Pakistan Travelogue II

And since you so love to quote Stanley Wolpert, here is what the man himself has to say about the Direct Action Day violence in Calcutta.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wolpert-gandhi.html

``MAHATMA GANDHI fell into ``darkest despair`` on the eve of India`s independence in August 1947. Savage fighting spread from Punjab and the North-West Frontier to Eastern Bengal and Bihar. Brutal violence unleashed a year earlier by Muslim thugs in Calcutta had triggered Hindu counterattacks and the murder of more Muslims in Bihar.``

This should be sufficient to put all your lies and spin as to who started the violence to rest. Or will you now call Stanley Wolpert a liar?

#665 by Mantolives

[Since it is now conclusively proved that Congress Party was behind the Calcutta disturbances....]

Conclusively proved?? Sure. This joke just made my day.

#665 by Mantolives

[What did Gandhi do to stop these disturbances Don`t give me nonsense him going to Calcutta in August 1947... we are talking about August 1946....]

FYI, Gandhi did *not* issue the call for Direct Action Day, Jinnah did. So it was incumbent upon Jinnah to make sure that it was *not* violent, and if it did turn violent as it did, call upon Muslims to restrain from indulging in violence. Did Jinnah do it? After nearly 40 interacts from you without answering this question, I believe he did not.

[What did Gandhi DO to stop Major Leaders like Patel from gloating over MORE MUSLIMS dying in CALCUTTA than Hindus?]

Whether Gandhi stopped Patel from gloating or not is something we will never know, but since when has gloating caused deaths?

Re: # 666

your movie will be a flop like everything else you`ve done in your life...

Yasser/665, I don`t what Gandhi-Jinnah have to do with anything recently, but I do know that the effect of these dunkin donuts is strang. Almost one - quarter of all the interacts in this article are from you, shade over 150 of them.

Now wait for the movie on cricket visa trips to Pakistan by Indians to answer many more questions, OK? For example, what did YOU do to see that the residents of Gobind Ram street No. 65 were not swindled by your 5-generation vale ancestors?

Come on, dunkin!!

Since it is now conclusively proved that Congress Party was behind the Calcutta disturbances....

Please inform me:

What did Gandhi do to stop these disturbances Don`t give me nonsense him going to Calcutta in August 1947... we are talking about August 1946....

What did Gandhi DO to stop Major Leaders like Patel from gloating over MORE MUSLIMS dying in CALCUTTA than Hindus?

Re: # 660

So? If I don`t have the exact statement ... it doesn`t prove anything.

It doesn`t prove that Congress didn`t sabotage the League direct action day.... doesn`t explain why more Muslims died in the violence... doesn`t prove why confidential letters between Wavell and Pethick Lawrence were clear that Muslim League couldn`t be blamed?

It is amazing how facts are distorted about Calcutta violence... which was in any event a Congress plan...

Re: # 661

I am TALKING about Calcutta...

All unbiased sources... and infact Patel`s letter as well, states VERY CLEARLY ... More Muslims died in the violence...

The truth of the matter is that the Muslim League`s Direct Action Day was sabotaged by the Congress and Patel admitted it.

Re: # 661

I am TALKING about Calcutta...

All unbiased sources... and infact Patel`s letter as well, states VERY CLEARLY ... More Muslims died in the violence...

The truth of the matter is that the Muslim League`s Direct Action Day was sabotaged by the Congress and Patel admitted it.

#659 by Mantolives

Still no statement from Jinnah?#658 by Mantolives

[Now you are just acting like a liar... and you`ve changed the question again.]

Nope its just that you suffer from comprehension problems.

[Appreciably more Muslims died in the violence than the Hindus.]

Since we were talking about Calcutta, I thought you`d understand. But I`m mistaken again.

[Man are you desperate to prove you are right... when you are clearly wrong.]

Still evading my question?

#659 by Mantolives

Still no statement from Jinnah?

Re: # 657

Quoting Sardar Patel`s letter was evidence enough that Congress perpetrated violence on Direct Action Day....

Re: # 657

Now you are just acting like a liar... and you`ve changed the question again. .

Appreciably more Muslims died in the violence than the Hindus.

This is proved not only from Wavell`s letter to Pethick Lawrence (Transfer of Power Papers Page 879 Volume 9) ... but from Sardar Patel`s letter that gloats of More Muslims dying than Hindus...

Man are you desperate to prove you are right... when you are clearly wrong.

So now there you`ve proved once again my point.

#653 by Mantolives

[Jinnah condemned Violence in Calcutta the very next day in a press statement issued from the League high command.]

