Achyut Patwardhan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Achyut Patwardhan
File:Achyutrao patawardhan.gif Born Died Organization Political movement February 5, 1905 Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India August , 1992 Varanasi, India Indian National Congress, Socialist Party of India Indian Independence movement, Quit India movement, Emergency movement

Achyut Patwardhan (Devangar: ; February 5, 1905 - August 5, 1992.) was an Indian independence activist and political leader and founder of the Socialist Party of India. He was also a philosopher who believed fundamental change in society begins with man himself.[1]

Contents
[hide]

1 Early life 2 Social activities 3 Publications 4 External links 5 Reference

[edit] Early life

Achyut's father, Hari Keshav Patwardhan, was a prosperous legal practitioner at Ahmednagar. He had six sons of whom Achyut was the second. When Achyut was a boy of four years, Sitaram Patwardhan, a retired Deputy Educational Inspector, adopted him. Sitaram died in 1917, leaving considerable property for Achyut. Patwardhans are amongst the talented Chitpavan Brahmins who migrated from the Konkan region to all parts of Maharashtra and formed mostly the English-educated gentry from the end of the last century till recent times. After finishing his primary and secondary education at Ahmednagar, Achyut passed the B. A. and M. A. examination from the Central Hindu College of Benares. His subject was Economics

and he obtained a first class. Achyuts own and adoptive fathers were both Theosophists and, therefore, he was sent to the college founded by Dr. Annie Besant. He was in contact with Dr. G. S. Arundale, the Theosophist Principal of the college, Dr. Annie Besant and Professor Telang. Their influence made him studious, meditative and ascetic. It must also be the reason of his lifelong bachelorship.

[edit] Social activities

After passing his M. A. he worked as Professor of Economics at the College till 1932. During this period he thrice visited England and other European countries and came in contact with Socialist leaders and scholars. He studied Communist and Socialist literature, resigned his Professorship and plunged in 1932 into Gandhijis civil disobedience movement. He was imprisoned several times during the next ten years. His aim in joining the Congress, like his associates Acharya Narendra Deo, Jaya Prakash Narayan and others, was to turn the Congress to Socialism. In 1934 he and his associates in jail formed the Congress Socialistic Party with a view to working for socialistic objectives from within the Congress. Achyut was taken on the CongressWorking Committee by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1936, but he resigned in a few months and thereafter resisted Nehrus invitations to join it. From 1935 to 1941 he organised Shibirs( education camps of young men ), to teach them Socialism and to prepare them for socialistic activities. He took a prominent part in the Quit India movement which started in 1942. In 1945-46 he went underground, and evading arrest, he ably directed the movement of a parallel government mainly in the Satara district. He was called thereafter by many as Sataryacha Sinha (The Lion of Satara). The parallel government was established by terrorist methods. It was called Patri Sarkar. Patri was the name given to the terrible and torturous punishments administered to Government servants and people who dared to obstruct the parallel government. These punishments disabled people for life. The ring-leader of the gangs who looted Government offices, treasuries and trains was Nana Patil. The parallel government thus collected a loot of more than a lakh. Some of the associates in these atrocities were mere desperadoes who knew little of politics or socialism. The Government penetrated into the villages where the Government machinery broke down completely. Achyut personally served the workers in this movement by washing their clothes and cooking their food. He became a popular hero thereafter, not so much for his Socialism as for his bravery and skill in carrying out this underground movement and establishing peoples government in the Satara district for over two years. Annual Sessions of the Congress Socialist Party were held from 1934 onwards. But it was found difficult for Achyut and his co-workers to promote Socialism from within the Congress. In 1947 they formed the Socialist Party of India, independently of the Congress. In 1950 Achyut retired from politics and worked again as Professor in the Central Hindu College till 1966. Since then he was passing an entirely secluded and retired life in Pune, not appearing in public and not even answering correspondence

FROM 1940 to 1947, vociferous politicians of all stripes, enlightened intellectuals, highbrow scholars and erudite economists were engaged in a warfare of books and pamphlets on themes like Pakistan the problem of India, Pakistan or Partition and why Pakistan and why not. Khushwant Singhs train came to Pakistan in 1956. But Yusuf Meherally made A Trip to Pakistan in 1942! Yusuf Meherally, Achyut Patwardhan, Asoka Mehta, Ram Manohar Lohia, Jai Prakash Narain, and Minoo Masani (the author of an all-time bestseller Our India) formed the hard core of the then Congress Socialist Party (CSP) in the 1930s and 40s. Yusuf Meherally was the mayor of Bombay in the early forties. He has been described as a dauntless freedom fighter, a dynamic youth leader and a dedicated socialist whose socialism had ethical and aesthetic roots because he hated cruelty and ugliness in life. The noble and the beautiful blended in his sensitive mind creating in him a deep concern for human suffering. In the light of his experiences during a visit to a part of British India now in Pakistan, Meherally wrote a book titled A Trip to Pakistan. Dedicated to Minoo Masani, the book was completed when Meherally was undergoing a sentence of imprisonment in Lahore Central Jail in 1942. It was published in December 1943 and cost the royal sum of four rupees and eight annas in those days. The prestigious Modern Review rated it as one of the most discussed books of the year. Within a short time, its second edition was brought out in April 1944. With a captivating sarcastic vein running through the pages, it is an exceedingly entertaining book. For the decade of the 1940s in British India, it was unusual political satire. And in his light style Meherally unconsciously anticipates future events and the shape of things to come. Regarding migration, he wrote, a tremendous mass exodus. Masses in action are a sight for the Gods to see there is always something big, something magnificently heroic and pathetic about them. Perhaps some future Tolstoy would commemorate them in shining prose or burning verse for the future generation to read. Meherally describes his arrival in Lahore in the following words, I had barely alighted from the train when an officer (looking every inch a Pakistani) approached me put into my hands a communication from the Governor of Pakistan. It required me to leave by the next available train and be out of the limits of Pakistan within 12 hours Pakistan was not like other parts of India or like other parts of the world. It was the homeland of very special people. From the lists of donts mentioned in the notice, religious meetings and functions had been specifically excluded, which showed how God-fearing the Pakistan government in reality was. The next available train was leaving in one hours time but it was a slow passenger train and sure

