The Muslim League was angry; it felt that it had been outmanoeuvred, let down, deceived. Jinnah demanded that, since the plan for the formation of an interim government was shelved, the elections to the Constituent Assembly must also be postponed. This was also rejected by the Cabinet Mission. A livid Jinnah accused the Cabinet Mission of 'breach of faith'; he termed the Cabinet Mission's interpretation of paragraph 8 as 'most fantastic and dishonest'. For once, Jinnah was stranded without the help of his traditional patrons, and like a petulant brat he resorted to threats and warnings of dire consequences.
The League Council met on 29 July and withdrew its previous acceptance of the 16 May plan. It announced its intention to launch 'Direct Action' to achieve Pakistan and 'to organise the Muslims for the coming struggle to be launched as and when necessary'. The 16th of August 1946 would be 'Direct Action Day', and would be observed all over India as a day of protests, they said.
To thundering applause in the concluding session of the Muslim League's Council Jinnah declared: 'Today we bid good-bye to constitutional methods.... We have also forged a pistol and are in a position to use it.' In a press conference on 31 June, he further clarified that, since both the British government and the Congress were armed in their own way, one with fire weapons and the other with the threat of mass struggle, the Muslim League felt it was high time it also got ready for a struggle to enforce its demand for Pakistan. He declined to discuss the details of the proposed 'Direct Action', saying, 'I am not prepared to tell you that now.' Asked whether 'Direct Action' would be violent or non-violent, he replied, 'I am not going to discuss ethics.'
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* On 25 September 1940, in a letter to Jinnah, Lord Linlithgow had suggested: 'I am content that the selection of representatives, while resting with the Governor-General, be based in the case of the Muslim League ... not on a panel formally submitted but on a confidential discussion between the leader of the party and myself'. In his letter to Wavell, Jinnah wrote: 'The Working Committee is of the opinion ... that the procedure settled on the previous occasion should be followed in the present case so far as the Muslim League is concerned'. When the viceroy refused to accept this condition Jinnah wrote: 'The Committee ... desires me to state that it regrets very much to note that your Excellency is not able to give the assurance that all the Muslim members of the proposed Executive Council will be selected from the Muslim League ... and, in the circumstances, I regret, I am not in a position to send the names on behalf of the Muslim League for inclusion in the proposed Executive Council'.
8
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VIOLENCE ERUPTS
'Perhaps the only thing that can be quite positively asserted about this orgy of arson and violence is that it was not a spontaneous uprising of the villagers.'
– Report in Hindustan Standard, 6 November 1946
Others in the Muslim League were much more forthcoming, and a sinister connotation to 'Direct Action' began to emerge. Khwaja Nazimuddin of Bengal explained, 'There are a hundred and one ways in which we can create difficulties, especially when we are not restricted to non-violence. The Muslim population of Bengal knows very well what Direct Action would mean and we need not bother to give them any lead.' Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, Jinnah's right-hand man, explained, 'Direct Action means resorting to non-constitutional methods and that can take any form and what ever form may suit the conditions under which we live, we cannot eliminate any method, Direct Action means action against the law.' Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar was far more honest in explaining the League's plans for Direct Action: 'Pakistan can only be achieved by shedding blood and if the opportunity arises, the blood of Non-Muslims must be shed, Muslims do not believe in ahimsa.'
As early as April 1946, Sir Feroz Khan Noon, while addressing the Muslim League Legislator's Convention, had warned, 'For placing us under one Central Government, the havoc which the Muslims would play would put to shame what Chengiz Khan and Halaku did.' The Muslim League went on a campaign of provocation, and both the Congress as well as the British administration stood by and watched. It was not as if the League was going to wait till the appointed date to let loose the violence. Communal incidents and planned attacks by hooligans had already been reported from Ahmedabad, Bombay, Allahabad, Aligarh, Dacca and various other places. Stabbings and attacks on isolated minorities were taking place everywhere. The Muslim League set up a 'Council of Action' to plan and execute the proposed 'Direct Action' programme and their press carried the message to Muslim communities all over. Muslims were reminded that it was in the month of Ramzan that the 'first open conflict between Islam and Heathenism' was fought and won by 313 Muslims in Arabia. A leaflet containing a special prayer for the crusade announced that 100 million Indian Muslims 'who through bad luck had become slaves of Hindus and the British' would be starting 'a Jehad in this very month of Ramzan'. Another leaflet featuring a picture of Jinnah wielding a sword, proclaimed: 'We Muslims have had the Crown and have ruled. Be ready and take your swords.... O Kafirl ... your doom is not far and the general massacre will come!'
DIRECT ACTION DAY
While a lot of propaganda was unleashed by the Muslim League, their boast that they represented all the Muslims was put to one of its most severe tests with the Direct Action Day programme. It was soon apparent that Direct Action would only succeed in the states under Muslim League control, which were mostly the provinces it claimed for its Islamic homeland: in the west, parts of Muslim-dominated West Punjab, and in the east, the Muslim League-ruled Bengal.
