Recently, the Bombay High Court issued a befitting remark on the conduct of Indian Communists. When CPI(M) activists approached the court seeking permission to protest over the Gaza conflict, a division bench comprising Justices RV Ghuge and Gautam A Ankhad dismissed the plea, advising them: “Be patriots. Speak up for causes in our own country instead of Gaza… You are looking at issues in Gaza and Palestine. Look at your own country.” The message is clear, love your own country first, before loving Gaza or any other! The Polit Bureau, which had made little contribution to Indian politics in recent decades, reconvened with its available members, only to shed tears and express outrage over this verdict.
In the 1950s, many believed that the Communists would emerge as a viable alternative to Nehru. This was after the Communist Party of India (CPI) leader AK Gopalan became the first Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and the CPI formed the Government in Kerala via ballot. Prior to that, they were vehemently opposed to parliamentary democracy. However, Indian Communists never learned lessons from history. Time and again, they opposed national interests, pledging ideological loyalty to Russia or China, which ultimately dug their own grave.
During the 1980s, EMS Namboodiripad was invited to speak at the Kerala University on why Communism failed to take root in India, unlike in other Communist countries. He candidly admitted that the Communist movement had ignored Gandhi ji and Swami Vivekananda whose thoughts were rooted in national ethos. Indian Communists failed to adapt to Indian culture and develop an “Indian” Communist Party unlike other countries where nationalist variants of Communism were developed by leaders like Lenin in Russia, Mao in China, or Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. For years, Communists did not recognise Bharat’s Independence. In 1954, the CPI declared August 15 as a ‘Betrayal Day’. Although Jyoti Basu came to power in 1977, it was only on August 15, 1990 that the CPI(M) officially hoisted the national flag for the first time on Independence Day at Kolkata’s Writers’ Building. It took another 27 years more until January 26, 2017, for the party to unfurl the national flag at its own party office.
Betrayal of Quit India Movement
One of the most damning episodes in Communist history is their treacherous sabotaging of the Quit India Movement. On August 22, 1939, the Soviet Union under Stalin signed a pact with the Axis powers, aligning with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy which led to the outbreak of Second World War on September 1, 1939. On Stalin’s orders, German Communist comrades imprisoned in Russia were handed over to Hitler’s regime on September 27, 1939, leading to their persecution in notorious Nazi concentration camps. Following this, Communists worldwide claimed that the Stalin-Hitler alliance was against social democrats and Western imperialists like the US and the UK. However, Hitler fooled the Communists and attacked USSR by launching Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941. Stalin, with no option left, allied with the very Western powers such as the UK and the US he had condemned as “imperialists” and redefined the war as one against fascist imperialism. Consequently, Communist parties across the world, who shifted their loyalty, including in India, were instructed to align with the British war effort. Initially confused, the Indian Communists described the war as “imperialist” in the West and a “People’s War” in India. Stalin rejected this distinction, insisting that “War cannot be divided; there is only one true war – the war against the Nazis, the sole imperialists.” Eventually, the so-called Western ‘Imperialist War’ also became a ‘People’s War’.” In response, the General Secretary of Communist Party of Britain directed the Indian comrades to support the British Government’s war efforts, through a note in November 1941. On December 1, 1941, the CPI in a letter No. 54 under the heading “British Comrades Corrects Us” officially admitted “we are mistaken by our opposition to the British imperialist government” due to “bourgeois nationalism.” On December 13, 1941, the party published a letter stating they had passed a resolution publicly siding with the British Government.
From that point, the CPI began actively working to sabotage the Quit India Movement and to support the British Government. On December 16, 1941, NM Joshi, a CPI leader and the General Secretary of the AITUC, wrote to British Home Member Reginald Maxwell, offering unconditional support for the British war effort and requesting the withdrawal of all actions against the party, the release of jailed Communist leaders, and the lifting of the party’s ban. On April 23, 1942, CPI leaders submitted a 10-page memorandum to the British Government outlining strategies to disrupt the Quit India movement. The document is now preserved in the National Archives, Delhi. CPI General Secretary PC Joshi was nominated by the Party to discuss with British officials. In response, the British Government instructed all provincial authorities to withdraw the arrest warrants against PC Joshi. He began a series of meetings with British intelligence and administration, culminating in the formal lifting of the CPI ban. On May 12, 1942, PC Joshi held a discussion with G Ahmed, the head of intelligence, and two days later, he had his first meeting with Maxwell. Subsequently, the British Government lifted the ban on the Communist Party and its publications, and began releasing Party leaders one by one. Later, on December 2, 1942, Communist leader PC Joshi met with Maxwell once again for further discussions. PC Joshi submitted a working report to Maxwell on March 15, 1943, detailing how the Communist Party had been operating in support of the British Government across various provinces, as well as within educational and labour sectors, over the preceding six months. The report also explained how the Party had succeeded in creating a split within the national movement. It boldly stated: “If Communists were not there, the history of India would have been different.” This implies that the Quit India Movement could have resulted in the British leaving the country.
