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A rally brought out on 15th August, 1947
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The end of the second World War saw a tremendous upsurge in student radicalism in the streets of Calcutta. In the August of 1945, the city was brought to a complete standstill by student demonstrations. These students did not belong to the Congress but owed allegiance to either the Forward Bloc or the Communist Party of India.
The incident that over shadowed everything else was the Great Calcutta Killing which began on August 16, 1946. This was the direct outcome of the Direct Action Day call given by Jinnah in support of his demand for a separate state for Muslims called Pakistan. In Calcutta, since early morning August 16, violent encounters between Hindus and Muslims broke out and continued through the night and into the next day. The state administration under a Muslim League government remained inactive. The Governor of West Bengal was forced to call in the army when violence did not abate even after four days. Even today, it is impossible to compute how many people actually died and how much property was lost. If the famine of 1943 was the first trauma, communal riots were a second, and a third trauma was soon to follow.
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Refugees from East Pakistan
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A year after the Great Calcutta Killings, India became independent on 15th August, 1947. But this was not the freedom of which Indians had dreamed and for which thousands had laid down their lives. Independence came laced with Partition. Millions of Hindus moved into Calcutta and its neighbourhood from what had overnight become East India. Faced with the reality of Partition, Gandhi refused to be part of the Independence Day's celebration in New Delhi. He spent 15th August, 1947 in Beliaghata, an eastern suburb of Calcutta.
The migration of refugees from East Pakistan completely changed the character of the city of Calcutta. Suddenly, the city experienced a shortage of space and refugee colonies mushroomed in the city's northern and southern fringes.
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