This newspaper clipping shares the full text of the Muslim League’s resolution passed on 29 July 1946, which calls for a day of ‘direct action’ against ‘British slavery and contemplated future caste-Hindu domination’. Pictured is the Pakistan flag and the president of the Muslim League, Muhammed Ali Jinnah. The news clipping is from the Dawn newspaper, which was founded by Jinnah in 1941 and is Pakistan’s oldest English-language newspaper. 

What was Direct Action Day?
In March 1946 British Prime Minister Clement Attlee announced that Britain would soon transfer power to India, but without providing any details on how this would happen. At this time there was tension between the two main Indian political groups: the Indian National Congress who wanted a united independent India, and the Muslim League who wanted a separate Muslim state. In May 1946 a British Cabinet Mission proposed that an interim government comprising representatives from the Congress, the Muslim League and other political organisations should be set up. However, after weeks of negotiations, the Muslim League rejected the proposal and passed the Direct Action Day resolution.

In the resolution, the League claims to have exhausted all constitutional methods of achieving its aim, and calls for the Muslim population to resort to direct action on 16 August 1946. Protests and boycotts happened across India on that day, but violence erupted in Bengal where the Muslim League formed the government and had declared the day a public holiday. Especially in Calcutta (now Kolkata), there were violent attacks and massacres of Hindus by Muslims and Muslims by Hindus. The event has been called the ‘Great Calcutta Killings’, and it is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 people died and around 15,000 were wounded.