enough would not take anyone out of Pakistan within the time specified. The model government of Pakistan had served me with a notice that was impossible to obey! This was convincing proof that they really did not want me to leave. With time on his hand Meherally went sightseeing. Whenever I moved out I felt conscious of being followed. There were two persons who were watching me closely. Could public money be better spent than in such silent and unswerving homage to political workers? Meherally asked. Meherallys friend informed him that the shops were closed because the merchants and traders are all on a general strike, and every trade is affected by it. Meherally exclaimed, A general strike! What luck and I an eyewitness to it who is the labour leader? His friend replied: Labour leader? What labour leader? It is the merchants who are on strike. It is a protest against a new sales tax imposed by the Pakistan government. Meherally wrote, On our side it was labour that generally struck work. But Pakistan was different, it was unique. Here, capital went on strike Pakistan seemed to be a country of most unexpected surprises. While discussing the general situation in Pakistan, Meherally remarked that a well-known political leader was a Wahhabi. His local friend remarked that the leader was not a Wahhabi but a plain Mussalman! (A case of enlightened moderation?) He added, You must know that we are a very religious people several political parties here rely on the use of this sentiment for their successes politics in Pakistan is the art of rousing religious feelings to meet the exigencies of specific situations. Meherally visited the tomb of Mohammad Iqbal, one of the great poets of this century. His reputation must grow with time, and his last resting place become an abode of pilgrimage, where [pilgrims] will come in increasing numbers. About the Parliament House, he wrote, One specialty about the Parliament House that meets the eye is the architectural tradition has been replaced by modernity. The Pakistan government decided to have no truck with the class of workmen, who built the Badshahi Mosque or Jehangirs mausoleum. They decided to employ only most modern architects. On political confrontations he writes: Disputes arose events started moving fast. If the head of Pakistan had been some civilian, perhaps the showdown would not have come so quickly. But [he] is every inch a soldier. He immediately gave a call to arms, and instant mobilisation was ordered. But, at last generalship was seen to full advantage he overwhelmed the forces by a skilful pincer movementThe [prisoners who were] deported filled the various jails of Pakistan. For his overstay, Meherally was arrested. As I entered the Lahore Central Jail I was led to that section called Bomb Ghar (named so because dangerous terrorist prisoners have been kept there for many years). We were a small company when I arrived half of them being terrorists. What a cross section of life a jail represents! With me as fellow companions were

leaders, kissan workers, millionaire merchant princes, penniless labour organisers, enterprising terrorists, well-known journalists, poets, writers, and Members of Parliament.Where else would one come across such a remarkable collection except in a Pakistan jail. And the administration always having public interest in mind, keeps a watch over these troublemakers at the very first opportunity, gives them Arrest, Trial, Jail, and often Arrest and Jail.

The Kashmiri input By A.G. Noorani

THE Kashmiri cause has suffered because their contribution to the discourse has been unrealistically high-pitched. This is understandable but not helpful. We now have two detailed schemes by the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party. The NCs politics make one wonder about the sincerity of its commitment to the people as distinct from its self-serving commitment to New Delhi. Its president, Omar Abdullah, cried on June 21, 2002 apropos his father Farooq: Whenever you needed him to go and defend your human rights record, even when human rights were at their worst in early 90s, he went to Geneva, Vienna and the UN and did the best he could. Even the human rights record was not worth the paper it was written on. One would have thought that in those trying days Farooqs proper place was with his people. The laments had a purpose reward him commensurately for his services to New Delhi. To expect that man will accept anything you throw at him like some sort of a grateful dog for some scrap is to add salt to the wounds you (New Delhi) have inflicted. Such men cannot be serious about their peoples rights. This is confirmed by Omars remarks on Oct 13, 2002. I have resigned to strengthen my party in J&K and my party will continue to remain in the (BJP-led) National Democratic Alliance. This was on the eve of the assembly poll and seven months after the Godhra massacre. These people function by the centres grace. The polls are an inconvenient ritual.Sordid politics is no reason for neglecting the NCs contribution to the debate on constitutional change the report of the State Autonomy Committee submitted in April 1999 nearly a decade ago. It contains a thorough exposure of the process by which Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which was designed to protect Kashmirs autonomy, was itself perverted to destroy it. That is a service. Its main recommendation is a return to the Delhi Agreement of July 1952 between Nehru and Shaikh Abdullah on the further application of the Indian constitution to the state. But Shaikh sahib himself had second thoughts and rejected it in a letter to Maulana Azad dated July 16,

1953. The accord lacked popular support without which it would not suffice to dispel the fears that have arisen in the minds of the people of Kashmir. He was arrested on Aug 9, 1953. The NC promises a revised scheme. The PDPs paper of last month Jammu & Kashmir: The self-rule framework for resolution has two aims. First, the rolling back of, and also the retention of, various provisions of the Constitution of India made applicable to the state, according to the normative test that meet the genuine requirements of both the Union and the State. Secondly, self-rule must also form the basis of relationship between the people of Pakistan administered Kashmir and Pakistan. It, therefore, proposes that J&Ks Legislative Council, the upper house, be restructured to form the Regional Council of Greater Jammu & Kashmir comprising 50 members from both parts of Kashmir, to ensure long-term coordination of matters and of interest relating to the State, specifically on all across the LoC matters such as dual currency, communications, joint management of water resources, creation of a common energy market, etc. There will also be sub-regional councils to make J&K a regional federation. This is constitutionally impossible and also unnecessary. Apart from entailing a constitutional amendment of doubtful validity, it will result in one wing of the states legislature having members who neither reside in nor are citizens of that part of Kashmir but will nonetheless make laws for it. It is also unnecessary. It can be part of the joint mechanism envisaged in the fourpoint formula. There can be, besides, an all-J&K consultative assembly for discussing matters of common concern without legislative powers. It would be as unwise to unravel the consensus on this formula between Tariq Aziz and Satinder Lambah as it would be to bar Kashmiri input on its terms before they are put into force. Any accord can be implemented in India only by a presidential order under Article 370 which repeals all previous orders, lays down finally the provisions of the Indian constitution which will apply to J&K consistently with self-rule, and declare that Article 370 shall cease to be operative as clause three permits. Article 257 of the Constitution of Pakistan reads thus: When the people of the state of Jammu and Kashmir decide to accede to Pakistan, relationship between Pakistan and the state shall be determined in accordance with the wishes of the people of that state. This is obviously an interim provision. It will have to be replaced by another provision guaranteeing self-rule for Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas as fully as the revised Article 370 in the Indian constitution must do for the rest of the state. There are four issues on which realistic Kashmiri input is required a joint mechanism; free movement of persons, goods and literature across the LoC; a quantum of self-rule and guarantees against its violation; and, finally, the appointment of the head of state. He may be appointed by the centre but only from among a panel elected by the state assembly. Without this autonomy has no meaning. The writer is a lawyer and an author.

