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Last
updated: 19-May-2009
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This
intends to give an over view over the numerous historic events which affected Calcutta
in the 1940s.
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Although the outbreak of the war in Europe
was not entirely unexpected, the way
Top of page ● 03 September 1939 -
Outbreak of War in Europe ●
The seizing of the German Consulate
● Internment of German Enemy aliens
● September 1941 - German Attack on Russia
● 1941 – Pre war tensions with Japan
● 07 December 1941 - The attack on Pearl
Harbour
● Beginning of WW2 in Asia
● The seizing of the Japanese Consulate
● Internment of Japanese Enemy aliens
● Requisitioning
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The Passing
of Rabindranath Tagore
The death of Tagore in 1941 was not
entirely unexpected. Nevertheless it led
to unprecedented scenes of mourning in
His poetry, plays and other
literature had been loved by the world and he was deeply revered by the people
of
For Bengal It was the End of an Era.
For more than half a century he had been dominant in so many aspects and with
him the Bengal Renaissance, which had been such a large part of
The very soul of the city would
never be the same without him, and it has never quite stopped mourning as it
did in August 1941.
Top of page
● 1939-1940 –Tagore’s last productive years ● May 1940 - Gandhi visits Tagore in
Shantiniketan
● Sept./Oct. 1940 - Tagore is ill in Calcutta ● November 1940 - Tagore returns to
Shantiniketan
● 1940-41 - Tagore's final Poems ● 14 April 1941 - "Subhyater Sankat” (The
Crisis in Civilisation) ● 09 May 1941 – Tagore’s 80th Birthday ● 25 July 1941 - Tagore leaves Shantiniketan
for the last time
● 30 July 1930 – Tagore writes his last poem ● 30 July 1930
● Operation in Calcutta ● 07 August 1941 - Tagore dies ● Tagore's cremation ceremony ● Tagore's shrad at Shantiniketan ● Reactions to Tagore's Death
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Of all the charismatic and
strong-willed politicians in pre-independence
Even that however, could curb not
stop his seemingly boundless energy, and his escape from
Continuous rumours, propaganda
leaflets and especially his broadcasts from
His mysterious disappearance at the
end of the war finally completed his transformation from flesh and blood
politician into national myth, a myth which still enthrals many in the city.
Top of page ● 1939 - Subhas Chandra Bose
leaves the Congress Party at the Tripuri Congress
● The Forward Block
● July 1940 - The Holwell Monument Agitation
● July 1940 - Arrest
● September 1940 - Hungerstike
● December 1940 – House-arrest
● 17/18 Jan 1941 - Escape from House-arrest
● The way to Germany
● Meeting Hitler
● The India Centre
● Legion Freies Indien
● The Netaji's Broadcasts
● By U-Boat to Japan
● 21 October 1943 - Azad Hind government
● The INA ● 21 May 1945 - Netaji
Subhas Bose's last broadcast from Bangkok
● 17 August 1945 Netaji Subhas Bose's plane crashes
near Taihoku in Taiwan
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Calcutta as one of the birthplaces
of modern Indian nationalism, and as host to one of the most educated and
advanced of Indian populations had always been a hotbed for political activity
and agitation.
Throughout the 1930s, the genteel
well chaired debates in public halls became increasingly a thing of the past and
political agitation took to the streets to address the increasingly politically
aware masses.
Even in the tense and politically
repressive situation of the war did not stop the Calcuttans from coming out and
making their voice heard.
The quit India movement broke
through it and from then on till independence and beyond the political,
communal and economic situation always provided enough issues to spark of
protest in a great variety of forms.
Small meetings, speeches, mass
ralleys, political leaflets and magazines, strikes, protest-marches, sit-ins,
riots, mutinies, terrorist attacks and hungerstrikes; all were used to make
one's opinions and grievances heard and felt.
They seemed to be so frequent that
almost independently of the actual cause they became a prominent (and in some
case permanent till today) feature of life in 1940s Calcutta.
