Mr. H. S. Sahrawardy, Premier of Bengal, said:

“Muslim India means business.”

How grimly it ‘meant business’ was shown by the Calcutta killing, and was later on shown by Noakhali, N.-W. F. P. and the Punjab.

Mr. Jinnah in a statement issued from Bombay on September 11, 1946 offered to the Hindus the choice between creating Pakistan and forcing a Civil War in the country.

Replying to a question seeking suggestions for the restoration of peace in India, he said:”

“In view of the horrible slaughter in various parts of India, I am of the opinion that the authorities, both Central and Provincial, should take up immediately the question of exchange of population to avoid brutal recurrence of that which had taken place where small minorities have been butchered by the overwhelming majorities.”

Thus, scouting any suggestion that there could be peace and amity in the country, he advocated exchange of population-the uprooting of millions-and as it later turned out to be, of over twelve millions, and the butchering of about a million.  This was the direction in which the Muslim League was inevitably leading the country.

What shocked the conscience of India even more than Calcutta, was the large-scale murder, loot, arson, rape, abduction and forced marriage of Hindu women in the Noakhali District of Eastern Bengal.  This time the trouble came about in the October of 1946.  It appears the League enthusiasts were on the look-out for an area of operation where they could be sure of very little resistance and where they could demonstrate to the Hindus in action as to what was in store for them in case they did not accept the Muslim League demand of Pakistan.  In Calcutta the Hindus-although on the first two days they were completely surprised, and reeled under the sudden blow, and lost more than a thousand in killed-yet on the subsequent days they rallied and gave the Muslims as good as they got.  The Muslim League perhaps realized the folly of having tried out Calcutta.  A better spot should be selected, and this time it was Noakhali and the adjoining area of Eastern Bengal.

The district of Noakhali is almost at the extreme end of Eastern Bengal, surrounded by heavy Muslim majority areas.  This district itself has perhaps the lowest percentage of non-Muslim population-the Muslim percentage being as high as 81.35. So, while it was particularly dastardly of the Muslims of this area to have chosen to fall upon the Hindus of this area, it was, from the point of their own scheme, a fit choice; for its very sparse Hindu population could offer little resistance to their onslaught.  Attacks on a scale as large as Noakhali also occurred in the district of Tipperah, neighbouring on Noakhali, and with a Muslim population of 77.09%.

As the trouble broke out, for some time the country did not know about it.  Noakhali is a far-away part of Bengal, and the Muslim League Ministry of Bengal did not allow the news of the carnage to trickle though as long as they could help it.  So, the assailants had it all their own way for several days, unchecked.

The horror and the underlying conspiracy of this occurrence can best be described in the words of Shri S. L. Ghosh of the A. B. Patrika, quoted above.  Says Shri S. L. Ghosh:

“The four days’ delay in receiving the news indicates at once the magnitude of preparations of the lawless elements as well as the criminal inefficiency of the administration machinery.² It took ten days, fraught with horror, disgrace and torture for nearly two lakhs of Hindus for the Army to reach the neighbourhood of disaster, another ten days for them to move into the inner fringe of the disturbed area, and over a month to comb the interior of the devastated countryside.

“The horror of the Noakhali outrage is unique in modern history in that it was not a simple case of turbulent members of the majority community killing off helpless members of the minority community, but was one whose chief aim (to quote Dr. Syama Prosad Mookerjee) was mass conversion, accompanied by loot, arson and wholesale devastation……… No section of the people has been spared, the wealthier classes being dealt with more drastically.  Murder also was part of the plan, but it was mainly reserved for those who were highly influential or who resisted.  Abduction and outrage on women and forcible marriages were also resorted to; but their number cannot be easily determined.  The slogans used and the methods employed indicate that it was all part of a plan for the simultaneous establishment of Pakistan.  The demand for subscriptions for the Muslim League and for other purposes, including conversion ceremonies, showed that mass attackers, and their leaders were inspired by the League ideology.

“Apparently, the strategy of terrorisation adopted in Calcutta had failed to achieve the objective of recognition of Pakistan.  The zealots of Pakistan in Noakhali and the southern portion of Tepperah, therefore, sought to make that muslim-majority area exclusive to a certain community, and thus convert it into the fortress of Eastern Pakistan, by forcible mass conversion of the other community…… (The League) leaders tried to minimize the enormity of the crimes…… they tended to confirm the impression that they were in close sympathy with the attackers and their nefarious policy and that this was the second phase of the direct action plan of the Muslim League to achieve Pakistan.

“It is false to suggest that the perpetrators were a gang of hooligans or that they mostly consisted of outsiders.  The local people were the perpetrators in many cases and there was a general mass sympathy for what happened.

“The total number of evacuees, those, that is, who could leave the area of the disturbance alive, will be somewhere between 50 to 75 thousands including men, women and children of all conditions and castes.

