--- title: Muslim-Hindu Riots of 1946: Photos of the Gruesome Aftermath description: In Calcutta, India, in August 1946, Hindus and Muslims slaughtered one another with a ferocity that remains shocking even today. canonical: https://time.com/3879963/vultures-of-calcutta-the-gruesome-aftermath-of-indias-1946-hindu-muslim-riots/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-26T17:20:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:41.360Z og:title: Muslim-Hindu Riots of 1946: Photos of the Gruesome Aftermath og:description: In Calcutta, India, in August 1946, Hindus and Muslims slaughtered one another with a ferocity that remains shocking even today. og:url: https://time.com/3879963/vultures-of-calcutta-the-gruesome-aftermath-of-indias-1946-hindu-muslim-riots/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc539d395a6e0db3/69884ba255a85908b0a8b863/140414-calcutta-riots-1946-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: Muslim-Hindu riots of 1946, India og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Muslim-Hindu Riots of 1946: Photos of the Gruesome Aftermath twitter:description: In Calcutta, India, in August 1946, Hindus and Muslims slaughtered one another with a ferocity that remains shocking even today. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc539d395a6e0db3/69884ba255a85908b0a8b863/140414-calcutta-riots-1946-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Vultures of Calcutta': The Gruesome Aftermath of India's 1946 Hindu-Muslim Riots > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove May 26, 2014 5:20 PM UTC  Caption from LIFE. "Carrion birds feast on victims of bloody religious riot in India." (Calcutta, 1946) Caption from LIFE. "Carrion birds feast on victims of bloody religious riot in India." (Calcutta, 1946) Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove May 26, 2014 5:20 PM UTC Religion-fueled riots, religion-fueled intolerance, religion-fueled murder — history is filled with chilling examples of the “righteous” driven to acts of savagery in the name of their chosen gods. In fact, the number of people killed in the name of religion through the centuries surely rivals the toll of all of humanity’s “political” wars combined. Here, we look at one the 20th century’s most horrifying religious riots — a conflagration that took place over several days in August 1946 in Calcutta (now Kolkata), in British-ruled India, when Hindus and Muslims killed one another with a ferocity that remains shocking even today. The number of people killed during the “Direct Action Day Riots” — so named as they erupted after Muslim League leader [Muhammad Ali Jinnah](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali%5FJinnah) called on Muslims to engage in direct action in support of the creation of a separate nation, a.k.a., Pakistan — will likely never be known. Estimates, meanwhile, range from 5,000 to 20,000 Muslims and Hindus killed (and perhaps more on both sides), and tens of thousands wounded, many of them critically. \[Jinnah’s call for action — while arguably a key contributing factor — was certainly not the sole, nor even the primary, cause of the violence. [Read more on the 1946 riots.](http://www.massviolence.org/The-Calcutta-Riots-of-1946)\] LIFE magazine, meanwhile, featured stark pictures from the aftermath of the riots in its Sept. 9, 1946, issue — photos made by Margaret Bourke-White, who at the time was covering the run-up to the intensely fraught Partition of India. In a haunting two-page spread, titled “The Vultures of Calcutta,” LIFE published three of Bourke-White’s pictures, including the nightmarish photo that leads off the gallery above. But the gallery also includes many photos that did not run in LIFE. We publish them here to provide a sense, macabre and hair-raising as it might be, of the scale of the violence that wracked Calcutta in August 1946\. (In the weeks and months afterward, Muslims set upon Hindus and Hindus attacked Muslims in deadly riots in other Indian cities and states, as well — in places like [Bihar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bihar), Garhmukteshwar and beyond.) In the end, these harrowing photographs provide what might be construed as a final, ironic refutation of the sort of ultra-clannish barbarity enacted in the 1946 riots, and in all religious riots throughout history. After all — a rotting, mutilated corpse has no allegiance to one religion over another. Does it?  Caption from LIFE. "Carrion birds feast on victims of bloody religious riot in India." (Calcutta, 1946) Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images   Not published in LIFE. Corpses in a cart prior to being cremated after bloody rioting between Hindus and Muslims, Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, 1946. Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Men add wood and straw to funeral pyres in preparation for cremation of corpses after bloody rioting between Hindus and Muslims, Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, 1946. Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Corpses strewn among pieces of wood in preparation for cremation, Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, 1946. Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Aftermath of August 1946 Calcutta religious riots; tending a pyre for the dead. Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. "Stench of decaying bodies makes Indians cover their noses near . . . where remains of victims were cremated." Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Men unload corpses from a truck in preparation for cremation after bloody rioting between Hindus and Muslims, Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, 1946. Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Men with masks over their noses and mouths to filter stench as they clean up corpses lying abandoned in an alleyway after bloody religious rioting in Calcutta, India, 1946. Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Aftermath of August 1946 Calcutta religious riots. Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. A vulture feeds on a corpse in a doorway after bloody rioting between Hindus and Muslims, Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, 1946. Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Vultures perch on Calcutta wall, leisurely digesting the flesh of unburied dead whom they picked to bone." 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