I`m sure an intelligent man like you would have understood the question I have been asking for quite some time now. But you have been writing post after post without providing the evidence I asked for. Where is Jinnah`s statement? Is it deliberate oversight? Or don`t you have the answer?

[What you forget it is that CONGRESS was carrying out violence in Calcutta... not the Muslim League which was on the receiving end.]

The Muslim League was at the receiving end? So please let us know why more Hindus than Muslims died in the violence?

[Had you taken this to court you would have been laughed out, because all statements as well as an incriminating evidence points to the Congress Party.]

Of course, quoting Sardar Patel in order to prove Jinnah`s intentions as you have done, would have certainly been admitted into the court as evidence. Can`t get funnier than this.

Ayesha Jalal`s view:

16th August was the day League had nominated for `direct action`. Forty Eight hours earlier Jinnah had urged Muslims to remain calm; direct action day should be a day of peaceful reflection not a day for purpose of resorting to direct action in any form or shape....

It is not just that the politics of violence were anathema to him, alien to his political style and never to become part of it, but the more powerful argument is that Jinnah did not expect and certainly did not want anything like this to happen. A constitutional politician ... Jinnah wanted to save not only the political unity of India but also the reality of the order upon which constitutional arrangements everywhere necessarily depend. Desperately searching for a face saving device to excuse his backsliding on compulsory grouping, Jinnah had his own priorities savaged tooth and claw by an unthinking mob. Ironically and unfairly the horrors that lie so close to the surface of India have been laid at the door of this man of orderly constitutional advance, blamed upon his `Pakistan` and upon irreconcilable differences between Muslims and Hindus that his own career constantly tried to bridge.

Page 216

Direct Action Day

Now Hindus objected to the proclamation of a holiday and made extensive, secret preparations to attack Muslims. Neither the Intelligence Branch concerned with the activities of terrorists and revolutionaries, nor the Criminal Investigation Department, both of which were manned almost wholly by Hindus. gave the Prime Minister any information regarding these preparations and he was caught unawares.113 On 16 August at the Ochterlony Monument Maidan, whilst he was addressing a crowd, gathered from all parts of Calcutta and the suburbs, he received news that processions were being obstructed and attacked by the Hindus and anti-Muslim riots were taking place in many areas. It was the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (fasting). Suhrawardy ordered the Muslims to disperse and go back to their homes. The crowd was very large, many with children in their laps, having come from all over the city, from the neighbouring areas of Howrah and the 24-Parganas, and from the Jute and Cotton Mill areas. As the crowd was returning home they were set upon by the Hindus, provoking an anti-Muslim riot on a scale far greater than the one in 1926.

The Commissioner of Police, a Britisher, did not know Calcutta and its problems and was unable to deal with the situation with only a small police force. The Riot Commission, which was set up by the British government as a result of the riot, reports that immediately after the riot began the Prime Minister rushed to Lalbazar Police Headquarters to attain first hand information and, being apprised of the grave situation, demanded deployment of the army on the very first day of the riot.114 But Governor Burrows rejected the demand, primarily to divert the strong anti-British sentiments, generated during the Rashid Ali Day, observed in Calcutta in June 1945 and which he hoped would worsen Hindu-Muslim relations.115 Captain Ali was a member of the Indian National Army, which had been created by Subash Chandra Bose to fight the British during the Second World War. He was caught, tried and sentenced to a seven-year jail term. Captain Ali had sought Muslim League support during his trial and Suhrawardy, defying a government ban, headed a large protest procession, along with other top League and Congress leaders.116

The Governor also turned down Suhrawardy`s suggestion to put pickets between Hindu and Muslim localities, creating a bulwark which would help to separate the two communities (a suggestion adopted much later, when the damage had already been done and a number of Muslim localities had been destroyed and thousands of Muslims massacred). Instead, Burrows heeded the advice of the Commissioner of Police that the civil power was capable of dealing with the situation and that there was no need to deploy the army. It was only when Suhrawardy threatened to resign that the Governor reluctantly pretended to agree and three or four days later merely ordered the army to stand by. Suhrawardy, accompanying the Governor and the army commander on a tour of inspection on 18 August, showed them an area of Calcutta, Suvabazaar , which was strewn with the bodies of dead Muslims. This was predominantly a Hindu area, with some Muslim houses and shops. The army had had no knowledge that this was a riot area and the Commissioner of Police, himself, had had no information that there had been riots there. It was a ``big discovery`` of ``wholesale slaughter`` of Muslims and the Governor and the General were deeply shocked.117


http://globalwebpost.com/farooqm/study_res/suhrawardy/direct_action.html