Following the lifting of the ban on the Communist Party, a party conference was held in Bombay from May 23 to June 1, 1943. During this conference, the Party officially removed from its constitution the demand that “British rule must be overthrown.” In response, Soli S Batliwala, then a national leader of the Communist Party, resigned, condemning the leadership as traitors for maintaining such a clandestine and treacherous relationship with the British Government.
Expose Communists
In 1984, journalist Arun Shourie published his celebrated four-part series titled The Great Betrayal in the now-defunct Illustrated Weekly of India, exposing this historical treachery with authentic documentary evidence. In 1964, Dr Gangadhar Adhikari acknowledged the Party’s strategic blunders in his report to the Seventh Congress of the CPI held in Bombay. He admitted: “This stand (against the Quit India Movement) did serious damage to the Party by isolating it for a time from the rest of the anti-imperialist elements in the national movement and also split our mass base… It is agreed that… our stand on Pakistan etc., were all serious errors. But the question whether our negative attitude to the ‘Quit India’ struggle, our non-participation in it, were right or not, that has not been settled” (p. 173).
Communist Party consistently supported the Muslim League and Jinnah’s demand for Partition of India. On September 19, 1942, the CPI passed a resolution supporting the “just essence of the Pakistan demand.” A report justifying this position was prepared by Dr Gangadhar Adhikari. On November 1 and 2, the CPI declared a week-long campaign in support of a separate Pakistan as demanded by the Muslim League. The justification provided was that “Mr. Jinnah has declared that Pakistan will be a secular country,” and therefore the demand was not considered communal. The CPI went so far as to accuse Gandhiji and the Congress of undermining national unity by refusing to accept the demand.
anti-constitutional observations
Sixteen Nations Theory
USSR was a conglomeration of multiple nationalities, which disintegrated into independent nations by the early 1990s. While European intellectuals advanced the “new nation” theory to explain emerging post-colonial states, Indian Communists propagated a “many nations” theory borrowing from the Soviet “nationalities theory, envisioning that India composed of around sixteen separate nations each with a right to self-determination and secede.” Based on this ideology, Communist theoreticians began crafting narratives around similar constructs in books like Nutan Bangla, Vishal Andhra, and Kerala, the Motherland of Malayalis.
However, this theory stood in stark contrast to the views of MN Roy, the very founder of Indian Communism. Roy strongly asserted that India was a nation long before even England came into being: “Long before any other country had organised itself into a single community with a common ideal, India was united.” He also rejected Karl Marx’s conclusions about India, which were based on colonial narratives: “Our history has been misinterpreted and badly written by imperialist authors, causing the world to believe that before the so-called British conquest, India did not exist as a nation, and that the conquest meant progress for India.” Despite such clarity from their own founder, Indian Communists continued with the divisive ideas of the later ideologues. The Indian Communist movement crumbled down and is on the verge of collapse even in its last bastion, Kerala, hitting hard against the rock of Indian nationalism. Unfortunately, this ideology remains embedded in academic centres in the country. For decades, JNU remained a Leftist bastion and a hub for Communist ideology where anti-national activities thrived under the guise of academic freedom. Leftist student leaders have been standing in solidarity with Kashmir terrorists in “Breaking India” campaigns, some of whom were arrested on charges of sedition.
Support for China Over Bharat
In 1962, when China attacked India, the Indian Communists openly sided with China. CPI leaders even ordered their cadres not to donate blood to wounded Indian soldiers fighting in the borders against the Chinese. Leaders like E.M.S. Namboodiripad infamously trivialised Chinese aggression remarking that the war was merely a territorial dispute over “a land India claims as its own and China claiming as its.” During the conflict, EMS also met the Soviet Ambassador, requesting that the USSR refrain from condemning China’s aggression. Consequently, while the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was invited to march in full ganavesh at the 1963 Independence Day celebrations in recognition of its patriotic contributions to the war effort, many Communist leaders languished in jail as traitors. The CPI and CPI(M) themselves were split in 1964 out of internal divisions over loyalty to Moscow versus Beijing.
A recent controversy in Kerala illustrates this. The CPI(M) objected to the Kerala Governor offering floral tribute to a portrait of Bharat Mata during the International Yoga Day celebrations at the Raj Bhavan. The issue intensified when Kerala’s Education Minister, V. Sivankutty, boycotted the event upon seeing the portrait. The CPI(M)’s mouthpiece, Deshabhimani, went so far as to publish an editorial claiming that Bharat Mata is an RSS concept and accused the Raj Bhavan of functioning like an RSS shakha for displaying the portrait. The Communist trade union, CITU, even staged a protest march to the Raj Bhavan. Communist hostility has extended even to the educational spaces, with anti-national sentiments being instilled contaminating the minds of the younger generation.
An Ideology in Decline: Today, the Communists appear to have lost faith in their own ideology and future. It is pertinent to note that both RSS and CPI were founded in 1925; the former in Nagpur and the latter in Kanpur. Today, RSS has spread to every nook and corner of India, cutting across all sectors, while Communist Party has been virtually wiped out across the country except Kerala. While RSS celebrated across the country milestones such as centenaries of Dr KB Hedgewar and Sri Guruji Golwalkar, as well as the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, the Communist parties failed even to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution in 2017, the 200th birth anniversary of Karl Marx in 2018, or the 150th year of Das Kapital.
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