MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2010
Mr.S.Sengupta's story
Family Life & Early Years:
I was born in Calcutta in 1929, the year of world economic depression. Now I am 81 years old. It was pre-independence age for India. It was before World War II.
My childhood days in many ways were quite eventful. When I was about 10 years old the World War II started. Though we in India were quite far from Europe where the war was first hand, because England was a major party to the war, India, their colony came in the participation of war efforts. The British had major concentration at that time in Calcutta, as well as their army base. I recall we were raided by air by the Japanese in 1939 in Calcutta. Dad packed us all, seven children, to Darbhanga in Bihar.
Around 1942 when we were back in Calcutta, came the man made famine in Bengal. It was devastating. People from villages in and around Calcutta came in flocks expecting to get food and relief in dire distress.
“ Ma ektoo fan dao.” ( Fan was the residue of water thrown away after rice is cooked ) was the cry you would hear throught the day from the begging crowd passing your house hoping to live one more day. Remembering those days bring water in my eyes. In the cities, social organisations established temporary relief camps to feed hundreds of people looking for food. In our neighborhood with collective efforts a cooked food distribution centre was opened in a large empty lot of vacant land, where I worked as a volunteer. This part was gratifying. But during afternoon hours our duty was to collect dead bodies lying on road sides, wrap these in long cloth, and carry these to the burning ghat, and stack them up in huge heaps of bodies waiting to get the turn for cremation. This was the saddest time of my life.
Struggle for Independence:
To describe the period I shall take you all too a little back in time covering rural India in the east. My parents hailed from East Bengal, which was a pretty progressive part of pre-independent India. Many eminent scholars and literary men and women of India, including Rabindra Nath Tagore hailed from East Bengal. In fact in the Eastern India, the lead for freedom struggle were emanated first from this land which post partition of India by British, became East Pakistan and subsequently turned into Independent nation as Bangladesh.
Mahatma Gandhi, our father of the nation, introduced the non-cooperation movement and non violent agitation against British, watching the East Bengal uprising revolt by many young men with guns and arms, against the mighty empire and its futility. Binoy , Badal and Dinesh are among many freedom fighters who gave their life taking to arms against the administration. The Calcutta city has renamed Dahousie Square- the British built Offices around a tank and Writers Building housing Govt. Depts. as BBD Bagh. The stories we heard from our parents about the freedom struggle by ordinary citizens organising themselves to revolt was spontaneous, primarily provoked by the unfair treatment by the civic administration of that time. We were natives and they were sahibs (gentlemen).
My mom could recite to us the freedom struggle through lyrics and poems, which was the way recorded history of the time passed from people to people as keeping recorded history in paper was considered seditious. The uprising was in many forms. The punishment was pretty severe. The British established a Guantanamo Bay like punishment centre in Andaman Island, where hanging by the neck was common. There were raids by young civilians on the armory of the British; the famous one was in Chittagong, again in East Bengal. Several Englishmen in their official duty, in rural India were murdered by freedom fighters. Where the law and order failed to get the culprits identified or arrested they put punitive tax on the entire civic society expecting confession from natives.
When I was a student in class VIII. I recall, there were many a days I was pulled out from school by the elders who were in colleges to go on demonstration, shouting BANDE MATARAM , We marched towards the Brigade parade ground where police made lathi charge to disband the demonstrators. Many of us would lose our way home while returning.
A small incident deserves quoting here. Dad arranged the service hand at the school book shop to reach me back home after school. He was a young man and I liked him. One day he gave me a revolver and asked me if I could hide the stuff for a few days for him. Like many I later realised he was a quiet freedom fighter. I brought it home. We had a pair of Baya and Tabla, which dad played when he was young. These were parked behind the organ in our house on a window sill. I hid the revolver underneath the Tabla which sat on a ringed bire. There was enough space to hide the revolver. My dad was a British Government Servant in Indian revenue Service. What I did, I later realised, would have cost my father his job if it was known to police.
We lived in Calcutta for completing our schooling. Dad lived in Delhi for service. After appearing in Matric Exam I went and lived in Delhi with my father. As each year it would happen Dad’s office would move to Shimla in summer, we went and parked in Shimla. (The British Government shifted to Shimla which would become the Summer Capital of the Raj during the summer months and would move back to Delhi when the weather became cooler) My results were out and I needed to get admitted in college. It was long way to winter and dad would not come down from the hills. By the time I was trying for admission I had no choice but to get Intermediate admission with Sanskrit, Logic and Botany. My career was doomed. After Intermediate I switched to night class in commerce and worked during the day in Dalhousie Square.
While in Shimla, we saw Gandhiji. We saw Pandit Nehru on horse back on Cart Road. (This used to be the main entry road to Shimla). The time was pretty hectic for the Indian political leaders. The agitation was intense. Labor party ruled England. Slowly realization was dawning on British Government that they have to withdraw from India and it was matter of time now.
Partition:
The history will not be complete unless you all in this century have the appreciation of the price the country paid for the freedom, particularly the people in the partitioned areas affecting Punjabis, Sindhis and Bengalees of both Hindu and Muslim Communities. I shall close my contribution to ad memoirs what I saw and witnessed immediately before and after Independence.
In some parts of India suddenly common men and women who lived happily side by side sharing miseries and happiness as citizens of India, started hating each other as different and distinct communities; as one the enemy of the other. This was the best achievement of the British politicians, divide and rule, which they mastered in their empire building. It is difficult to say what triggered it but the consequence was severe. An innocent bystander would suddenly see a long knife has pierced in his stomach as he has been identified as of kafir (infidel)community. . A Muslim faced similar experience if he was a minority in a disturbed area. Unless you are crazy you will behave this way. We have collected dead bodies of such mass frenzies to do the cremation in our own locality. Stories of mass migration from one side of the border to the other for seeking safe haven have in many instances flared in to mass killing of both communities losing human rationale. Soon the rage took the life of Mahatma Gandhi targeting him in the height of madness. India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan were free from bondage dividing one country in to two and one of which again in two non-contiguous parts. What madness.
Mr.S.Sengupta's story
Family Life & Early Years:
I was born in Calcutta in 1929, the year of world economic depression. Now I am 81 years old. It was pre-independence age for India. It was before World War II.
My childhood days in many ways were quite eventful. When I was about 10 years old the World War II started. Though we in India were quite far from Europe where the war was first hand, because England was a major party to the war, India, their colony came in the participation of war efforts. The British had major concentration at that time in Calcutta, as well as their army base. I recall we were raided by air by the Japanese in 1939 in Calcutta. Dad packed us all, seven children, to Darbhanga in Bihar.
Around 1942 when we were back in Calcutta, came the man made famine in Bengal. It was devastating. People from villages in and around Calcutta came in flocks expecting to get food and relief in dire distress.
“ Ma ektoo fan dao.” ( Fan was the residue of water thrown away after rice is cooked ) was the cry you would hear throught the day from the begging crowd passing your house hoping to live one more day. Remembering those days bring water in my eyes. In the cities, social organisations established temporary relief camps to feed hundreds of people looking for food. In our neighborhood with collective efforts a cooked food distribution centre was opened in a large empty lot of vacant land, where I worked as a volunteer. This part was gratifying. But during afternoon hours our duty was to collect dead bodies lying on road sides, wrap these in long cloth, and carry these to the burning ghat, and stack them up in huge heaps of bodies waiting to get the turn for cremation. This was the saddest time of my life.
Struggle for Independence:
To describe the period I shall take you all too a little back in time covering rural India in the east. My parents hailed from East Bengal, which was a pretty progressive part of pre-independent India. Many eminent scholars and literary men and women of India, including Rabindra Nath Tagore hailed from East Bengal. In fact in the Eastern India, the lead for freedom struggle were emanated first from this land which post partition of India by British, became East Pakistan and subsequently turned into Independent nation as Bangladesh.
