60 quotes found
"If Congress regimes are going to suppress and persecute the Musalmans, it will be very difficult to control disturbances."
"...the time has come for the Muslim nation to resort to direct action to achieve Pakistan, to assert their just rights, to vindicate their honour and to get rid of the present British slavery and the contemplated future caste-Hindu domination."
"The Great Calcutta Killing of 1946 was again the consequence of a call for jihad, which in this case was pronounced by Mohammed Usman, the Mayor of Calcutta at that time. He put the call in black and white and addressed the mujãhids as follows: “It was in this month of Ramzan that open war between Mussalmans and Kafirs started in full swing. It was in this month that we entered victorious into Mecca and wiped out the idolaters. By Allah’s will, the All India Muslim League has selected the selfsame month of Ramzan to start its jihãd for realising Pakistan.”"
"The 16 August, 1946 communal riots broke out in Calcutta after a few days. I would have been killed by a Muslim mob in the early hours of that day as I walked back towards my home from the coffee house which I had found closed. My fluent Urdu and my Western dress saved me. My wife and two year old son had joined me a few days earlier in a small room in a big house bordering on a large Muslim locality. On the evening of the 17th we had to vacate that house and scale a wall at the back to escape murderous Muslim mobs advancing with firearms. Had not the army moved in immediately after, I would not have lived to write what I am writing today."
"This scenario is not a hypothetical construction. It has been staged on a very large scale in 1946, when the Muslim League felt that it was not yet sufficiently supported by the common Muslims, and that the Hindus had not yet unambiguously conceded Pakistan. To convince the former that only the Muslim League and Pakistan could protect them, and to terrorize the latter into the big concession, the Muslim League government in Bengal organized a mass killing of Hindus (the Direct Action Day). They knew fully well that the Hindus would end up retaliating by killing innocent Muslims. Upon which more Muslims would kill Hindus, etc. The important effect was that Muslims suffered at the hands of the Hindus , lost all faith in co-existence with them, and joined hands with the communalist leaders. The pogroms against the Hindus caused a lot of deaths among the Muslim population, but for the Muslim League this brought resounding success. ... What makes creating riots even more attractive, is the sympathy you get for them from secularist politicians and intellectuals. When the Muslim League killed thousands of Hindus in Calcutta, Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru looked the other way. But when Hindu workers staying in Calcutta fled to their villages in Bihar and started killing Muslims there, the same Nehru proposed to bomb those villages from the air. When Hindus got killed, he didn't move a finger, but the killing of Muslims was enough to blow off his Gandhian facade and make him demand indiscriminate killing."
"Bengal Chief Minister H.S. Suhrawardy was not only politically responsible for the remarkable police inaction, but as a Muslim League leader, he had also organized the agitation."
"So, Singh misrepresents Muslim attacks on Hindus, such as the “Great Calcutta Killing”, which took place when the British were on their way out and the provinces had native autonomy. This pogrom, which convinced the British that their resistance to the Partition plan was useless, was planned by the Muslim League, with the passive connivance of the police which was under control of the Muslim League state government. He, however, denies Muslim agency by calling it a “large-scale riot” and a “massacre of Hindus and Muslims”. This is the usual media discourse: two-sided violence or even one-sided Muslim violence is presented as a Hindu attack on the poor hapless Muslims (as in late February 2020, when the Wall Street Journal and Scroll.in notoriously misrepresented a photograph of a Muslim rioters’ attack in Delhi as showing a Hindu attack), and only when the Muslim initiative is too glaring to be denied, their rearguard tactic is to present it as two-sided. In the case of the Great Calcutta Killing, this was purely a one-sided attack by the Muslim League on the Hindus, with the passive complicity of the state police, which only started to intervene as soon as the Hindu side managed to mobilize for self-defence."
"“What we have done to-day is the most historic act in our history. Never have we in the whole history of the League done anything except by constitutional methods. But now we are forced into this position. Today we bid good-bye to constitutional methods.”.... “To-day we have forged a pistol and are in a position to use it.”... “We mean every word of it. We do not believe in equivocation.”"
"Still more provocative speeches, if possible, were made by other Muslim League leaders on this occasion. Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Khan, now Prime Minister of the Dominion of Pakistan, elucidating the implications of the Direct Action threat, said: “Direct Action means resort to non-constitutional methods, and that can take any form which may suit the conditions under which we live. We cannot eliminate any methods. Direct Action means any action against the Law.”"
