WE SHOULD BE MOURNING THIS DAY

WE SHOULD BE MOURNING THIS DAY

Today, is Friday, the 16th of August, 2024. On another such Friday, a fateful one 78 years ago, a genocide of Hindus had taken place on the streets of Kolkata, a genocide orchestrated by the All India Muslim League. This day, thus, ought to be a day of mourning for all Hindus as on this day thousands of Hindus were killed by Muslims at the behest of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy in their bid to force the partition of India. Next day, Gopal Mukherjee, popularly known as Gopal Panthha, led the Hindu retaliation, forcing the Muslims on the backfoot, so much so that Gandhiji's intervention at last could stop Gopal Panthha from teaching the Muslim goons the due lesson in adequate terms. As it stood the Muslim League now took the carnage to East Pakistan and Noakhali of historical infamy happened. The carnage spread throughout East Pakistan and lasted for close to three months with Hindus being murdered by the thousands, force-converted and Hindu girls and women raped with an inept Congress unable to stop the genocide and the British Government proving equally inefficient. That day, 16 August, 1946, is in the not-so-distant a past that it should be forgotten by the people of West Bengal. But it has been. Today there is no memorial to the murdered, the molested, the mutilated and the force-converted that stands in Kolkata. Shame on Bengal that has forgotten its brutalised ancestors and takes pleasure in puerile pastimes!

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo: Left--Muhammad Ali Jinnah; right--Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy.