Gopal Patha built army to save Hindus, met Gandhi too: grandson on Great Calcutta Killings
Kolkata: Sitting in his office in Malanga Lane, opposite Ganesh Chandra Avenue, in Central Kolkata, Santanu Mukherjee, 44, points to the greying pictures on the wall. In most of them is a man infamously known as Gopal Patha, a key figure during the Great Calcutta Killings of August 1946, but has since then been consigned to the dustbins of history.
Gopal Patha, or Gopal Mukherjee, is Santanu Mukherjee’s grandfather and on the 77th anniversary of the Great Calcutta Killings that began on 16 August, 1946, Santanu told ThePrint that it was high time his grandfather’s name was cleared.
My grandfather took up arms during the Great Calcutta Killings to save Hindus from marauding Muslim rioters that were killing men, raping women and burning down Hindu properties. But he bore no ill will towards Muslims,” said Santanu, a businessman and social worker.
He added that his grandfather ran a butcher shop, which the family still owns, and bought goats from Muslim sellers before, during and after the killings.
Apart from the pictures on the walls of his house — where Gopal Patha once lived — Santanu has no other trinket or memorabilia that evoke memories of his grandfather. Only stories and oral accounts shared by friends and neighbours.
There are no biopics dedicated to Gopal Patha either and talks with a team sent by a prominent filmmaker for one have failed thus far.
In 2018, a Bengali-language film called Danga the Riot, directed by Milan Bhowmik, featured a character inspired by him, but the film reportedly did not gain much traction. Moreover, media reports show that a Wikipedia page dedicated to him was also taken down earlier this year.
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The Great Killings
Historians are divided on what happened between 16 to 21 August, 1946. “In Calcutta, although the violence was started by the [Muslim] League, the main sufferers were the Muslims of the city. Out-numbered and out-gunned, they lost more lives and had more homes burnt than their Hindu adversaries,” wrote historian Ramachandra Guha in a 2014 article for The Telegraph titled ‘Divided or Destroyed — Remembering Direct Action Day’.
But this much is uncontested that the events of 16 August, 1946, unfolded soon after a Muslim League Council Meeting on 27-29 July, 1946, passed a resolution that 16 August, 1946, would be ‘Direct Action Day’, aimed at taking direct action for a Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Research scholar Monidipa Bose Dey, in an article for Firstpost last year wrote: “Jinnah was clear enough in his indications of his intentions when he boldly stated he will have ‘India divided or India burned’, and the Muslim League had said ‘goodbye to Constitutional methods’ and was ready to ‘create trouble’.”
She added that this was supported by Husseyn Shahid Suhrawardy, the then Bengal chief minister, who said “no actions were to be taken against the armed Muslims should they decide to unleash their activities in the city (Yasmin Khan, ibid, p 65).”
“Jinnah specifically used the religious and communal symbols and idioms to charge up the Muslim community into starting violence for a forced carving out of a separate nation as a Muslim homeland,” she wrote.
According to Santanu, it was during this mayhem that his grandfather decided to “form an army to save Hindus”.
“He formed the Bharater Jatiya Bahin with Bengali, Odia, Bihari and Punjabi Hindus from the neighbourhood to take on the Muslim gangs that were unleashed by Suhrawardy,” said Santanu.