Not in our name By Aneela Babar

IT is ironic that the Taj Hotel, a structure that came up as a rejection of the white man now smoulders in angry flames because of its patronage by the well-heeled expatriate community and the very British citizen (among others) that Jamshetji Tata thumbed his nose at. In a bizarre case of dj vu how long ago was it that terrorists struck the landmarks of the Indian financial capital another round of senseless violence has struck the port city. Mumbai woke up to realise that its growing prosperity in recent gloomy economic climes notwithstanding, its sense of security will continue to spiral out of its control. The ghoul of evils to come hold the denizens of the city in a daze as they stagger to draw meaning from the early hours of Thursday morning. There are attempts to point fingers, to apportion guilt. But the cold reality is that tragedy will visit one no matter where you live, however you occupy yourself. Long before the first funerals were conducted, there were loud whispers whether the gunmen had been patronised by forces based in our fair land. The Indian prime minister addressing his compatriots later in the evening hinted darkly along similar lines. Logic would explain that our current political and military infrastructure is preoccupied tackling its own personal demons to enter such misadventures. But we have to acknowledge that in recent times they are not the ones calling the shots when it comes to activities conducted in our name on both sides of the border whether it is Afghanistan or India. My colleague Prof Marika Vicziany, a South Asia specialist, joins me in arguing that I believe that the present Pakistani government is too sharply focused on handling its own domestic terrorist problems to interfere in India. Lashkar-i-Taiba shows some evidence of its involvement in recruiting supporters in western India. We know the chaos in our political corridors as there is a shift in power about who speaks for and is the face of Pakistan now. Like mini fiefdoms, there are actors who challenge the writ of the state and threaten decisions taken by the government. As Islamabad moves towards building peace with its restive eastern neighbour, there might be some who want to challenge any kind of resolution to the two nations conflicts. At the same time we are all well aware of the paradigms of being young and Muslim today, especially when it comes to the disillusioned and isolated Muslim male growing up in the post 9/11 world. Being Muslim is now a transnational idea and this vulnerable groups paranoia arises from matters beyond national borders.

For instance in the late eighties at the peak of the Rushdie fatwa controversy a British Pakistani walking the streets of London would have announced that he would follow the pronouncements of an ayatollah in Iran rather than the laws of Britain when it came to the personal freedoms of the controversial writer. Similarly today the Indian Muslims strong sense of injustice and alienation feeds on a steady diet of tales of repression and discrimination coming from other parts of the world. The worry is that much like the horror unfolding on our side of the border certain Indian citizens would see themselves as compatriots of a (presumably) disenfranchised Muslim community and prejudiced against rather than active members of a vibrant Indian civil society. So what will the city mourn? Will it become increasingly polarised against the Muslims living in its midst? Earlier even as the city reeled in the aftermath of communal violence and lines were clearly drawn, the local trains emerged as the one ray of hope in the increasingly divided city of Mumbai. Suketu Mehtas Maximum City was not alone in pointing out how every morning the hands reaching out to help haul in the commuter rushing to meet the train would extend regardless of what caste or religion the other belonged to. I have also witnessed how they would stretch out through a mutual understanding and acknowledgement that the other is also a harried worker apprehensive of missing his train and not making it in time to earn a days living, a student who wants to catch an early class, a parent rushing for an appointment. Yes, that idyll was temporarily shattered earlier this year in the midst of attacks against North Indians in public spaces by angry Maharashtrians. But will such acts of compassion survive? And writing about the violence against North Indians reminds me of the ire of some in India as they ask of the self-appointed custodian of the city, Mr Raj Thackeray, about his passivity in the past hours. Indias popular blogger MM questions: Where is Raj Thakeray now that his beloved Mumbai is under attack? Where are those who charged in to save their city from a bunch of poor taxi drivers from Bihar? Why dont they put their lives down to save the city now when it is really under attack? No, I know we dont need them to add to the chaos with their misguided views just a thought. And what can we in Pakistan do? We condemn the events in spite of our rocky relationship and our severe case of neighbour envy. The Pakistani citizens silence, or sheer indifference as it does not really affect his life and that he has enough to worry about, will go a long way in defining the sort of South Asia we want to grow old in. We should speak out as Gunter Grass reminds us: I speak out because I am a citizen. I think the Weimar Republic collapsed and the Nazis took over in 1933 because there were not enough citizens. Thats the lesson I have learned. Citizens cannot leave politics just to politicians. So dont leave it to Mr Zardari and his ilk to speak for us. Speak out about violence no matter whose life is at stake. And pray for a saner tomorrow.

While rummaging through old letters recently I came across one which I had forgotten about, written by my uncle Achyutkaka in 1988 - a few years before the Narmada Bachao Andolan had begun to publicly raise the issue of the destructive nature of large dams. Achyut Patwardhan who passed away in 1992 at the age of 88 had been a freedom fighter and was one of the founders of the Socialist Party. After Independence he gave up active politics and concentrated on social and educational work. At the time this letter was written I was busy making films against communalism and this note slipped from my conciousness, although it may have remained in the unconscious as several years later Simantini Dhuru and I made the film "A Narmada Diary". Anand Patwardhan

Achyut Patwardhan Shanti Kunj The Theosophical Society Adyar, Chennai 600020 3rd February 1988

My Dear Mithuni, It is not surprising that your letter arrived when I have been thinking of you and writing to you about something that has distressed me for weeks. The Sardar Sagar Dam and the Narmada Sagar Dam were conceived in 1948 when big dams and hydro-electric power was all the rage. So Punjab had its Bhakra-Nangal and Orrisa its Mahanadi Project and even Maharashtra its Koyna Dam - why not Gujarat grab the lions share of the waters of the Narmada flowing into the sea for power and irrigation? This was the brainchild of an ambitious and influential man the Chief Minister of Gujarat was Dr. Jivraj Mehta former Dean of KEM College in Bombay, and husband of Hansa Mehta who was a close kin of the Diwan of Baroda Sir Manubhai Mehta. These plans refused to take into account the unfavourable and disastrous features of these projects. It was the fashion to think big and Nehru was himself taken in by this trend that was then considered a symbol of economic progress of town (industry) and agriculture. Since then big dams are recognized as an ecological hazard and even the World Bank is not keen on providing the promised financial loans.

