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PARTITION: Tape 12
Writer
255MODEM
Mod Date & Time
255MODEM Jan 19 07:22
TAPE 12
Side A
SHANTANU RAY
tel: Delhi 463 1861; interviewed, Delhi 5 July 1996, by Anuradha
Awasthi
- brother of S.S. Ray; from a very well connected Congress family
in Calcutta, and grandson of Chittaranjan Das [first Mayor of
Calcutta]; in Calcutta in August 1946; family originally from E
Bengal
[note: Jinnah did not come to Calcutta on 14 August 1946]
6 - 'terrible riots took place in Cal; I remember Jinnah
coming to Cal on 14th August [?????], he gave a very
inflammatory speech which created a lot of problems
and the cry of Allah Akbar ... was all over Cal, and
people went on a rampage, they started killing, and the
Hindus were not far behind, they behaved as
disgracefully... and there were a lot of murders ...
burning of houses, throwing of babies which I;ve seen
with my own eyes from a second floor of a building and
killing them, spearing them, all this happened'
29 - 'I was prsonally responsible for saving quite a few
Ms, one was a cook ... he was literally quaking with
fear when there was this cry of Allah Akbar; a cousin
of mine and I put him in the boot of a Studebaker ca
and drove him to Free School St, where it ws relatively
calms, it was M dominated, and we put him down there ..'
50 - Sikh taxi drivers came to gradnmo's house, ' and my
grandmother ws at the top of the stairs saying, well,
you kill him, but you kill me first, they went away ...'
60 - grandfather's role in settling Sikhs in Calcutta
69 - was in Presidency College, Cal; fellow student's house in
Mayfair attacked by a mob, ' and he telephoned me and
he said I'm in great trouble and I went there, picked
him up again in the boot of the car ... and I drove
off'; this man became a Bangladeshi diplomat
97 - 'I felt bad that Bengalis, Cal people, cd behave like
that'
100 - 'Absolute mayhem all over, and this cry of Allah-o-
Akbar is v frightening when people are rampaging ...'
104 - Gandhi went on a fast to death if riots didn't stop
in Noakhali and Calcutta' grandmother, on Nehru's
request, broadcast on AIR, 'she appealed to the
people of Ben, saying in Bengali we say that we don't
let a dog die in our house, will you let Mahatma
Gandhi die in Bengal? It was so touching ... that
people came were Gandhi was fasting ... and laid
their arms down. And that was the time that it
turned'
128 - 'I can remember people, strangers, coming into our
locality, he was stripped of his clothes to find
out if he was a M, I rememebr this, and if he was
not he was siaughtred and thrown on the streets |
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