Maidan (Kolkata): Difference between revisions

{{quote|They generally start about tea time, they rarely finish before nine o’clock… they are masterly exhibitions of organisation… The platform is high so that everyone on it will be visible at a great distance, and it is large enough to accommodate twenty or thirty… it is illuminated with spotlights, it flutters with red flags, and it has huge red backcloth upon which Lenin is straining resolutely forward from a thicket of banners. Everything is perfectly under control… as they sit there upon the ground, row after attentive row of them, a brigade of young women to the fore… distantly across the Maidan people have climbed trees and others are packed standing on top of the Esplanade tram shelters… there must be a hundred thousand here altogether… the leaders come through the guard of honour to the platform…it is only when [[Promode Dasgupta]] and [[Hare Krishna Konar]] are having their say… theirs is the oratory that sends men delirious with dreams, that can set a rabble to a march of destruction… when the speeches are done, the leaders begin to sing the [[Internationale]]… all over the crowd torches are swiftly lit and held high in flaring salute…<ref>Moorhouse, Geoffrey, pp. 154-155</ref>}}

}}</ref>}}