[Please note that some of the
greater agitations, namely the communal tensions of 1946, and the Communist
agitation are dealt with in separate chapters. ]
Top of page
● 08 August 1942 - Quit India Resolution
● August 1942 - Free Tamralipta government
● 14-17August 1942 - Calcutta Hartal of Quit
India movement ● 10 March 1944 - Textile Crisis Day
● 21 November 1945 - Demonstrations against
the Azad Hind Fauz Trials ●
12 February 1946 - Further demonstrations
against Azad Hind Fauz Trials ●
1946 – Tebhaga Movement
● 1946 - Naval Mutiny
● 21 January 1947 - "Hands off
Vietnam" Demonstration at Dum Dum Airport
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Governing the second largest city of
the British Empire had never been a easy task.
The chronic shortage of tax revenue
and a climate which put enormous strain on civic infrastructure made life
difficult for the co-operation.
The cities rapid growth, ethnic
diversity, drastic social inequalities
and the competing interests of
Industry trade and civil society further made consensus nearly impossible.
The 30 and 40s the increasingly
radical agitation for independence and the increasing communal tensions reduced
Calcutta City Politics to a state of near anarchy.
To that were added since 1939 the
strains of the war effort, Japanese bomb attacks, and the effects of the great
famine of '43, all of which pushed the cities infrastructure as well as the
nerves of its citizens and administrators to near breaking point.
And even when the war was won, the
post war years were marred by even more violent communal tensions, economic
problems as well as the general uncertainty preceeding partition.
With independence a new era dawned.
How would Calcutta govern itself in
a free India, with all its new opportunities.
But also, how would the city and its
government cope with the sudden influx of refugees and the decline of it empire
based economy.
Top of page
● The City Emblem
● The Government Structure
● The Corporation
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The Muslim League
in Government
Throughout the 1920s and 30s the
previously politically dormant rural majority of Bengal had been awakened by
groups like the Krisak Praja Party. This, and the infighting in the Bengal
Provincial Congress party, led inevitably to the late 1930s and most of the
1940s of rural or Muslim based parties. Fazlul Huq, Kwaja Nazimuddin, and
finally H.S. Suhrawardy successively led Bengal governments from Calcutta with
the Krisak Praja Party, the Muslim League or combination thereof, interrupted
only by intrigues and vicious infighting and periods of governors rule.
It was only the fact that the
secessionist Muslim League won out in the inter-party struggle and ultimately
took much of Bengal and most of her Muslim voters to Pakistan, which allowed
Congress to regain power in the assembly at independence.
Top of page
● The Muslim League - The Krisak Praja Party
● Fazlul Huq
● Kwaja Nazimuddin
● 21 March 1940 - Pakistan resolution
● 1937-1941 - The First Fazlul Huq Cabinett
● 1941 - Bose - League pact takes over
Calcutta Corporation ● December 1941 - Fazlul Huq and the Muslim
League ● December 1941 - The Huq - Congress
Government ● 28 March1943 - Resignation of the Fazlul Huq
government ● March/Apil 1943 - Governor's rule
● 24 April 1943 - Kwaja Nazimuddin's Muslin
League cabinet ● 1944 - Muslim League takes
over Calcutta Corporation ●
28 March 1945 - Nazimuddin's Muslin League
government falls ● 02 April 1946 - H.S. Suhrawardy forms Muslim
League government ● H.S. Suhrawardy
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In the days before independence and full democracy in India the figures of the Provincial governor and the Viceroy in New Delhi still exerted a great deal of influence. Their personalities shaped politics and to some extent life in India. The way the social backgrounds, personalities and attitudes of the holders of these post changed does conversely say a lot about the changing nature of British rule in India and Calcutta.