However Punjab had lost its irrigated area to Pakistan and Bhakra had a logic of correcting a historical disability resulting from the amputation. Even the Mahanadi Dam which was the largest earth-work dam in India has lost its glamour somewhat and it has cracked at places needing new engineering skills. The Koyna Dam became a tragic affair when earthquake damaged and destroyed several villages. The earthquake is recognized to be the result of water storage. The misery created to thousands of peaceful small agriculturists and landless people by these dams is a forgotten tale of woe. However at Sardar Sarovar now there are tens of thousand adivasis who run from pillar to post to find the land allotted to them by Govt. on fictitious plots. The plots just do not exist anywhere! They are to be absorbed like waste-water in the flood of new immigrants to already over-crowded towns adivasis are most ill-equipped to achieve the adjustments necessary for survival and more. The damage to forests and wild life and ecological diversity is incalculable. There was a very good article in the Illustrated Weekly a few months ago and a special issue of the Sanctuary on dams. However what is necessary is a traditional pilgrimage along the bank of the Narmada with a camera to see and record the terrible tale of displacement and uprooting that is spreading fear and misery among hundreds of thousands of adivasis and other dwellers on the Southern bank of the Narmada and also the Northern bank. One can walk from Amarkantak (MP) to Broach (Gujarat) (which is the traditional pilgrimage) and grasp the monstrous implications of this grandiose project which are being brushed off by the Rajiv Govt. with scant respect or attention. Luckily the head of the Project Mr. Verma has resigned in protest as no lands have been provided for the displaced and he is willing to speak out. ( vide Indian Express editorial date: 3. 2. 88). I think that someone with your skills and aptitudes as well as someone whose heart is capable of grasping the misery of these (to-be-) displaced hundreds of thousands and someone foolhardy enough to take the traditional Narmada pilgrimage with a camera alone can measure up to the challenge. There is an interesting side story of the Tehri dam which you should also record to burn the lesson in public consciousness No More Big Dams. We must replace them with hundreds of medium and small dams. I can only invite you to see this tragedy - the rest would happen if it is to happen. With love Achyutkaka

From childhood, Patwardhan was deeply influenced by theosophy, a philosophy professing to achieve a knowledge of God through spiritual ecstasy and occult mysticism, as his entire family were ardent followers of Dr Annie Besant, its high priestess in India, and Jiddu Krishnamurti, its modern messiah. Patwardhan's commitment was further strengthened by a deathbed promise made to his uncle that he would never desert Krishnamurti. His opulent uncle, influenced by Malthus's population theory, also made him promise he would never wed nor ever work for a living. Patwardhan kept all three promises, but his fealty to Krishnamurti was neither unquestioning nor without turmoil. Soon after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Patwardhan came to see the significance of Krishnamurti's belief in alleviating human suffering not through politics, science or social reform but through spiritual change in man himself. In 1947 Krishnamurti returned to India and with it began Patwardhan's journey back to his mentor and endless debates on the fundamental problems of life and death. It took time for him to withdraw from politics, something he achieved by the Fifties. He then exclusively devoted himself to spreading Krishnamurti's message through a newly instituted foundation. Welding theosophy, politics and Krishnamurti's teachings, Patwardhan in his later years argued that socialism cannot be concerned merely with man's economic needs but must create an equality of spirit. He wrote over 100 books and pamphlets on socialism and philosophy and most recently was expressing distress about India's declining political standards, corruption and blind consumerism. It was his belief that these ills were aggravated by overpopulation and at all public forums he stressed the need to control rising numbers, something which today's political establishment is seriously considering.

You see suffering, and you dont debate about it or make yourself act. Those who love simply act, respond naturally with the spontaneous good that is human. Perhaps all you can do is take another persons hand. This, then, is sufficient.

Mr. Achyut Patwardhan, the socialist leader* while opposing the resolution, said that Mr. Attlee had said that the temperature of 1^20 or even 1942 was not that of 1946.

Its pathetic to see the plight of the socialists of yore, what with the current goings-on in George Fernandess life and Mulayam Singh Yadavs politics. Without miring this column in these controversies, we take the opportunity to see why the socialists failed to fulfil their promise in an evolving Indian democracy through the 1950s to the mid-1970s. After independence, the

Socialist Party, led by the relatively younger stalwarts of the freedom movement, like Jayaprakash Narayan, Narendra Dev, Achyut Patwardhan and Ram Manohar Lohia, was viewed as the Congresss major challenger. Unlike the RSS-Jan Sangh and the Communists, the socialists had inherited the halo of the freedom struggle and challenged Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru on his own ideological turf with an alternative roadmap of decentralisation, language nationalism and subversion of the caste pyramid. Before feminism made the principle personal is political famous in metropolitan India, Lohia, the sharp socialist, insisted on it as practice, though without enunciating it in those words and in that order. Such was his insistence on the principle that, in 1950, he demanded the resignation of Pattom Thanu Pillai, his own Praja Socialist Party colleague, from the chief ministership of Travancore-Cochin, holding him personally responsible for the death of seven people in a police firing. Moreover, in a very conservative social-political milieu, he had publicly and without hypocrisy argued that any relationship between man and woman was legitimate as long as it was not based on inducement or force. As if on cue, young men and women of the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini phase of the post-JP movement encouraged live-in relationships and court weddings as part of their politics. Lohia died in 1967, after the triumph of his political strategy that led to the Congress losing power in nine states. What followed over the decades was an erosionor even perversionby his followers of his principle of personal is political. The personal, for many of them, came to represent self-interest rather than personally practised values. Ego or self-interest caused splits in the socialist remnants, whether in the pre- or post-Janata phase. It started with Bindeshwari Prasad Mandal (later made famous by his Mandal Commission report) splitting the Samyukta Socialist Party to become the chief minister of Bihar. Looking back, can anyone recall any real issues behind the first major split among the socialists after Lohias death, between the groups led by Raj Narain and Karpoori Thakur on one side and Madhu Limaye and George Fernandes on the other? While the Janata Party split in 1979 owing to conflicting pulls from its five vastly different constituents, the example in crass personal opportunism was set by Fernandes, a former firebrand socialist who zealously defended the Morarji Desai government in the no-confidence motion one day, only to desert and vote against it the next day. The saga of the personal appropriating the political extended later to such an extent as to convert Laloo Yadavs RJD and Mulayam Singhs Samajwadi Party into mostly family- and crony-based outfits. And Fernandes increasingly handed over political management to his personal companion Jaya Jaitly, much to the chagrin of his political colleagues. While this is true of most political parties today, the irony is that socialists had been the most critical of dynastic and crony-based Congress politics. One must say that the socialists were prone to splits and desertions from the very beginning. JP charted his own separate Sarvodaya way in 1954. Lohia and his opponents split later into the Samyukta Socialist Party and the Praja Socialist Party. Ashok Mehta, Chandra Shekhar, Mohan Dharia and others deserted the Praja Socialist Party to join Nehru. But these breaks were preceded by much ideological hair-splitting; they werent necessarily motivated by the loaves and fishes of power. In the post-Lohia phase, this reversed. Why did the socialists, whose anti-Congressism and subversion of the caste pyramid was a game-changer in 1967 and 1977, become so pathetic? While anti-Congressism was a tactical response to specific circumstances and would have lost relevance any way in the post-Congress

monopoly phase, caste became an overwhelming passion that subsumed the rest of the socialist politics. The socialists failed to evolve constitutional and policy contours of their economic and political decentralisation plank, their poverty, prices and land relations position, their language rhetoric, their plank of civil and democratic rights. From speaking for the deprived castes, it was but one unguarded step down to your own caste and then the tempting decline to kin and self.