Bengal was governed by a Muslim League government headed by Shaheed Suhrawardy. After the Muslim League rejected the Cabinet Mission's plan, Suhrawardy had declared that if the Congress was in power at the Centre, Bengal would raise the standard of rebellion. They would declare independence.
As chief minister Suhrawardy had law and order under him, including the police department. He systematically began transferring Hindu policemen and replacing them with Muslim policemen. By 16 August 1946, Direct Action Day, of the twenty-four police stations in Calcutta, twenty-two had Muslim officers in charge and the other two were in charge of Anglo Indian officers.
The provincial government declared 16 August a public holiday, ignoring the warning and protests from the opposition. Muslims were systematically armed; lathis, spears, hatchets, daggers, swords, clubs, crude bombs and firearms were gathered and distributed in advance. Transport was commandeered and arranged for League volunteers, which was eventually used for transporting anti-social elements. Although there was strict rationing of fuel, large quantities were made available to ministers of the League government and also to the chief minister himself. First aid camps were set up for those who might be wounded while fighting for the cause of Pakistan.
One of the events planned for 'Direct Action Day' was a mass rally of Muslims at the Calcutta Maidan. Muslims were asked to congregate here after marching through various localities. After listening to speeches by their leaders they would disperse. First aid centres were set up on most roads leading to the maidan. Muslim League legislators were active in distributing arms and forming gangs under professional criminals, so the 'Direct Action Day' programme could have maximum impact. Sharif Khan, a Muslim League member of the Legislative Assembly, personally organised gangs of criminals in his locality and armed them. Sharif was a known gangster and was also known to be the henchman of Suhrawardy. Mohammed Usman, the Muslim League mayor of Calcutta and secretary of the Calcutta Muslim League, visited the Muslim localities of Howrah accompanied by Sharif Khan and incited the local Muslim gangsters and Muslim League storm troopers to violence.
From the midnight of 15 August 1946, Calcutta was shrouded in a fog of dread and hatred. Bands of Muslims took over the streets and by-lanes of Calcutta and the night was pierced by maniacal shouts of hatred, 'Allah-o-Akbar' and 'Ladh ke lenge Pakistan', 'We will snatch Pakistan by the power of our swords' were shouted in pockets of non-Muslim minorities living in the midst of Muslim strongh
olds. The one feature that is common till today in planned communal clashes in India was also apparent in Calcutta on Direct Action Day—the total absence of the law and order machinery. Criminals ruled the streets and pleas for help and screams for rescue fell on deaf ears.
Shaheed Suhrawardy established himself in the Central Police Control Room which received law and order reports from all over. He took command of the operations and kept the police in check while directing the actions of the marauders using the law and order machinery. On the evening of the 16th, Inspector Wade caught eight Muslims redhanded with a lorry loaded with looted goods; he arrested them and sent them to the police station. Suhrawardy reached the police station even before the looters and ordered their release on his 'personal responsibility'. Finally a complaint was lodged against him with the governor and the chief minister was 'requested' to stay away from the control room. The inferno that was lit on 16 August 1946 continued in the Great Calcutta Killings of 16,17 and 18 August 1946. By mid-day on the 16th, large processions of Muslim hooligans took to the streets armed to their teeth and started marching towards the Calcutta Maidan for the mass rally planned by the League. A European police officer disarmed one procession, which yielded two lorry loads of weapons. But just as the ragtag police force, which was still not ordered back to the barracks by the chief minister, confiscated the weapons from the mobs, the League ministers would commandeer them and redistribute them to the gangs.
While returning from the rally the inflamed mobs attacked the shops and business establishments owned by Hindus, and burnt cars, buses and trams. Pedestrians were stabbed and within hours of the rally the streets of Calcutta were controlled by the League's storm troopers. Now the second phase of terror was launched. Armed mobs shouting pro-League and pro-Pakistan slogans began attacking, looting and ravaging pockets of Hindu and non-Muslim populations. An unrestrained orgy of violence, murder, rape, arson and looting was let loose while the police passively looked on, or in certain cases, actively assisted the marauders.
After two days of Muslim attacks, the Hindu backlash took over and the results were devastating. The Hindus had also armed themselves and organised their bands of 'defenders'; these were the hotheaded storm troopers of the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha, some local and many others brought in from other states.
When the Hindu mobs took to the streets, they singled out the small pockets of Muslim settlements and attacked them with great savagery. The innocent Muslims, who had for centuries lived in peace with their Hindu and Sikh neighbours, were paying the price for the acts of their fanatic co-religionists elsewhere.
Soon Calcutta resembled a slaughterhouse: the stench of decaying bodies filled its streets, human flesh roasted in burning homes, and puddles of blood stained the roads. Bodies of stripped and raped women and young girls were strewn all around. Dead bodies of children and severed body parts were stuffed down manholes, resulting in the choking up of sewage pipes; wastewater began to overflow onto the streets adding to the gruesome mess.
The most common and effective method of attack, adopted by murderers from both communities, was to encircle isolated individual homes or small pockets of people and seal off all escape routes. Then would begin the systematic looting, slaughter and abductions. The men would be targetted first, slaughtered in front of their families. The mobs would then take articles of use, and set the homes on fire.
