Noakhali riots

• 1. Introduction

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  The Noakhali riots erupted on the 10th of October 1946, on the very day Bengali Hindus were gathered in their homes celebrating the festival of Kojagari Lakshmi Puja. What followed across a stretch of more than 2,000 square miles in the eastern districts of British Bengal was not spontaneous chaos. It was something more deliberate: a series of massacres, rapes, forced conversions, and arsons that would strand around 50,000 Hindus in territories now controlled by Muslim mobs. The violence spread across the Ramganj, Begumganj, Raipur, Lakshmipur, Chhagalnaiya, and Sandwip police stations in Noakhali district, and spilled into Hajiganj, Faridganj, Chandpur, Laksham, and Chauddagram in the neighbouring Tipperah district. A full year before India's independence, this corner of Bengal became a place from which its Hindu population would never fully return. The questions the story raises are not just about what happened in those weeks of October and November 1946. They are about what was planned, who planned it, how the authorities responded, and what it meant for the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives it unmade.

• 2. The Spark and Its Architects

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  A rumor lit the fire on the morning of the 10th of October 1946. Word spread through the Ramganj police station area that a Hindu monk named Triambakananda had visited the home of Rajendralal Chowdhury, a local Hindu landlord, and announced that he would appease the goddess not with goats but with the blood of Muslims. The rumor reached Gulam Sarwar Hossain, a local pir at the Shyampur Dayara Sharif, who sent a letter to Chowdhury that same morning seeking clarification. When no reply came, Hossain called a public meeting at Sahapur Bazaar, informed the crowd of the rumor, and urged action. Mobs attacked Hindu-owned shops there within hours.

  Gholam Sarwar Husseini had a longer history with communal politics. In 1937, he had been elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly on a Krishak Praja Party ticket. He lost his seat in the 1946 elections to a Muslim League candidate. After the Direct Action Day riots in Kolkata, he began delivering provocative speeches, calling on the Muslim masses to seek revenge. By the first week of September 1946, Muslims were already looting Hindu shops in Sahapur market. From the 2nd of October onwards, there were frequent instances of killings, theft, and looting. The Governor of Bengal, Frederick Burrows, later stated plainly that the immediate occasion for the outbreak was the looting of a bazaar following a mass meeting and a provocative speech by Gholam Sarwar Husseini.

  On the 11th of October, Gholam Sarwar's private army, known as the Miyar Fauz, advanced on the residence of Rajendralal Roychowdhury, the president of the Noakhali Bar Association. Swami Tryambakananda of Bharat Sevashram Sangha happened to be staying there as a guest. Roychowdhury held the mob off from his terrace with a rifle for the entire day. At nightfall, with the mob temporarily gone, he sent the swami and his family to safety. The next day the mob returned. Roychowdhury's severed head was presented to Gholam Sarwar Husseini on a platter. Sucheta Kriplani later said he had followed in the footsteps of Shivaji and Guru Gobind Singh, defending his faith and family honour. Acharya Kripalani, a committed believer in nonviolence, held that Roychowdhury's resistance was the nearest approach to nonviolence he could imagine.

• 3. The Prelude in August

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  Long before the October massacres, the Eastern Command headquarters in Kolkata had been receiving reports of unrest in the rural areas of Noakhali and Chittagong for six weeks. Village poets and balladeers were composing anti-Hindu rhymes and reciting them in marketplaces and public gatherings. The hostility had already curdled into violence by the 29th of August, on the day of Eid al-Fitr.

  A rumor spread that Hindus had stored weapons. A group of Hindu fishermen was attacked with deadly weapons while fishing in the Feni River. One was killed and two seriously injured. Nine Hindu fishermen from Charuriah were severely assaulted; seven were admitted to hospital. Devi Prasanna Guha, the son of a Congress member from Babupur village, was murdered that day. His brother and a servant were also assaulted, and the Congress office in front of their house was set on fire. Chandra Kumar Karmakar of Monpura was killed near Jamalpur. The properties of Hindu families in Kanur Char were looted, and in Karpara, a Muslim gang entered the house of Jadav Majumdar and looted property worth Rs. 1,500. Temples were desecrated: a calf was butchered and thrown inside the family temple of Harendra Ghosh of Raipur. Durga images belonging to families in Kethuri, Merkachar, Angrapara, and Tatarkhil were broken. By the time October arrived, these acts of violence had established an atmosphere in which the larger massacres could unfold with almost no resistance.

