Communist Party of India

The Communist Party of India was formed on 26 December 1925 at the first Party Conference in Kanpur, which was then known as Cawnpore. Its founders included M. N. Roy, his wife Evelyn Trent, Abani Mukherji, and M. P. T. Acharya.[10] 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 government 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.[11]

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.[11] Dange was released from prison in 1927. Rahul Dev Pal was a prominent communist leader

On 26 December 1925 a communist conference was organised in Kanpur.[12] Government 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.[13] 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.[14]

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'.[15] 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.[16] 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.[17]

Portrait of 25 of the Meerut Prisoners taken outside the jail. Back row (left to right): K. N. Sehgal, S. S. Josh, H. L. Hutchinson, Shaukat Usmani, B. F. Bradley, A. Prasad, P. Spratt, G. Adhikari. Middle Row: Radharaman Mitra, Gopen Chakravarti, Kishori Lal Ghosh, L. R. Kadam, D. R. Thengdi, Goura Shanker, S. Bannerjee, K.N. Joglekar, P. C. Joshi, Muzaffar Ahmed. Front Row: M. G. Desai, D. Goswami, R.S. Nimbkar, S.S. Mirajkar, S.A. Dange, S.V. Ghate, Gopal Basak.

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.[18][19]

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.[20]

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.[21]

When Indian left-wing elements formed the Congress Socialist Party in 1934, the CPI branded it as Social Fascist.[15]

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.[22]

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.[23]

In July 1937, clandestine meeting held at Calicut.[24] 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.[25] The latter, Ghate, was a CPI Central Committee member, who had arrived from Madras.[26] 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.[20]

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'.[27] At the 3rd CSP congress, held in Faizpur, several communists were included into the CSP National Executive Committee.[28]

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.[23]

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.[29]

In July 1942, the CPI was legalised, as a result of Britain and the Soviet Union becoming allies against Nazi Germany.[30] 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.

CPI contested the Provincial Legislative Assembly elections of 1946 of its own. It had candidates in 108 out of 1585 seats, winning in eight seats. In total the CPI vote counted 666 723, which should be seen with the backdrop that 86% of the adult population of India lacked voting rights. The party had contested three seats in Bengal, and won all of them. One CPI candidate, Somnath Lahiri, was elected to the Constituent Assembly.[31]

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.[32]

The Telangana armed struggle (1946–1952), was a peasant rebellion by communists against the feudal lords of the Telangana region in the princely state of Hyderabad.

Guerrillas of the Telangana armed struggle

CPI election campaign in Karol Bagh, Delhi, for the 1952 Indian general election.

.

During the period around and directly following Independence in 1947, the internal situation in the party was chaotic. The party shifted rapidly between left-wing and right-wing positions. In February 1948, at the 2nd Party Congress in Calcutta, B. T. Ranadive (BTR) was elected General Secretary of the party.[33] The conference adopted the 'Programme of Democratic Revolution'. This programme included the first mention of struggle against caste injustice in a CPI document.[34]

In several areas the party led armed struggles against a series of local monarchs that were reluctant to give up their power. Such insurgencies took place in Tripura, Telangana and Kerala. The most important rebellion took place in Telangana, against the Nizam of Hyderabad. The Communists built up a people's army and militia and controlled an area with a population of three million. The rebellion was brutally crushed and the party abandoned the policy of armed struggle. BTR was deposed and denounced as a 'left adventurist'.

In Manipur, the party became a force to reckon with through the agrarian struggles led by Jananeta Irawat Singh. Singh had joined CPI in 1946.[35] At the 1951 congress of the party, 'People's Democracy' was substituted by 'National Democracy' as the main slogan of the party.[36]

Communist Party was founded in Bihar in 1939. Post independence, communist party achieved success in Bihar (Bihar and Jharkhand). Communist party conducted movements for land reform, trade union movement was at its peak in Bihar in the sixties, seventies and eighties. Achievement of communists in Bihar placed the communist party in the forefront of left movement in India. Bihar produced some of the legendary leaders like Kishan leaders Sahajanand Saraswati and Karyanand Sharma, intellectual giants like Jagannath Sarkar, Yogendra Sharma and Indradeep Sinha, mass leaders like Chandrasekhar Singh and Sunil Mukherjee, Trade Union leaders like Kedar Das and others. It was in Bihar that JP's total revolution was exposed and communist party under the leadership of Jagannath Sarkar fought Total Revolution and exposed its hollowness. "Many Streams" Selected Essays by Jagannath Sarkar and Reminiscing Sketches, Compiled by Gautam Sarkar, Edited by Mitali Sarkar, First Published : May 2010, Navakaranataka Publications Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore . In the Mithila region of Bihar Bhogendra Jha led the fight against the Mahants and Zamindars. He later went on the win Parliamentary elections and was MP for seven terms.