Top of page
● Sir John Herbert
● Sir Richard Casey
● Frederick John Burrows
● Lord Linlithgow
● Field Marshal Lord Wavell
● Lord Louis Mountbatten
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The
unstoppable Japanese Advance
At first even the Pacific war had
seem far away, with the fall of Hong Kong sad but not too unexpected. In the
early months of 1942 this all changed. In short succession the Japanese managed
to overrun the European possessions in South-East Asia. The fall of the
fortress city of Singapore was great shock and in less than a month Rangoon
also had fallen, and by the end of March the Japanese had reached India near
Chittagong and the on the Andamans.
Would Calcutta be next? Would there
be a panic; would the British and their allies fight; would the independence
movement welcome the Japanese?
In the meantime there were many
refugees from Burma with horrific tales to tell, many relatives were trapped,
missing or killed behind enemy lines and in the city itself some fifth
columnists working for the Axis.
Calcutta had suddenly found itself
on the front line facing the march of a seemingly unstoppable enemy.
Top of page
● 15 February1942 - The Fall of Singapore
● March 1942 - The Fall of the Dutch East
Indies ● 08 March 1942 - The Fall of Rangoon
● Summer 1942 - The Arrival of the Burma
Refugees ● 23 March 1942 - The Japanese reach Bengal at
Chittagong ● 23 March 1942 - The
Japanese take the Andamans ●
Pro-axis activity in Calcutta
● The Losses
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One of the less remembered and more
unusual effects of the war were the large number of American military personnel
which it brought to the city. They were mostly (although by no means all) white
like the British, but very different in style. They had more money, where used
to a different life style and living standard back home and most of all they
had a very different attitude to India, the Indians and their culture. Many Calcuttans were surprised and even
shocked and offended by their disregard for age old colonial and Indian
traditions. Others found them refreshingly efficient and modern, and lapped up
everything they brought with them, from their money and materials which swamped
the city, to their Magazines, Movies, Swing & Jazz.
Top of page
● 02 April 1942 - Arrival of US Troops
● American troops
● Americans and Indians
● Americans and the British
● Black soldiers
● Out of Bounds
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The rapid progress of the Japanese
through South-East Asia in early 1942 was finally stopped on the borders of
India. The immediate threat of invasion had seemed to recede until in late 1942
the Japanese made their presence felt again.
Calcutta was just within range of
Japanese bombers, and through-out 1942 and '43 they did their best to disrupt
the operations of the port and create panic among the population.
Top of page
● Air Raid Precautions
● 20 December 1942 - First Japanese Bombing Raid
● 25 December 1942 - Japanese Christmas Raid
on Central Calcutta ● 1942 - Japanese attack on
Kidderpore Docks ● 05 December 1943 - First Japanese daylight
raid on Calcutta ● War damage
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The most tragic event of the 1940s
in Calcutta was the Bengal famine of 1943.
Throughout the war increased demand
and reduced supply drove up rice prices. A cyclone in 1942 and forced
requisitioning for the forces as well as hoarding by speculators then drove
prices even further until they were out of reach for much of the poor.
Many of the starving villagers started
a long march to the city in hope of finding food.
Many died on the way, but a
hundred-thousand settled on to the city’s pavements to beg search for scraps
and often simply die where they were.
The response of the city was
inadequate and public anger rose.
Many volunteered to help the poor in
running soup kitchens many were stirred to political action. But nonetheless
about a thousand destitutes died each week in the streets of the second city of
the empire and all over Bengal there were at least 3 million victims.
Many tried to ignore and forget the
catastrophe, but in the end the consciousness and political outlook of the city
had changed forever.
Top of page ● Underlying reasons
● May 1942 - Boat Denial policy
● 16 October 1942 - The Midnapore Cyclone
● Food requesitioning
● January 1943 - First reports of famine in
the villages ● May 1943 - The first
starving villagers reach Calcutta ●
June 1943 - First reports of death from
famine in the villages ●
The reporting of the Famine
● August 1943 - Peak of the Bengal Famine
● August 1943 - Soup kitchens & voluntary
aid ● The Azad Hind Government
offers Japanese rice for Bengal ●
November 1943 - Food rationing in Calcutta
● August 1943 - Disposal of the dead
● Army relief work
● December 1943 - The famine comes to an end
● Inquiry Commission
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In mid 1942 the previously seemingly
invincible Japanese and Germans finally felt the first major setbacks. The roll
back had definitely begun even for India after the battle of Imphal and Kohima
in 1944. Yet there was still a lot of fighting till the end came with the
Atom-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And even if by Mid September 1945 the last Japanese had finally
surrendered the war had not really come to and end for Calcutta.