"The ‘Clarian Call’ was answered about a fortnight later in the shape of the Calcutta, Noakhali and other riots in Bengal, the ghastliest and most terrible seen till then in India, to be bettered in this respect only by the Muslim holocaust of the minorities in the Punjab, in 1947. .... The police, mostly Muslim in personnel, were, if not actually in complicity, definitely indifferent to the murder, loot and arson of the Hindus going on around them. Such a horrible carnage ensued as had not been heard of in India in the three-odd decades during which communal rioting had been heard of in India. ... This is only one glimpse of what happened for five days over a large area. Hooligans went about with full preparation for murder and arson. Petrol was in plentiful supply, and the victims were left no option but to be burnt to ashes in their burning houses or to come out and be stabbed. The total number of killed in these days is estimated at 5,000 and those injured at 15,000."
"The Muslim League Bengal Government declared August 16, 1946 to be a public holiday throughout Bengal, to celebrate the “Direct Action Day”. The effect of this, in the very temperate and restrained language of Shri S. L. Ghose of the A. B. Patrika is described thus: “When a political party, by virtue of its being in power, enforces its party celebration on the whole administrative machinery by declaring a public holiday, it is natural that some at least of its adherents should infer from it that the party is the law of the land, and that anything done in the name of the party is above the scope of the law,”"
"The Civil & Military Gazette of Lahore, by no means a paper hostile to the Muslims, said apropos the Calcutta riots in its editorial in its issue of August 20, 1946 (four days after the commencement of these riots). “We have termed the jeremiads of Muslim Leaguers ‘near hysterical nonsense,’ but they represent a trend of thought and a psychological attitude which hold the utmost danger for the whole country. Words are being broadcast everyday which will make fanatics of law-abiding citizens and throw them into the same camp with the lowest of goondas.” More significantly still, this same editorial says. “Authentic reports from all parts of India describe the country as a powder-magazine, and at the moment the Muslim League is holding a torch which may send it sky-high. If the spark is applied, the present League leadership will have to shoulder responsibility for events which will not only blast for ever all hopes of Hindu-Muslim co-operation in any field, but which will ruin all chances of India’s progress for decades.”"
"Calcutta and Noakhali did not bring any condemnation from the League of these criminal attacks on minorities. Far from it-in the League Press the attempt was made to shift the responsibility, where there occurrences were admitted at all, on the Hindus."
"[The Muslim League pamphlet, urging Muslims to attend the rally in large numbers, read:] ‘Muslims must remember that it was in Ramzam that the Quran was revealed. It was in Ramzan that the permission for Jehad was granted. It was in Ramzam that the battle of Badr, the first open conflict between Islam and Heathenism (i.e., idolatry, which equates Hinduism) was fought and won by 313 Muslims; and again it was in Ramzan that 10,000 under the Holy Prophet conquered Mecca and established the kingdom of Heaven and the commonwealth of Islam in Arabia. Muslim League is fortunate that it is starting its action in this holy month.’ [While another leaflet, entitled Munajat for the Jehad, was to be read out in mosque prayers. It included the above passage and added:] ‘By the grace of God, we are ten cores (100 millions) in India but through our bad luck we have become slaves of the Hindus and the British. We are starting a Jehad in Your Name in this very month of Ramzan. Pray make us strong in body and mind—give Your helping hand in all out actions—make us victorious over the Kafers—enable us to establish the Kingdom of Islam in India and make proper sacrifices for this Jehad—by the grace of God may we build up in India the greatest Islamic kingdom in the world.’ [Another Bengali pamphlet, Mogur (Club), wrote of the auspicious holy month event:] ‘‘The day for an open fight which is the greatest desire of the Muslim nation has arrived… The Shining gates of heaven have been opened for you. Let us enter in thousands. Let us all cry out victory to Pakistan, victory to the Muslim nation and victory to the army which has declared a Jehad.’’ [The Mayor of Calcutta issue a leaflet, showing Jinnah with a sword, which read:] ‘We Muslims have had the Crown (of India) and ruled… Be ready and take your sword. Think you, Muslims, why we are under the kafirs today. The result of loving kafirs is not good. O kafir! Do not be proud. Your doom is not far and the general massacre will come. Show our glory with swords in hands and will have a special victory.’ [Still another leaflet, urging Muslims to come to the rally with their swords, added:] ‘‘We shall see who will play with us, for rivers of blood will flow. We shall have the swords in our hands and the noise of takbir (Allahu Akbar, Allah is Great). Tomorrow will be dooms day.’"
"[Justice Khosla of Lahore High Court recounts of the carnage:] ‘The streets were strewn with dead bodies and the corpses… There were stories of children having been hurled down from the roofs of houses. Young children were reported to have been boiled in oil. Others were burnt alive. Women were raped and mutilated and then murdered.’"