“Over and above these persons, there will be another 50,000 or even more who are still living within the danger zone in what may be called the no man’s land.  Theirs is the most tragic fate.  They have all been subjected to conversion and are still³ under the clutches of their oppressors.  Most of them have lost everything, and they suffer from both physical and mental collapse.  Their humiliation and torture know - no limitations.  Their names have been changed; their womenfolk insulted; their properties looted; they are being compelled to dress, to eat and to live like their so-called new brothers in faith.  The male members have to attend the mosques, Maulvies come and train them at home; they are at the mercy of their captors for their daily food and indeed for their very existence. . . .”

These occurrences shocked Mahatma Gandhi, and indeed the whole of India, very deeply.  The Mahatma asked Acharya Kripalani; President of the Congress, to go to Noakhali and to see what could be done to bring relief to suffering humanity there, and to try to restore good relations between the communities there.  Not long after, the Mahatma himself went there, and made his famous village to village, nay house to house trek, trying to restore good-will.  How little the Muslim League fanatics cared for the Mahatma’s noble teaching was made abundantly clear by what happened hardly within a month of the Mahatma’s pilgrimage to Noakhali, in the North-Western Frontier Province, and another two months after that in the Punjab.

Acharya Kripalani’s account of what he observed in Noakhali substantiates the statement of Dr. Mookerjee reproduced above.  Said the Acharya:

“Next morning (October 22, 1946) we visited the interior of one of the affected areas.  The place was Charhaim.  Charhaim village and the surrounding areas are occupied by Namasudras (scheduled castes) numbering about 20,000.  It was completely destroyed.  Most of the houses were burnt.  People were living in sheds, built from the ruins of their houses.  All their property had been looted.  Cash, ornaments, utensils and clothes, and cattle also, had been taken away by the raiders.  All the males and females had only the clothes they were wearing.  They had no food to eat.  Their condition was pitiable in the extreme.  There had been cases of murder, but it was not possible during the short time at our disposal to ascertain the number of the killed.  Cases of abduction were reported to us.  Even after looting and arson the villagers were obliged to embrace Islam; They had to perform ‘Namaz’ and recite the ‘Kalma’……… All the images of the houses were broken and temples looted and destroyed.  The conch-shell bangles of women and vermillion marks, signs of their married life, were removed.”

This was a fairly representative area.  Acharya Kripalani arrived at certain conclusions regarding the Noakhali trouble, which are as follows:-

1. The attack on the Hindu population in the districts of Noakhali and Tipperah was previously arranged and prepared for. It was deliberate, if not directly engineered by Muslim League.  It was the result of Muslim League propaganda.  The local evidence all went to prove that prominent League leaders in the villages had a large hand in it.

2. The authorities had warnings about what was coming.  The warnings were conveyed to them orally and then in writing by prominent Hindus in the areas concerned.

3. The Muslim officials connived at the preparations going on. A few encouraged.  There was a general belief among the Mussalmans that the Government would take no action if anything was done against the Hindus.

4. The modus operandi was for the Muslims to collect in batches of hundreds and sometimes thousands and to march to Hindu villages or Hindu houses in villages of mixed population.  They first demanded subscriptions for the Muslim League and sometimes for the Muslim victims of the Calcutta riots.  These enforced subscriptions were heavy, sometimes amounting to Rs. 10,000 and more.  Even after the subscriptions were realized, the Hindu population was not safe.  The same or successive crowd appeared on the scene later and looted the Hindu houses.  The looted houses in most cases were burnt……… Sometimes before a house was looted the inmates were asked to embrace Islam.  However, even conversion did not give immunity against loot and arson.

The slogans raised by the attacking Muslim crowds were those of the Muslim League, such as ‘League Zindabad’ ‘Pakistan Zindabad’; ‘Larke Lenge Pakistan’, ‘Marke Lenge Pakistan’.

5. All those who resisted were butchered.  Sometimes they were shot, for the rioters had a few shot-guns with them.

Sometimes people were killed even when there was no resistance offered or expected I have on record cases where 50 to 60 members of one family were brutally murdered.  Some families lost all their male members.

6. (Is about the description and habitat of those who indulged in these crimes.)

7. Even after looting, arson and murder the Hindus in the locality were not safe unless they embraced Islam.  The Hindu population therefore to save themselves had to embrace Islam en masse……… All the images of gods in Hindu houses were destroyed and all the Hindu temples of the affected area were looted and burnt.

8. There have been cases of forcible marriages There have been cases of abduction.

9. “For obvious reasons it was not possible for me to ascertain the cases of rape.  But women complained to Mrs. Kirpalani of having been roughly handled, their conch-shell bangles, the symbol of their married life, having been broken and vermillion marks removed.  At one place they were thrown on the ground by the miscreants who removed their vermillion marks with the toes of their feet.”

10 to 13 are about post-riot conditions.

14. The police did not function during the riots.  They are doing merely patrol duty now.  They say that they had and have no orders to fire except in self-defence.  The question of definding themselves never arose, because they did not interfere with the rioters.

