MOST OF CALCUTTA QUIET

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24960, 22 August 1946, Page 5

MOST OF CALCUTTA QUIET

Death Roll of Thousands Now Admitted (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, August 21. “Order has been restored in most parts of Calcutta, but assaults and stabbings continue to be reported from the city’s more obscure areas. This is natural,” says “The Times” correspondent. “The bitter hatreds generated during the unprecedented three-day orgy of murder, arson, and looting in India’s biggest city cannot rapidly subside.

“The British-owned newspaper ‘Statesman’ was the first to estimate the deaths alone at between ,2000 and 3000. This huge figure staggered the public, especially outside Calcutta, nothing near it having occurred elsewhere in India before, but the estimate has not been officially challenged, and responsible circles now admit that even 3000 is probably an underestimate and that the actual number of dead will never be known because of the shambles to which the city was reduced.

“The number of wounded is reckoned at anything up to 10,000. Incendiarism and looting were also of unparalleled intensity and extent, and it will be many days, perhaps weeks, before Calcutta is itself again.”

The curfew will be retained as a precaution and troops will remain in the city until the threat of danger is past. Trade unions have been asked to restore essential services. It is officially announced that a temporary cut of 50 per cent, has been made in the food ration as the result of the recent communal rioting in which some ration ships were looted and burned.

British newspaper comment empha-. sises the warning which the Calcutta' riots constitute to a country which is about to accept the responsibilities of self-government “The first duty of the new Government in India will be to lay the spectra of mob rule.” says “The Times.’ “Tha Calcutta outbreak has a lesson, which should be learned by Indian statesmen of both communities. The principal lesson of the tragedy is its illustration of the perilously narrow margin which to-day divides order from anarchy in India. Local leaders of both communities have discovered that the most eloquent appeals are powerless to restrain the orgy of looting, murder, and arson which swept Calcutta and that the only effective protection for peaceful people lies in the strong, though overtaxed, arms of the police and tne military. The “Manchester Guardian” says: “It is a tragic beginning for India's independence that the thin crust of law and order should be torn Up by lightheaded politicians.” It asks whether the Moslem League will heed the warning. The paper suggests that an inquiry should be held into allegations that the Bengal Government encouraged the demonstrations in their early stages and that the Governor delayed calling out the troops. In Paris. “Le Monde." which often reflects French Foreign Office views, says the Calcutta disturbances prove the necessity for the continued presence of the British in India as mediators, and remarks a trifle caustically that it would be unjust to refuse to * recognise how the realities of the situation justify British desires.