[Reader-list] First posting...Sugata Nandi

[Sugata Nandi]

Hi,
My posting got delayed due to my tranfer from my former college to a new 
one, which is thankfully in Calcutta. Please accept my apologies (specially 
to Vivek, I am really sorry that things were such due to transfer in the 
last three weeks that I found it difficult to do the needful on due time)for 
the inconvenience that it caused.
My Independent Felowships sponsors a project of writing an oral history of 
Calcutta of 1947-67, in the form of knowing the politics of personal 
reminisces of a number of people who grew up during the said period in a 
very violence prone Calcutta.
The following is my first posting.
Regards,
Sugata Nandi
Address: BJ 69, SALT LAKE, SECTOR II, KOLKATA 700091
Phone : 9831487237, 033 2334 1552



Title: Events Violent, Moments Siginificant

By Sugata Nandi.

Independent Fellow 2007,
Lecturer in History, Presidency College, Kolkata


Calcutta marched into Independence with problems that seemed to foretell 
doom. In the opinion of Rajat Kanta Ray onwards from the mid forties ‘blow 
upon blow’ fell on the city in shape of the food scarcity, famine and the 
demoralization of 1943, the communal riots of 1946-7, the partition of the 
province and finally the refugee problem. Ray remarks that by the time 
Calcutta was independent, the city’s days of glory was definitely and only a 
part of its history. The project I have taken up as an independent fellow 
starts from that point. Calcutta was no longer the city of the palaces and 
the city of unlimited opportunities; it was an urban disaster that was the 
termed by the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, as a dead 
city. From the vantage point of the middle of the first decade of the 
twentieth century when the city is, as can be gathered from media reports, 
is trying to remodel itself after the twin models of Singapore and Shanghai, 
the past does seem to be an uninterrupted story of proverbial urban decay 
and political unrest and militancy. As we enter a time when that period is 
on the threshold of being enshrined into official and unorthodox histories 
as a chapter in the life of Calcutta, there is genuine necessity of looking 
into ways of remembering the city that will eventually influence the writing 
of such histories.

At the outset, before going into the realms of memory it is pertinent to 
take stock of the events that standout in the city history as poignant 
moments as well as occasions of self assertion of sections of city populace. 
The events are protest movements against the state Government with demands 
ranging from authorization to that of ensuring food grain supply at low 
prices had served as reasons behind what turned into extremely violent 
episodes in urban history of Calcutta. The two events that I have not 
included in this essay are the beginning of the Naxal Movement in 1965 and 
the formation of the United Front Ministry in 1967, which was the first non 
Congress Government of West Bengal since August 15, 1947. The first of these 
two events needs to be seen as the culmination of developments taking place 
outside the city, and the second event deserves to be treated separately as 
the cumulative effect of the developments of the city between 1947 and 1966.

The most observable trend in city life of Calcutta soon after independence 
was the continuation of erstwhile colonial policy of brutal repression of 
popular protests and movements. A mere three months after Independence a 
procession of students and youths commemorating the Azad Hind Fouj day was 
disrupted by a lathi-charge by Calcutta police. In September 1948, the 
police fired on protesting dock labourers. In April 1949 four women taking 
part in rally were shot dead on the street by the police. The rally was 
organized to demand freedom for the Communist political prisoners by a 
women’s organization called ‘Mahila Atmaraksha Samiti’ (or Women’s 
Association for Self Defence’). In the same year ten lives were lost in 
police firing in the procession of the Refugees demanding rehabilitation.

Refugees who were streaming into Calcutta registered their first protest in 
January 14, 1949. Their procession was halted and disrupted by the police 
who attacked the processionists with tear gas shells and lathi charge. This 
was the initial spurt of more serious and aggressive urban movement that was 
to come. Onwards from 1950 the refugee population settled in Calcutta and 
its surroundings organized a powerful movement on the demand of legalization 
of refugee squatters’ colonies. The foundation of United Central Refugee 
Committee in January 1950 was an important step in this direction. On 
February 18 1951 a massive rally organized by the UCRC drew hundred and 
fifty thousand refugees. On April 7, 1953 the UCRC organized a sit in at the 
gateway of the Bengal legislative assembly building as part of the then 
ongoing agitation for the authorization of the squatter colonies. In 1954 
the Government of West Bengal declared squatters’ colonies legal.

