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Communist involvement in the Indian independence movement

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Communist organizations during independence movement

Following the independence movements, many militant underground communist organizations were formed.

Hindustan Socialist Republican Association

Following the Non-cooperation movement of 1919, Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) was formed by Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Jadugopal Mukherjee and Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee after a meeting in Cawnpore. The HRA had branches in West Bengal, Agra, Allahabad, Benares, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Saharanpur and Shahjahanpur. Afterwards it became Hindustan Socialist Republican Association by influence of Bhagat Singh and decided that the new organization would work in cooperation with the Communist International.

They were also involved in manufacturing bombs in Calcutta – at Dakshineswar and Shovabazar – and at Deoghar in Jharkhand (then Bihar province). Kakori train robbery was the most prominent efforts, where they looted government money from a train around 10 miles (16 km) from Lucknow. Significant members of the HRSA were arrested and tried for their involvement in that incident and others which had preceded it. The outcome was that four leaders – Ashfaqullah Khan, Ram Prasad Bismil, Roshan Singh and Rajendra Lahiri – were hanged in December 1927 and a further 16 imprisoned for lengthy terms. The result of the trial, in which the HRSA participants sang patriotic songs and displayed other forms of defiance, seriously damaged the leadership of the HRSA and dealt a major blow to its activities. Many associated with the HRSA who escaped trial found themselves placed under surveillance or detained for various reasons. Chandra Shekhar Azad was the only one of the principal leaders who managed to escape arrest whereas Banwari Lal became an approver.

HRSA was in protest against the Simon Commission. They bombed the members of the Simon Commission. Following the death of Lala Lajpat Rai, who died due to lathicharge while leading a peaceful protest against the commission, they bombed the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi. They demonstrated protest against the introduction of the Public Safety Bill and the Trade Disputes Bill, both of which had been drafted in an attempt to counter the effects of revolutionary activities and trade unionism. The Assembly Bomb case and the Saunders murder case trial followed and Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were hanged on 23 March 1931 for their actions.

Communist Consolidation

On 12 May 1933, some of the prisoners of Cellular Jail gathered and started a hunger strike, causing the deaths of Mahavir Singh, Mohan Kishore Namadas, and Mohit Moitra. The British Raj acceded to the demands of the freedom fighters to stop the hunger strike and finally after 46 days hunger strike end on 26 June 1933. This marked the beginning of the revolutionary communist group. It was the largest resistance group against British rule in the Jail.

In 1935, Communist Consolidation was founded by 39 inmates, and led by communist leader Hare Krishna Konar. The maximum of its members believed on the concept of Marxism and Communist or Jugantar part of Anushilan Samiti. Although this was a secret revolutionary group and the members of this organization swelled higher and higher.

This organization again led the historical 36-days hunger strike in 1937 where the British government had to bow before the demands of the political prisoners.

They used slogans like "Inquilab Zindabad" and "Duniya ke Mazdooron ek ho". Gradually The organization's membership expanded rapidly to more than 800 inmates.

Some of its notable members were:

Communist Party of India

The Communist Party of India, one of the major communist party, which is still in existence, was formed on 26 December 1925 in Kanpur. S.V. Ghate was the first General Secretary of CPI. There were many communist groups formed by Indians with the help of foreigners in different parts of the world, Tashkent group of Contacts were made with Anushilan and Jugantar the groups in Bengal, and small communist groups were formed in Bombay (led by S.A. Dange), Madras (led by Singaravelu Chettiar), United Provinces (led by Shaukat Usmani), Punjab, Sindh (led by Ghulam Hussain) and Bengal (led by Muzaffar Ahmed). During the 1920s and the early 1930s the party was badly organised, and in practice there were several communist groups working with limited national co-ordination. The British colonial authorities had banned all communist activity, which made the task of building a united party very difficult. Between 1921 and 1924 there were three conspiracy trials against the communist movement; First Peshawar Conspiracy Case, Meerut Conspiracy Case and the Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case. In the first three cases, Russian-trained muhajir communists were put on trial. However, the Cawnpore trial had more political impact. On 17 March 1924, Shripad Amrit Dange, M.N. Roy, Muzaffar Ahmed, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani, Singaravelu Chettiar, Ghulam Hussain and R.C. Sharma were charged, in Cawnpore (now spelt Kanpur) Bolshevik Conspiracy case. The specific pip charge was that they as communists were seeking "to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India, by complete separation of India from Britain by a violent revolution." Pages of newspapers daily splashed sensational communist plans and people for the first time learned, on such a large scale, about communism and its doctrines and the aims of the Communist International in India.

Singaravelu Chettiar was released on account of illness. M.N. Roy was in Germany and R.C. Sharma in French Pondichéry, and therefore could not be arrested. Ghulam Hussain confessed that he had received money from the Russians in Kabul and was pardoned. Muzaffar Ahmed, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani and Dange were sentenced for various terms of imprisonment. This case was responsible for actively introducing communism to a larger Indian audience. Dange was released from prison in 1927. Rahul Dev Pal was a prominent communist leader

On 25 December 1925 a communist conference was organised in Kanpur. Colonial authorities estimated that 500 persons took part in the conference. The conference was convened by a man called Satya Bhakta. At the conference Satyabhakta argued for a 'National communism' and against subordination under Comintern. Being outvoted by the other delegates, Satyabhakta left the conference venue in protest. The conference adopted the name 'Communist Party of India'. Groups such as Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan (LKPH) dissolved into the CPI. The émigré CPI, which probably had little organic character anyway, was effectively substituted by the organisation now operating inside India.

Soon after the 1926 conference of the Workers and Peasants Party of Bengal, the underground CPI directed its members to join the provincial Workers and Peasants Parties. All open communist activities were carried out through Workers and Peasants Parties.

The sixth congress of the Communist International met in 1928. In 1927 the Kuomintang had turned on the Chinese communists, which led to a review of the policy on forming alliances with the national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries. The Colonial theses of the 6th Comintern congress called upon the Indian communists to combat the 'national-reformist leaders' and to 'unmask the national reformism of the Indian National Congress and oppose all phrases of the Swarajists, Gandhists, etc. about passive resistance'. The congress did however differentiate between the character of the Chinese Kuomintang and the Indian Swarajist Party, considering the latter as neither a reliable ally nor a direct enemy. The congress called on the Indian communists to utilise the contradictions between the national bourgeoisie and the British imperialists. The congress also denounced the WPP. The Tenth Plenum of the executive committee of the Communist International, 3 July 1929 – 19 July 1929, directed the Indian communists to break with WPP. When the communists deserted it, the WPP fell apart.

On 20 March 1929, arrests against WPP, CPI and other labour leaders were made in several parts of India, in what became known as the Meerut Conspiracy Case. The communist leadership was now put behind bars. The trial proceedings were to last for four years.

As of 1934, the main centres of activity of CPI were Bombay, Calcutta and Punjab. The party had also begun extending its activities to Madras. A group of Andhra and Tamil students, amongst them P. Sundarayya, were recruited to the CPI by Amir Hyder Khan.

The party was reorganised in 1933, after the communist leaders from the Meerut trials were released. A central committee of the party was set up. In 1934 the party was accepted as the Indian section of the Communist International.

When Indian left-wing elements formed the Congress Socialist Party in 1934, the CPI branded it as Social Fascist.

The League Against Gandhism, initially known as the Gandhi Boycott Committee, was a political organisation in Calcutta, founded by the underground Communist Party of India and others to launch militant anti-Imperialist activities. The group took the name ‘League Against Gandhism’ in 1934.

In connection with the change of policy of the Comintern toward Popular Front politics, the Indian communists changed their relation to the Indian National Congress. The communists joined the Congress Socialist Party, which worked as the left wing of Congress. Through joining CSP, the CPI accepted the CSP demand for a Constituent Assembly, which it had denounced two years before. The CPI however analysed that the demand for a Constituent Assembly would not be a substitute for soviets.

In July 1937, clandestine meeting held at Calicut. Five persons were present at the meeting, P. Krishna Pillai, K. Damodaran, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, N. C. Sekhar and S.V. Ghate. The first four were members of the CSP in Kerala. The CPI in Kerala was formed on 31 December 1939 with the Pinarayi Conference. The latter, Ghate, was a CPI Central Committee member, who had arrived from Madras. Contacts between the CSP in Kerala and the CPI had begun in 1935, when P. Sundarayya (CC member of CPI, based in Madras at the time) met with EMS and Krishna Pillai. Sundarayya and Ghate visited Kerala at several times and met with the CSP leaders there. The contacts were facilitated through the national meetings of the Congress, CSP and All India Kisan Sabha.