In early 1950s young communist leadership was uniting textile workers, bank employees and unorganised sector workers to ensure mass support in north India. National leaders like S A Dange, Chandra Rajeswara Rao and P K Vasudevan Nair were encouraging them and supporting the idea despite their differences on the execution. Firebrand Communist leaders like Homi F. Daji, Guru Radha Kishan, H L Parwana, Sarjoo Pandey, Darshan Singh Canadian and Avtaar Singh Malhotra were emerging between the masses and the working class in particular. This was the first leadership of communists that was very close to the masses and people consider them champions of the cause of the workers and the poor. In Delhi, May Day (majdoor diwas or mai diwas) was organised at Chandni Chowk Ghantaghar in such a manner that demonstrates the unity between all the factions of working classes and ignite the passion for communist movement in the northern part of India.

In 1952, CPI became the first leading opposition party in the Lok Sabha, while the Indian National Congress was in power.

Communist movement or CPI in particular emerged as a front runner after Guru Radha Kishan undertook a fast unto death for 24 days to promote the cause of textile workers in Delhi. Till than it was a public misconception that communists are revolutionaries with arms in their hands and workers and their families were afraid to get associated with the communists but this act mobilised general public in the favour of communist movement as a whole. During this period people with their families used to visit 'dharna sthal' to encourage CPI cadre.

This model of selflessness for the society worked for the CPI far more than what was expected. This trend was followed by almost all other state units of the party in the Hindi heartland. Communist Party related trade union AITUC became a prominent force to unite the workers in textile, municipal and unorganised sectors, the first labour union in unorganised sector was also emerged in the leadership of Comrade Guru Radha Kishan during this period in Delhi's Sadar Bazaar area. This movement of mass polarisation of workers in the favour of CPI worked effectively in Delhi and paved the way for great success of CPI in the elections in working class dominated areas in Delhi. Comrade Gangadhar Adhikari and E.M.S. Namboodiripad applauded this brigade of dynamic comrades for their selfless approach and organisational capabilities. This brigade of firebrand communists gained more prominence when Telangana hero Chandra Rajeswara Rao to be General Secretary of the Communist Party of India.

In the 1952 Travancore-Cochin Legislative Assembly election, Communist Party was banned, so it couldn't take part in the election process.[37] In the general elections in 1957, the CPI emerged as the largest opposition party. In 1957, the CPI won the state elections in Kerala. This was the first time that an opposition party won control over an Indian state. E. M. S. Namboodiripad became Chief Minister. At the 1957 international meeting of Communist parties in Moscow, the Chinese Communist Party directed criticism at the CPI for having formed a ministry in Kerala.[38]

Liberation of Dadra-Nagar Haveli: The Communist Party of India, along with its units in Bombay, Maharashtra and Gujarat, decided to start armed operations in the area in the July 1954. Both the areas were liberated by the beginning of August. Communist leaders like Narayan Palekar, Parulekar, Vaz, Rodriguez, Cunha and others emerged as the famous Communist leaders of this movement. Thereafter, the struggle to liberate Daman and Diu was begun by the Communist Party in Gujarat and other forces.[39]

Goa Satyagraha: The countrywide Goa satyagraha of 1955-56 is among the unforgettable pages in the history of freedom struggle, in which the Communists played a major and memorable role. The CPI decided to send batches of satyahrahis since the middle of 1955 to the borders of Goa and even inside. Many were killed, many more others arrested and sent to jails inside Goa and inhumanly treated. Many others were even sent to jails in Portugal and were brutally tortured. The satyagraha was led and conducted by a joint committee known as Goa Vimochan Sahayak Samiti. S.A. Dange, Senapati Bapat, S.G. Sardesai, Nana Patil and several others were among the prominent leaders of the Samiti. Satyagraha began on 10 May 1955, and soon became a countrywide movement.[40]

Ideological differences led to the split in the party in 1964 when two different party conferences were held, one of CPI and one of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

During the period 1970–77, CPI was allied with the Congress party. In Kerala, they formed a government together with Congress as part of a coalition known as the United Front, with the CPI-leader C. Achutha Menon as Chief Minister. This government continued governing throughout the emergency period and was responsible for the many acts of repression throughout the period carried out against political opponents in the guise of fighting naxals, manifesting most infamously in the Rajan Case. The United Front government also used this opportunity to pursue class struggle by punishing those from the managerial classes, money lenders, bosses with anti-labour stances, ration shopkeepers and truckers engaged in black marketing, under stringent provisions of MISA and DIR.[41]

After the fall of the regime of Indira Gandhi, CPI reoriented itself towards co-operation with CPI(M).

