Partition: Bengal
In the Great Calcutta killings, the Mayor of Calcutta, Syed Mohammed Usman wrote in a pamphlet, “We Muslims have had the crown and have ruled. Do not lose hearts, be ready and take swords. Oh kafir! Your doom is not far.”

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#PartitionHorrors

@LostTemple7
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This was supported by Husseyn Shahid Suhrawardy, the then Bengal chief minister, who in his speech indirectly promised no actions to be taken against the armed Muslims should they decide to unleash their activities in the city.
#PartitionHorrorsRemembranceDay
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DN Panigrahi, the author of India’s Partition: The Story of Imperialism in Retreat, also confirmed the inaction of police & army on that ghastly day when unabated killings and rapes went on for 48 hours, after speaking to a foreign journalist present in Calcutta on that day.
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It is said that the army was brought in only after it was felt that the Europeans might be attacked, showing the collusion between the League and the British colonial government.

#PartitionHorrorsRemembrance
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The Calcutta killings soon started a chain of uncontrolled violence and strategic organized communal violence targeting Hindus across many places (Bihar and Bangladesh).
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In the Noakhali killings that followed the Calcutta riots, the violence was specifically started on the day of Kojagori Lakshmi puja, & resulted in more than 5,000 dead, hundreds of brutal rapes, kidnappings of women, loot, & arson spread across 200 sq miles for many weeks.
Ref: Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition: the making of India and Pakistan, 2017, p. 64-65.
It was only because of the heroic efforts of Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee that India could retain half of Bengal with a majority of Hindus living in it!
In context of a tweet by @Jairam_Ramesh on SP Mukherjee which gives wrong history.

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More from @monidipadey

Jul 21
Re-Reading the 1971 Indo -PK war atroc!t!es on Hindu women.

It is said that the number of mass r@p€s in the 9 month long war is between 200,000 and 400,000.

Most of the r@p€ victims of the Pak!stan! Army and its allies (razakars), were Hindu women. Many of these women di€d in captivity, or later committed suic¡de, while others migrated to India.

During the war, a fatwa was declared in Pak!stan that said Hindu women could be taken as the "booty of war". Imams and MsLm religious leaders of Pak!stan openly declared that the Bengali Hindu women were 'gonimoter maal' (war booty) and they openly supported the r@p€ of these women by the PK Army.

Given below is a documented account of a young Hindu bride (17 year old) who was gang r@p€d by Pak¡stani soldiers -

“Two went into the room that had been built for the bridal couple. The others stayed behind with the family, one of them covering them with his gun. They heard a barked order, and the bridegroom's voice protesting. Then there was silence until the bride screamed ... In a few minutes one of the soldiers came out, his uniform in disarray. He grinned to his companions. Another soldier took his place in the extra room. And so on, until all six had r@p€d the belle of the village. Then all six left, hurriedly. The father found his daughter lying on the string cot unconscious and bleeding. Her husband was crouched on the floor, kneeling over his vomit.” (Bina D’Costa, pp. 121-122)

Almost 200,000-400000 women were r@p€d, giving birth to thousands of war-babies. The Pak!stani soldiers and razakars also kept Bengali Hindu women as s€X-slav€s inside the PK Army camps.

(Image is of a teenage girl r@p€d by a PK soldier who left her war baby with the missionaries of charity for adoption)Image
Author Bina D’Costa tracked down the Australian doctor, Geoffrey Davis, who was brought to Dhaka by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the UN. Davis was tasked with performing late-term ab0rt¡Ons, and facilitating large scale international adoption of the war babies born to the r@p€d Hindu Bengali women.

D’Costa’s conversation with Dr. Davis was published in a Bangladeshi publication. There are details of women being t!ed to trees and gang r@p€d, breasts hack€d off, dumped in mass graves, and held in Pakistani r@p€ camps.

Dr. Geoffrey Davis said that the 200,000 to 400,000 r@p€ victims were an underestimation. The Pakistan army would “keep the infantry back and put artillery ahead and they would shell the hospitals and schools. And that caused absolute chaos in the town. And then the infantry would go in and begin to segregate the women. Apart from little children, all those were s€Xually matured would be segregated..And then the women would be put in the compound under guard and made available to the troops ... Some of the stories they told were appalling. Being r@p€d again and again and again. A lot of them died in those r@p€ camps. There was an air of disbelief about the whole thing. Nobody could credit that it really happened! But the evidence clearly showed that it did happen."
Read:
Bina D'Costa, 2011. Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia.

