Word: calcuttas
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Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's Congress Party had fared badly in the South Calcutta by-election last month, and Calcutta's Communist hoodlums had been increasingly cocky ever since. Last week, Nehru flew into Calcutta to see for himself how dangerous the city's Communists really were...
That night, Nehru went to Calcutta's vast central park, the Maidan, to address a crowd of 600,000 (a rival meeting called by leftists boycotting Nehru drew only 1,000). As he ascended the speakers' platform, a loud explosion sounded on the outskirts of the crowd. A bomb, meant for Nehru, had exploded along the route he had just taken, killing one policeman, wounding four other persons...
Incensed, Nehru spent two hours fiercely berating Calcuttans for their increasing reputation for violence. Murmured one Indian to an American: "Calcutta is becoming the Chicago of India." In the midst of the speech, two youths tried to tear down the national flag. The crowd, responding to Nehru's lecture, turned on the youths, beat them severely before police intervened. As the meeting adjourned, a man who had been standing at a gate through which Nehru was scheduled to pass drew his revolver too soon, fired three wild shots at police...
Flushed by his narrow escapes and tumultuous ovations, Nehru threw a farewell bouquet to Calcuttans: "I should like to express my deep gratitude . . . not only for my warm welcome . . . but for the perfect order that prevailed . . . Calcutta is ... a peaceful city of busy folk carrying on their professions and avocations, while just a few anti-social elements cause trouble...
...dangerous, 3,200-mile over-water flight, made necessary by India's pro-Indonesian ban on landings by Dutch aircraft. For the trip back, Foreign Editor Charles Gratke of the Christian Science Monitor cabled Prime Minister Pandit Nehru and got permission for the newsmen to stop at Calcutta and Bombay, with a side jog north to New Delhi. At the Indian capital, they found Nehru too busy for a press conference. So most of the newsmen went shopping, bought jewelry and Kashmir shawls to take home to their wives, teakwood boats for their children. That evening they...