Freed POWs came into town needing
medical care, supply lines had to be maintained for newly freed/re-conquered countries.
Most of all the fighting men came back from the front to Calcutta hoping for
repatriation. But transport was scarce and the port overworked and consequently
vast numbers of troops had to stay on sometimes for as much as a year without
much to do, facing increasing hostility by the public waiting impatiently for
independence, and lacking the discipline of war service.
In the meantime the lucrative
defence contracts, which had led to a boom in manufacturing in the city, came
to and end, Britain one of the city's main customer and investor was itself
impoverished by the war effort, and saw not much of a future in the Raj. The
economy took a nose dive, crime and the black market boomed, and the political
future was more uncertain than ever.
Top of page
● May 1942 - The Japanese fail to win the
Indian ocean ● January 1943 - The Germans surrender at
Stalingrad ● The Stilwell Road
● 05 April - 22 June 1944 - Battles of Imphal
and Kohima ● June 1944 - D Day Landings
● 20 March 1945 - The Allies recapture
Mandalay ● 03 May 1945 - The Allies
retake Rangoon ● 07 May 1945 - German
surrender VE Day ● August 1945 - The Atom
Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ●
14 August 1945 - Japan surrenders VJ Day
● 5 September 1945 - British troops land in
Singapore ● 13 September 1945 - The last Japanese troops
in Burma and the Andamans surrender ●
PoW of the Japanese
● The Long wait for Repatriation
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This chapter deals with the politics of Calcutta and Bengal during the
years running up to independence.
[Please note that the communal tensions in 1947, the rise of
communism, and the years of Muslim League rule are dealt with each in separate
chapters]
Top of page
● Sarat Chandra Bose
● Dr Shyamaprasad Mukherjee
● European Association
● The Royalists
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Few events of the 1940s are still as
contested as the large scale communal riots in August 1946. What do people remember
of it? What was reported at the time? Contradictions, and contested accounts
are not unusual.
The human tragedy of it all is
undeniable though as is the fact that Calcutta and even India as a whole was
never the same again.
Top of page
● Earlier Communal Riots
● 16 August 1946 - Day of Direct Action
● 16-19 August 1946 - Great Calcutta Killings
● The Authorities' actions
● Defence Associations
● Working for Peace
● 19 August 1946 - British troops enter
Calcutta to end the riots ●
Gandhi fast for Peace
● After the Riots
● Spens Commission
● 10 October 1946 - Noakhali Killings
● Gandhis visit to Noakhali
● Bihar Killings
● 29 May 1947 - Renewed Communal Violence
● July 1947 - Jinnah & Gandhi
Peace-Appeals are dropped from planes over the city
● August 1947 - Gandhi stays with Suhrawardy
at Baliaghata ● 1948 – Assassination of Gandhi
● November 1948 - Muharram Disturbances
● February-March 1950 - Communal violence
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For India as a whole the most
momentous event in the 1940 was undoubtedly independence.
Calcutta had always been closely
tied to both the Empire and all its history, politics and most of all its
economic realities.
Simultaneously the city's
inhabitants were also some of the earliest and most radical in rejecting the
empire and fighting for India’s freedom. Consequently independence had a deep
effect on the life of the city as a whole and of all of its inhabitants.
With the charged up emotions
surrounding the issue of independence it was impossible for this process to
happen without unforeseen events.
As Indian independence was only the
first of a wave of decolonisation there was also interest and support in Calcutta for other
countries (such as French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies) which were
facing a much harder fight to throw of the colonial yoke.