Margaret Alston, 2015. Women and Climate Change in Bangladesh, p. 40.

New York Times report, 'Horrors of East Pakistan Turning Hope into Despair', Malcolm W. Browne.

Herbery Bodman and Tohidi Nayereh Esfahlani (1998). Women in Muslim societies: diversity within unity.

Ami Birangona Bolchhi ("I, the heroine, speak") by Nilima Ibrahim.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 27
Hinduism in China.

Hinduism is still present in China, though it is now in minuscule numbers. However archaeological evidences suggest there was once a thriving presence of Hindus in different provinces of medieval China.

In photos is the Kaiyuan temple, in Quanzhou, a province of southeast China. According to the historians, there were more than a dozen Hindu temples, including two big shrines, in Quanzhou and the surrounding villages, which were built by a group of Tamil traders who lived here during the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) periods.

In 1271, a visiting Italian merchant recorded that the Indian traders "were recognised easily. These rich Indian men and women mainly live on vegetables, milk and rice, unlike the Chinese who eat meat and fish."

The Kaiyuan temple show many Shaiva motifs, similar to the ones seen on temples in Tamil Nadu of the same period (10th-14th centuries).

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In the 1930s, many murtis of Narasimha were unearthed from Quanzhou during an archaeological excavation by Wu Wenliang. Among other Hindu artefacts, images depicting Puranic stories associated with Vishnu and Shiva were also found, showing a style similar to what is seen on temples in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh of the same period (10th -14th centuries).

Besides the Tamil traders, Indians entered China through the Kamrup route (Assam) via Burma into south Chinese province of Yunnan, as well as other southwestern regions of modern China. This is supported by by the discovery of Shiva-linga and yoni in Jianchuan caves, while many other Hindu artefacts were found during excavation of Dali temple in Yunnan.

Another route to enter China was through Kashmir, and it was this route that carried Buddhism to China.

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My post is in context to a Hanuman murti photo that I had shared on Hanuman Jayanti. The murti was from China, and few then had said there was no Hinduism ever in China, and the hanuman murti was actually from a jataka tale of Buddhism.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 21
FYI @ambedkariteIND
The first photo is that of the Hindu Devi Sri - Gajalakshmi. The two elephants that are bathing her are the two nidhis- Sankha and Padma. This iconography is clearly defined in the Vishnudharmottara (III. 82, 7 ; and 82, 10).
Sri is also found described in Sri-Sukta of the RV and in the Taitttiriya Upanishad.

The wrong identification of Sri-Gajalakshmi images as Maya, the mother of Buddha, was made by Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher (1865–1952), a French scholar, who had made another wrong claim- Buddha image had Greek origins.

Read Anand Coomaraswamy’s article on “Early Indian Iconography” for correct history and interpretation of Gajalakshmi.Image
Two BCE era Gaja Lakshmi coins depicting the Hindu Devi Gajalakshmi

1. Kaushambi: Copper, 300 BCE, Gajalakshmi.

2. 1st c. BCE era Gajalakshmi coin, refer: J. Allan catalogue on coins.

3. Coin of Azilises showing Gaja Lakshmi standing on a lotus, 1st century BCE.

One of the earliest iconography , frequently found on coins, is that of Gaja-Laksmi, i.e., Laksmi standing (rarely seated), being bathed by two etephants . It appears on an uninscribed coin from Kausambi (3rd century B.C.E), coins of Visakha-deva, Sivadatta and probably also of Vayudeva of Ayodhya (1st century B.C.E), and uninscribed coins of Ujjayini (2nd-3rd century B.C.E).

Gajalakshmi was so popular that many Indo-Scythian satraps of northern India like Azilises, Rajuvula, and Sodasa had Her inscribed on their coins.Image
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This is Buddha’s mother Maya.
Completely Different iconographic representation from Devi Gajalakshmi.
Read 5 tweets
Apr 6
The Azad Hind Sarkar was the first 'swadeshi' government of India. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had formed this government and taken oath as the Prime Minister on 21st October, 1943. This makes him the first PM of India.

The Azad Hind government was not a token government. This provisional government was recognised by Japan, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Burma, Thailand, Philippines, Manchuria, and the Republic of China (under Wang Jingwei), while a note of congratulations was sent by Eamon de Valera (the then PM of Ireland).

The Azad Hind Sarkar had presented policies-opinions on several important matters pertaining to Indian life. It also had its own postal stamps, bank, civil code, court, currency, territory (Andaman Nicobar islands), and intelligence service. Developing all these things in a short time frame, with limited resources, and with the British still in control was no mean feat.