"[Regarding the abetment of the Bengal Muslim League government and the police in the Direct Action violence, the words of Sher-e-Bangla (Tiger of Bengal) AK Fazlul Huq, the CM of undivided Bengal (1937–43) and later briefly of East Pakistan (1954), are worth taking note here. In describing his eyewitness account of the savagery in an address to the Bengal Legislative Assembly on 19 September 1946, he said:] ‘‘It seemed …that some modern Nadir Shah had come upon Calcutta and had given up the city to rapine, plunder and pillage. Sir, each time I tried to get in touch with police officers, I was told that I was to contact the Control Room. I do not know. Sir, who was controlling the Control Room, but whenever l wanted some kind of help the reply came that my complaint has been noted and will be attended to in proper time. Then, Sir, l sometimes tried to gel into touch with high officials of Government House. I was told that none but Government servants were allowed to use the telephone to get into touch with the household of His Excellency the Governor. Police officers would not listen, the Control Office would not control, the Government House would not listen. Sir, in the^ circumstances the Great Killing went on and it is undisputed that this thing would never have happened if the police and the military had taken strong measures on Friday, the 16th, when the trouble began. Tt would have been nipped in the bud that very day, and, therefore, the conclusion is inevitable that although the police may not be responsible for the origin of disturbances, they are directly responsible for the great loss of human life, and if an impartial enquiry is held and these police officers can be spotted, my opinion is that they deserve to be hanged, drawn and quartered publicly, on charges of murder and abetment of murder."
"16th August is a blot on Bengal’s history. The day is horrifically remmembered as Direct Action Day or Great Calcutta Killings which led to the brutal killings of thousands of Bengalis. Many dead bodies kept lying on road for days to be fed by dogs & vultures even."
"The programme reminded the Muslims of what stuff they were made. “Muslims must remember that it was in Ramzan that the Quran was revealed It was in Ramzan that the permission for Jehad was granted by Allah It was in Ramzan that the battle of Badr, the first open conflict between Islam and Heathenism was fought and won by 313 Muslims, and again it was in Ramzan that 10,000 under the Holy Prophet conquered Mecca and established the kingdom of Heaven and the commonwealth of Islam in Arabia The Muslim League 1s fortunate that it is starting its action in this holy month ”... Another leaflet containing a special prayer for the crusade is worth quoting in full. “ MUNAJAT FOR THE JEHAD (To be sad at every mosque after the Jumma prayer ) It was in this month of Ramzan that the Holy Quran was revealed! It was in this month of Ramzan that 313 Muslims were victorious through the grace of God over many Kafers in the battle of Badr and the Jehad of the Muslims commenced! It was in this month that ten thousand Muslims marched to Mecca and were conquerors and thus there was the establishment of the Kingdom of Islam. By the grace of God we are ten crores in India but through bad luck we have become slaves of the Hindus and the British We are starting a Jehad in Your Name in this very month of Ramzan We promise before You that we entirely dependon You Pray make us strong in body and mind—give Your helping hand in all our actions—make us victorious over the Kafers—enable us to establish the Kingdom of Islam in India and make proper sacrifice for this Jehad—by the grace of God may we build up m India the greatest Islamic kingdom in the world. ...A Bengali pamphlet Mugur (Club) concluded with a passionate appeal “The Bombay resolution of the All India Muslim League has been broadcast. The call to revolt comes to us from the Qaid-e Azam of the Muslim leaders. Braves, this 13 what we want. This is the policy for the nation of heroes. For so long we have been acting like beggars. We are glad from the core of our hearts to hear this magnificent news. This 1s what we have been eagerly waiting for God has granted to the Muslims in the month of Ramzan what they have been clamouring for The day for an open fight which 1s the greatest desire of the Muslim nation has arrived. Come those who want to rise to heaven. Come those who are simple wanting in peace of mind and who are in distress. Those who are thieves goondas those without the strength of character and those who do not say their prayers—all come (Italics ours.) The shiming gates of heaven have been opened for you. Let us enter in thousands. Let us all cry out victory to Pakistan victory to the Muslim nation and victory to the army which has declared a Jehad. A leaflet bearing a picture of Mr Jinnah with a sword in hand said — “The sword of Islam must be shining on the heavens and will subdue all evil designs. We Muslims have had the Crown and have ruled. Do not lose heart. Be ready and take your swords Think you Muslims, why we are under the kafirs today The result of loving the kafirs 1s not good O kafir | Do not be proud and happy Your doom 1s not far and the general massacre will come We shall show our glory with swords in hands and will have%a special victory ” Another.leaflet asked the Muslims to come into the arena with their swords and change their tactics “We shall then see who will play with us, for rivers of blood will flow We shall have the swords in our hands and the noise of takbir. Tomorrow will be doom’s day”"
"As early as 6 a.m. reports began to pour into the Police Control Room. The eleven telephones, installed in two separate rooms, rang so frequently and brought forth so many tales of distress, so many calls for help and such a stream of appeals for rescue that it was impossible to keep even a brief record of the countless messages received. ... There can, how- ever, be no doubt that the criminal apathy of the police officials and the failure of those in authority to deploy the available forces to the best advantage were mainly responsible for the holocaust which followed. For two days the police were almost completely inactive or evasive. Appeals for assistance were answered with, “We have no orders.” Policemen stood watching the burning and looting of houses with calm indifference. ... The Mallick Bazaar was looted by a mob of hooligans who ran about displaying their booty with a great show of exultant joy. Police guards joined the looters in this merry-making.... For a day and a half the Muslim rioters held their own. The tide of the battle then began to turn and Hindus and Sikhs began to hit back. It was only when this change began to spell disaster for the Muslims, that military assistance was summoned."