In 1953 alongside the agitation of the refugees, there was a sudden mass 
upsurge in the city against a hike of one paisa in second class tram-fares. 
A very high degree of violence characterized the protest against the hike 
right from the first day. The protesters took to burning tramcars on the 
busy roads of the city and hurling bombs at bulbs filled with acid at the 
police. A summarily formed body called the ‘Trambhara Briddhi Pratirodh 
Committee’ or Committee Against the Hike in Tram-fare led the protest to a 
certain extent, beyond which the movement gathered momentum and spread from 
one part of the city to the other on its own. Between July 8 and 18, 1953 
parts of the city were virtually made inaccessible to the police. Small 
groups of youths armed with bombs guarded intersections of the streets of 
thoroughfare and fought ferouciously against the police. During this 
movement shops were and slums were set fire to. A report in the Statesman 
claimed that South Calcutta was in the hands of the mob and that part of the 
city had become inaccessible for the police as well as the public. The 
movement came to close on July 30, 1953 when Bidhan Chandra Ray, the 
illustrious Chief Minister of West Bengal decided to roll back the fare 
hike. It is interesting to note Ray arrived in Calcutta on that very day 
from Vienna. He had gone there for ocular surgery and was forced to get back 
without having undergone it due to the movement in Calcutta.

In February 1954 a peaceful protest of school teachers demanding a higher 
pay turned into another episode of extreme, though short-lived in comparison 
to the resistance movement against tram fare hike. School teachers had 
raised the demand for a higher basic salary and a marginal increase in 
dearness allowance from the Government of West Bengal while the assembly was 
in session on 15 February 1954. Sections of the students and workers of the 
city supported the demand of the teachers and they joined the movement. A 
procession of the teachers and their sympathizers marching to the Governor’s 
residence or the Raj Bhawan, was stopped by the police within close vicinity 
of the building. The police allegedly roughed up two teachers taking part in 
the procession and this sparked off a pitched battle among the police and 
the processionists. While the police opened fire the protesters retaliated 
hurling stones and soda water bottles at them. Ironically while violence was 
on in the streets the Assembly had ratified the decision to increase 
teachers’ pay and dearness allowance as demanded.

The most significant movement that the city experienced took place in 1959. 
In August that year Calcutta played host to the Food Movement. Scarcity of 
foodgrains, particularly that of rice, and the availability of the same in 
the black market for high prices had been the cause of concern in Bengal 
since Independence. in the late 1950s demand for foodgrains at low prices 
was taken up by the left and socialist parties as a plank for launching 
attacks on the Congress Government under Chief Minister Bidhan Chandra Ray. 
On August 31, 1959 a massive procession marched towards the Writers’ 
Buildings, the seat of the Ministry offices of the Bengal Government, to 
voice the demand for immediate supply of food-grains at Government 
controlled prices. Police lathi-charged and finally opened fire on the 
procession resulting in 80 to 130 deaths and several hundreds injured. 
Following this incident a section of the youth fought a pitched battle with 
the police in close vicinity of the Chief Minister’s residence, resulting in 
at least 37 deaths. During the fight with the police the youths erected 
barricades across the streets. The barricades represented the battle lines 
and were a pre-cursor of the things to come in 1966.

In March 1966, the second Food Movement flared up as collective action aimed 
at completely paralyzing the state. In Calcutta movement took the shape of a 
situation comparable with guerrilla warfare in the serpentine by-lanes. In 
place of the clashes between the police and the protesters in the highways 
and the large open public space bands of youth organized themselves as small 
units in localities. Usually the clashes took place in the evenings. Street 
lights were switched off, bombs and acid bulbs were hurled at police parties 
patrolling the narrow by-lanes. In most cases the identity of the attackers 
could not be established. The police counter offensive against such attacks 
took the form of sudden and unwarranted the raids on households of the 
disturbed areas. These raids often translated into acts of unauthorized 
brutal repression. The answer to such action came in the form of hurling 
stones and broken glass on the police parties.

The second Food Movement left over 40 dead in five days and several 
thousands were badly injured. The data on those who succumbed to their 
injuries are still not available.

The most visible and remarkable characteristic of political and social 
movements of Calcutta was the high degree of violence that accompanied it. 
Urban violence had been endemic to the city since the beginning of the 
twentieth century. From the 1940s urban movements/ protest had been 
increasingly violent. Following Independence urban movements tended to turn 
violent almost always. The composition of these participants in these 
movements, as can be gathered from the body of diverse sources, included a 
vast number of students and youths. The participation of students and the 
youth had as is obvious left its mark on the movement. Evidence suggests 
that the state government’s attempt at removing the students by terming them 
unruly and turbulent contributed only in ensuring in their turning up in 
larger number in the movements to come.

The other remarkable aspect of the movement was the gathering of large 
crowds of protestors. In all the movements mentioned above the overwhelming 
of crowds present had been made the pretext for brutal police action. The 
participation of the large crowds in the movements were often the 
determinant of the success of those, e.g. the anti –tram -fare –hike 
movement. From the late 1950s onwards the dispersal of the crowds from the 
streets of thoroughfare as a result of police action posed in effect a more 
difficult challenge for the administration. The participants onwards from 
the late 1950s organized themselves into small Bands armed with bombs and 
firmly entrenched in their own localities where the police had little chance 
of crushing their resistance.

Overall the main trend of the urban movements was that a new political 
energy had come to be in the city after Independence, which gained strength 
in the face of the brutal repression and tended to express itself every time 
in the rhetoric of an increasing degree of violence.

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