THE SPRINGFIELD UNION, Mass., August 17, 1946

• Direct Action Day
• Great Calcutta Killings
• Hindus and Muslims riot

The front page has a two column heading: "90 Reported Killed, 900 Injured as Moslems and Hindus Clash in Calcutta" with subhead. (see images)
Complete with all 14 pages, light toning and minor wear at the margins, generally very nice.

Background: Direct Action Day—often termed the Great Calcutta Killings—served as the decisive, violent catalyst that shattered remaining hopes for a unified post-colonial India and made the 1947 Partition inevitable. Initiated on August 16, 1946, by the All-India Muslim League following the collapse of the British Cabinet Mission Plan, the call for "Direct Action" to demand an independent Pakistan ignited roughly 72 hours of uncontained communal warfare across Calcutta, leaving between 4,000 and 10,000 dead and tens of thousands displaced. The sheer scale of the slaughter exposed the paralysis of British colonial administration, destroyed cross-community political trust, and triggered a devastating chain reaction of retaliatory violence across Noakhali, Bihar, and Punjab—fundamentally shifting the debate from whether British India could remain united to how quickly and permanently it had to be divided.