Exodus of Bengali Hindus - 1950

There was a huge exodus of Hindus from East Bengal to different parts of the Indian Union including West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. There was a major influx of Bengali Hindu refugees in West Bengal after the Kalshira massacre. 

.

Thousands of Hindu refugees were stranded at railway stations, steamer stations and at the Dhaka airport. Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy took the responsibility of bringing the refugees to India. He arranged 16 chartered planes to airlift the stranded evacuees from Dhaka airport. He further arranged 15 big passenger steamers to rescue the stranded refugees from Faridpur and Barisal. 

.

No. of Hindu students in schools of Dhaka
School	Type	Jan-50	Dec-50
Priyanath High School	Boys	187	9
Pogose School	Boys	580	50
K. L. Jubilee School	Boys	719	52
Gandaria High School	Boys	245	10
East Bengal High School	Boys	204	16
Nabakumar Institution	Boys	51	5
Nari Shiksha Mandir	Girls	275	8
Banglabazar Girls High School	Girls	606	2
Anandamayee Girls High School	Girls	75	5
Gandaria Girls High School	Girls	227	10

.

In March 1950, an estimated 75,000 Bengali Hindu refugees from East Bengal were admitted in the refugee camps of West Bengal. Around 200,000 refugees arrived in Tripura in March, 1950.  An estimated 110,000 refugees arrived in Karimganj district in Assam from Sylhet district till 2 April 1950. 

.

On 11 April 1950, 2,500 Hindu refugees arrived at Shalimar in Howrah from Barisal in four chartered steamers. 20,000 refugees were still awaiting evacuation in Barisal. Till 12 April 1950, 120,000 refugees arrived in West Dinajpur district of West Bengal. Thus more than 500,000 refugees had arrived in West Bengal since the exodus began in January 1950. 

.

The total figure of refugees ran into millions. On 4 April 1950, Bidhan Chandra Roy stated that 2 million refugees from East Bengal had already taken shelter in India.  According to Rabindranath Trivedi, a total of 3.5 million Hindu refugees arrived in India in 1950.  

.

According to researcher A. Roy, 500,000 Hindus were killed in the pogroms, which resulted in the exodus of 4.5 million Hindus into India. About a million Hindu refugees from Sindh arrived in India.

.
Source : Wikipedia

Shyama Prasad Mukherjee talking to Bengali Hindu refugees at a refugee camp in Dhubulia, West Bengal

Hindu Genocide in Noakhali (Banned At Publication)

ORIGINAL  "Noakhalir Dhongsokando" IN  BENGALI  BY   CHAPALAKANTA BHATTACHARYYA, Editor - Ananda Bazar Patrika 
.

LINK:  http://www.eastbengal.org/noakhali5.pdf

The Lonely Pilgrim (Gandhi's Noakhali Pligrimage)

ORIGINAL  IN  GUJARATI  BY MANUBAHEN GANDHI
.
LINK:  http://www.eastbengal.org/noakhali4.pdf

The Pilgrim Of Noakhali - Souvenir Album of MK Gandhi's Peace Mission to Noakhali

PHOTOGRAPHS AND STORY BY BRAJA KISHORE SINHA
.
LINK:  http://www.eastbengal.org/noakhali3.pdf



Noakhali Disturbances : A Short Description
.
In accordance with the recommendations of the British Cabinet mission to India, an
Interim Government was formed and a Constituent Assembly was elected as preliminary
steps towards complete independence of the country. Muslim League did not approve this
scheme and declared August 16th 1946 as “Direct Action Day” to record their protest against
it
..
At that time the administration of Bengal was in charge of Muslim League Cabinet.
League leaders publicly declared that the program of “Direct Action Day” would be strictly
confined to protest meetings, peaceful demonstrations and processions. But followers of
Muslim League in connivance with the League Government in power started a terrible communal
riot in the name of “peaceful direct action.” During the five days between 16th and
20th August at least five thousand persons lost their fives in the riots and ten thousand more
were wounded. Properties worth several crores of rupees were either looted or burnt to
ashes.
.
Even these terrible events paled into insignificance compared to the horrors enacted in
Noakhali within a couple of months. In Calcutta, Muslims murdered Hindus and Hindus
killed Muslims in their turn, that is, it was a full fledged communal riot, Noakhali disturbances,
however, were of a totally different character. There the predominant
majority community made cowardly attacks and inflicted horrible tortures on the handful
of Hindus hving among them.
.
On 10th October 1946 disturbances broke out in Noakhah consuming in its inhuman
horrors about four hundred villages extending over an area of two hundred square miles.
Thousands of Muslims suddenly attacked the handful of Hindu neighbors. Innocent and
unsuspecting Hindus, men, women, and children were subjected to the worst horrors ever
engineered by man. Murder, loot, arson, rape, abduction and forcible conversion to Islam
went on unchecked and unabated for a week.
.
These disturbances were planned, organized and executed with remarkable ' efficiency
and thoroughness for political ends. Bridges were demolished, roads blocked and telegraph
lines severed systematically to cut off the whole area from the rest of the world. The operations
were directed with such skill that for five days the area remained completely isolated
and no news of the grave situation could reach the outside world.
.
For some time before the disturbances broke out, a prominent Muslim leader and a former
Member of the Legislative Assembly organised big Muslim gatherings and incited them
against the Hindus. This Mushm Leaguer was mainly responsible for the Noakhah disturbances.
Other Muslim League leaders actively participated in the disturbances by helping
and inciting the Muslims in every possible way. L^ish use by Mushm raiders of petrol, a
government controlled commodity, definitely proved that even high Government officials were involvedin the organized disturbances.
.
Shri Kamini Kumar Datta and Shri Dhirendra Nath Datta, leader and deputy leader
respectively of the Congress blocs in Bengal Legislative Council and Bengal Legislative
Assembly, sent jointly a wire to the President, Bengal Provincial Congress Committee, informing
him of the grave situation in Noakhali. It was published in the newspapers on
15th October through Bengal Press Advisory Committee.
.
It stated that, thousands of Muslims had made planned attacks on the villages under
the jurisdiction of Ramgunge Police Station. They had indulged in arson, loot and murder
of innocent Hindu villagers. They had forcibly compelled the Hindus to slaughter cows
and eat beef. Hundreds of women had been abducted and forcibly married to Muslim hooligans.
All the Hindu temples had been defiled. The District Magistrate and the Police
Superintendent had done nothing for the protection of lives and properties of innocent villagers.
The Calcutta riots paled into insignificance before the loot, murder, rape, arson and
forcible conversions perpetrated in some of these villages.
.
Armed hooligans' were guarding the entrances to all the roads giving access to the disturbed
area of two hundred square miles. No one had been allowed to enter or
area. Disturbances had started on 10th October and continued with unabated
hooligans had been destroying bridges and roads to prevent communication with outside
world.
.
..................Continued with album----- 
LINK:  http://www.eastbengal.org/noakhali3.pdf


