Book Review : Communists Unveiled

The book, a must-read for the fans of the Left, brings out some startling facts, frauds and deceits of the Communists in India

Ratan Sharda
A well researched and comprehensive critique of Communist movement with the focus on India.   It is interesting to note that Sandeep Dev has published three books and he is the only Hindi author to have sold more than one lakh copies in the non-fiction category.
Sandeep traces the history of Communism from the birth of the Indian Communist movement around 1917 to 1964 in the first volume of his book.  He has uncovered facts from hitherto unknown sources and some known sources. But, when you read all these facts put together, you see the real character of Indian Communism up and close.
For example, how many of us are aware that Communists refused to recognise Independent India for 4 years, till August 15, 1951, and finally accepted it only after failure of its rebellion in Telangana? We are aware of Mitrokhin archives that tell us that Communist Party and even Congress Party were recipients of funding from KGB. But, none of even my generation, forget the current generation, is aware that Radio Moscow openly campaigned for Communist Party of India in 1952 elections; when it finally decided to try out democratic elections though it believed in one party dictatorship of the proletariat—read Communist Party—rule. It went on to become the principal opposition with 23 MPs in the first Lok Sabha.  
Many of us are aware that Communists who were first against the British as it had allied with USSR, later curried favours with British when USSR was attacked by Germany and it allied with Britain.  In 1942, not only did P C Joshi offer unconditional support to the British Empire and got its party members released; but offered every kind of co-operation also to crush 1942 Quit India movement. His party also sided with Jinnah and gave theoretical underpinning to his demand for a separate Muslim nation and justified religion based division of the nation. In fact, it believed that India was a multi-nation entity and made up of minimum 16 nations. It presented a proposal to Cabinet Mission in 1946 that India be divided into 17 full-fledged sovereign nation states!
Nehru, probably influenced by Communist thinking, had decided to support partition against Mahatma Gandhi’s wishes. Gandhi ji was more or less offered a fait accompli. The author quotes veteran socialist leader R M Lohia to whom Nehru confided that East Bengal was full of swamps, water and useless trees, it was nothing like other parts of India, so it could be separated. People would recall Nehru’s similar reaction to Ladakh take over by China when he said not a blade of grass grows there. Nehru’s fetish for Communist countries made him bow to Chinese hegemonic politics time and again that finally resulted in 1962 debacle.
Sandeep Dev shares declassified CIA documents of 1952 that tells us Communist conspiracy to break India through the establishment of Sikhistan by breaking East Punjab, Darjeeling by breaking Bengal, and conspiring to establish Sheikh Abdullah with help of USSR in Kashmir. Their view was that in future Kashmir could become a part of USSR.
Interestingly Communist Party established a profit making trading company in 1959 in the name of General Secretary Ajoy Ghosh that traded with USSR. Of course, it made a handsome profit. Even Russian news agency offered books to CPI at 50 per cent discount. This was used to finance Communist Party. But, Communists were still not happy. They felt that as long as Communist bloc approved of Nehru’s policies, there was no chance of Communists coming to power in India.
If you consider the number of painful turns and twists that Communists have taken in their policies during their organisation’s life, it would put a wriggling earthworm to shame.  It is to their credit that in spite of such left-right-Uturns, it is able to sell itself as a political entity with strong principled ideology.  In spite of their limited numbers, they are able to ensconce themselves at the right place to control the national narrative through academics and arts institutions or sneaking into Congress itself.
It is ironic to note that Mrs Indira Gandhi ran aggressive campaign to dislodge first Communist Government elected in any democratic country in 1959 after its armed rebellion in Telangana finally flopped. The reason for this was paint of shade Red over the entire education system in every possible area. Same Communists and their fifth columnists were accommodated first by Nehru then more prominently by Indira Gandhi. The JNU (Est 1969) saw the rise of prominent card holder Nurul Hassan as VC, we know the end result now. Similar was the case of all bodies like ICHR (Est 1972) etc.  They went on removing traditional ‘orthodox’ Congress leaders and replacing them with people with left orientation. One of the start entrants into Congress during Indira Gandhi regime was Mohan Kumaramangalam
Nehru’s effort, as the PM of India, was to get approval from Russia and later from China as being true Communist or being more left than the Indian Left. Indira Gandhi took these steps to sound Left more and gain approval from the intellectual class.  
Sandeep Dev takes us through the birth of Communist International movement, its efforts to get recognition from Comintern that it finally got in 1942. With recognition by international bosses, and move to support the British, it got authorisation as a legal political party in India. He shows how Communists were dictated by USSR and a faction by China. The fight between Communist factions was not due to their difference of opinion about how India should develop; it was about whether they should align with USSR or China and who should be the guardian angel of Indian Communist movement.  
The author reveals how pro-China faction (today’s CPM) tried its best to sabotage supplies to front lines during 1962 war. It went about distributing pamphlets and put up posters justifying Chinese attack on India and portraying India as the aggressor.
One of the most shocking revelations by the author using CIA’s declassified documents is that Russian embassy directed Communist party in 1958 to form a guerrilla organisation within Indian army, so that it could help Chinese when they attack India. The then General Secretary Ajoy Ghosh rejected the directive and presented a report in 1959 central committee that Russia and China were putting pressure on him to create a secret guerrilla force within Indian Army that would help Chinese at the right time. However ex-General Secretary B T Ranadive took up the challenge in April 1959 and contacted Chinese Embassy directly, assuring them of help.
In September 1960, Comrade Jyoti Basu, Harkishen Singh Surjit, Vasupunnaiah, Sundaraiiya and Ranadive had put pressure on CPI leadership to openly support China. Surjit played a crucial role in creating this guerrilla group. Jaipal Singh was directed in to keep this guerrilla group to be ready and alert by May 1961 to help China from within the army. However, the government got a whiff of this conspiracy and a large number of Communist workers and leaders were put behind bars.  
Same Surjit was General Secretary of CPM from 1992 to 2005 that he helped form by breaking CPI. Some readers may recall that Surjit was hailed as the modern day Chanakya for helping various rag-tag coalitions when Congress collapsed.  If media leaders didn’t know of his sordid history, they didn’t deserve to be leading the media. If they knew about it, their hypocrisy and support to Communists in spite of their record shows them in very poor light.
Author demolishes Left narrative of Nehru being a champion of Press freedom by quoting history of his efforts to suppress news that didn’t suite him, pressurising proprietors to drop stories, getting editors removed, installing his own son-in-law Feroze Gandhi in Indian Express though he had no experience.
Readers would wonder why Nehru keeps appearing in a book that is supposed to be a document about Communist Party and movement. The reason is that Nehru is central to this story in different ways. Nehru’s efforts to present himself as more Communist than the competition; and Communists’ effort at throwing him out and then co-opting him to further Communist interests makes riveting reading with reference to current history. The author also tells you how economic and foreign policies of Nehru were influenced by Communist worldview. I am waiting eagerly for an English translation of this path-breaking work.
(The reviewer is a columnist and author)