"Reference has already been made to the forcible closing of Hindu shops as the immediate exciting cause of the disturbances. All over Calcutta Muslim crowds demanded the closure of non- Muslim shops. If the slightest resistance was offered the shop was looted and burnt. Very soon the crowds began to break open closed shops and loot them. It is significant that many Muslim shops had been marked in chalk with “Mussalman shop —Pakistan” to save them from the attentions of the mob and this circumstance was mentioned as proving a previous plan to loot all non-Muslim shops."
"A number of temples were attacked and burnt down. Among these was the Radhakrishna Temple on Cornwallis Road and the Sita Temple in College Street. The Science College and the Hindu houses in its neighbourhood were persistently attacked for several hours. ... A number of cars and lorries, marked with the Red Cross or flying Red Cross flags. were going about killing people and looting shops. The looting and killing went on continuously for forty hours in some localities and this sus- tained energy of the fanatical mobs was an astonishing feature of the riots. The streets were strewn with dead bodies and the corpses lay thus for several days giving out a foul stench. ... There were stories of children having been hurled down from the roofs of houses. Young children were reported to have been boiled in oil. Others were burnt alive. Women were raped and mutilated and then murdered."
"It is estimated that more than five thousand persons were killed and more than fifteen thousand injured, and if the hospital figures are accepted as a basis for determining the ratio of the Muslim and Hindu casualties it will be clear that the Muslims fared almost as badly the Hindus. When this circumstance came to light the Muslim League leaders and the Muslim League Press asserted vehemently that the rioting was started by the supporters of the Congress and some of them even went so far as to say that the Hindus had prepared a deeply laid plan to commit wholesale murder of Muslims on Direct Action Day in order to discredit the Muslim League. On the other hand, it was sail that the Muslims had an efficient transport and ambulance corps and all their dead and injured were taken to hospital, while Hindu dead bodies were for ‘the most part burnt or destroyed and, therefore, did not figure in the official statistics."
"The morning of 16 August witnessed the dreaded mammoth march of the League with cries of ‘Ladh ke lenge Hindusthan’ (fighting we shall take Hindusthan). At the meeting which followed under the presidentship of the premier, speaker after speaker swore death and destruction for Hindus. Jehad on the kafirs was declared and the dispersing mob let loose g veritable hell on the Hindus with murder, loot, arson, and rape on a scale reminiscent of the bygone days of barbaric Islamic invasions. The orgy continued without let or hindrance for full two days. Calcutta reeled and lay prostrate writhing in agony. Whoever was apprehended indulging in criminal acts was immediately ordered to be set free by the premier himself who sat in the police control room and directed the operations. The English Governor F. Burrows sat like a statue in his chambers, ‘seeing no evil’ and ‘hearing no evil’. The wailings of Hindus before him and the other Government authorities fell on deaf ears. The Hindus realised that their fate would be sealed unless they struck hard in self-defence....A British correspondent of Statesman, Kim Christen, wrote: ‘I have a stomach made strong by the experience of war, but war was never like this. This is not a riot. It needs a word found in mediaeval history, a fury. Yet ‘fury’ sounds spontaneous and there must have been some deliberation and organisation to see this fury on the way.’’"
