Samar Guha

Samar Guha (Bengali: সমর গুহ) was a noted Indian politician, and an Indian independence movement activist. He was a close associate of Subhas Chandra Bose. He was also a well known academician, whose textbooks on chemistry are still widely used. In 1967, he was elected to the 4th Lok Sabha from Contai constituency in West Bengal as a Praja Socialist Party (PSP) candidate. He was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 1971 and 1977 from the same constituency. He was a member of the Janata Dal (Secular) till his death. He died on 17 June 2002 at Calcutta.[3]

Quotes

• Nazimuddin, the first premier of East Bengal, very tactfully managed the affairs of the province for the first eight months of Pakistan ... A year of Pakistan rolled over. Soon a complete reversal of Govt. policy towards the conscious Hindus became glaringly manifest. East Bengal police suddenly became very active with repressive measures against the conscious non-Muslims. Large number of [Hindu] houses, including those of very respectable gentry who had nothing to do with politics, were searched and many arrests made. At the time of house searches and arrests big army and police demonstrations were held to create a sense of terror in the mind of the non-Muslims. A further attack came upon the non-Muslims from the side of the Muslim mob ... Cries of ‘saboteurs’, ‘enemy agents’, “fifth-columnists’, ‘disloyal elements’, etc. were raised by the Pakistan press and responsible official and non-official Muslim leaders almost everywhere in East Bengal. Before a year of the new state was completed, virtually a reign of terror was let loose upon the life of both the urban and rural non-Muslims by the police as well as the officially inspired Muslim mob ... Govt. propaganda made the Muslim masses firmly suspicious that every Hindu in Pakistan was a fifth column of the Indian Union ... In many places, local boards and municipalities, having Hindu majorities, were arbitrarily suspended and their control taken over by the Govt.”
  • Non-Muslims behind the curtain of East Pakistan by Samar Guha, 1951, quoted in Kamra A. J. (2000). The prolonged partition and its pogroms : testimonies on violence against Hindus in East Bengal 1946-64. pp. ,55