It was a coincidence that I met a senior official of
Bloomsbury India for a chat. After this chat, he sent me a copy of Kahani
Communiston Ki. It is a Hindi book by a political scientist Sandeep Dev. I have
yet to read a more researched and comprehensive critique of Communist movement with 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 1 lac copies in non-fiction category.
Sandeep traces the history of Communism from 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 the 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 15th August
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, are 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 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 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 British. In 1942, not only did P C Joshi offer
unconditional support to British empire and got its party members released;
offered every kind of co-operation 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. Infact 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 Gandhi ji’s wishes. Gandhi ji was more or
less offered a fait accompli. 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 though 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. Ofcourse it made handsome profit. Even Russian news agency offered books
to CPI at 50% 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. Countries. IB Chief B N Mullick
is quoted from his book that every correspondence from USSR in 1950s directed
Communists to throw out reactionary Nehru.
If you consider the number of painful turns and twists that
Communists have taken in their policies during their organization’s life, it
would put a wriggling earthworm to shame.
It is to their credit that inspite of such left-right-Uturns, it is able
to sell itself as a political entity with strong principled ideology. Inspite of their limited numbers they are
able to ensconce themselves at right place to control the national narrative
through academics and arts institutions or sneaking into Congress itself.
Nehru was highly enamoured by Communist models and he
decided to take India on Russian model of massive 5 year plans based on big
factories, big institutions, co-operative farming, big dams junking Gandhi’s model development based on rural
based economy. Author shows with historic documents that Nehru was more of a
Communist than a Socialist. He was so smitten by Communism after his 1927 visit
to Stalin’s Russia that he said Russian toilets were better than Indian
factories.
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 Telengana 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. JNU (Est 1969) saw the rise of prominent card holder Nurul Hassan as VC, we know the end result now. Similarly, all bodies like ICHR (Est 1972) etc. They went onto remove traditional ‘orthodox’ Congress leaders and replacing them with people with left orientation. One of the start entrant 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 more Left and gain approval from the intellectual class.
In the process Left lobby enjoyed all the privileges of
ruling class, used government money to lead a wonderful 5 Star life and also dictate academic and
intellectual narrative. Their hold over these institutions is so strong that
even making content of education objective and ideologically neutral draws
cries of Saffronisation.
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
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.
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 author using CIA’s declassified documents is that Russian embassy directed Communist
party in 1958 to form a guerrilla organization within Indian army, so 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 Secreatary 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, government got a whiff of this conspiracy and large number of
Communist workers and leaders were put behind bars.
Same Surjit was General Secretary of CPI(M) 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 sew 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 inspite 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 a document about Communist Party and movement. 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. Author also tells you how economic
and foreign policies of Nehru were influenced by Communist world view.
I am waiting eagerly for an English translation of this path
breaking work.
Title: Kahani Communiston Ki (Volume I – 1917 to 1964) –
Vampanthi Chaal, Charitra aur Chehra
Author: Sandeep Dev; Preface: Ram Bahadur Rai
Publishers: Bloosmbury
Price: INR 399 ; Pages: 373
First published in Organiser on 30th July, 2017 edition
First published in Organiser on 30th July, 2017 edition
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