By the end of our decade India
(which at the start of it had been committed to a world war by the sole
decision of a British Viceroy) had finally gained full independence and became
a republic in 1950.
[Please note that much of the
agitation for Independence, the partition and its effects, as well as the
independence of Chandernagore, each form a separate chapter]
Top of page
● Negotiations for Independence
● The Weeks and Days leading to Independence
● 15 August 1947 - Independence Day
● C.R.Rajagopalcharya
● Unrest after Independence
● World-wide Independence
● The New Constitution
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The saddest side effect of Indian
independence was undoubtedly the partition of the country.
We start the decade less than 30
years after the Swadeshi movement had re-united Bengal against the will of the
British colonial masters.
Yet throughout the 1940s decisions
were taken which drastically changed the political landscape. The political
consciousness of the rural Muslim majority rose and felt unrepresented by urban
Hindu majority Calcutta. This made it possible for the Muslim league to
persuade them of the potential benefits of a separate Pakistan.
By 1947, what in the late 30s had
sounded like no more than eccentric ideas, had become seemingly impossible to
avoid.
The sole remaining question, which
for the future of Calcutta was vital and worried many of its inhabitants very
deeply, was how exactly Bengal was to be partitioned.
Was it all, including Calcutta, to
go to Pakistan, was it to be a separate independent state apart from both
Indian and Pakistan, or was solely the greater Calcutta area to be split off to
perhaps form some sort of neutral territory ?
Anxiety in Calcutta and especially
its Hindu community led to much agitation against Pakistan.
In the end as independence drew ever
closer the province was cut in two (sometimes very roughly) along communal
lines, in less than a month.
India as a whole and one of its most
culturally distinct provinces, Bengal, was partitioned, never to be re-united.
The effects are stamped on to city and its culture to this very day. Calcutta has lost a large part of its
economic and cultural hinterland, and countless of its old and new inhabitants
their homes and their roots, many even their lives.
Even Ghandi who had done so much to
ease partition in Calcutta in particularly was had been murdered within a few
month.
[Please note that independence as
well as the communal riots in 1946 each form separate chapters]
Top of page
● Original Ideas
● 06 April 1947 - Tarakeshwar Conference of
Provincial Hindu Mahasabha ●
11 April 1947 - Petition for the Partition
of Bengal in Constituent Assembly ●
27 April 1947 - Suhrawardy Bose Plan for an
independent undivided Bengal ●
03 June 1947 - Mountbatten announcement of
Bengal partition ● 20 June 1947 - Bengal Assembly votes for
Bengal to join Pakistan ●
03 July 1947 - Formation of shadow cabinet
for West Bengal ● 08 July 1947 - The Boundary commission
● 09 August 1947 - Bengal Boundary commission
report ● August 1947 - Division of the Bengal
administration ● 17 August 1947 - Official
Partition of Bengal ● Fleeing form East-Bengal
● Partition Killing
● Fleeing form West-Bengal
● The Refugees Arrive
● Aid for and by Refugees
● The Refugees settle
● Gandhi assassinated
● December 1949 - Communal Riots break out in
Khulna
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Partition and the
loss of the Muslim majority areas of East Bengal meant automatically the end of
Muslim dominance in the Assembly. With the earlier disappearance of Subhas
Chandra Bose the Congress party assumed power in the state which it would hold
onto for almost 20 years. Especially at the beginning the Congress party was
still not free from the dramatic infighting of earlier years, but soon Dr. BC
Roy managed to assume his dominant position to rule both party and state until
his death.
Top of page
● The Congress Party in West-Bengal
● The shadow government for West-Bengal
● 17 August 1947 - Dr. Prafulla Chandra Ghosh
becomes first Chief Minister of West-Bengal
● 21 November 1947 - 1st session of Assembly
of West Bengal ● Atulya Ghosh
● 1948 - The first Assembly Elections
● 1948 - Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy becomes Chief
Minister ● Opposition to Congress
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Communism now so dominant in
West-Bengal had a chequered but very interesting history in the 1940s.
