Virtual Walk: Calcutta in World War II (English)

Name: Virtual Walk: Calcutta in World War II (English)
Start: 2021-03-14T13:30:00.000+0000
End: 2021-03-14T15:30:00.000Z
Location: Online

Mar 14 '21 | 07:00 PM (IST)

Online Event

Event Information

The Second World War came to Calcutta slowly but surely in the winter of 1942. Japanese bombers were flying regular scouting missions to destroy Calcutta’s industrial sector in an effort to harm the Allied war effort in the China-Burma-India Theatre. Air-raid sirens were becoming an everyday reality, and finally bombs started to be hurled on the city. War also brought worker strikes, food shortages, heightened surveillance, oppression, and terrible famine.

The “Inbound areas” in wartime Calcutta were designated as “Safe Zones” for the Commonwealth and US forces that started pouring into the city to deliver Singapore and Manchuria from Japanese occupation. However, being the heart of colonial administration and the war effort, inbound areas also became a symbol of colonialism and the ongoing wartime oppression also led to the space being used to show dissent. Gandhi’s Quit India movement and the “fantastic” news of the success of Netaji’s Indian National Army in Singapore and Burma brought hope of deliverance from the colonial rule to the local population. But expressing these in public would have had fatal consequences.

The virtual walk will explore this contested “inbound” space through eyewitness accounts and forgotten tales from a city divided.

The walk will be conducted in English

The walk will be conducted via Zoom. Participation link will be shared with all those who have registered 12 hours before the tour via email. Please check your Spam folder in case you have not received the link or get in touch with us at contact@immersivetrails.com for any queries.

Timing: 19:00-21:15 (IST) | 13:30-15:45 (UK) | 8:30 -10:45 (US-East Coast)

Walk Leader: Dr Tathagata Neogi