Direct Action Day (Bengali: প্রত্যক্ষ সংগ্রাম দিবস) (16 August 1946), also known as the Great Calcutta Killings, was a day of widespread riot and manslaughter initiated by the Muslim league in the city of Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) in the Bengal province of British India.[1] The day also marked the start of what is known as The Week of the Long Knives.[2][3] The Muslim League and the Indian National Congress were the two largest political parties in the Constituent Assembly of India in the 1940s. The 1946 Cabinet Mission to India for planning of the transfer of power from the British Raj to the Indian leadership proposed an initial plan of composition of the new Dominion of India and its government. However, soon an alternative plan to divide the British Raj into a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan was proposed by the Muslim League. The Congress rejected the alternative proposal outright. Muslim League planned general strike (hartal)[4] on 16 August terming it as Direct Action Day to protest this rejection, and to assert its demand for a separate Muslim homeland.[5][6] en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Action_Day
Posted on: Sun, 07 Jul 2013 21:09:07 +0000