• 4. Forced Conversions and Mass Violence

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  In the remote island of Sandwip, which had no motor cars, petrol was imported from the mainland specifically to set Hindu houses on fire. That logistical detail prompted historian Rakesh Batabyal to conclude that the attacks were premeditated and organised. The violence was not confined to Noakhali proper. Jogendra Chandra Das, the MLA from Chandpur, wrote on the 14th of October to Jogendra Nath Mandal stating that thousands of Scheduled Caste Hindus had been attacked in the Ramganj police station area. Their houses were being looted and set alight with petrol, and they were being forcibly converted to Islam.

  In the Changirgaon area near Nandigram, on the 13th of October at noon, a mob of 200 to 250 Muslims armed with deadly weapons attacked Hindus who had gathered at the residence of Ramanikanta Nag for shelter. The mob burned 1,500 maunds of paddy and destroyed all the temples. Hindu women were stripped of their shankha and sindur. The men were forced to perform namaz.

  The scale of forced conversion was disputed almost immediately. The Star of India, a newspaper patronised by the Muslim League, denied any incidents of conversion. But Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the prime minister of Bengal, while answering a question from Dhirendranath Datta in the assembly, acknowledged 9,895 cases of forcible conversion in Tipperah alone. Edward Skinner Simpson, a retired judge appointed to investigate the events, reported that 22,550 cases of forcible conversion had taken place in just three police station areas of Faridganj, Chandpur, and Hajiganj in Tipperah. Dr. Taj-ul-Islam Hashmi concluded that the number of Hindu women raped or converted was probably many times the number of Hindus killed. According to Gandhian worker Ashoka Gupta's report, at least 2,000 Hindus had been forced to change their religion, six were forced into marriage, and at least one person was murdered; however, the official government estimate stood at only 200.

• 5. The State's Response

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  No troops had been sent to the disturbed areas of Noakhali until the 14th of October, four days after the massacres began. Kamini Kumar Dutta, the leader of the Indian National Congress in the Bengal Legislative Council, visited Noakhali on the 13th of October in a personal capacity and interviewed the district superintendent of police. On his return, he communicated with the Home Department of the interim government and stated plainly that no one from outside could enter the disturbed areas without risking their life. He further stated that the authorities were anxious to hush up the entire episode from public inspection.

  On the 16th of October, Suhrawardy held a press conference in Kolkata at which he acknowledged the plunder, looting, and forced conversion of Hindus in Noakhali. He said he had no idea why the incidents had occurred. He added that it had become difficult for troops to move because canals had been jammed, bridges damaged, and roads blocked. He contemplated dropping printed appeals and warnings from the air instead of deploying soldiers.

  On the 21st of October, Arthur Henderson, the Under-Secretary of State for India and Burma, read a report in the House of Commons estimating casualties in the three-figure range. Sarat Chandra Bose challenged the figure directly, saying that 400 Hindus had been killed in a single incident at the office and residence of landlord Surendranath Bose alone.

  The press itself had been deliberately silenced. On the 29th of September 1946, even before the October outbreak, the Government of Bengal passed an ordinance prohibiting publication of information about communal disturbances. Newspapers could not name the location of incidents, describe how victims were killed, name the community of victim or perpetrator, or mention the destruction of places of worship. According to Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, this ordinance was the main reason news of the incidents did not reach the public for a week. Simpson's investigative report was then covered up by the government; Gandhi requested a copy from Suhrawardy, who initially agreed but was overruled by the governor and his secretaries. A summary eventually reached The Statesman through Mathur, a secretary to Suhrawardy, who provided it secretly. A censored version was published on the 13th of November 1946.

