GOAT: Gopal Patha Mukherjee- The Meat-Shop Owner Who Saved Kolkata

In 1946, India stood at the crossroads of a cataclysmic change. Its history was going to be written in blood. As the British Empire prepared a hasty exit, it left the subcontinent on the brink of the most violent partition in human history. In the brewing chaos, Muhammad Ali Jinnah's All-India Muslim League demanded two limbs of Bharat to forge an Islamic homeland called Pakistan (the land of the pure). Direct Action Day, also called the Great Calcutta Killings, in August and the Noakhali genocide in October followed, preparing the ground for Jinnah to succeed in fracturing India in 1947. From amidst the mayhem rose Gopal 'Patha' Mukherjee, a 33-year-old meat-shop owner, to save Kolkata from the horrors presided over by Jinnah and his 'Butcher of Bengal', Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. By organising a ferocious resistance and reprisal, Gopal delivered the metropolis and parts of modern-day West Bengal from being violently snatched away as part of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Eight decades later, journalist-authors Abhijit Majumder and Debdutta Bhattacharjee lift the veil off a brilliant, untold story of extraordinary courage, patriotism, sacrifice, and organisational deftness in the face of the most brutal civilisational onslaught.