The Azad Hind government started working from Singapore. It had 11 ministers and 8 representatives from the INA. This government was formed with the objective of freeing India from British rule, and it was necessary to bring together all political and military resources under one government for that purpose. The Azad Hind government also allowed Netaji to hold talks with various countries, while helping in mobilising NRIs to join and support the war of independence.

Image: 10000 Rupee Note issued by the Azad Hind Bank of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.Image
FYI @INCIndia not accepting this basic truth, the history that had actually happened, is being a perfect British slave. Of course, it suits you that way. One must not forget that Allan Octavian Hume, a former British civil servant, was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress.
@INCIndia Netaji at the Greater East Asia Conference in Japan, 1943.
The Azad Hind Sarkar facilitated Netaji to attend such conferences as a State head and mobilise global support for India against the British.
Read 5 tweets
Feb 1
|| 31st January- the 45th anniversary of the forgotten mass*cre of Dal¡t Refugees in WB under CPI (M)- Left rule ||

On 31st January in 1979, the Marichjhanpi mass*cre took place, when the police under CPI (M) led communist government Ki!!ed Dal¡t Namashudra refugees living in Marichjhanpi island in the Sunderbans.

The namashudra refugees from East Pakistan had fled the Islam!c persecution, & settled in Dandakaranya & other parts of India, both after 1947 and 1971. During early 70s, the communists had spoken largely in favour of these refugees.

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Hearing the supportive statements by the communist leaders, in early 1978, the Da!it Bengali H¡ndu refugees started moving out from Dandakarnya and settled in the islands of Sunderbans, the main centre being at Marichjhanpi. By June 1978, about 30,000 refugees had settled in Marichjhanpi and started various livelihoods, becoming self reliant.

However by then, having used the sympathy wave for the refugees to win elections in WB, the policy of the communists towards the Dal¡t refugees changed, and they took a complete U turn.
The communists then declared that there was no space for the refugees in West Bengal, and asked them to return to Dandakaranya & other parts of the country where they had been earlier resettled.

From end of December 1978, the police & CPM cadres started harassing the settlers in Marichjhapi, ordering them to leave. Friction started as the settlers refused and drove away the CPM goons. Marichjhapi stood out in defiance against the fascism of the communist government.
Read 6 tweets
Sep 16, 2023
|| Hinduism in Armenia and how Christianity destroyed it ||

India and Armenia have recorded historical relations dating back to 149 BCE, which included Hindu settlements in Armenia. This region back then was a part of Turkey and Iran, and two princes from India (Kannauj) had travelled there carrying with them a group of people who were Krishna worshippers, and with the Armenian king’s help they established a city named Veeshap or Odz (a reference to their Indian Takshak ruling house : Takshaka means Naga King, & Odz also meaning snake).

The descendants of the two princes later erected two temples, which held two brass murtis, 5 and 7 metres high, of a god named Kissaneh (Krishna), as recorded by the Syrian historian Zenob Glak in his “History of Taron” written in 4th c. CE.

Under the pagan Armenian government the Hindu colony flourished for a considerable time in Armenia. It was a fairly large one comprising over 15,000 members. The Hindu-Indians in a short period of time built twenty towns, and in each of them they erected their temples. Some of these towns, mentioned by Zenob, retained their names and stood till the middle of the 19th century. Until early 20th century one of the villages in Taron was called Hindkastan. The names Hindubek, Hindu, Hindukhanum, Hindumelik were often used by the Armenians of Taron.

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However, things changed when Christianity was brought to Armenia, the religion which was imposed by fire and sword. As per Zenob, the two temples were destroyed in 301 CE by St. Gregory, the Iluminator, after killing more than 1000 resisting Hindus and priests. The ones that survived were forcibly baptized. The followers of Christianity demolished all other heathen temples and erected churches on their site.

On the site of the two Hindu temples in the town of Veeshap or Odz, St. Gregory built a Christian monastery in 301 CE where he placed relics of St. John the Baptist and Athanagineh the Martyr. This edifice still exists and is known as St. Karapet of Moosh (now in Turkey, near Lake Van). It is noteworthy to mention that almost till the end of the 19th century, not far from this monastery there was a settlement, which used to be called Odz.

With brutal Christian impositions, the Hindu colony that had peacefully existed in Armenia for more than 450 years, came to an end.
@GemsOfINDOLOGY might interest you. Am sure you know of this connection
Read 5 tweets

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