Press reports of that period throw light on the horror of Direct Action Day and its aftermath. Kim Christen of the Statesman reported: 'I have a stomach made strong by the experience of a war hospital, but war was never like this'. An editorial in the same paper mentioned: 'This is not a riot.... It needs a word found in medieval history, a fury. Yet a "fury" sounds spontaneous and there must have been some deliberation and organisation to set this fury on the way. Hordes who ran about battering and killing with eight foot lathis, may have found them lying about or brought them out of their own pockets, but that is hard to believe. We have already commented on the bands who found it easy to get petrol and vehicles when no others were permitted on the streets. It is not mere supposition that men were imported into Calcutta to help in making an impression'.
In the same issue, in an article titled 'Disgrace Abounding', the paper commented: 'The origin of the appalling carnage and loss in the capital of a great province—we believe the worst communal riot in India's history—was a political demonstration by the Muslim League.... In retrospect its conduct before the riot stands open to the inference—not only by political opponents—that it was divided in mind on whether rioting of some sort would be good or bad.... The bloody shambles to which this country's largest city has been reduced is an abounding disgrace, which, owning to the Bengal Ministry's preeminence as a League Ministry, has inevitably tarnished seriously the all-India reputation of the League itself.'
The Great Calcutta Killing, as it came to be known, consumed the lives of more than five thousand people; more than fifteen thousand were reportedly injured and hundreds of thousands became homeless.
The Muslim League had launched Direct Action Day hoping to suppress the Congress and the British administration, and in this they succeeded. They had not expected the severe Hindu backlash, but were able to use this to their advantage. Commenting on the carnage in Calcutta, an unconcerned Jinnah called it a Hindu conspiracy to discredit the Muslim League and the League government of Bengal. He said this violence had demonstrated how dangerous it was for Muslims in India and how essential it was for them to get their own country. He held the Congress, the Cabinet Mission and Gandhi responsible for the tragedy of Calcutta.
Gandhi heard about the Calcutta carnage when he was at Sevagram Ashram. Speaking at the evening prayer on 24 August he asked the Ashramites to think what their duties were in the face of the conflagration which had overtaken the country. 'Let us be humble and confess that we have not got the strength today to meet all the expectations that the people entertain of us,' he said. If they had realised fully the principles for which the ashram stood, they should have rushed into the blaze and offered the purest sacrifice which might have 'conceivably quenched the flames'. A pure sacrifice did not mean 'the thoughtless annihilation of the moth in the flame. Sacrifice to be effective must be ... willing and ... made in faith and hope, without a trace of ill will or hatred in the heart.... There is nothing that such sacrifice cannot achieve.'
In the Calcutta carnage he read the challenges that freedom would bring to the people of India. 'We are not yet in the midst of civil war. But we are nearing it', he wrote in a series of editorials in the Harijan. 'At present we are playing at it.... If the British are wise, they will keep clear of it. Appearances are to the contrary'. The hour had come for the people to make their final choice between Pax Britannica and freedom. He predicted that the British authorities, having decided to quit, would show greater weakness. 'The parties will find that it is ... a broken reed'. If the fratricidal strife extended to the whole of India and it was the British gunpowder that kept the two from stabbing one another, he warned, the inevitable result would be that: 'The British Power or its substitute will be in possession of India for a long time to come. The length will be measured by the period required by the parties coming to sanity. It will come either after an exhausting mutual fight, independent of the foreign element or by one party eschewing violence in spite of the heaviest odds. Let Hindus and Muslims ... realise that if India is to be an independent nation, one or both must deliberately cease to look to British authority for protection.... My advice is Satyagraha first and Satyagraha last....'
After the rejection of the Cabinet Mission's plan by the Muslim League and their call of Direct Action Day, the British Cabinet instructed the viceroy to invite the Congress to form a national interim government which would replace the Viceroy's Council. Nehru, recently appointed president of the Congress, was invited to take charge as vice-president and to form a government of his nominees to be sworn in on 2 September. Jinnah declared that the Muslim League would boycott
the interim government and would observe the 2nd as a day of protest, staging a black flag demonstration outside the Delhi Secretariat. This was a green signal to Muslim Leaguers to again go on a rampage. This time they targeted those whom Jinnah called traitors and hated virulently—nationalist Muslim leaders who supported the Congress. Sir Shafat Ahmed Khan, a nationalist Muslim who had accepted Nehru's invitation to join the interim government, was stabbed by Muslim League fanatics and left for dead by the roadside in Simla. Shafi Ahmed Kidwai, brother of Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, a nationalist Muslim minister in the U.R provincial government, was murdered in Mussoorie.
Calcutta continued to smoulder and there was violence throughout August, September and October. The Muslim League was happy with the unfolding events. When the plight of Hindu victims was highlighted, they called it a conspiracy to malign the League, and when the Hindus hit back they would use it to buttress their demand for Pakistan. Meanwhile, the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha used the attacks on Hindus to consolidate their hold on the Hindu community. They claimed to be their protectors and recruited new cadres. They instigated them to slaughter innocent Muslims and intimidate the survivors.
Lets Kill Gandhi Page 29