"Where the All India Congress Committee met at Bombay, the members knew that arrest was imminent and most of them had prepared for the event by setting their family affairs and personal finances in excellent order against all contingencies that might arise for the next year or two. What strikes this writer as remarkable is that not one of these worthy and able delegates, though aware that the British adversary was about to strike, ever thought of a plan of action for the Congress and the nation as a whole. The general idea was "the Mahatma will give us a plan", yet no special impression was made by the Mahatma's speech just before the arrests - though that address to the assembled delegates on the eve of an anticipated popular explosion is not only not revolutionary in character, nor a plan of action of any sort, but seems, when taken objectively, to be on the same level as a comfortable afterdinner speech. Why is it that knowledge of popular dissatisfaction went hand in hand with the absence of a real plan of action?" Kosambi finds the answer to this very legitimate question on three levels. First, points out, "on a class basis the action was quite brilliant, no matter how futile it many have seemed on a national revolutionary scale. The panic of the British government and jailing of all leaders absolved the Congress from any responsibility for the happenings of the ensuing year; at the same time the glamour of jail and concentration camp served to wipe out the so-so record of the Congress ministries in office, thereby restoring the full popularity of the organisation among the masses." Second, the Congress gameplan was tailormade to suit both of the two possible outcomes of the war, i.e., a British victory or a Japanese occupation of India. Kosambi explains, "If the British won the war it was quite clear that the Congress had not favoured Japan; if on the other hand the Japanese succeeded in conquering India (and they had only to attack immediately in force for the whole of the socalled defense system to crumble) they could certainly not accuse the Congress of having helped the British." Third, the Indian bourgeoisie and its representatives in the Congress knew well enough that they had nothing to lose: "Finally, the hatred of the mass repression fell upon the thick heads of the bureaucracy, while having the discontent brought to a head and smashed wide open would certainly not injure the Indian bourgeoisie." Kosambi then goes on to offer a deeper class analysis of why revolution was not at all on the agenda of the bourgeoisie and the Congress, although that was very much on the minds of the masses: "In this connection we may again recall Lenin's words that "Only when the lower classes do not want the old and when the upper class cannot continue in the old way, then only can the revolution be victorious. Its truth may be expressed in other words: "Revolution is impossible without a national crisis affecting both the exploited and the exploiters "...in 1942, while the toiling masses had begun to taste the utmost depths of misery and degradation, the Indian bourgeoisie was flourishing as never before. War contracts, high prices, the ability to do extensive black marketing, had given the financiers and industrialists what they wanted; further more, even the lower middle classes who had normally been the spearhead of discontent in India had begun to experience an amelioration because of the great number of new clerical and office jobs created by the war and

the expanding economy. Taking cognizance of this and of the further truth that the British in India had constantly allowed investors to make an increasing amount of profit in this country, one many be able to account for the lack of a plan in 1942 and the successive deadlocks that followed in spite of mass pressure in the direction of revolution" [from Exasperating essays, pp. 16-17]

Subsequent historical studies (15) have further confirmed that "Quit India" was not intended for a real headlong clash with the Raj, but as a pressure-tactic to persuade the latter, already threatened by the advancing Japanese, to negotiate transfer of power to the exclusion of the Muslim League. So, while repeatedly saying in public that there was no scope for a compromise, Gandhi tried out all options to strike a bargain. Thus in a letter dated 4 August 1942, he assured Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru that he was "doing all I can to avert the crisis, if by milder measures I can possibly reach the same results." On 6 August, he told the Associated Press that after the passing of the Quit India resolution, a "letter will certainly go to the Viceroy, not as an ultimatum, but as an earnest pleading for avoidance of conflict. If there is favourable response, then my letter can be the basis for negotiation". Even in his famous "Do or Die" speech of 8 August, he warned the people against precipitate action and urged them to wait until he wrote to the Viceroy. In case the pressure-tactic failed the Congress leaders believed, "a short and swift struggle" ("three or four days", as Gandhi had told Vinoba Bhave) synchronised with a Japanese attack would certainly bring the British over to the negotiation table. They, Nehru and Azad in particular, also expected that US President Roosevelt would get the UN to put pressure on Churchill to reopen negotiations with the Congress. Belying all these hopes, and without waiting for Gandhi's promised letter to the Viceroy, the adamant authorities simply consigned the whole lot of Congress leaders to the prison. "If I have not ceased to be your friend" - the incarcerated Gandhi ruefully asked the Viceroy- "why did you not, before taking drastic action, send for me, tell me of your suspicions, and make yourself sure of your facts?" Precisely because the 'leaders' were not left free to check the spontaneous popular upsurge, soon the Quit India movement became, in the words of Lord Linlithgow,"by far the most serious rebellion since that of 1857, the gravity and extent of which we have so far concealed from the world for reasons of military security" (Cable to Churchill). From behind the bars, of course, Gandhi and his associates repeatedly condemned the 'violence', asked the militants including Congressmen to "surrender to the police" and continued the efforts to restore goodwill with the Raj through emissaries like GD Birla. Such dubious role of the Gandhian leadership was covered up, thanks to a successful media management, by the long prison terms. After the war they came out with enhanced prestige to start a fresh round of negotiations that culminated in the transfer of power in August 1947. The CSP under the able leadership of Jai Prakash Narayan, Achyut Patwardhan et al got full credit for its organised vanguard role in the militant movement. Both the Muslim League and the RSSHindu Mahasabha (HM) denounced the movement in most savage terms, with leaders of the HM such as Shymaprasad Mukherjee, participating in the repression as members of provincial ministries.

