The Commemoration meeting, sadly, was thinly attended but still went on quite well. Mr. Mahamood Ali presided, and the meeting started at 6 PM. I gave an introduction about all the four - especially about Brahmandam Lokanadham whom very few people know [he was an underground activist during 1948-51 movement in Andhra area and was in danger of being shot dead when caught even. Later he became a teacher and lecturer in Railway College, Secunderabad. After retirement also he worked as teacher in some High Schools or for long time in a Sitaphalmandy High School. He was a member of our Marxist Study Forum and regularly attended and sometimes spoke in our meetings. He was an erudite person and used to discuss about various facets of Marxist theory and practice.]. Later Sri Adiraju Venkateswar Rao, Sri K. Pratapa Reddy, Senior Advocate, Sri Prattipati Venkateswarlu, Advocate, Sri Kakarala, Ms. Ratnamala, Sri A. Krishnamurthy (a relative of Sri B. Lokanadham), Sri K. Narasimhachari, Advocate, Sri Kandimalla Pratap Reddy (CPI), Smt. Sandhya (POW) spoke. The President finally had some valuable words to say and I concluded the meeting with vote of thanks. Wish more people had attended the meeting but... you know things sometimes go like that.
About the so-called ‘Communist Betrayal’ in 1942:
Against distortions and vilifications of the
Role of the Communists during 1942-45
- B.L. Nadham.*
Sri Arun Shourie has firmly established his own place in the field of investigative journalism. He is the winner of the prestigious Magsaysay Award for his contributions in this field. Naturally, whatever comes out of his powerful and prolific pen will be avidly read by newspaper readers in general and by serious students of contemporary Indian politics in particular. So, his series of articles published in The Illustrated Weekly of India (now ceased publication long back) spotlighting the role of the Indian Communists in the Quit India movement of 1942 naturally finds wide reading public. Undoubtedly he has put in a lot of painstaking research to write these articles. To give necessary conditioning to the readers, the Editor [Pritish Nandy?] has introduced each instalment with a lot of spicy comments.
But any dispassionate reader, who reads these articles, cannot but come to the conclusion that Sri Shourie has thrown all objectivity to the winds and exhibited his deep-rooted prejudice against the communist movement. Any serious student of history can understand that he has started the series with a totally distorted picture of the world political situation preceding the outbreak of the Second World War. He totally ignored the efforts made by the
1. Stalin’s policies helped Hitler to acquire absolute power and this resulted in the decimation of the German Communists.
2. The aim of Soviet Foreign policy was centred round only one point, i.e. to be left alone at home and to acquire control over
3. To achieve this aim Stalin started bargaining with
4. But “Hitler was not encumbered by any consideration of this kind,” and so entered into a pact with
Arun Shourie has not adduced any historical evidence to support these formulations. He has taken the readers for granted. He tries to project
The moment Hitler came to power, the banner of ‘Anti-Communism’ was raised by him. He instituted the notorious ‘Reichstag Trial’ implicating George Dimitrov who became the Secretary General of the Communist International later on.
