August 2015

Recently, the Indian city of Calcutta witnessed a large demonstration marking the 69th anniversary of an infamous event, noted in the history books as the Great Calcutta Killings, and The Week of Long Knives. The initial riots in Calcutta alone claimed some 10,000 lives. In subsequent weeks and months a million more across British-controlled India would follow -- a long lost saga of mass-graves, rape and ethnic cleansing. Hushed up by subsequent Indian governments and left-wing historians, today this genocide is all but forgotten and relegated to a footnote in the history. In 1946, anticipating a British withdrawal from India, the political bloc representing Muslims of India, Muslim League made its intentions clear that it did not want Muslims to be part of a democratic and multi-cultural India. To make the resolve known Muslim League called for the “Direct Action Day” on August 16, 1946. City of Calcutta was the epicentre of the genocide in East India that killed at least a million people and displacing about 14 million. Since India’s independence in 1947, the subsequent Indian governments stonewalled the memory of Hindu suffering to appease the minority Muslim population. There is not a single national memorial to mark their suffering or even a day of remembrance to recall their plight. In pursuit of Islamist supremacy, Muslim League brought suffering upon millions of Muslims in India as well, who bore the brunt of Hindu and Sikh retaliation. Some 70 years on, young Hindus are trying to reclaim the memory of their ancestors. They are urging the government to mark the “Noakhali Day”, named after a district in West Bengal that witnessed the most brutal atrocities during that time.