the Gandhi Ashram, relates it bluntly -- "More

Muslims died in Calcutta, more Hindus died inNoakhali" -- but violence caught up with the ageing

Mahatma like nothing else.

Even before he reached Noakhali, he had written to

Nehru: "My inner voice tells me 'You may not live

to be a witness to this senseless slaughter. If people

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refuse to see what is clear as daylight and pay no

heed to what you say, does it not mean that your

day is over?'" At practically every point of his

whistle-stop journey into Bengal's darker side -- at

Kushtia, Srirampur, Dattapara, and a string of

places where he collectively spent more than a

month -- the man who found his way out of

numerous problems with fasting and steadfastness

gave in to feelings of helplessness. "Oldest

friendships had snapped," he wrote in a dispatch.

"Truth and ahimsa by which I swear and which

have to my knowledge sustained me for 60 years,

seem to fail to show the attributes I ascribe to

them." His chronicler at the time, Nirmal Kumar

Bose, wrote later of seeing the Mahatma mutter to

himself: "Main kya karun? (What can I do?)"

It was a lifetime ago. Yet, wandering through the

old Noakhali district, now broken up into three, the

past can still come alive; but it's surreal, clashing as

it does with a slice of today's Bangladesh -- Hakkani

saheb is never far away -- itself created from blood

of tens of thousands of innocent Muslims. In places

where some of the worst atrocities happened,

Karpara, Dattapara, Ramganj, Haimchar, there are

remnants of buildings, many with still wary people

living in them.

In Baruipara, Mohamad Lakiutullah, a farmer who

has lived in the house of the local zamindar since

the family fled in 1946, clams up when I ask

questions. The irrelevance of asking them these

many years later strikes me when his son,

Mohamad Shahabuddin, a Forest Department

officer in Chittagong, starts discussing Malthus

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with me. Mrinal Krishna Majumdar of Dattapara,

among a handful of Hindus who remained in

Noakhali after 1946, still hasn't recovered from the

horrors he has seen. But his son, Jiban, is building

his electronic item repairs shop and a house, next to

the destroyed one his father refuses to leave.

I get an earful from Mahbub-ur-Rahman, a former

professor, now 85, who claims to have argued with

Gandhi about unity and disunity. "I told him, if

Pakistan was being created for Pakistanis, then

Muslims staying in India wouldn't be safe or united.

And if Muslims were so strong that they got the

British to create a country for them, then how could

they be weak in India?" Prolonged cackle. "Gandhi

had no answer." Do you have an answer for why it

happened? I ask. Wasn't it easy for landless Muslim

peasantry to get totally incensed with wealthy

Hindu landlords? "Yes, it was easy. But the riots

were not consequential, they were created." As

everywhere. In Dattapara, at the site of one of the

largest refugee camps in Noakhali -- now a girls

school -- I discuss Bangladesh's independence

struggle with H.B.M. Shamshul Basher, a 24-year-

old sociology graduate with no interest in a past

beyond 1971. We're in a teashop, the walls crowded

with revealing posters of local female stars: Samira,

Saabnoor and Mou. A tape recorder blasts theBengali version of Macarena from the latest remix

album by Sylvia Khan and 'Jewel' Mahmud,

Explosion. "The past is over," Basher tells me. "I

want a job. That's all that matters."

This is now. Noakhali lives as much off the land as

some of its people once killed for, but also on

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Older Posts

remittances from the Gulf. The moderate Muslim

government in Dhaka worries about the

conservative bastion of Noakhali. The need to own

a satellite telephone stands out as much as a school

to practice swordcraft.

And Gandhi? He couldn't have asked for more.

Muslim children attend a school run by the

ashram's trust, Muslim farmers buy fish seed from

its hatchery, the trust provides tubewells and

toilets. A Bangladesh flag flies in front of the

ashram, and after singing Raghupati raghav raja

ram every morning and evening, the indefatigable

Jharnadi leads her small band of ashramites to

intone: Bismillah-i-rahman-e-rahim. The past? I

don't think so.

http://www.indiatodaygroup.com/itoday/18081997

/noakhali.html

POSTED BY EAST BENGAL FOUNDAT IONAT 9:50 AM

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