It’s focus on social revolution as
opposed to merely independence as well as it seemingly alien intellectual
ideology made for a difficult start. The war years further complicated matters,
as the Soviet Union, in line with the socialist world strategy dictated much of
the political line to the CPI, and as the USSR was an ally of the British so it
seemed to many was the CPI just at a time when other parties intensified fight
against the British.
After the war on the other hand the social inequalities and economic problems resulting from the war (not least the experience of the famine) made many open to the radical social ideas of the communists. The communal violence partly overshadowed the social issues but also let the party's secularism look attractive. So in line with many other countries at the time, communism was steadily on the rise in Bengal. This however, together with increasing number of political strikes as well as armed activities of splinter groups like the RCPI led to Communism being banned and many activists being imprisoned in free post independence Bengal. Only the new Indian constitution in 1950 led to a resumption of activities which always also embraced Communism in Asia.
Actual political power was still far
away but the party had at least managed to become a strong opposition to
Congress in Bengal.
Top of page
● The CPI during the war to 1941 ●
The CPI during the war 1941 to 1945
● 1943 - Legalisation of the CPI
● 1943 - CPI Conference
● Post-war activity of the CPI ●
1947 - The Tramworkers' strike
● Communism in the rest of the world
● The CPI in elections
● 1948 - The banning of the CPI ●
The RCPI
● 1948 - The Dum Dum Steelwork attack
● Re-legalisation of the CPI
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The
Independence of Chandernagore
The independence of India famously
spelt the start of the unravelling of the British Empire through out the world.
However, almost forgotten nowadays
is that less than two years later, in a small sleepy suburb of Calcutta,
another even older chain of Empire had its first small link broken.
The citizens of Chandernagore
overwhelmingly voted to leave their French and Tamil masters in Paris and
Pondicherry. It was the first French territory to successfully free itself from
France in the 20th century and in its own unusual way it finally joined
West-Bengal.
Top of page
● Chandernagor during the War
● 1947 Chandernagor Ville Libre
● 19 June 1949 - Chandernagor Referendum
● 02 May 1950 – De-facto transfer of
Chandernagore to India
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Great Plans
for a Great Future
Independence and partition had
brought a great many new needs to the city.
The economy probably more than any
other Indian city geared towards the Empire for both markets and capital had to
be restructured. Meanwhile its economic dominance was resented in the rest of
India and it had also lost half of its regional market and many of the raw materials
for its industries.
The strains of the war and the later
political tensions had led to a long term neglect and sometimes deliberate
destruction of the city's infrastructure, just at a time when millions of
refugees had to be accommodated and integrated.
But independence and the new
political stability under Dr. BC Roy also held many a new opportunities.
Everyone expected things to get better now colonial exploitation had been
ended. West-Bengal and its metropolis Calcutta
were now finally allowed to stand on their own two feet.
Bold decision could be taken for a
new future at last: New buses, the start of the Ambassador car industry, an
underground railway for Calcutta, new clean and modern satellite cities on its
fringes, a new capital city even for a new West-Bengal untied with a natural
resource rich Bihar to boost heavy Industry...
Ambitious plans indeed, resources
permitting of course...
Top of page ● General
● 31 July 1948 - Calcutta State Transport Corporation starts up ● 1949 - First discussions
on building a MetroRail ●
1948 - The Hindustan 10 rolls of the
assembly line at Hindustan Motors ●
The Bengal-Bihar merger plan
● The new capital
● A new Calcutta on the lakes
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This is a round up of a number of
historic events in the city which do not fit into any other category.
Top of page ● The New Howrah Bridge
● The new Customs House ● Mahajati Sadan
● The National Library at Belvedere
● The Bhawal Sanyasi Case ●
Mother Teresa
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Reference ●
Last
updated: 19-May-2009
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If there
are any technical problems, factual inaccuracies or things you have to add,
then please contact the group
under info@calcutta1940s.org