Mahatma Gandhi, our father of the nation, introduced the non-cooperation movement and non violent agitation against British, watching the East Bengal uprising revolt by many young men with guns and arms, against the mighty empire and its futility. Binoy , Badal and Dinesh are among many freedom fighters who gave their life taking to arms against the administration. The Calcutta city has renamed Dahousie Square- the British built Offices around a tank and Writers Building housing Govt. Depts. as BBD Bagh. The stories we heard from our parents about the freedom struggle by ordinary citizens organising themselves to revolt was spontaneous, primarily provoked by the unfair treatment by the civic administration of that time. We were natives and they were sahibs (gentlemen).
My mom could recite to us the freedom struggle through lyrics and poems, which was the way recorded history of the time passed from people to people as keeping recorded history in paper was considered seditious. The uprising was in many forms. The punishment was pretty severe. The British established a Guantanamo Bay like punishment centre in Andaman Island, where hanging by the neck was common. There were raids by young civilians on the armory of the British; the famous one was in Chittagong, again in East Bengal. Several Englishmen in their official duty, in rural India were murdered by freedom fighters. Where the law and order failed to get the culprits identified or arrested they put punitive tax on the entire civic society expecting confession from natives.
When I was a student in class VIII. I recall, there were many a days I was pulled out from school by the elders who were in colleges to go on demonstration, shouting BANDE MATARAM , We marched towards the Brigade parade ground where police made lathi charge to disband the demonstrators. Many of us would lose our way home while returning.
A small incident deserves quoting here. Dad arranged the service hand at the school book shop to reach me back home after school. He was a young man and I liked him. One day he gave me a revolver and asked me if I could hide the stuff for a few days for him. Like many I later realised he was a quiet freedom fighter. I brought it home. We had a pair of Baya and Tabla, which dad played when he was young. These were parked behind the organ in our house on a window sill. I hid the revolver underneath the Tabla which sat on a ringed bire. There was enough space to hide the revolver. My dad was a British Government Servant in Indian revenue Service. What I did, I later realised, would have cost my father his job if it was known to police.
We lived in Calcutta for completing our schooling. Dad lived in Delhi for service. After appearing in Matric Exam I went and lived in Delhi with my father. As each year it would happen Dad’s office would move to Shimla in summer, we went and parked in Shimla. (The British Government shifted to Shimla which would become the Summer Capital of the Raj during the summer months and would move back to Delhi when the weather became cooler) My results were out and I needed to get admitted in college. It was long way to winter and dad would not come down from the hills. By the time I was trying for admission I had no choice but to get Intermediate admission with Sanskrit, Logic and Botany. My career was doomed. After Intermediate I switched to night class in commerce and worked during the day in Dalhousie Square.
While in Shimla, we saw Gandhiji. We saw Pandit Nehru on horse back on Cart Road. (This used to be the main entry road to Shimla). The time was pretty hectic for the Indian political leaders. The agitation was intense. Labor party ruled England. Slowly realization was dawning on British Government that they have to withdraw from India and it was matter of time now.
Partition:
The history will not be complete unless you all in this century have the appreciation of the price the country paid for the freedom, particularly the people in the partitioned areas affecting Punjabis, Sindhis and Bengalees of both Hindu and Muslim Communities. I shall close my contribution to ad memoirs what I saw and witnessed immediately before and after Independence.
In some parts of India suddenly common men and women who lived happily side by side sharing miseries and happiness as citizens of India, started hating each other as different and distinct communities; as one the enemy of the other. This was the best achievement of the British politicians, divide and rule, which they mastered in their empire building. It is difficult to say what triggered it but the consequence was severe. An innocent bystander would suddenly see a long knife has pierced in his stomach as he has been identified as of kafir (infidel)community. . A Muslim faced similar experience if he was a minority in a disturbed area. Unless you are crazy you will behave this way. We have collected dead bodies of such mass frenzies to do the cremation in our own locality. Stories of mass migration from one side of the border to the other for seeking safe haven have in many instances flared in to mass killing of both communities losing human rationale. Soon the rage took the life of Mahatma Gandhi targeting him in the height of madness. India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan were free from bondage dividing one country in to two and one of which again in two non-contiguous parts. What madness.
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