The appeasement policy of
Under these circumstances, when Hitler proposed a Non-Aggression Pact,
Arun Shourie characterized the Russo-German Non-aggression Pact as a booty pact. In his view Soviet Army’s occupation of some portion of
Under the leadership of Mannerheim (once a general in the service of Czars),
Regarding the Soviet foreign policy of that period, we cannot recommend to anti-communists like Shourie either the official publications of the Soviet Government (though well-documented) or the works of D.N. Pritt or R.P. Dutt. Strangely enough, these articles of Shourie are part of M.N. Roy Memorial Lectures delivered by him in
No wonder then, Shourie launches his savage attack on the Indian communists with all the ammunition at his disposal. With much glee, he tries to make much about the supposed rivalry between Pollitt and Dutt, and says that because of this ‘rivalry’, the Indian communists had to experience some ‘funny consequences’. Whether there was such a rivalry or not we are not concerned here. The way he presents these things is really amusing. In his inquisitorial fervour, he insults the intelligence of his readers. According to him, the Comintern’s instructions to the Indian Communist Party were always routed through the British Communist Party. On Shourie’s reckoning all the Communist Parties of the world are the ‘instruments of the Soviet foreign policy’. Obviously instructions will be given to all the Communist Parties, not exclusively to the Indian Party. There is no need to doubt the information given by such a knowledgeable person like Shourie regarding the routing. Shourie raises a question in his last instalment - “What was the Communist Party waiting for between 22 June 1941 and 1 December 1941?” – and answers: “They were waiting for the orders. And these, the records show, were for two reasons a long time in coming. First, Moscow itself was thrown into complete disarray by Hitler’s invasion … Once such attack began what with the terrible setbacks that the Soviet Army suffered because of what had been done to it by the Soviet Communist Party, everything was in disarray. It took time to put together the new ‘theoretical formulation’ and more important to ensure its transmission to and internationalization by communist parties all over the world.” (emphasis ours). But happily, as Shourie informs us, only one Communist in the entire world communist movement was not in disarray. Neither did he wait for the ‘new theoretical formulation’ nor for its ‘transmission and internationalization’! That was Harry Pollitt. “He switched completely the moment
In his ‘holy’ anger against the communists, Shourie has used choicest epithets against them. ‘Crassly dishonest’, ‘treacherous’ and ‘cravenly subservient to oracles abroad’ are some of the salvoes used against them, taken out from his arsenal. In one respect, he has stooped so low that even the bitterest anti-communists will shudder to take recourse to such acts. Regarding the communist detenues he made some unworthy remarks: “They (Maxwell and Tottenham) knew better than the others that the communists in jails had become restive, that they were pursuing for the line that would get them out and also that the communists still at large had also reached the end of the tether.” But his crowning piece is here: “There was one difference though! Being in jail they were more receptive to a change in line that would ensure their release.” These remarks particularly refer to Ajoy Kumar Ghosh, S.V. Ghate, Sajjad Jaheer and others. The imputed motive is clear enough. They were unable to withstand the rigours of prison life and were eagerly searching for a particular line to secure their release. Ajoy Kumar Ghosh was one of the accused in the Second Lahore Conspiracy Case. In their chequered political careers their prison or underground lives did not stop with this episode. Sajjad Jaheer suffered in Pakistani prisons also. From 1948 onwards, they had to undergo much more rigours either in prisons or in the underground. Let the readers judge for themselves.
Arun Shourie has not hesitated to hide some relevant facts from the readers’ view because they are not convenient to him. He puts some facts in juxtaposition to give a thrust to his arguments and to effect a desired impact on the readers. This can be seen in these sentences: “The ban on the Communist Party, its organizations and publications were lifted on July 23, 1942. The government crackdown on Gandhiji and the Congress came on August 9, 1942.” The motive behind these writings is clearly discernible. In another page, he writes these lines: “The Communist Party of India, its committees and branches had been declared to be unlawful associations in July 1934. Its publications were banned.” But he discretely fails to mention the fact that the ban on the Congress was lifted at the same time. What a stratagem!