In the 1980s, CPI opposed the Khalistan movement at Punjab. In 1986, CPI's leader in Punjab and MLA in the Punjabi legislature Darshan Singh Canadian was assassinated by Sikh extremists. Altogether about 200 communist leaders out of which most were Sikhs were killed by Sikh extremists in Punjab.

• D. Raja

1. S. Sudhakar Reddy
2. D. Raja
3. Atul Kumar Anjaan
4. Amarjeet Kaur
5. Ramendra Kumar
6. K. Narayana
7. Kanam Rajendran
8. Binoy Viswam
9. Bhalchandra Kango
10. Pallab Sen Gupta

1. S. Sudhakar Reddy
2. D. Raja
3. Atul Kumar Anjaan
4. Amarjeet Kaur
5. Ramendra Kumar
6. K. Narayana
7. Kanam Rajendran
8. Binoy Viswam
9. Bhalchandra Kango
10. Pallab Sengupta
11. Nagendra Nath Ojha
12. Girish Sharma
13. Annie Raja
14. Azeez Pasha
15. K. Ramakrishna
16. Satya Narayan Singh
17. Janaki Paswan
18. Ram Naresh Pandey
19. Bhubneshwar Prasad Mehta
20. K.E. Ismail
21. Moirangthem Nara
22. Dibakar Naik
23. R. Mutharasan
24. C. Mahendran
25. Chada Venkat Reddy
26. K. Subbarayan
27. Swapan Banerjee
28. Bant Singh Brar
29. Munin Mahanta
30. C.H. Venkatachalam

Ex-Officio Members

1. Pannian Ravindran (Chairperson, Central Control Commission)

Invitees

1. Rama Krushna Panda
2. Manish Kunjam

Members from Centre:

• S. Sudhakar Reddy
• D. Raja
• Atul Kumar Anjaan
• Ramendra Kumar
• Amarjeet Kaur
• K. Narayana
• Nagendra Nath Ojha
• Bhalchandra Kango
• Binoy Viswam
• Pallab Sengutpa
• Azeez Pasha
• Annie Raja - Women Front
• CH Venkatachalam - Bank Front
• B.V. Vijaylakshmi - TU Front
• S. V. Damle - TU Front
• Vidyasagar Giri - TU Front
• R.S. Yadav - Mukti Sangharsh
• Manish Kunjam - Tribal Front
• C. Srikumar - Defence
• Gargi Chakravarthy - Women Front
• Anil Rajimwale - Education Department
• Viswajeet Kumar - Student Front
• R. Thirumalai - Youth Front
• A.A. Khan - Minority Front

Andhra Pradesh

• K. Ramakrishna
• M.N. Rao
• J.V.S.N. Murthy
• Jalli Wilson
• Akkineni Vanaja

Assam

• Munin Mahanta
• Kanak Gogoi

Bihar

• Ram Naresh Pandey
• Janki Paswan
• Jabbar Alam
• Rajendra Prasad Singh
• Rageshri Kiran
• Om Prakash Narayan
• Pramod Prabhakar
• Ram Chandra Singh
• Nivedita

Chhattisgarh

• R.D.C.P. Rao
• Rama Sori

Delhi

• Dhirendra K. Sharma
• Prof. Dinesh Varshney

Goa

• Christopher Fonseca

Gujarat

• Raj Kumar Singh
• Vijay Shenmare

Haryana

• Dariyao Singh Kashyap

Himachal Pradesh

• Shayam Singh Chauhan

Jharkhand

• Bhubaneshwar Prasad Mehta
• K.D. Singh
• Rajendra Prasad Yadav
• Mahendra Pathak

Jammu and Kashmir

Vacant

Karnataka

• P.V. Lokesh
• Saathi Sundaresh

Kerala

• Kanam Rajendran
• K.E. Ismail
• K. Prekash Babu
• E. Chandrasekharan
• Adv. P. Vasantham
• T.V. Balan
• C.N. Jayadevan
• K.P. Rajendran
• J. Chinchu Rani
• N. Anirudhan
• N. Rajan

