The partition of India resulted in formation of Pakistan on 14 August 2010. The events which culminated to the partition was soaked in blood of innocents who were uprooted from the land of their ancestors and subjected to untold miseries and humiliations. In the series of such gory incidents, the Muslim League's call for "Direct Action" was one in which Hindus, Sikhas and Buddhists were attacked without any provocation, killed, looted and helplessly forced to witness rapes and arson. The events of "Direct Action" should be given particular attention by historians and analyxed to assess the outcome of the policies of surrender and submission followed by the then Congress leadership and the conspiracies in which British rulers were equal partners.

The Muslim League, after refusing to accept the plan of the Cabinet Mission decided to press forward its agenda by taking recourse to violence. In a meeting of  the Supreme Council of Muslim League held on July 29, 1946, at Bombay a decision was taken to observe August 16, 1946, as the "Direct Action Day" in Calcutta (present day Kolkata) for carving out the Muslim State of Pakistan. That was exactly one year prior to the partition of India. Immediately after the announcement at Bombay, it was clear that the Muslim League was busy drawing up a well planned strategy for waging a regular jihad, as ordained in Islamic scriptures, against the somnolent Hindu society beginning with the Direct Action Day which plunged Calcutta into massive bloodshed. 

At that time Muslim League was in power in Bengal and H.S. Suhrawardy was the Chief Minister. A comprehensive programme of ‘hartal' (a general strike) was chalked out envisaging total cessation of all business activity and keeping off road all modes of transport by wanton recourse to force and premeditated violence. A highly provocative leaflet bearing the title "Manifesto" was distributed calling upon all Muslims to reach out to the people of their "illaqa, mohalla, in mosques, in schools, colleges, clubs, tea-stalls and hotels" and asking them to "awake, arise, and unite under the banner of Muslim League and make the hartal a success". The Muslim mobsters were exhorted to reach the Ochterlony Memorial in a procession with the accompaniment of bands at 3 p.m., and "lead the procession with such strength and enthusiasm that even the blind, deaf and dumb can appreciate their strength and determination".  The Mayor of Calcutta (the present Kolkata), one Mohammed Usman, gave a call for waging jihad against Hindus through another inflammatory leaflet titled, "Munajat for Jihad", reminding the Muslims of the glorious victory in the famous Battle of Badr in which "kaffirs" were annihilated by a small army of soldiers of Islam. Its contents were highly provocative and even went far beyond in spelling out the future agenda of radical Islam.                                                                                                                   

It was evident that the Muslim mobsters, duly chaperoned by the Muslim League and  with  the approval of the Government of  Bengal (headed by H.S. Suhrawardy) had made extensive preparations for large scale rioting and attacks on Hindus, as subsequent events revealed. As the Minister in charge of maintenance of law and order, Suhrawardy, had cleverly transferred most of the Hindu police officers from key executive posts. Although Calcutta was a Hindu majority city, the Muslim officers were given charge of as many as 22 Police Stations out of a total of 24 Police Stations, the remaining 2 Thanas being under the charge of 2 Anglo-Indian officers. Before the Direct Action Day, hundreds of bad characters, who had been in detention since the days of World War II, were released by the State government.  Despite an open call given to Muslim League for waging  jihad  against  Hindus, neither the peace preaching Congress Party, led by Gandhi Ji and Pandit Nehru, nor any organization of the pacifism-doped Hindu society, had the vision to foresee the impending communal carnage.