.
LINK:  http://www.eastbengal.org/noakhali3.pdf

BOOK - 1946 The Great Calcutta Killings & Noakhali Genocide - A Historical Study

1946 : Direct Action DaY on Calcutta & Noakhali -  
by Dinesh Chandra Sinha, Ashok Dasgupta

LINK : http://www.eastbengal.org/noakhali2.pdf




Awe inspiring research that led to this documentation of genocide of hapless Hindus in 1946 by erudite Dr Dinesh Chandra Singha, ex-Registrar of National Library, Calcutta.

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

Perpetrator: Muslim League Council

Year: 16 August, 1946

Number: 4000 Hindus killed, more than 100,000 forced to flee

Muslim league fought the election with a single point agenda – creation of Pakistan. On the outside, their campaign was against the British, but in reality, it was against Hindus.

Jinnah announced 16 August 1946 would be “Direct Action Day” and warned Congress,

“We do not want war. If you want war we accept your offer unhesitatingly. We will either have a divided India divided or a destroyed India.”

Jinnah

The proposal of Jinnah & the Mission was initially rejected by Indian National Congress, which refused to “grouping of provinces,” thus inciting Jinnah to come up with the plan of Direct Action Day. The “groups of provinces” were meant to accommodate the Muslim League demand. 

More than 4,000 people lost their lives and 100,000 residents were left homeless in Calcutta within 72 hours.

Accounts of this pogrom are heart wrenching.

“It would be impossible to describe everything that we saw. A sense of desolation hung over the native bazaars. In street after street rows of shops had been stripped to the walls. Tenements and business buildings were burnt out, and their unconsumed innards strewn over the pavements. Smashed furniture cluttered the roads, along with concrete blocks, brick, glass, iron rods, machine tools ñ anything that the mob had been able to tear loose but did not want to carry off. Fountains gushed from broken water remains. Burnt-out automobiles stood across traffic lanes. A pall of smoke hung over many blocks, and buzzards sailed in great, leisurely circles. Most overwhelming, however, were the neglected human casualties: fresh bodies, bodies grotesquely bloated in the tropical heat, slashed bodies, bodies bludgeoned to death, bodies piled on push carts, bodies caught in drains, bodies stacked high in vacant lots, bodies, bodies.”

Phillip Talbot in his letter to Walter Rogers of the Institute of Current World Affairs, The British Library Archives, London.

In terms of estimate of the number of casualties, he describes,

“In human terms, estimated casualties ran from the Provincial Government’s absurdly reductive report of 750 dead to military guesses that 7,000 to 10,000 people might have been killed. Already more than 3,500 bodies have been collected and counted, and no one will ever know how many persons were swept down the Hoogly, caught in the clogged sewers, burned up in the 1,200 fires, or taken away by relatives who disposed of their bodies privately. A reasonable guess, I think, is that more than 4,000 people died and 11,000 people were injured in what is already being called ‘The Great Calcutta Killing’ or ‘The Week of the Long Knives'”

Phillip Talbot in his letter to Walter Rogers of the Institute of Current World Affairs, The British Library Archives, London.

Another account of an eye witness corroborates the cruelty with which the killings were carried out:

“I saw four trucks standing, all with dead bodies piled at least three feet high; like molasses in a sack, they were stacked on the trucks, blood and brain oozing out; that sight had a tremendous effect on me”

Jugal Chandra Ghosh, local eye witness of 1946 Great Calcutta Killing

This is the barbaric cruelty with which Hindus were massacred, and their dead bodies dumped in drains and rivers. And this is why this bit of the history was deliberately hidden from the eyes of common people.