""Demography of all bordering areas has been changed. Those who left India and called it 'napaak', TMC is welcoming them back for its vote bank. Rohingyas are being welcomed in West Bengal. With the arrival of Bangladeshi immigrants, Jihadi ideas have also reached the state. A minister from TMC is openly validating what is happening in the state and has gone on to say that Hindus are only migrating within the state... The situation is equally worrisome in all border districts and a little less in the interiors of the state, but such a problem exists throughout the state nevertheless," he said. "Where we are sitting right now, this place was covered in blood back in 1946, the great Calcutta killing began from here. Mamata Banerjee's government has taken us back to that time," the BJP MP said."
"Today is Direct Action Day Today Muslims of India dedicate their lives and all they possess to the cause of freedom Today let every Muslim swear in the name of Allah to resist aggression Direct action is now their only course Because they offered peace but peace was spurned They honoured their word but they were betrayed They claimed Liberty but were offered Thraldom Now Might alone can secure their Right"
"The riots in Calcutta shocked Gandhi, the nation, and the world. Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh leaders exploited the communal tensions in 1946-1947 for their own political gain. In their fervor for liberation from the Hindu majority."
"Be ready to take your swords...we shall show our glory with swords in hand and will have a special victory”"
"H.S. Suhrawardy, the Chief Minister of Bengal and a major Muslim leaguer in Calcutta, was “appalingly negligent …perhaps…even deliberately provocative” in the early stages of killing."
"Each group blamed the other for the violence. Jinnah blamed the “Viceroy, Mr. Gandhi, and the Congress”. Nehru placed the responsibility “for all that has happened” in Calcutta on the Muslim League."
"Gandhi however, believed, that blaming others would never resolve the conflict. As a staygarhi , he asserted that separatism and hatred within each person led to violence. He therfere held every one in Calcutta responsible for the rioting. He admonished all to ‘turn search lights inwards” and to ses that the street criminals directly responsible for most of the violence, the goondas, were a reflection of the goomdaism within every Hindu, Mulsim and Sikh."
"Was [Gandhi] almost seriously wounded when the crowd attacked his party."
"the weapon which has proved infallible for me"
"I want to touch the hearts of those who are behind the goondas."
"Even while repudiating his method and efficacy, the one question in people’s mind would be, How is Gandhiji?...University students...would say...one thing stuck them as curious, after all, if anybody had to suffer for the continued killing and betrayal in the city, it was not Gandhi. He had taken no part in it. So while others were engaged in crime, it was he who had to suffer like this."
"Women in Calcutta stopped eating during his fast. Police officers,- Hindus, Muslims, and Christians, Indians and British, fasted for twenty-four hours in solidarity with God, By September 3, the rioting had ceased. On September 4, a group of leaders from all faiths came together and promised they would give their lives for continued peace and communal harmony in Calcutta."
"Gandhiji has achieved many things, but in my considered opinion there has been nothing, not even independence, which so truly wonderful as his victory over evil in Calcutta."
"In the Punjab we have 55,000 soldiers and large scale rioting in our hands. In Bengal our forces consist of one man, and there is no rioting."
"He had in fact worked a miracle, perhaps the greatest in modern times."
"The Mahomniedans are encouraged and exhorted to destroy all the emblems of idolatry they may see in Sinde. The degraded and unfortunate follower of Brahma, is denied the free exercise of his religion ; the tom-tom is seldom heard, being only beat when permission is granted ; and although there are a few temples without images at Hyderabad, the sound of music never echoes from their walls. It is in the power of any "true believers, by declaring that a Hindoo has repeated a verse from the Koran, or the words Mahommed the Prophet, to procure his immediate circumcision. This is the most common, and, by the persecuted class themselves, considered the most cruel of all their calamities ; while, as it is resorted to on the slightest pretence, and always performed with a mockery of its being for the eternal happiness of the sufferer, mental agony is made to add its bitterness to bodily infliction."
"To begin the so much desired work of the conversion of the Hindoos and to seize on the Brahmins, ... and make them examples to the other inferior castes, in becoming Mussulmans, by suffering circumcision and being compelled to eat beef: accordingly many Brahmins were seized in or about the month of July 1788..."
"Thus all infidels, apostates and polytheists once again became Musulman. No person was left without circumcision or reciting the kelima. Infidels in villages and rural areas were also converted in the same manner. Only a very small group did not convert. Their fathers and forefathers had fled to Nagarkot during the reign of Sultan Sikandar, the Iconoclast. Some of them had settled in Kishtwar and others had fled to Jammu. As they had not converted to Islam, their descendants were spared the compulsion of conversion and were left in whatever condition they were"
"I heard the following story from my father. There was an aristocrat, much respected (in his community). He enjoyed great credibility with the people. He was a middle class trader but people gave him great respect. His name was Ladar Mantji (Rudraman Ji?). He was summoned for circumcision, but he made humble supplication and feigned poverty. He requested that his head be tonsured in public, and a dependable witness be sent along with him to his house to verify that he had undergone circumcision. I did not accept his statement that he was a destitute. I opened his belt with my own hands and down came on the floor five golden coins concealed in his loincloth. I picked up the coins and asked him how these had come into his possession? He said he had brought these as a gift to be presented to me so that I allowed him to get circumcised in his own home. I tied the coins in one corner of his belt and made him sit with others in a special room to be called on his turn for circumcision."
