1946: Key Events

• The Muslim League’s call for a Direct Action Day (16 August) leads to the worst 20th C. communal riots in Bengal (Calcutta, Dacca, Noakhali and Tipperah). Riots in Bihar following the observance of 25 October as Noakhali Day.

• Nehru becomes vice-president of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, heading the Interim Government of an undivided India. Jinnah declares the day (2 September) as a day of mourning for Muslims; the Muslim League joins the government on 13 October and Jinnah accompanies Lord Wavell, Nehru and others to London to try to break the political impasse over Partition.

• Mutiny by Royal Indian Navy ratings (18 February).

• The CPI-led Telangana peasant insurrection reaches its peak, fighting the feudal zamindar system and bonded labour, forced levies and illegal land seizures.

• In Travancore, a general strike against Dewan Ramaswamy Aiyer’s insistence on continuing a despotic independence escalates into the CPI- led Punnapra-Vyalar uprising.

• India recalls its South African High Commission, repudiating the India-South Africa treaty of 1927.

• The privately owned Tata Airlines becomes the country’s official international airline, Air India.

• Binode Behari Mukherjee paints his major mural, Medieval Hindi Saints, at the Hindi Bhavan, Shantiniketan (1946-8).

• Nehru publishes The Discovery of India.

• ​IPTA’s debut feature, ​Dharti Ke Lal, with Neecha Nagar and ​Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani, are made as war-effort films.

• Ranakdevi establishes the Gujarati cinema as a financially viable industry.

• MGM introduces commercial 16mm distribution, mainly for mobile cinemas.

• Information Films of India is dissolved; the Defence of India Rules on compulsory documentary screenings as well as footage restrictions are withdrawn.