With great gusto, he introduced to the readers the names of Jayaprakash Narayan, Rammanohar Lohia and Achyut Patwardhan as leaders of the 1942 underground movement. But he has outrageously omitted the name of Mrs. Aruna Asaf Ali. Jayaprakash and Lohia were arrested within few months after launching of the repressive attacks by the British government. To their glory, in spite of the virtual man-hunt launched by the British government, Achyut Patwardhan and Aruna Asaf Ali successfully evaded the arrests throughout the period. They carried on the struggle under their joint leadership. They used to give open calls to the countrymen and address open letters to Mahatma Gandhi from ‘somewhere in
‘Suppressio veri, suggestio falsi’ is an old saying with sinister import. Shourie faithfully follows this maxim in these articles. He shuts his eyes to the sufferings and sacrifices of the communists in the cause of freedom and expects others to do the same. In certain places he dismisses them in a light-hearted manner while intentionally suppressing some facts. He quotes this passage from the communist reply to the Congress Working Committee: “During 1943-44, if there were any political arrests for open mass activity, they were of our party workers for the anti-corruption, anti-hoarding campaigns which they organized in their localities. If you desire we can give you the exact figures.” But, in brackets, he makes this wild comment: “The party does not, of course, say that the Congress leaders were already in jail and that the others were not allowed ‘open political activity’.” Did the communists not say that the Congress leaders were already in jail? Unwittingly he himself supplies the answer when just above the quoted passage with his caustic comment in parantheses, he reproduces this another sentence from the ‘Communist Reply’ – “We bore our own share of repression for the anti-repression campaign and for demanding your release.” Release from what? Was it not from jails? In the same comment, one can see, he has tried to drive home that no political party was allowed open activity except the communists. All the following parties were functioning openly - Radical Democratic Party of M.N. Roy, The National Liberal Federation, Dr. Ambedkar’s All India Schedule Castes’ Federation, The Unionist Party in Punjab and, of course, Muslim League and Savarkar’s Hindu Mahasabha. With the exception of the Muslim League, the rest of the political parties were meeting now and then to find a way out for resolving the political deadlock. To verify this, Arun Shourie need not delve deep into the National Archives. In the same place, he very casually mentions this sentence written by P.C. Joshi to Gandhiji: “In these two years four of our comrades have been hanged … about 400 are behind bars and 100 are life prisoners. Is this the way the Government is helping us?” Are these not historical facts? Shourie does not bother about them because they do not serve his purpose. The hanged communists belonged to Kayyur of Kerala and were the main accused in the famous Kayyur Case. They were hanged in April, 1943 (which, according to Shourie, was the period when the communists were collaborating with the British according to the secret deal struck by them). The Privy Council in
Another serious allegation of Shourie against the communists is that they had developed name-calling into an art. He wants to exploit the sentiments of the people against the communists by drawing their attention to the ‘abusive’ terms hurled by them against Gandhiji, Subhas Bose and Jayaprakash. He says that they called Gandhiji ‘decadent’ (‘Gandhism had entered its decadent phase’ - quotation from Shourie), Subhas Bose a traitor and J.P. a vulture. At that time, it is true, that the communists had freely used these terms in denouncing the Congress Socialist Party and the Forward Bloc. It cannot be condoned or defended. The cartoons they published are also repulsive to look at. But what we have to note is that this type of name-calling was not a one-way traffic at that time. The communists were also at the receiving end. Late Yousuf Meher Ali, a highly intellectual leader of the then C.S.P., freely bandied about the words ‘bad Russian nationalists’ in characterizing the Indian communists. Not only were they called ‘traitors’ but the communist women activists were subjected to most obscene and vulgar attacks in those days by their opponents. Without any fear of contradiction, it can be said that as far as the communists were concerned, they never stooped to such low levels even under extreme provocation. Besides it should be borne in mind that these abusive terms were used when these leaders were alive and that too at the heat of intense political controversy. Anyhow, this type of political culture must be eschewed by all political parties. In this case also, Shourie tries to mislead and confuse the readers. In one place he writes: “Issue after issue of People’s War, the new organ of the Communist Party, while it railed against the British Government, heaped sarcasm, scorn, abuse on Gandhiji, the Congress, J.P. and other leaders of the underground movement and on Subhas Bose.” In another place, ridiculing the communists for their ‘theory’, he writes: “…the same theory told them later that he was ‘the most beloved leader’, ‘the Father of the Nation’ who alone could break the deadlock.” He contradicts himself in these lines. Can Shourie show even one word of sarcasm, scorn and abuse heaped on Gandhiji in the issues of People’s War after August 9, 1942? The terms and cartoons used to characterize Subhas Bose in their journals were definitely in a very bad taste and created a strong revulsion in the minds of the people. Criticizing and vehemently opposing Subhas Bose’s line of action at that time was one thing, but questioning his patriotic bona fides was another. The Communist Party made ample amends for this later on. In the last instalment, Shourie raises a very pertinent question: “Does the retrospective repudiation undo the harm done at the time?” It may not totally undo it. If the repudiation is done honestly, it will serve as a warning for them so that they may not repeat the same type of blunders. But it should not be forgotten that the political conditions at that time were very confusing and complicated. Subhas Bose was leading his Indian National Army under the aegis of the Japanese militarists. Already, the people in the countries of
As these articles of Arun Shourie are part of his M.N. Roy Memorial Lectures, it will be interesting and instructive to refer to the views of M.N. Roy regarding the role of Subhas Bose at that time. Immediately after the end of the Second World War, M.N. Roy delivered a number of lectures in a study camp organized by his party, which were later published under the title, ‘New Orientation’. In the course of one lecture he touched upon an historical ‘would-have-been’. He said that Hitler’s attack on
In the war of words which inevitably followed, Communists also sometimes, if only in sheer self-defence, used expressions which, in retrospect, seem ill-advised and even baseless. The idea of Subhas Chandra Bose having been a ‘puppet’ in fascist hands has come, on evidence later emerging, to be discarded, but at the point of time the position was unclear. The fact also of Bose having to be subject to the constraints under which he worked cannot be gainsaid altogether. If, therefore, an exchange of vituperative words had taken place then, it is better that the chapter is forgotten. The communist leadership did not hesitate later, when the real facts were beginning to be known, to tell the country that they regretted sincerely certain epithets used about Netaji and the former evaluation of his work abroad.
No man wrought for Indian freedom more than did the ‘Netaji’ - Subhas Chandra Bose. His shadow will never grow less.
The running thread of Arun Shourie’s entire series is, however, that the communists had entered into a secret deal with the British Government to sabotage the freedom movement. To substantiate this charge, he says that the communists tried to entice the British or, in another way, that they made secret approaches through intermediaries at first and later on developed a secret liaison at various levels to scuttle the ‘Quit India’ movement. The General Secretary of the party, P.C. Joshi, met the Home Member, Maxwell, secretly twice and secretly submitted a memorandum and progress reports “to justify themselves in the eyes of the government.” On the top of this he even suggests that there was a working relationship that even covered the ways of assisting in intelligence work but says that he has left out this aspect from this series of articles. So, we are not in a position to say anything about this aspect. To convince the readers, he extensively reproduces extracts from the notes of Maxwell, from the remarks of the officials of the Home Department and from Joshi’s secret memorandum and the so-called progress reports.
When the change of policy was decided, the party was an unlawful association. There can be honest differences of opinion regarding the correctness or otherwise of the changed policy. One can even go to the extent of characterizing it as ‘detrimental to the interests of the Nation’. But Arun Shourie goes too far and says that they had struck a treacherous secret deal with the British to stab the freedom movement in the back. It must be remembered that the communists had switched over from the policy of uncompromising struggle against the British government to unconditional support to the British war efforts in November 1941 on the ground that the character of the war had changed since Hitler’s attack on the
I [Maxwell] explained to him [Joshi] that we should not get willing cooperation from Provinces if we pushed them too hard and they must be convinced that the communists would not be a greater nuisance than they were worth.