• 6. Gandhi's Mission

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  Bidhan Chandra Roy communicated with Gandhi personally on the 18th of October, describing the massacre of Hindus and, specifically, the plight of Hindu women. That evening, Gandhi spoke about Noakhali at his prayer meeting. He said that if one-half of India's humanity was paralysed, India could never really feel free. He added that he would far rather see India's women trained to wield arms than to feel helpless.

  Gandhi left for Noakhali on the 6th of November and reached Chaumuhani the following day. After two nights at the residence of Jogendra Majumdar, he began his tour of the district on the 9th of November, barefoot. Over the next seven weeks, he covered 116 miles and visited 47 villages. He set up his base in a half-burnt house in the village of Srirampur and remained there until the 1st of January. He organised prayer meetings and sought the confidence of local Muslim leaders. On the evening of the 10th of November, two people were reported murdered while returning home from his evening prayer at the Duttapara relief camp.

  Gandhi's presence was resented by the Muslim leadership. In January 1947, during talks with villagers at Fatehpur, he asked whether it was honourable to harass Hindus simply because Muslims were in the majority. On the 12th of February 1947, A. K. Fazlul Huq, addressing a rally in Comilla, said Gandhi's presence in Noakhali had harmed Islam enormously and wondered how the Muslims of Noakhali and Tipperah had tolerated him so long. Towards the end of February 1947, the resentment became open. Gandhi's route was deliberately dirtied every day, and Muslims began to boycott his meetings. He left Noakhali in early March 1947, and within days a top-secret report sent by Divisional Commissioner William Barret on the 13th of May 1947 was documenting ongoing persecution: cattle theft, uprooted paddy plants, demands for 50 percent of loom licenses, and Hindus openly addressed as malauns and kafirs.

• 7. Relief, Rescue, and What Followed

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  Leela Roy walked 90 miles from Chaumohani to Ramganj on the 9th of December 1946. She and her team rescued 1,307 girls who had been abducted during the riots. Roy's organisation, the National Services Institute, went on to establish 17 relief camps in the affected region. Beginning on the 26th of October, Ashoka Gupta led weekly trips of volunteers to Noakhali, where they located abducted women, provided relief at railway stations, and compiled lists of affected villages from survivors' testimonies.

  Thirty relief organisations and six medical missions participated in relief work. Among them were the Bharat Sevashram Sangha, the Hindu Mahasabha, the Indian National Congress, the Communist Party of India, the Indian National Army, Prabartak Sangha, Abhay Ashram, Arya Samaj, and Gita Press. Syama Prasad Mookerjee flew to Comilla with military escorts. A hospital of 25 beds was opened in Lakshmipur in memory of Rajendralal Raychaudhuri. Gandhi himself sent four rescued Hindu girls to Sujata Devi, the daughter-in-law of Chittaranjan Das, who established the Bangiya Pallee Sangathan Samity to provide rehabilitation services and run a free school.

  A government order dated the 10th of February 1947 announced a relief grant of Rs 250 to each affected household and an additional Rs 200 to affected weavers, fishermen, and peasants for tools. Relief workers criticised the grant as insufficient, particularly because the government treated an entire joint family as a single unit.

  The violence in Noakhali also triggered retaliatory riots in Bihar. Between the 25th and the 28th of October, severe violence erupted in Chhapra and Saran district, spreading to Patna, Munger, and Bhagalpur. The death toll estimates varied wildly: the British Parliament cited 5,000; The Statesman estimated 7,500 to 10,000; the Congress party admitted 2,000; Mohammad Ali Jinnah claimed around 30,000. The official estimate by the 3rd of November was only 445. Writing in 1950, General Francis Tuker, who commanded the Eastern Command at the time, estimated the Muslim death toll in Bihar at between 7,000 and 8,000. In Garhmukteshwar in United Provinces, a massacre in November 1946 at an annual religious fair left an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 Muslims dead.

  In March 1947, when the Indian National Congress agreed to the Partition of India, the relief camps in Noakhali were abandoned. Around 50,000 Hindu refugees sheltered in temporary camps were relocated to Guwahati in Assam. The East Pakistan government's passage of the East Bengal State Acquisitions and Tenancy Act of 1950 extinguished the remaining hope of return for those who had fled, by seizing the land they left behind.