The Nature of CPI's Mistake The CPI's PW line, particularly its role in 1942, came in for partial self-criticism in the Second Party Congress held in February 1948. The ideological root of the blunder was traced in the theories of automatic independence of all peoples with the defeat of fascism and of imperialism being a "prisoner in the peoples' camp". "This total underestimation of the role of imperialism in the period of People's War made us lose sight of the task of exposing imperialism and fighting it within the framework of support for antifascist war"(16) Rather than carrying this self-criticism further and deeper in subsequent years, some veterans of the movement have chosen to do the opposite. Thus EMS Namboodiripad in his book "Reminiscences of the Indian Communist" points out the difficulty of the choice before the Indian Communists (whether to fight the national enemy to the detriment of the anti-fascist struggle, or to support the anti-fascist powers at the cost of isolation from patriotic people) and states: "The party leadership, after experimenting with the first alternative for six months, chose the second in December, 1941." (p.87) The whole thing is presented here as a balanced and judicious decision taken by a united party leadership acting independent of outside interference, which is not true at all. In a shorter piece, Namboodiripad observes that "Communist movement therefore has nothing to be ashamed of in having adhered to the last to the position originally adopted by such top leaders of national movement as Nehru and Azad"(17). Rather than hiding under the shadow of "top national leaders", one should note here that the mistake was becoming more and more harmful and shameful the more doggedly the party persisted in it "to the last". Even if there was some theoretical justification for the initial opposition to the Quit India resolution of the Gandhiites, subsequently the party leaders should have grasped the revolutionary potential of the anti-British upsurge and come forward to lead it while simultaneously carrying on anti-fascist agitation and preparations against Japanese aggression. At least after the Soviet victory in Stalingrad, the party should have abandoned its exclusive anti-fascism and reincorporated anti-imperialism in its line of action. Unfortunately for the Communist Party of India and the people of India, that was not to be. The dynamism and flexibility of approach required for that was simply not there. Unable to came out of the metaphysical ideological mould, and desensitized to the new march of events and of the people, the party clung to the old position. Not that there was a dearth of saner voices around. To take one example, Swami Sahajanand who had been a very good friend of the CPI and who had generally agreed to the PW line, pressed for reviving the Bakasht movement in parts of Bihar. His argument was that Kisan Sabhas should, simultaneously with anti-fascist agitation and support to British war efforts, also carry on the agrarian struggles for which they were created in the first place.(18) But his sensible words fell on deaf ears and a parting of ways became inescapable. However, a number of CPI members individually participated in the Quit India movement in different places. Most notably Mao Zedong sent a friendly message to the CPI Central Committee on 5 April, 1943. While keeping within the limits of the principle of non-interference in each other's affairs, he dropped clear hints that a change of tactics was necessary:

"We belive that under the concerted efforts of the Communist Party of India and the Indian people, a way will certainly be found out of the present difficult situation so that both the objects - to vanquish Fascism and strive for Indian independence - will be attained."(19) For CPI leaders who had fully inherited the colonial mindset of the progressive Indian intelligentsia, suggestions from an Asian party were not worth a serious consideration. Since nobody from London or Moscow was complaining, they self-assuredly continued with their obsolete understanding. Having made all these self-critical observations, however, two points should be taken note of. First, allegations of communists acting as police agents or accepting money from the British during the PW phase are absolutely baseless. On the contrary, the government released the communist prisoners and granted legal status to the CPI (in July '42) with much hesitation and reluctance; even in August-September - at the height of PW activism, that is - the official assessment was that "It is primarily a nationalist party working for Indian independence... It is clearly impossible to expect communists to adopt a wholly loyalist attitude..." It was also noted that "they profess to be averse to the acceptance of financial or other assistance from government in their pro-war campaign and they seem determined not to submit to official control or direction in any sphere of their activity..."(20) Secondly, mistakes notwithstanding, the PW phase was a period of wholesome growth for the CPI. The expansion took place most notably among various sections of the intelligentsia, who were aware of international trends and therefore in a position to appreciate the significance of the anti-fascist thrust. The party put to good use its first-ever opportunity to work legally between September 1942 and May 1943 and it organised two open plenums and the first Party Congress which laid proper stress on propaganda boost-up and party building. Membership rose from 4000 in 1942 to 15000 in mid-1943 and to 53,000 in mid-1946. The party recovered much of its lost goodwill through dedicated relief work for the Bengal famine in and after 1943. It set up or expanded the frontal organisations among women, students, workers, peasants and most notably among art-and-literature activists. The IPTA, launched in May 1943, attracted a veritable galaxy of talents like Salil Chaudhury, Debabrata Biswas, Sambhu Mitra, Balraj Sahani, Kaifi Azami, KA Abbas, and so on. Literary figures like Manik Bandopadhyaya, Sukanta Bhattacharya, Bishnu De, Samar Sen joined or became close friends of the communist party. All this bears testimony to the trust and respect enlightened Indians reposed in the party for its honest courage to move against the tide with a noble ideal (in this case the internationalist duty of saving human civilisation from fascism) and its glorious track record of sacrifices in the cause of the motherland. During the Post-War Upsurge The period we now enter upon has been described with great accuracy and precision by Sumit Sarkar in the following words: "Two basic strands emerge from the maze of events during the last two years of British rule: torturous negotiations between British, Congress and League statesmen..., and sporadic, localized but often extremely militant and united mass actions - the INA release movement and the RIN Mutiny in 1945-46, numerous strikes throughout the period, and in 1946-47, the

Tebhaga upsurge in Bengal, Punnapura-Vayalar in Travancore and the Telangana peasant armed revolt in Hyderabad" (21) While not keeping aloof from the first "strand" of events, the communists made the second, i.e., the extra-parliamentary arena, their main field of operation. The Tebhaga, Punnapura-Vayalar and Telangana uprisings organised by them remain great chapters in the annals of peasant movement. No less active were the party's TU and student wings and in many cases they came forward as ardent champions of militant communal unity against imperialism. Thus in November 1945, Calcutta saw students, tram workers, municipal employees and others under communist influence joining followers of FB (which was remarkable in view of prolonged CPI-FB clashes over the assessment of Subhas Bose) and Muslim League (ML) in a trend-setting city upheaval against the INA trails. The militant political and communal unity was soon to be experienced again in February next year when Calcutta exploded against the seven-year rigorous imprisonment meted out to Abdul Rashid of the INA. A highpoint in this struggle was a completely successful general strike in Calcutta on 13 February. Calcutta comrades repeated the feat - with zealous support of people from all communities - on 29 July (just 18 days before the infamous communal holocaust) - this time as an expression of solidarity with the postal employees on strike. And barely five months after the riots, Hindu and Muslim tram workers united under communist leadership to launch a successful 85-day strike. The day of launching the strike, that is 21 January 1947, Calcutta saw the communist-led "Hands of Vietnam" demonstration by students against the use of Dum Dum airport by French warplanes. During the great RIN mutiny, the CPI, with the cooperation of the CSP, called a solidarity hartal in Bombay on 22 February, 1946. Despite opposition from both the Congress and the Muslim League, the strike accompanied by barricade fights was highly successful, and could be crushed by the army only at the cost of hundreds of casualties on both sides. All these fine episodes, however, suffered from one fundamental weakness. They were isolated initiatives taken by local cadres and ranks with the central leadership doing nothing to plan, execute or coordinate them on an all-India plane. The party headquarters, advantageously situated in Bombay, never tried to lead the RIN mutiny although the ratings were quite eager for that. Nor did it have any plans to spread and heighten the demonstrations against INA trials taking place in different parts of the country. The all-India leadership hardly tried to guide Tebhaga and Punnapura-Vayalar struggles from a primarily economic plane to a higher political plane; in Telangana the Central Committee's intervention was belated, confused and largely negative. In a situation variously described as "the edge of a volcano", "almost revolution" and so on, the CPI leadership was thus running after the events. There was no political resolve to combine all these revolutionary currents - with the peasant rebellions as the axis - into a concerted all-India upsurge for overthrowing the British imperialists and Indian reactionaries. That the party's guiding ideology was not proletarian revolutionism but petty bourgeois reformist tailism, becomes self-evident when one takes a look at the documents of this period. The August '46 CC resolution entitled "for the final assault" heaped all sorts of legitimate criticism on the Congress and League, yet expressed the hope that pressure from below would prompt these "patriotic parties" to join a united front of different forces including the communists to accomplish the democratic revolution. The June '47 resolution entitled "Mountbatten Award and After" made a correct assessment of the award, noting that it was "the culmination of a double-