"Some of the prominent personalities of this land, who wielded power and authority, had reservations about getting circumcised together with common people. They requested that barbers and circumcision operators be brought to their homes to get hem circumcisioned. They would stay in their homes for some days (to recover). Their request was not granted (by Araki). It was feared that barbers and operators could be bribed and that they would avoid circumcision on one pretext or the other. Thus aristocrats were also subjected to circumcision along with commoners and none of their arguments was accepted. The intention was that religion, community and Islamic law (shariat) should prosper, leaving no scope for any kind of corruption."
"According to Kativa Daiya, during the 1947 partition of India "[f]orced circumcision, shaving facial and head hair (for Sikh men), and shaving off the Hindu Brahmin's traditional, short, plaited hair (on an otherwise bald head) were routine Muslim conversion tactics for men and boys.""
"Mahomed Kasim levelled the temple and its walls with the ground and circumcised the brahmins. The infidels highly resented this treatment, by invectives against him and the true faith. On which Mahomed Kasim caused every brahmin, from the age of seventeen and upwards, to be put to death; the young women and children of both sexes were retained in bondage and the old women being released, were permitted to go whithersoever they chose..."
"Your two letters, with the enclosed memorandums of the Naimar (or Nair) captives, have been received. You did right in ordering a hundred and thirty-five of them to be circumcised, and in putting eleven of the youngest of these into the Usud Ilhye band (or class) and the remaining ninety-four into the Ahmedy Troop, consigning the whole, at the same time, to the charge of the Kilaaddar of Nugr…"
"Tipu Sultan is probably the Muhammadan monarch who most systematically engaged in the work of forcible conversion.... early in 1789 Tipu Sultan prepared to enforce his proclamation (for conversion of Hindus) with an army of more than twenty thousand men.... Thousands of Hindus were accordingly circumcised and made to eat beef... most of the Brahmans and Nayars who had been forcibly converted subsequently disowned their new religion."
"'In consequence, the Hindus of Malabar had to suffer the most severe enormities the world had ever known in history' ... "When the second-in-line of Zamorins, Eralppad, refused to cooperate with Tipu Sultan in his military operations against Travancore because of Tipu's crude methods of forcible circumcision and conversion of Hindus to Islam, the enraged Tipu Sultan took a solemn oath to circumcise and convert the Zamorin and his chieftains and Hindu soldiers to Islamic faith.""
"Tipu's proclamation created universal resentment and the whole country rose in rebellion. Fearing forcible conversion about 30,000 Brahmins alone fled to Travancore. The Kottayam and Kadattanand Rajas sought the English East India Company's protection. Calicut was attacked in November, 1788. Tipu's officers laid hands on the Karanavappad of Manjeri. The Nairs of Calicut and South Malabar headed by Ravi Varma and other princes of the Padinjare Kovilakam turned in despair on their oppressors. Tipu set 6,000 troops under M. Lally to raise the siege, but Ravi Varma could not be driven out of the field. Earlier, in 1789, Tipu himself came down to Malabar via the Tamarasseri Ghat to enforce his proclamation at the point of his sword. General orders were issued to his army that 'every being in the district without distinction should be burned, that they should be traced to their lurking places, and that all means of truth and falsehood, force or fraud should be employed to effect their universal conversion'. The Kadattanad Raja's fortified palace at Kuttipuram was surrounded and 2,000 Nairs, forced to surrender after a resistance of several days, were circumcised and regaled with beef. Several. Rajas and rich land owners fled to Travancore where the Dharma Raja rendered them all help to rehabilitate themselves in their new surroundings. The poor Nairs, however, retreated into the jungles and were relentlessly pursued by Mysorean troops. From their jungle homes the Nairs could engage themselves in a kind of guerrilla warfare against the enemy forces. Hence Tipu organised a regular and systematic Nair hunt with the help of his soldiers. He then proceeded to Cannanore and after celebrating the marriage of his son with the daughter of the Ali Raja, marched along the coast of Chowghat to overawe the native population by a show of his power. From there he retired to Coimbatore after making arrangements for the administrative reorganisation of the province and leaving a permanent army of occupation to frighten the population into passive submission.""
