Direct Action Day
"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."-
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, August 16, 1946
The Muslim League’s call for Direct Action, demanding a separate homeland, ignited one of the darkest chapters in the subcontinent’s history. What began in Kolkata on August 16, 1946, soon spiraled into a blood-soaked reckoning—the Week of Long Knives.
Kolkata burned first as Hindu homes and businesses were targeted in a coordinated pogrom. The city’s streets ran red as communal fury eclipsed reason. Then followed Noakhali in East Bengal, where entire Hindu villages were razed. Survivors spoke of mass rapes, forced conversions, and abductions. Gandhi himself walked barefoot through the ruins, seeking to restore humanity.
Bihar and United Provinces erupted as retaliatory violence surged, engulfing towns and villages in a cycle of vengeance. The dream of unity lay shattered.
As the sun set on the British Empire, the Cabinet Mission—led by Prime Minister Clement Attlee—arrived with a blueprint to shape the future of a free India with a proposal on May 16, 1946, that would be a three tiered structure.
Provinces with autonomy, 3 groups of provinces, Group A (Hindu-majority), Group B (Muslim-majority Northwest), Group C (Muslim-majority East) and a Central Government handling defense, foreign affairs, and communications.
The Muslim League’s Demand was for sovereign states in the Northwest and East, autonomy bordering on independence, rejection of a strong central authority.
While the Congress accepted the plan, but with reservations, alsp refused to recognize permanent groupings and emphasized on a strong, united India.
The Cabinet Mission’s plan offered a delicate compromise where Center would handle Defence, foreign affairs, communications, while the provincial groups, would have all other powers, including governance and legislation.But the plan rested on trust—and that trust crumbled.
While the Congress accepted the plan in principle,it asserted the right to reinterpret or modify it based on future circumstances and refused to be bound by permanent groupings.
Jinnah saw the Congress stance as betrayal, rejected the idea of a joint interim government and declared the launch of a “long struggle” to secure Pakistan.
With constitutional dialogue deadlocked, the Muslim League turned to mass mobilization, and August 16, 1946 was declared Direct Action Day.The streets of Kolkata became the battleground and the dream of unity was buried beneath communal fire.
Kolkata had already seen deadly riots in February 1946, the tensions between Hindus and Muslims were at a breaking point as the Cabinet Mission had failed, and the streets were restless.
With Jinnah giving the call for Direct Action Day, Hussain Suhrawardy, Muslim League CM of Bengal, requested a public holiday. The Governor Sir Frederic Burrows agreed, hoping to prevent unrest. While Bengal Congress protested fearing that the holiday would enable Muslim League to enforce hartal even in areas with no support and warned of forced shutdowns and intimidation.
On August 14, Congress leader Kiron Shankar Ray issued a call:
“Keep your shops open. Do not bow to fear.”
Hindu shopkeepers were urged to defy the hartal. The stage was set for confrontation—not just of ideologies, but of communities.
A city wide hartal was called for shops to be shut, streets to be flooded with League supporters and a show of defiance against Congress and idea of United India.
Processions were planned from Howrah, Hooghly, Kolkata, 24 Parganas, that would converge at the Ochterlony Monument (now Shaheed Minar)—a colonial symbol repurposed as a rallying point for “Muslim India”.
The mosques become mobilization hubs where League branches instructed to depute 3 workers per mosque, the plans to be explained before Friday prayers and special prayers offered for the freedom of Muslim India.
As the Muslim League mobilized for Direct Action, Bengal’s Congress leaders responded with a counter-slogan, Akhand Bharat, that was more than political—it was civilizational, invoking centuries of shared memory, culture, and coexistence. Hindu shopkeepers, students, and workers rallied under its banner, refusing to bow to hartals or intimidation.
While Kolkata braced for communal fire, the British Government was preoccupied with the INA Trials that had sparked nationwide outrage. Protests, strikes, and mutinies had shaken the colonial administration, as the Raj’s grip was slipping—caught between freedom fighters and sectarian flames.
On August 16, 1946, the storm broke out in North-Central Kolkata, as Hindu majority neighborhoods like Rajabazar, Kelabagan, College Street,Harrison Road, Colootolla, Burrabazar, bustling with shops, students, and familie, became battlegrounds by midday.
At 2 PM, a massive 30,000-strong Muslim League rally surged from the Ochterlony Monument (now Shaheed Minar), armed with iron rods, lathis, and fury, provoked by speeches of Hussain Suhrawardy and Khawaja Nazimuddin, that claimed Muslims were acting in self-defense, even as violence spread.
Hindu shops were looted,homes were torched,streets turned into killing fields,police and administration stood paralyzed—or complicit.The rhetoric of self-defense masked a coordinated assault, and Kolkata descended into chaos.