faced imperial policy which while making concession to the national demand to transfer power, sets in motion disruptive and reactionary forces to disrupt the popular upsurge, obstruct the realization of real independence, throttle the growth of democracy and destroy the unity and integrity of India." And yet, the partners in this conspiracy, the Congress and the ML, were eulogised as "national leadership", and later on, all support was pledged to the governments run by these parties. This sort of critical tailism - if one may call it so - remained as distinct a feature of CPI politics in the period of upsurge as in most of the years left behind. Historic Defeat in the Contention for Hegemony At this point we are in a position to sum up our survey of about 25 years of communist intervention in the Indian struggle for independence. From the very start communists have distinguished themselves by a relentless effort to combine the struggle for national liberation from imperialist yoke, for national dignity and sovereignty, with the fight for socio-economic emancipation of the downtrodden, for social justice and national upliftment for all the toilers. In many parts of the country it was the communists who pioneered the national movement - and that in this unique fashion. Thus in Travancore and Cochin as well as in Malabar it was men like AK Gopalan, Krishna Pillai and EMS Namboodiripad who founded the CSP and the Congress as a mass movement. Arising at the confluence of India's national liberation movement and working class movement, the communist party has always (barring the 1942-45 period) strove - even with its mistakes as well as through great movements - to give the national movement a leftward thrust. When in the years 1928-35, for instance, the party was practicing a left sectarian line, it was guided by the same honest aspirations. The Congress leaders, particularly the left ones like Nehru and Bose, were sabotaging the national movement and hence they must be ruthlessly exposed and isolated - such was the communists' sincere, though immature and unsuccessful, endeavour. In other periods the CPI as a constituent of the Congress protected the unity of the "mother organisation" as the apple of its eye - at times even at the cost of its own political independence - thus going to the opposite extreme out of the same concern for advancing the freedom movement. Again when it opposed the Quit India movement and indulged in the most grotesque kind of criticism against Bose, the motive lay not in any sectional interest or personal malice, but in a genuine though misdirected desire to promote the anti-fascist struggle on the soil of India. Well, mistakes are part of life in every communist party. And on the other hand it is common knowledge that right from the days of the Peshawar and Kanpur conspiracy cases - i.e., even before the foundation of the communist party in 1925 - the communists in their struggle for national and social liberation bore the brunt of repression by the British as well as Congress governments. And yet, unlike our Chinese and Vietnamese counterparts, we failed to come anywhere near the leading position in our freedom movement. Why? What went wrong, basically? This question has been haunting us for a pretty long time, and in 1991 we came up with a provisional sort of answer in the form of the concluding chapter of Volume I of our proposed

five-volume documentation of the history of communist movement in India (22). Presented below is an abridged reproduction of that assessment as a convenient basis for further discussion. "The strategic perspective of the communist movement during the period under review was determined by the principal contradiction between the emerging Indian nation and British imperialism and two other major contradictions, viz., feudalism versus the broad masses, particularly landlords versus peasants; and British and Indian big bourgeoisie versus the Indian working class. The CPI operated on all three levels, but its failure (and the Congress' success) in mobilising the peasantry, i.e., the bulk of the nation, pushed it to the sideline in the freedom movement, and for that matter in the country's political life. Let us elaborate. In the 1920s and '30s, the struggle against British imperialism with all its ramifications was a multi-class movement that was coming more and more under bourgeois hegemony, but was also amenable to proletarian or communist influence. Bourgeois hegemony sought to establish itself both through the Gandhian 'peasant' value system and the Nehruvian socialist phraseology. And the communist movement arose as the proletarian challenge to that hegemony. In between the two, various petty bourgeois trends like patriotic terrorism and spontaneous peasant/tribal uprisings also surfaced from time to time, but sooner or later they disintegrated as distinct trends and got merged with either of the two main streams or simply died down. The forces of both bourgeois nationalism and communism had to recognise the multi-class character of the anti-imperialist struggle (hence the UF approach on the part of both) while each strove to consolidate its own class position to the maximum possible extent (which gave rise to a constant contention). In this protracted game of unity and struggle, which determined the main ideological dimension of the national liberation struggle, each side utilised the other, but the overall initiative and domination belonged to the nationalist leadership. And this finally decided the character of incomplete independence India achieved in 1947. In the course of some 25 years of unity and struggle within the freedom movement, both the two main forces made tactical errors and suffered setbacks. At times the nationalist leadership took steps that alienated the fighting masses, while at other junctures the CPI, overzealous to attack bourgeois betrayals or (as in 1942) to mechanically uphold the internationalist duty, got isolated from the national mainstream. But overall, the Congress leadership - with Gandhi and the junior Nehru playing complimentary parts in it - succeeded in defeating the communists in a contention for people's hearts and brains: while Gandhi's saintly appeals worked very effectively at the emotional plane, Nehru's eloquent socialism often stole the wind from communists' sails. The failure of early Indian communists is thus expressed most pointedly as a political defeat against the unique Gandhi-Nehru combination. Gandhi carried with him the peasantry, the most vital force of Indian society, and Nehru (at times aided by others like Subhas Bose) won the hearts of left-leaning youth - the harbingers of any revolutionary change. None of them could carve out any stable base among the working class (for the workers' class instinct born of their objective conditions of life and struggle, made them a difficult prey for Gandhi's trusteeship concept or Nehru's sentimental socialism), which therefore remained largely a communist constituency; but it was peasant support that decided the issue - as it did in China the opposite way. In China, Mao personified the revolutionary proletarian leadership of the toiling peasants; in India history