"It was at Kuttippuram, the head-quarters of the Kadattanad family, that this force surrounded 2,000 Nayars with their families in an old fort which they defended for several days. At last finding it untenable they submitted to Tippu’s terms which were “a voluntary profession of the Muhammadan faith, or a forcible conversion with deportation from their native land. The unhappy captives gave a forced assent, and on the next day the rite of circumcision was performed on all the males, every individual of both sexes being compelled to close the ceremony by eating beef.”"
"The reversion of Mangalore to the possession of Tipu was signalized by the forcible circumcision of many thousands of Indian Christians and their deportation to Seringapatam. A revolt in Coorg next year led to the same treatment of the greater part of the inhabitants the occasion being marked by Tipu's assumption of the tide of Badshah. ... A simultaneous rebellion occurred now in Coorg and Malabar, and the Sultan, passing through Coorg to quiet it, entered Malabar. Large parties of the Nairs were surrounded and offered the alternative of death or circumcision. ... Over 8,000 temples were also desecrated, their roofs of gold, silver and copper and the treasures buried under the idols amounting to many lakhs, being treated as royal plunder....His orders were, that 'every being in the district, without distinction, should be honoured with Islam; that the houses of such as fled to avoid that honour should be burned; that they should be traced to their lurking places, and that all means of truth and falsehood, fraud or force, should be employed' to effect their universal conversion. The following is a translation of an inscription on the stone found at Seringapatam, which was to have been set up in a conspicuous place in the fort:"Oh Almighty God! dispose the whole body of infidels! Scatter their tribe, cause their feet to stagger! Overthrow their councils, change their state, destroy their very root! Cause death to be near them, cut off from them the means of sustenance! Shorten their days! Be their bodies the constant object of their cares (i.e. infest them with diseases), deprive their eyes of sight, make black their faces (i.e. bring shame).""
"Tipu imprisoned and forcibly converted more than a lakh Hindus and over 70,000 Christians in the Malabar region (they were forcibly circumcised and made to eat beef). Although these conversions were unethical and disgraceful, they served Tipu’s purpose. Once all these people had been cut off from their original faith, they were left with no option but to accept the very faith to which their ravager belonged, and they began to educate their children in Islam. They were later enlisted in the army and received good positions. Most of them morphed into religious zealots, and enhanced the ranks of the Faithful in Tipu’s kingdom. Tipu’s zeal for conversion was not limited only to the Malabar region. He had spread it all the way up to Coimbatore."
"Kozhikode was then a centre of Brahmins. There were around 7000 Namboodiri houses of which more than 2000 houses were destroyed by Tipu Sultan in Kozhikode alone. Sultan did not spare even children and women. Menfolk escaped to forests and neighbouring principalities. Mappilas increased many fold (due to forcible conversion).... "During the military regime of Tipu Sultan, Hindus were forcibly circumcised and converted to Muhammadan faith. As a result the number of Nairs and Brahmins declined substantially."
"Muhammadans greatly increased in number. Hindus were forcibly circumcised in thousands. As a result of Tipu's atrocities, strength of Nairs and Chamars (Scheduled Castes) significantly diminished in number. Namboodiris also substantially decreased in number."
"During Malayalam Era 965 corresponding to 1789-90, Tipu Sultan crossed over to Malabar with an army of uncivilised barbarians. With a sort of fanatical love for Islamic faith, he destroyed many Hindu temples and Christian churches which were the custodians of precious wealth and religious traditions. Besides, Tipu Sultan abducted hundreds of people and forcibly circumcised and converted them to Islam - an act which was considered by them as more than death."
"But it was not only the Brahmans, who were thus put in a state of terror of forcible conversion, for, in this same month, a Raja of the Kshatriya family of Parappanad, also "Tichera Terupar (Trichera Thiruppad), a principal Nayar of Nelemboor (Nilamboor)” and many other persons, who had been carried off to Coimbatore, were circumcised and forced to eat beef. The Nayars in desperation, under those circumstances, rose on their oppressors in the south, and the Coorgs too joined in."
"Cromwell Massey, who kept a secret diary during his captivity, wrote: "I lost with the foreskin of my yard all those benefits of a Christian and Englishman which were and ever shall be my greatest glory.""
