{"id":16826,"date":"2022-08-16T12:43:04","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T10:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=213889"},"modified":"2022-08-16T13:03:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-16T11:03:09","slug":"why-we-should-remember-direct-action-day","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/why-we-should-remember-direct-action-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we should remember Direct Action Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Elinor Evans\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 16 August 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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On the morning of 16 August 1946, crowds of Muslims made their way to a park in central Calcutta (now Kolkata). They were gathering to observe Direct Action Day, called nationwide by the All-India Muslim League to protest what it saw as the abandonment of India\u2019s Muslim minority by the British colonial government and the Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress. The general strike and rallies planned were intended to imitate Congress\u2019s tactics of mass protest but, while the day passed off peacefully elsewhere, in Calcutta large-scale violence broke\u00a0out between Hindus and Muslims, resulting in thousands of deaths. These riots are seen as marking a turning point after which the country\u2019s partition into India and Pakistan<\/a> became inevitable.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the year, a British Cabinet Mission hoping to secure a unified post-independence India had proposed a plan for a weak central government to serve as a meeting point for groups of provinces representing Hindu and Muslim majorities. When Congress backtracked on its support for the plan, the League\u2019s president, Muhammad Ali\u00a0Jinnah, renounced constitutional methods and called for Direct Action Day.<\/p>\n

These riots are seen as marking a turning point after which the partition of India became inevitable <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>

Recent scholarship has placed\u00a0the killings in the context not of\u00a0party politics or religion but war,\u00a0famine and poverty. Calcutta hosted countless destitute migrants\u00a0drawn by the promise of employment and food during the Bengal\u00a0Famine, caused partly by the wartime requisition of grain, killing\u00a0some 3 million in 1943. Thus the\u00a0violence wasn\u2019t indiscriminate but\u00a0a reaction to the need for food and\u00a0housing, leading to the looting of\u00a0shops and provisions, and attacks\u00a0on companies seen to be denying\u00a0jobs to people based on religion. The disorder prompted other, sometimes more serious riots elsewhere, including in neighbouring Bihar province.<\/p>\n