shaped his mirror image in the person of Gandhi, whose innate appeal to the peasant masses (and of course his charming reformism) prompted the bourgeoisie to prop him up as their leader - nay, the leader and father of the nation, the Mahatma. Here let it be noted in passing that without this class-backing of the bourgeoisie - which was conscious, calculating and organised - and without the Britishers' acceptance of him as the safest leader to negotiate with, Gandhi's acceptance of him as the safest leader to negotiate with, Gandhi's strategy of non-violent satyagraha and all that would never have succeeded; but that is another story. Thus it was above all the failure to forge a revolutionary alliance with the peasantry that incapacitated the Indian proletariat and its party to decide the course of India's freedom struggle and emerge as its leader. The CPI generally recognised the decisive importance of agrarian revolution as the axis of the national liberation movement, but did not properly orientate itself or devise the concrete method, organisational form and style of work necessary for the purpose. Wherever the communists carried on a consistent work (as in Malabar in mid 1930s), the Gandhian influence proved to be quite superficial if not imaginary, but such occasions were regrettably few and far between. If the communist party's relation with the peasantry is one fundamental question of policy in colonial/semi-colonial countries, the other one is the relation with the bourgeoisie and its party, the INC. Here the Indian communists faced a much more complex situation than their Chinese counterparts. The Congress was originally more a movement than a party. At later stages, even as the Gandhian coterie was consolidating its grip on the top, in popular perception it remained a broad national platform necessarily open to all anti-imperialist forces - a perception that was in the interest of the bourgeoisie to preserve. Therefore, the much-accredited accommodating character of the Congress was rather in-built or inalienable and not a token of generosity on the part of Gandhi or Nehru. They did admit various revolutionary democratic forces into the Congress fold, but only to curb the militancy of, and politically absorb, the latter. In fact this explains the inverse relationship, noted by many authors, between the consolidation of the Congress organisation on the one hand and growth of mass militancy and advancement of various radical political forces on the other. Historians of the liberal nationalist school always downplay this aspect and ignore the difficulties of Congress-CPI united front. They are all praise for the WPP model and much regretful for its discontinuation, precisely because this model was actually leading to political assimilation of the CPI in the Congress. Of course, we have our own criticism for the abrupt and total end of the WPP practice and for the isolationism that followed, but that is from an entirely different perspective... As regards developing a theory of Indian revolution or Indianisation of Marxism-Leninism, the CPI's record has been decidedly poor. In neighbouring China, Mao from the beginning firmly emphasised and worked strenuously for the integration of Marxism-Leninism with peculiar Chinese conditions, and this tacitly implied the possibility of denial of Comintern instructions if necessary. By contrast, the CPI leadership lacked this creativity, this courage of conviction, and always looked up to the Comintern for deciding the course of action in India. This overdependence or uncritical acceptance of international 'suggestions', which would prove so fatal in 1942, was both the cause and effect of the non-emergence of an authoritative Party leadership in course of leading class struggle and two-line struggle.

The problems of leadership - including that of factionalism - naturally percolated to lower levels. Scant attention was paid to strengthening the party through a system of ideological education, practical-political training and organisational campaigns, check-ups, regularisation of membership etc. In other words, Party building was never taken up as a task so important in itself..." The above observations were primarily based on the 1917-39 period. On the basis of our further survey in this essay, we may add up the following. We have seen that even during the excellent revolutionary situation of the second World War and thereafter, the CPI persisted in its old habit of depending on the Congress for giving the lead to the struggling people. And this despite all the rightist consolidation in the Congress leadership, and despite all the repressive measures adopted by the provincial Congress ministries. This dependence was always 'balanced' by very many criticisms, thus giving rise to a centrist position that effectively camouflaged the line of inaction from the ranks. We have called this "critical tailism", which made the party averse to go in either for independent assertion or for a bold drive to forge a militant Left unity with FB and other forces ranged against the Congress right. This bankruptcy in politics, it is necessary to stress, was a corollary of dependence on European comrades in matters of theory, and both went hand in hand with - one might even say were products of - a definite lack of faith on the masses, on their creative energy and wisdom. So much for now, let us carry the probe further. This August, when others indulge in light nostalgia, let us do some serious soul-searching, so that we can get to the roots of our historic failure during the freedom movement. So that, in other words, we can do justice to the responsibility now placed on us for leading the second battle for liberation from neo-colonial bondage to a successful conclusion. For that, however, we must ask ourselves: are all these deviations and deficiencies matters of the past? By no means. So it is really not possible to understand the 'past' deviations in theory without overcoming their current continuation in practice. This is how communists make the past serve the present and this is the whole motive behind our historical studies - whether in this twopart study or in our multi-volume work. Notes & References 7. From the article "The Dissentients" in Harijan, 20 January 1940. 8. From the March 1940 manifesto "Proletarian Path Inside the National Front" 9.Ibid 10. "Soviet German War: Statement of the Politbureau (July 1941) 11. An official Party Letter issued as late as in October 1941 lashed out at the opponents: "Reliance on the people, on the working class and Not on the imperialists, this is the core of a truly internationalist policy... They are false internationalists and deceivers of people who say that we can side [with] the Soviet or win the war for the people by aiding the British Government's war efforts." 12. Stalin or other eminent Soviet leaders preferred not to comment on the Indian controversy, though the Soviet party organ Bolshevik carried one article by I.Lenin which argued, rather

crudely for the People's War line. 13."People on Our Side" by Edgar Snow, p.56 14. Jawaharlal Nehru. A Biography Vol.I 1889-1947, p.300 15. See, among others, India and The Raj 1919-1947 Glory, Shame And Bondage by Suniti Kumar Ghosh, Vol.II; The Communist Party of India and India' Freedom Struggle 1937-47 by Utpal Ghosh 16. Documents of the History of the CPI, Vol.VII, edited by Utpal Ghosh, op cit, p.165 18. Hunkar (Hindi weekly brought out by Sahajanand), January 3, 10 and 17, 1943 19. For details see Communist Movement in India. Historical Perspective and Important Documents Vol.II (A CPI(ML) Liberation publication; forthcoming) 20. Cited in Utpal Ghosh, op cit, pp.158-60 21. Modern India, op cit, p.414 22. Communist Movement in India. Historical Perspective and Important Documents Vol.I (A CPI(ML) Liberation publication)