Birth and Growth of Communist Party in Delhi

Dilli ki Communist Party ka itihas (in Hindi) by Anand Gupta; published by the Communist Party, Delhi State Committe; pp. xxxii + 467; Price: Rs 250. (Copies can be ordered from PPH, 5-E, Rani Jhansi Road, New Delhi 110055.)

In this volume of 500 pages, the result of almost a decade of painstaking research in the National Archives of India, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi Archives, P.C. Joshi Archives in JNU, Ajoy Bhavan library and other archives and primary sources, and, above all, his own unique collection of historical documents and photographs, Anand Gupta has given us much more than a documented history of the communist movement in Delhi. Himself a freedom fighter and a member of the CPI for over six decades since 1944, the author has been a participant in many events he describes and knew personally many of the early pioneers whose names should be known, at least in Delhi, to a much greater extent than they are today. Anand Gupta also personally interviewed many party leaders and workers. Besides, he has his own personal memories of the work on several fronts, in which he was involved.

The author’s approach to history is not limited to the political movement alone. He has widely covered people in the fields of art, drama, music, dance, in which many Communists and sympathisers in Delhi took an active part. A special feature of the book is the inclusion of Hindi songs that were sung during our freedom struggle all over India.

At the beginning Anand Gupta gives an idea of the life and work of the founders of the Marxist doctrine, Marx and Engels, and some of their prominent followers like Lenin and also Stalin (without whose leadership, notwithstanding its shortcomings and even crimes, we cannot think of the socialist state of the USSR and its remarkable achievements in peace and war). He then gives an introduction of the early Communists in India—all of whom came from the national movement for independence. The chapter is rightly titled “Communists in the Freedom Movement in India†.

A notable feature of the author’s presentation is his objective approach. Along with a list of all the Congresses of the CPI from that at Kanpur in 1925, and the General Secretaries of the Party elected by them (J.P. Bagarhatta and S.V. Ghate, P.C. Joshi, B.T. Ranadive, Ajoy Ghosh, C. Rajeshwara Rao, Indrajit Gupta and A.B. Bardhan), whose brief life sketches he gives, he has included brief sketches with photographs of many important leaders who left the CPI, like M.N. Roy, S.A. Dange and others. In their own times they played an important part in building up the communist movement.

This essential background material takes up about a fourth of the volume. The author then gives a brief introduction to the history of Delhi to which the British transferred their colonial Capital from Calcutta in 1911, recognising its strategic and historical importance. But they had soon to face what British historians call “terrorists†like Bhai Balmukund, Master Amirchand and Awadh Bihari who were arrested for throwing a bomb at Lord Hardinge in Chandni Chowk and were executed.

Bhagat Singh and his comrades next laid the foundation of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association in Delhi after a secret meeting held here in 1928. Delhi gave the national movement many notable leaders like Hakim Ajmal Khan, Dr M.A. Ansari, Asaf Ali, Deshbandhu Gupta and Aruna Asaf Ali. In 1936-38 the Secretary of the Delhi Provincial Congress Committee was Bahal Singh, who was also one of the founders of the Communist Party in Delhi. Like many of the early Communists, he played a leading role in the Congress, the Congress Socialist Party and then the CPI. He was also a noted trade union leader. After the legalisation of the CPI in July 1942 he found an office for the Party near Jama Masjid in Urdu Bazar. This office continues until today. But Bahal Singh himself did not survive for long afterwards and died of TB in 1946.

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AMONG the other early leaders of the Delhi Party were Yagya Dutt Sharma, Mohammad Yamin and Muqimuddin Farooqui. The First Conference of the Delhi Party was held in January 1944 in Gandhi Grounds. It was inaugurated by Rahul Sankrityayana. In October 1944 Farooqui became General Secretary of the Delhi Party and remained at this post until 1971, when he went on to work as a prominent leader at the all-India Party Centre. Prem Sagar Gupta was the next important leader of the Delhi Party who took over as Secretary from M. Farooqui.

Anand Gupta gives short sketches of several important leaders of the Delhi Party, along with their photographs. These include leaders of the trade unions, many of them like Harbans Lal Parwana, the organiser of the Bank Workers Union, are still remembered for the pioneering work they did. In many parts of Delhi cooperative housing societies and some streets are named after Parwana, who is remembered to this day.

The author gives also an illustrated account of IPTA activities in Delhi, where the organisation was once very active. Anand Gupta is still connected with IPTA work.

Despite the collection and presentation of many facts and rare photographs, it must be said that the book lacks political analysis of the rich material and rare documents and photographs the author has been able to give in this large volume. Some of the sketches of leaders given in it are incomplete. The temptation to include material not directly connected with the Delhi Party in such exhaustive detail could have been avoided. It would have made the book more compact and readable. At the same time, some of the sketches of leaders could profitably have been made more complete. It is also not clear why ISCUS, the organisation with which the author was personally very actively connected, has received such scant treatment.

Releasing the book at a largly attended meeting at Ajoy Bhavan, New Delhi, A.B. Bardhan, General Secretary, CPI, rightly said that to work for the upliftment of society it is necessary to learn from our past and understand the present. The author has devoted quite a good number of pages to this theme. Bardhan congratulated the Delhi State CPI for the publication of such a volume and praised Anand Gupta for collecting all the material included in the book.

The work that Anand Gupta has done should be wholeheartedly welcomed as a good beginning and future historians, both Party and non-Party, would benefit by using the material collected by Anand Gupta for over a decade and it should provide a rich source on which to draw in
writing a more complete analytical work. But for Anand Gupta’s labour of love in collecting and publishing this work on his own initiative, and mainly using his own technical and financial resources, there is no doubt whatsoever that the important source materials would have been lost for ever.

Readers interested in the history of the communist movement, particularly of Delhi, will be grateful to Anand Gupta for writing this book.