In 1936–1937, the co-operation between socialists and communists reached its peak. At the 2nd congress of the CSP, held in Meerut in January 1936, a thesis was adopted which declared that there was a need to build 'a united Indian Socialist Party based on Marxism-Leninism'. At the 3rd CSP congress, held in Faizpur, several communists were included into the CSP National Executive Committee.

In Kerala communists won control over CSP, and for a brief period controlled Congress there.

Two communists, E.M.S. Namboodiripad and Z.A. Ahmed, became All India joint secretaries of CSP. The CPI also had two other members inside the CSP executive.

On the occasion of the 1940 Ramgarh Congress Conference CPI released a declaration called Proletarian Path, which sought to utilise the weakened state of the British Empire in the time of war and gave a call for general strike, no-tax, no-rent policies and mobilising for an armed revolutionary uprising. The National Executive of the CSP assembled at Ramgarh took a decision that all communists were expelled from CSP.

In July 1942, the CPI was legalised, as a result of Britain and the Soviet Union becoming allies against Nazi Germany. Communists strengthened their control over the All India Trade Union Congress. At the same time, communists were politically cornered for their opposition to the Quit India Movement.

The Communist Party of India opposed the partition of India and did not participate in the Independence Day celebrations of 15 August 1947 in protest of the division of the country.

Naujawan Bharat Sabha

Naujawan Bharat Sabha (NBS) was founded by revolutionary Bhagat Singh in March 1926. It was a left-wing Marxist association that sought to foment revolution against the British Raj. NBS was radical in its ideas relating to religion, to agrarian reform and movement. The organisation was noted for the involvement of its members in killing of John P. Saunders in December 1928. After that NBS organised protest against the Simon Commission in Lahore.

The association was banned in July 1929 during a period when the government had imposed Section 144 to control gatherings as public support burgeoned for the imprisoned Singh and his fellow hunger-strikers. NBS members were involved in the campaign.

NBS activist Sohan Singh Josh, was imprisoned for his role in the Meerut Conspiracy Case. NBS became one of the three significant left-wing groups in Punjab, the others being the outlawed Communist Party of India and the Kirti Kisan Party. These three attempted an alliance and sought also to gather together various smaller left wing organisations. All associations considered to be left-wing were declared illegal under the Criminal Law Amendment Act (1908) in September 1934.

Notable leaders of NBS include Bhagat Singh, Karam Singh Mann, Sohan Singh Josh and others.

Kirti Kisan Party

The Workers and Peasants Party or Kirti Kisan party was founded in Bengal in 1925, as the Labour Swaraj Party of the Indian National Congress by Kazi Nazrul Islam, Hemanta Kumar Sarkar, Qutubuddin Ahmad and Shamsuddin Hussain. The WPPs had much influence in Bombay, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Bengal. The WPP representatives together with Nehru were able to convince the AICC to make the Indian National Congress an associate member of the League against Imperialism. WPP was successful in mobilising trade union work. It built unions amongst printing press, municipal and dock workers. It gained influence amongst the workers of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. During 1928 the WPP led a general strike in Bombay, which lasted for months. At the time of the strike, the Girni Kamgar Union was founded. During the protests against the Simon Commission, the WPP played a major role in organising manifestations in Calcutta and Bombay. In Bombay it also mobilised 'hartal' (general strike) in protest against the Simon Commission. The party also worked for the abolishment of 'zamindari' system in agriculture.

On 20 March 1929, arrests against WPP, CPI and other labour leaders were made in several parts of India, in what became known as the Meerut Conspiracy Case. Most of the WPP leadership was now put behind bars. The trial proceedings were to last for four years, thus outliving the WPP. Tengdi, the WPP of Bombay president, died whilst the trial was still going on. After the arrests of its main leaders, the WPP was dissolved.

Notable leaders of this party were Nares Chandra Sen-Gupta, Hemanta Kumar Sarkar, Qutubuddin Ahmad, S.S. Mirajkar, Philip Spratt and many others. ref>Surjeet, Harkishan Surjeet. March of the Communist Movement in India – An Introduction to the Documents of the History of the Communist Movement in India. Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1998. p. 25

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