When the Call Comes

In a short treatise, “Where are They: Communists under Communism”, philosopher Ram Swarup (1920-1998) observes that the “communist strategy is simple. It consists in serial liquidation of enemies, constituted of all the non-communist opposition and the “non-proletarian” sector of the population. Blackmail, vilification, and character assassination are the characteristic methods used to achieve this end.” Subhas Bose who was once the preferred leader of the communist bloc in the Congress had turned, by 1942, into their most vilified and hated object.

Communist leader and parliamentarian Hiren Mukherjee (1907-2004), in his “Bow of Burning Gold – a Study of Subhas Chandra Bose” notes that “the communists’ organ National Front had been the first to propose, as early as 1938, that Subhas should be re-elected Congress president for another term.” Yet within five years, that is by 1943, P.C. Joshi, general secretary of the CPI, and proponent of the 17 nationalities theory, writing in the CPI’s mouthpiece, People’s War, described Subhas Bose as the “arch-traitor to India’s freedom and independence.”

Gangadhar Adhikari, writing in the People’s War on 25 July 1942, called Netaji’s INA a “fifth-column army of the Japanese” and Netaji as “dangerous.” The People’s War issue of January 10 1942, described Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s INA as a mercenary army of “rapine and plunder” and Netaji as the “lap dog of Japanese Imperialism.”

In their well-documented study “The Sickle and the Crescent: Communists, Muslim League and India’s Partition”, educationist Sunanda Sanyal and historian Soumya Basu, point out that during the War the “sales of People’s War shot up by 12 per cent; it came in five languages in addition to six regional language newspapers” and the total “circulation reached 65,000 copies.” It was thus evident that by 1942, Indian communists had become apologists for and collaborators of the British and were benefiting from it.

Referring to this collaboration comrade S S Batliwala, a former member of the Central Committee of the CPI, who had accessed the correspondence between P C Joshi and then Home Member in the Viceroy’s executive council Reginald Maxwell, during1942 and 1944, observes that “an alliance existed between the Politbureau of the Communist Party of India and the Home Department of the Government of India, by which Mr. Joshi was placing at the disposal of the Government of India the services of his Party members.”

Writing in the People’s War on October 25, 1942, EMS Namboodiripad called members of Subhas Bose’s party Forward Bloc, as “traitors.” The communists’ litany of abuse and invectives against Subhas Bose is rather long. Writing in retrospect Hiren Mukherjee attempts to make amends, when he says that between 1942-1945 “there seemed no love lost between Subhas and the communists” and they felt for him “and his doings abroad a fundamental, even a furious, antipathy” and “used expressions which, in retrospect, seem ill-advised and even baseless.” Yet, an official regret or recant was never issued.

Jawaharlal Nehru on his part never condemned these attacks on Subhas. He was a committed admirer of the communist clique. In his popular political memoir “Bliss was It in that Dawn”, Minoo Masani (1905-1998), then with the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) recalls that in 1938, when he wrote an article in the Congress Socialist weekly criticising Stalin’s purges and trials, arguing that this was the not path that Indian socialism could follow, Nehru joined the communists in howling against him. “Jawaharlal was very angry with me,” recalled Masani, “he banged the table and asked me what right I had to criticise Stalin, the great leader of the Revolution, who knew exactly what he was doing.” Later it served Nehru’s political purpose, when Indian communists abused Netaji and his INA.

We need not thus take much cognisance of communists and neo-communists, especially when they issue or withdraw certificates of patriotism to the likes of Dr Hedgewar. Their own history of duplicitous behaviour, of abuse, especially against Subhas Bose, is well recorded in history. It only needs a wider and continuous dissemination.

In 1938-1939, when Indian communists were singing paeans to Stalin to his purges and trials, Dr Hedgewar was constantly exercised with the thought of how to make the people of India ready to snatch freedom when the time came. During a visit to Pune, in June 1939, just a year before he passed away, an ailing Doctorji told Swayamsevaks, that the English were able to “rule this vast country of ours from a distance of over 5,000 miles, mainly because they have people at their command who are ever ready to respond whenever a call is given.” Hedgewar argued that “if even mercenaries – paid servants – could behave like this, then it is all the more imperative that missionaries in the cause of the nation should be even more ready to respond and give up every kind of personal preoccupation when the call comes. Without such preparedness, our country’s present downfall can never end.”

By 1939, the Sangh’s work had begun striking roots across the country. In a letter he wrote that year Doctorji spoke of “encouraging reports” coming in from “Punjab, United Provinces, Bihar, Bengal and Karachi.” As the Sangh spread and strengthened so did the opposition to it. H.V. Seshadri writes how with the rapid growth of the Sangh, “opposition too grew.” The Collector of Nagpur, “issued an order prohibiting government servants from participating in Sangh activities and also from presiding over Sangh functions.”

The colonial administration was joined in its opposition to the Sangh by the Congress and Socialists who “continued to mount opposition to Sangh” writes Seshadri. But Doctorji was unperturbed, “on the one hand flowers of praise are being showered on the Sangh,” he observed, “and on the other brickbats of opposition are being hurled at us. But this is nothing to be surprised about. All well-intentioned efforts will have to face this ordeal at one time or another.” He was happy that the “public had realised that despite antagonistic forces, the Sangh” had continued to “grow from strength to strength” and this was possible because of the “unswerving devotion of the Swayamsevaks.”

Nana Palkar tells us how, Doctorji’s memories of his days in the secret revolutionary movement always “remained clear in his mind.” Palkar draws us into an interesting detail. He writes that the first RSS shakhas in Kolkata were started by Sri Guruji Golwalkar assisted by other pracharaks in March 1939 and that by November 1939, Doctorji had deputed a young pracharak Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras (1915-1996) - Balasaheb Deoras – to Kolkata to impart greater momentum to the work. Deoras would go on to succeed Golwalkar as the third Sarsanghchalak of the RSS in 1973.

Palkar tells us that Doctorji’s erstwhile elderly associate and leader in the Anushilan Samiti, the intrepid revolutionary Pulin Behari Das (1877-1949), “came forward to give all the support he could to the Sangh” and that for the first few days the RSS shakha assembled in Pulin Behari’s Bangiya Hindu Vyayam Samiti in Kolkata. Despite his rapidly failing health Doctorji visited Kolkata sometime towards the end of 1939 and briefly addressed Swayamsevaks. Golwalkar also addressed them.

Seeing the Sangh’s and Doctorji’s continued association with Bengal and the lingering and live Anushilan Samiti connection it was but natural that Subhas Bose would reach out to the Sangh and to its Sarsanghchalak to explore the possibilities of organising another countrywide revolt to liberate India.

The writer is a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC), BJP, and the Chairman of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation. Views expressed are personal