By 6 PM curfew was imposed in Kolkata, as there were reports of mobs attacking Hindu owned shops in Harrison Road. By 8 PM, forces were deployed to secure main routes.
By August 17, the violence had spread beyond the city centre into industrial suburbs like Metiabruz, home to the Kesoram Cotton Mills. The mills employed a large number of Odia labourers who had migrated from Orissa (now Odisha) to work in Calcutta’s industrial belt.
On that day, a mob descended on the mill workers’ colony in the Lichubagan area of Metiabruz. Armed with machetes, sticks, and improvised weapons, the attackers overran the settlement, killing men, women, and children. More than 300 Odiya laborers were massacred.
The attack was part of a larger wave of targeted killings and destruction that engulfed Calcutta for several days. Contemporary estimates placed the overall death toll in the city between 4,000 and 10,000, with tens of thousands injured and hundreds of thousands displaced.
The Kesoram massacre was not an isolated event but part of the cascading communal violence of August 1946. Across Calcutta, Hindu-owned shops and homes were looted and burnt, and killings took place in both Hindu- and Muslim-majority localities, as retaliatory violence spiralled out of control.
For the Odia community in particular, the massacre left a deep scar. Survivors fled back to Odisha in large numbers, and oral histories in the state still recall “the Calcutta killings” as a moment of tragedy and displacement.
The events at Metiabruz highlight how industrial labour colonies — often populated by vulnerable migrant communities — became easy targets in times of communal unrest. They also serve as a grim reminder that while the violence of Direct Action Day is often discussed in the context of central Calcutta, some of its worst massacres occurred on the city’s periphery, away from the press and political scrutiny.
The British administration in Bengal was widely criticised for its slow response. Despite repeated requests from various quarters to deploy the army immediately, the authorities delayed military intervention. This hesitation allowed the violence to spiral unchecked for several days.
It was only on August 21 — five days after the outbreak — that Bengal was placed under the direct rule of the Viceroy. British Indian troops were then brought in to restore order, finally bringing the killings under control. By that point, entire neighbourhoods had been razed, and the human toll had reached catastrophic proportions.
One of the worst massacres occured at Noakhali on October 1946, as targeted violence against Hindu resulted in mass killings, forced conversions, rapes, and destruction of property. Mahatma Gandhi personally visited Noakhali to restore peace, underscoring its severity. This massacre deeply shook the national psyche. Even staunch advocates of a united India began to question the feasibility of coexistence.
Howrah Bridge was jammed with refugees fleeing the city amid fear and chaos. Patna, Bhagalpur, Munger, Garhmukhteshwar also saw communal violence in the months that followed.
Jinnah’s statements before Direct Action Day included threats of “divided India or destroyed India,” signaling a willingness to escalate, while Suhrawardy’s was accused of deliberately weakening law enforcement on August 16, allowing violence to spiral.These events convinced many—including Congress leaders—that Partition was the only way to prevent civil war.
While Punjab's Partition horrors have been widely documented, Bengal's trauma has often been underrepresented, despite being equally devastating and more prolonged. Unlike Punjab, where violence was immediate and concentrated, Bengal’s suffering was drawn out, with waves of migration and violence continuing for years.
The Noakhali riots, Kolkata killings, and mass displacements created a climate of fear and communal distrust.Refugees from East Pakistan continued arriving into West Bengal well into the 1950s and 60s, often settling in slums or refugee colonies.
The 1971 genocide by the Pakistani army in East Pakistan led to over 10 million refugees flooding into India, especially West Bengal and Tripura. Mass killings, rapes, and targeted violence against Bengali Hindus and intellectuals marked this second wave of trauma. The Marichjhapi massacre (1979)—where low-caste refugees were evicted from Sundarbans—adds another tragic chapter to Bengal’s refugee history.
Why Bengal’s Partition Is Less Written About?
Punjab’s Partition was more immediate and visually documented (e.g., trains of corpses, border crossings), making it more prominent in media and literature.
Bengal’s story involves complex caste, class, and regional politics—especially around refugee resettlement and the Dandakaranya project.
Until recently, there was no dedicated Partition museum in Bengal. The Virtual Kolkata Partition Museum is a major step in preserving these stories.
Sources
https://ir.nbu.ac.in/server/api/core/bitstreams/004c1c52-cd73-4417-bc64-b24340b074fb/content.
https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/horrors-of-partition-of-bengal-coming-to-terms-with-the-unforgiving-reality-of-pogrom-of-hindus-12998692.html
https://virtual-kolkata-partition-museum.org/text/
https://in.1947partitionarchive.org/story
https://sites.nd.edu/worldpolitics-2019/the-great-divide-the-violent-legacy-of-indian-partition/