“The areas visited had already been devastated and all that I could see were burnt houses and helpless Hindu villagers whether converted or not.”

Scouting any suggestion that the trouble may be economic the Acharya added, “Not a single rich Muslim house had been looted.  To me it appeared to be absolutely communal and absolutely one-sided.”

The Congress Working Committee meeting came soon after at Delhi, and its resolution on East Bengal contained the following observations:

“Reports published in the press and statements of public workers depict a scene of bestiality and medieval barbarity that must fill every decent human being with shame, disgust and anger.

“The Committee hold that this outburst of brutality is the direct result of the politics of hate and civil strife that the Muslim League has practised for years past and of the threats of violence that were daily held out in past months.”

This extensive account has been given of Noakhali for this reason, that coming soon after the Direct Action and Calcutta, this was the first large-scale beginning of that wholesale elimination of entire communities, that ‘genocide’ which from now on became the settled programme and policy of the Muslim League, not expressed or admitted officially, but nevertheless pursued and countenanced by it with vigour and with great satisfaction.  It was clear after Noakhali as to what India was to expect in the coming months-mass attacks on minorities in Muslim-majority areas, co-operation of Muslim police and the officials with the assailants, indifference of the British bureaucrats, and the hypocritical fathering of the League leaders of the responsibility for these occurrences on the minorities themselves.  In the case of Calcutta the League leaders blamed it all on the Hindus-in the case of Noakhali and Tipperah, the figures of casualties and damage were understated to ridiculous figures, or just not noticed.  Had there been any regret expressed by the League on these happenings, had they sat up and realized the horror of what had  happened and had their conscience pricked them, perhaps the recurrence of large-scale destruction like Noakhali would not have been possible.  But the Leaguers viewed these happenings with glee.  The programme was working according to plan.

Exactly the same pattern as in Noakhali and Tipperah was repeated during the next five months in other parts of India.  These features were common to all these occurrences.

1. Places of occurrence were all heavy Muslim-majority areas-the minority attacked were Hindu or Hindu-Sikh.  Successively they are: Noakhali and Tipperah (October, 1946) Hazara (December, 1946 and January, 1947); Rawalpindi (March, 1947 For several weeks); Jhelum, Attock, Campbellpur, Dera Ismail Khan, Hazara, Multan, Gujrat, Gujranwala, Sargodha (all as before-mentioned).  Lahore and Amritsar towns had an overwhelming Muslim majority in their populations though in the latter district as a whole the non-Muslims outnumbered the Muslims by a small percentage.  In both towns from March, 1947 onwards terrible outrages were perpetrated by Muslims on Hindus and Sikhs, the decisive result in either case being obtained only on the partition of the Punjab.

2. Preparations were made by the Muslim League for attack on the minorities in every case a good time before the actual occurrence.  Arms had been collected and distributed.  Sufficiently large quantities of petrol and other inflammable substances had been hoarded for incendiarism.  Training in swift methods of arson, stabbing, disposal of looted property and the killed had been imparted in the centres of the Muslim National Guards.  Muslim police and officials had joined in hatching the plans with the Muslim League leaders and Muslim National Guard workers.  The Muslim masses had been aroused to a pitch of anti-Hindu-Sikh fury by violent League propaganda. 

3. The attacks were simultaneous, widespread and in places so open and so sure of non-interference by the authorities that the assailants collected and marched with drums beating, shouting Muslim League slogans, and even making military formations.  There was nothing secret about these attacks, as the police were already on the side of the attackers.

4. Large-scale arson, murder of males, abduction, rape and dishonour of women, brutalities to children, looting, forcible conversions etc. all these features were common to the localities affected.  Those attacked were first asked to pay sums of money to pay off the invaders; then followed more demands, and attacks by outsiders.  Local Muslims (that is, those of the village actually attacked) sometimes out of long habits of neighbourly intercourse, kept out of the actual attack, though of course they were in league with the invaders and abetted and helped them.

5. The victims were given no quarter when beseiged.  Places of worship were desecrated, and religious feelings were outraged with fiendish gusto.  Shaving of Sikhs, feeding of Hindus and Sikhs on beef, circumcision of Hindus and Sikhs, marrying away young girls and widows of Hindus, and Sikhs to Muslims-these practices were resorted to.

6. Police and the officials seldom appeared on the scene till long after the beseiged had been killed and their houses burnt and looted.

7. Muslim League leaders and Press said nothing in condemnation of these outrages.  On the other hand, they trotted out imaginary stories of provocation by the non-Muslims, and of supposed retaliation by Muslims.  This in every case kept up the morale of the assailants. .

This pattern was repeated in every one of the places that have been mentioned; and while the area of operations was necessarily limited while British power was still there, on the establishment of Pakistan it became general mass murder in West Punjab, in the North-Western Frontier Province, in Sind, Baluchistan and raider-held Kashmir.