"James Scurry, a British sailor, was taken prisoner by the French and was among the 500 British prisoners of war handed over to Haidar by the French Admiral Suffrein in June 1782. Scurry was barely sixteen years old then. After being lodged in Bangalore for a few months, he and several of his batch of prisoners were packed off to Srirangapatna. Here, after shaving off their heads, the unfortunate prisoners were to learn that Haidar had ordered for their forced circumcision and thereby a conversion to Islam. Scurry writes: ‘A mat, and a kind of sheet, was provided for each of us, wewere ordered to arrange ourselves in two rows, and then lie down on our mats. This being done, the guards, barbers . . . came among us, and seizing the youngest, Randal Cadman, a midshipman, they placed him on a cudgeree pot, when four of these stout men held his legs and arms, while the barber performed his office [circumcised him]. In this manner, they went through the operation, and in two hours, the “pious” work wasfinished, and we were laid on our separate mats.’56 Even as they lay writhing in pain and being fed a strong opiate, majum, priests were ushered in to instruct the ‘converts’ on the theology of their new faith and its tenets. The converted were then drafted into Haidar’s chela (slave) battalion. Their ears were pierced and a slave’s mark put on each of them. They were normally given excruciating tasks and many kept fainting while they did these. The chelas were bundled together in dank, dingy rooms, with little place to even breathe and surrounded by mounds of filth that was seldom cleaned. All of this led to the outbreak of numerous diseases and fatal epidemics.57 Scurry managed to escape only in 1791 and reached a small fort that was under Maratha control and thereafter joined a British detachment operating with the Maratha army near Dharwad. Another prisoner of war James Bristow recounts the horrific ritual of forcible conversion and circumcision that took place in September 1781 at the behest of one Sergeant Dempster whose name repeatedly occurs in all accounts as the collaborator conducting this act: This incident spread general terror amongst the rest of the prisoners, everyone apprehending that he might be the next victim devoted to Mahometism; nor were our fears groundless, for early in January 1782, the same persons entered our prison, accompanied by Sergeant Dempster, and made a second selection of fourteen, in which number I had the misfortune to be included. As Dempster was suspected of a share in this horrid business, at least so far as pointing out the objects on whom the choice ought to fall; every one of us were highly exasperated against him, and it was fortunate for him that he was protected by his guards. The treatment the first victim had undergone, served in some degree to apprise us of the inutility of resistance. With horror and indignation, we swallowed the narcotic potion, and those whom the dose had no effect upon, were forcibly seized and pinioned by stout coffres whilst the operation [circumcision] was performed (having previously shaved us in the customary manner). After the operation, our right ears were perforated and small silver rings with round knobs fixed in them, this being the mark of slavery amongst the Mahometans. As soon as we had recovered from this diabolical ceremony, we were transferred to what is termed the tyrant’s Chaylah battalions (that is, slaves), these are composed of such of his own subjects as have been condemned to perpetual slavery, and such unfortunate captives as he takes in war . . . after we had been made what was termed Musselmen, we neglected no opportunity of evincing our contempt for the religion of our tormentors, and the cruel force they had employed against us, by catching dogs and bandicoots and circumcising them publicly."
"The English prisoners also noted in their memoirs that they observed large numbers of Hindu boys and girls, too, being carried away from their homes and against the wishes of their parents, forcibly converted and married off at the whims of their captors. Recounting his experience from the dungeons in Srirangapatna on 10 March 1781, Captain Lindsay writes: ‘The greatest part of the houses and choultries [resting places for travellers] around us, we found, were full of multitudes of inhabitants of the Carnatic, all of whom Haidar had made embrace the Mahometan religion; about three- thousand of these unwilling proselytes, most of them being young men, were formed into different battalions, and were now exercised mornings and evenings upon the parade, upon the instructions of two or three Frenchmen . . . on another part of the parade there was about an equal number of women and girls, under the same description, confined together, and who we were informed, were reserved to be married to the boys, when they were grown up.’59"
"Another British officer, who notes anonymously in his account, records many such details of forced conversion and circumcision of several English prisoners, as well as Hindu citizens, whom he calls the ‘Carnatic slave boys,’60 possibly captured in war. He notes that on 30 October 1781, ‘Duncan Macintosh and Donald Steward, privates, both of the 73rd Regiment, were forcibly taken out and circumcised.’61 On 19 June 1782, he records: ‘Arrived prisoners, fourteen European children, eight boys and six girls. It is reported that they were taken at Cuddalore.’62 Likewise, on 13 July 1782, ‘Arrived prisoners, five hundred Carnatic boys, in order to be made slaves, and to be entered into Haidar’s slave battalions.’63 Some of the youngest and handsomest boys were also selected and lodged at Haidar’s palace; some serving as dancing boys, others castrated as eunuchs.64 There are numerous such entries in this account, more like a diary, that records the making of slaves and forced conversions, right from Haidar’s time."