Can any one believe that Maxwell might have used these very words in the face of Joshi?! In this particular interview, Joshi pressed for the release of central security prisoners (of course, communist prisoners, that too in the month of December 1942, five months after August 9, 1942) and also similar prisoners detained under provincial orders. Clearly Maxwell was not willing to apply pressure on the provincial governments in this regard and was of opinion that they had to come to their own conclusions. Then Joshi incidentally suggested to him that he [Joshi] would “provide concise and factual memoranda of the action taken in various provinces.” Shourie calls these as “performance reports.” What do we find in these reports? 1. The Party was vehemently attacking the C.S.P. and the Forward Bloc differentiating them from other congressmen in its journals and did the same thing in the so-called ‘performance reports’. 2. They tried to win over congressmen and others by means of propaganda, persuasion and mass activity. These activities were reported in their journals also. 3. They tried to prevent strikes by direct approach to the workers through their normal political and trade union activities. 4. The running thread in these ‘reports’ was the specific demand for the release of their prisoners, with a formidable list for
What startling disclosures has Shourie made from these so-called performance reports which were not known to the then readers of the communist publications? If he has thrown any light on this particular aspect, it would have been understandable. But he has done nothing of that sort. Even Tottenham, for whom Shourie could not hide or suppress his patronizing admiration, notes that these reports contain “a grandiloquent account of the party’s achievements with even more damning indictment of the government attitude.” Even a cursory reading of these reports reproduced by Shourie reveals nothing but a summing up of the party’s open political mass activity. Even where they referred to the so-called fifth column, they did not fail to make a material reference to the Government’s repression. For example, we find such references like these: “The former [the government] attacks patriotism itself, the latter [the fifth column] appeals to this very patriotism for its purpose.”
Shourie makes a mountain out of a molehill by reproducing an extensive extract from the notes of Maxwell relating to his ‘secret’ discussion with Joshi. If we follow the note carefully, it will be crystal clear that Joshi, even in that discussion, did not fail to project the important policy formulations which the Party was openly advocating. We come across these very significant recordings in this note:
He [Joshi] explained that he believed that in the process of winning the war many things that he regarded as desirable would become accomplished facts and that he did not fear that after the war the Allied governments would revert to the previous attitude towards world domination. World freedom would in fact be established by an Allied victory……
3. I [Maxwell] then questioned Joshi about the attitude of the communists towards the Congress and asked how he reconciled his strong anti-fascist convictions with support of the party which was more than a little inclined to make terms with
Now we leave it to the readers to draw their own conclusions.
Arun Shourie, like may other critics, tries to make fun of the change of policy of the C.P.I. regarding their characterization of War. He attacks it by saying that the Communist Party of India had characterized the war as ‘imperialist war’ till the German attack on
It is revealing how in the process of evolving the programme of struggle, Pandit Nehru and even Gandhiji also took care to see that actual prosecution of war should not be impeded. Gandhiji demarcated himself from Subhas Bose in the articles written by him in Harijan in the month of July 1942. In Harijan, dated 19 July 1942, Gandhiji wrote these lines: “Subhas Babu’s performance can only fling India out of frying pan into fire because Germany is under no obligation to deliver India from bondage.” (See Manmathnath Gupta, Gandhiji and His Times). In July 1943, Gandhiji quoted this passage in his letter to the Additional Secretary, Home Department. Gandhiji prepared some draft instructions for civil resisters. This document was dated August 4, 1942. As it will be highly instructive to put the record straight, let us quote the relevant passage from B.R. Nanda’s book, Mahatma Gandhi - A Biography:
A one-day hartal (cessation of all business activity) was envisaged; the day was to be observed by a twenty four hour fast and prayers. Meetings were to be held only in villages where the fear of disturbances was appreciably less than in towns. Those employed in government offices, government factories, railways, post offices, etc. were not to participate in the hartal, because “our object is to make it clear that we will never tolerate the Japanese, Nazi or Fascist invasion, nor the British rule.” Congressmen who were members of the central and provincial legislatures or municipalities and other public bodies were to resign their seats and students above sixteen were to leave schools. Salt was to be manufactured in contravention of the salt laws and the land tax was to be refused. While it was not the intention to hinder military activities, arbitrary highhandedness was to be resisted. [page 465, emphasis ours]
Later on, Gandhiji admonished some Midnapore congressmen in these words: “In 1942, the authorities became panicky. We gave them that excuse.”