Manipur

• Moirangthem Nara
• L. Sotin Kumar

Meghalaya

• Samudra Gupta

Maharashtra

• Tukaram Bhasme
• Namdev Gavade
• Ram Baheti
• Prakash Reddy

Madhya Pradesh

• Arvind Shrivastava
• Haridwar Singh

Odisha

• Dibakar Nayak
• Ashish Kanungo
• Abhaya Sahu
• Ramakrushna Panda
• Souribandhu Kar

Puducherry

• A. M. Saleem
• A. Ramamoorthy

Punjab

• Bant Singh Brar
• Jagrup Singh
• Hardev Singh Arshi
• Nirmal Singh Dhaliwal
• Jagjit Singh Joga

Rajasthan

• Narendra Acharya
• Tara Singh Sidhu

Tamil Nadu

• R. Nallakkannu
• R. Mutharasan
• C. Mahendran
• K. Subbarayan
• M. Veerapandian
• T.M. Murthi
• G. Palaniswamy
• P. Padmavathi
• P. Sethuraman

Telangana

• Chada Venkat Reddy
• Palla Venkat Reddy
• K. Sambasiva Rao
• Pasya Padma
• K. Srinivas Reddy
• K. Shanker
• T. Srinivas Rao

Tripura

• Ranjit Majumdar

Uttar Pradesh

• Girish Sharma
• Arvind Raj Swarup
• Imtiyaz Ahmed
• Prof. Nisha Rathor
• Ram Chand Saras
• Shyam Mohan Singh

Uttarakhand

• Samar Bhandari

West Bengal

• Swapan Banerjee
• Manju Kumar Mazumdar
• Santosh Rana
• Shyama Sree Das
• Ujjawal Chaudhury
• Chittaranjan Das Thakur
• Prabir Deb
• Tarun Das

Candidate Members

• Prof. Arun Kumar
• N. Chidambaram
• Arun Mitra
• M. Bal Narsima
• Mithlesh Jha
• Suhaas Naik
• Mahesh Kakkath
• Kh. Surchand Singh
• Richard B. Thabah
• G. Obulesu
• Vicky Mahesari
• Shuvam Banerjee

Invitee Members

• Bhupender Sambar
• Periyaswamy
• Gulzar Singh Goria
• Aruna Sinha
• Asomi Gogoi
• Kannagi
• Usha Sahani
• Indra Mani Devi
• Durga Bhavani
• R. C. Singh
• Amiya Kumar Mohanty

1. Pannian Ravindran (Chairman)
2. C. A. Kurian
3. Dr Joginder Dayal (Punjab)
4. C.R. Bakshi (Chhattisgarh)
5. P.J.C. Rao (Andhra Pradesh)
6. Bijoy Narayan Mishra (Bihar)
7. Moti Lal (Uttar Pradesh)
8. M. Sakhi Devi (Tripura)
9. T. Narsimhan (Telangana)
10. M. Arumugham (Tamil Nadu)
11. Apurba Mandal (West Bengal

1. Pallab Sen Gupta
2. K. Prekash Babu
3. C.R. Bakshi
4. Moirangthem Nara
5. Anil Rajimwale

Sources[50]

• Andhra Pradesh : K. Ramakrishna
• Assam : Munin Mahanta
• Bihar : Ram Naresh Pandey[51]
• Chhattisgarh : RDCP Rao
• Delhi :Prof.Dinesh Varshney
• Goa : RD Mangueshkar
• Gujarat : Vijay Shenmare
• Haryana : Dariyao Singh Kashyap
• Himachal Pradesh : Bhag Singh
• Jammu & Kashmir : G. M. Mizrab
• Jharkhand : Bhubneshwar Prasad Mehta
• Kerala : Kanam Rajendran
• Karnataka : Saathi Sundaresh
• Maharashtra : Prakash Reddy
• Madhya Pradesh : Arvind Shrivastava
• Manipur : L. Thoiren Singh
• Meghalaya : Samudra Gupta
• Nagaland : M M Thromwa Konyak
• Odisha : Abhaya Sahu
• Puducherry : A. M. Saleem
• Punjab : Bant Singh Brar
• Rajasthan : Narendra Acharya
• Tamil Nadu : R. Mutharasan[52][53]
• Telangana : Kunamneni Sambasiva Rao
• Uttar Pradesh : Girish Sharma
• Uttarakhand : Jagdish Kuliyal
• West Bengal : Swapan Banerjee