75 YRS OF NOAKHALI GENOCIDE
COMMEMORATING 75 YEARS OF THE NOAKHALI GENOCIDE: AN EVENT
Schedule of Events
October 10, 2021
5:30 PM IST/ 8 AM EDT Onwards
- What is a genocide?
- Events leading to the massacres at Noakhali & Tipperah
- Account of events in Noakhali Genocide
- Testimony of Victims
- Plight of the refugees after the Genocide
- The role of Jihad in the genocide and partition of India
- Trans-generational trauma of the genocide
- Geo-political events following the Noakhali Genocide
SPEAKERS
Dr Rajat Mitra
Dr Rajat Mitra is a Public speaker, Psychologist and Psychotherapist. He is the author of the book "The Infidel Next Door."
Dr Robert Spencer
Dr Robert Spencer is the Director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of 23 books, many bestsellers. The Truth About Muhammad, The History of Jihad, Did Muhammad Exist?, The Critical Qur'an, etc. are some of his famous works.
Sri Tathagata Roy
Sri Tathagata Roy is the former governor of Tripura, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. He was also the state president of BJP for West Bengal. He has authored 5 books and many articles on socio-political subjects, including "My People, Uprooted," documenting the genocide of Bengali Hindus.
Sri Utsav Chakrabarti
Sri Utsav Chakrabarti is the Director of HinduPACT, an organization for advocacy of Hindu human rights in USA. He speaks on issues concerning sub-altern communities in the US.
Sri Jaideep Mazumdar
Jaideep Mazumdar is a native of Shillong with a Masters in Political Science. He is a journalist and chronicler since 1989 and has worked with various publications, big and small, including The Times Of India, The Hindustan Times, Outlook, Associated Press, The Pioneer, Amrita Bazar Patrika, Open and with Swarajya over the past five years as Associate Editor. He writes on West Bengal, North East India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar and his interests are defense, strategic affairs and politics.
Stories of Bengali Hindus
"Stories of Bengali Hindus" are a team of people who are the descendants of Hindu survivors of genocide from East Bengal. Telling the forgotten horrors of our persecution and ongoing exodus nobody remembers.
Sri Shantanu Singha
Sri Shantanu Singha is the author of "Noakhali Noakhali," a booklet that was published in the 1990's to educate Hindus about the plight of the Hindu refugees of Noakhali and Tipperah. He is an activist who works on rehabilitating persecuted Hindu communities in West Bengal.
Ms Priya Saha
Ms Priya Saha is an activist working for the human rights of Bengali Hindus of Bangladesh. She is a public speaker and the Director of Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities
THE HISTORY WE FORGOT
THE DANCE OF DEATH BEGINS...
The foundations of the Noakhali genocide were laid in the Great Calcutta Killings, following which, there was heightened tension between Hindus and Muslims in Noakhali.
On 29th Aug, Eid-ul-Fitr, a rumour was spread the Hindus are amassing weapons, and several Hindu families were assaulted by Muslims, homes looted. This led to heightened animosity between Hindus and Muslims, and on 10 October 1946, Kojagiri Purnima, Lakshmi Puja day, full-scale massacre broke out in Noakhali district. The massacre was described as "the organized fury of the Muslim mob" by The Muslim League.
Noakhali & Tippera Attacked
Violence was soon widespread in the neighbouring police stations of Raipur, Lakshmipur, Begumganj and Sandip in Noakhali, and Faridganj, Hajiganj, Chandpur, Laksham and Chudagram in Tippera. Officers placed the death toll at 200-300, though no accurate count was made.
Noakhali was a remote area in Bengal in undivided India, with a small Hindu population. There was no easy access to Noakhali to vehicles and people. A mass violence in Noakhali would be very difficult to control or stop---and this is the precise reason the Muslim League chose this remote region for waging a merciless war on Hindus in the month of October.
The British Army took more than a week to arrive on the spot. Till then thousands of Hindus had already been massacred, women raped, and many had fled into nearby forests.
Notwithstanding the remote location, the miscreants planned the massacre with war strategies, digging up all connecting roads, and cutting all lines of communication.
Journalists back from Noakhali reported that,
“The heads of miscreants were Ex-servicemen and they organized the raids in military fashion…The people knew how to dig up roads and cut communication”
.
Eminent Hindu Leaders Attacked
Eminent Hindu families, their relatives, dependants, servants and employees were massacred at Karpara, Gopairbag, Shayestanagar, Nandigram and Noakhola.
"The severed head of Rajendra Lal Roy was gifted to Gulam Sarowar in a silver plate. At Gulam’s order his two trusted lieutenants took the two beautiful daughters of Mr. Roy as the booty."
.
.
British correspondent of The Statesman remarked,
“Experience of the second world war has made my nerve quite strong. But even war is not such barbaric. It is middle age type insanity. And it was given a horrible shape.”
Menon writes in his book that professionalism in its highest virtue was manifested in Noakhali.
“So that Hindus couldn’t escape, the roads were dug, boats used to form barricade on canals and rivers and through which areas there were any slight chance of escape armed Muslims were at guard”
(V.P. Menon – Transfer of Power – p 322)
Hindu Temples Vandalized
Hindu temples were vandalized, deities desecrated and the structure destroyed. The agenda to convert people to Islam was clear. As such, disrespect of the places of worship of Hindus was a part of the war on Hindus. The Muslim mobs spared no temple in the region. Many temples were later converted to mosques.
.
“In an area of about 200 sq miles the inhabitants surrounded by riotous mobs, are being massacred, their houses being burnt, their womenfolk being forcibly carried away and thousands being subjected to forcible conversion. Thousands of hooligans attacked the villages, compelled them (Hindus) to slaughter their cattle and eat. All places of worship in affected villages have been desecrated. The District Magistrate and the Police Superintendent of Noakhali took no step to prevent it.”
Destroyed deities in a Hindu temple
--
--
Congress President Acharya Kriplani made the following observations on his visit to Noakhali after a few days of the massacre:
“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.”
Plight of Women
Hindu women faced the worst atrocities. Women whose husbands had been murdered right before their eyes were raped, and forced to recite the Kalma, and married to their rapists. Women of all age were violated. Gandhi advised women to taken "poison pills" to avoid the dishonour of rape.
Mr. Simpson, I.C.S wrote on the incidents that
“it has been known from authentic sources that at a place 400 and at another 300 women were mass raped by Muslims. To the Muslim crowd, violation of the honour of Hindu women meant the exposure of the most protected aspect of the Hindu identity and religion”
“Worst of all was the plight of women. Several of them had to watch their husbands being murdered and then be forcibly converted and married to some of those responsible for their death. Those women had a dead look. It was not despair, nothing so active as that. It was blackness...the eating of beef and declaration of allegiance to Islam has been forced upon many thousands of as the price of their lives.”
Miss Muriel Leister, member of a relief committee sent to Noakhali wrote on 6th November, 1946,(V.V. Nagarkar – Genesis – p 446)
PRESS REPORTS 1946-47
Learn the true history not taught to you by any history book...
Register for the Online Event to Commemorate 75 years of the Noakhali Genocide
Copyright © 2021 Arti Agarwal. All Rights Reserved.