From Dr. Gopal’s book we learn that Nehru was about to broadcast from the All India Radio (under the aegis of the British Government) calling upon the people not to hamper the war efforts and was prevented from doing so at the intervention of Maulana Azad. What we want to drive home is that the C.P.I. was not at all an exception in this respect. But, of course, the British Government’s sudden attack provoked people and changed the whole situation. The constant theme of P.C. Joshi’s writings throughout this period was that the government was attacking the ‘political factors of defence’ and the misguided patriots were attacking the ‘practical means of defence’. The same picture was depicted in the so-called ‘performance reports’.
Relying purely upon the secret notings of the Intelligence Bureau, the Home Department (particularly Maxwell’s and Tottenham’s notes) and the Viceroy, Shourie characterizes the British attitude to the party during 1942-43 period as the period of wary encouragement and 1944 as the period of wary neutrality. According to Shourie, in the third quarter of 1943, the partnership between the government and the Communist Party of India was at its height. Even then, according to him, the Viceroy was sceptical of the usefulness of the Communist Party. In August 1944, Tottenham writes, “the majority of those who profess allegiance to the party are not real communists at all, but merely hot-headed revolutionaries.” Mudie, who replaced Maxwell as the Home Member, remarks that “the circulation of People’s War is their most dangerous activity.” Another absurdity is, if we closely follow the articles, we have to understand that the so-called partnership worked well only at the Central level but not at the provincial level. Shourie writes, “The provinces too had never got used to the idea of taking on the communists as partners. They urged action.” It seems that Shourie had taken only those notings which serve his purpose. Otherwise, he would not have characterized the 1942-43 period as the period of ‘wary encouragement’.
Let us take the most crucial period i.e. between August 9, 1942 and December 1943. Prof. Hiren Mukherji in his brochure, Our Freedom Struggle and the Communist Party, takes information from the British Government publication on Transfer of Power: 1942-47. The dates, the comments and the authorities concerned are very revealing to the discomfiture of Shourie. On August 16, 1942, Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy of India, prepared a memorandum, noting in it that “the telegram despatched by Mr. P.C. Joshi to the Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Mr. Harry Pollitt, practically lined up the communists with the Congress.”
On 5 September 1942, the Home Department of the Government of India conveyed to the Secretary of State that “the Communist Party of India is a doubtful factor and it is composed of anti-British revolutionaries.”
In October 1942, the Viceroy told the Secretary of State that “there were ‘cases of communists taking part’ in the acts of subversion.”
According to Arun Shourie, the Home Department noted the deliberations of the First Congress of the C.P.I. with delight [as] “a considerable improvement in the outlook of the communists.” But it is otherwise according to Prof. Hiren Mukherji:
In its survey of the C.P.I.’s first congress the Home Department stressed that ‘liberation from imperialist enslavement’ was its paramount aim and that ‘persistent vilification of the government’ and ‘support of the leading national figures, particularly Gandhi’ characterised its proceedings. It proceeded, with unintended humour, to formulate the judgment that the C.P.I. was ‘primarily a nationalistic party working for Indian independence notwithstanding its lip-service to internationalism’.
On September 20, 1943, the Government of
In conclusion, we are inspired to quote this remarkable passage from Mukherji’s brochure:
When the Communist Party of India met at Calcutta (February 1948) for its Second Congress, its credential committee reported that the delegates numbering 632 had, among themselves, spent a total of 1500 years in British Indian jails (not counting the years in prison of the Chittagong Armoury Raid life-convict prisoners whose leaders had joined the party, some of them present in the Congress to affirm their allegiance).
Who knows! Arun Shourie may say that these years of prison life in British Indian jails were also spent under the dictates of ‘their masters in
* * * * *
No comments:
Post a Comment