[Reader-list] The Communist Conspiracy !

Sat Apr 18 05:48:57 IST 2009

To be honest, the people who are the most visible in India with their mask 
of communism, and those about whom you pretend to explore by your mail, have 
behaved like fascists and opportunists in the past. In that, they are not 
better, nor worse than RSS. Hence both of them being mentioned by Shuddha in 
his response makes sense to me.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pawan Durani" <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
To: "Shuddhabrata Sengupta" <shuddha at sarai.net>
Cc: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] The Communist Conspiracy !

> Shuddha,
> Thank you for your detailed mail . However why are communists always a
> suspect to integrity of India ?
>
> Is it not true that Communists originally wanted India to be divided into 
> 17
> different sovereign states , more like failed 'USSR' ? This is a well
> documented fact .
>
> Why is it that the CPI is not even clear when it was formed ...was it 1920
> or 1925 ? Was it formed in USSR or India ?
>
> Why are the Communists so obsessed with the division of the country ?
>
> I am not interested in RSS , Mahasabha or BJP . They are all 'right' wing
> party .And if they have been wrong , why does a communist have to justify
> their act by comparing it with that of RSS or Gowalkar etc.
>
> Two wrongs dont make one right . I just wanted to learn if the communists
> have a clean past......the present is all well know to us and is being
> exhibited in Kerela with an electoral alliance with Madhani.
>
> It would make an interesting understanding if you would explain further !
>
> Pawan
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 12:21 AM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> <shuddha at sarai.net>wrote:
>
>> Pawan,
>>
>> The Communist Party of India and its various off shoots over the years 
>> have
>> a great deal to answer for, not least for their continuing fealty to the
>> cult of Stalinism, one of the terrible monstrosities of the twentieth
>> century. I have no doubts about that at all.
>>
>> However, in our zeal to interrogate the legacy of the Communist Parties 
>> in
>> this country, we need to be careful in terms of distinguishing a desire 
>> to
>> question from a desire to abuse. And I think it makes sense to 
>> distinguish
>> fact from fiction.
>>
>> The article referred by you offers no sources, cites no evidence for any 
>> of
>> the accusations it makes. And some of the allegations it makes are truly
>> hilarious.
>>
>> For instance - here is a priceless one -
>>
>> "During the Ranadive party-line in 1948-50, Mahatma Gandhi was “unmasked”
>> as the cleverest bourgeois scoundrel and Rabindranath as mãgeer dãlãl, 
>> that
>> is, a pimp."
>> Rabindranath Tagore died on August 7, 1941, so it is a bit specious on 
>> the
>> part of the author to suggest that the undivided CPI's  Ranadive period
>> (1948-50) would have seen attacks on someone who was not alive.
>> I would like to see where exactly the author finds the source of this
>> statement.
>>
>> Saumyendranath Tagore, the poet's nephew was a significant communist
>> activist (though he belonged to the RCPI, which stood to the 'left' of 
>> the
>> undivided CPI) and Tagore maintained cordial relationships with several
>> communist activists and intellectuals. It is a little known fact that 
>> Tagore
>> actually worked very hard to ensure that the civil rights of communist
>> detenues in British prisons throughout the 1920s and 30s.
>>
>> If anything, the  undivided CPI firmly took on Tagore's legacy and in 
>> some
>> ways interpreted it to its own ends, Tagore's poems and songs were 
>> regularly
>> part of the CPI's cultural universe. I know this for certain, because 
>> among
>> other things, I know that CPI activists when they were forced to work
>> 'underground' in the 1940s often worked 'overground' through Tagore 
>> Memorial
>> Societies in small towns and villages in Bengal. This was by no means
>> insincere.
>>
>> The undivided CPI did however downplay the fact that thoughTagore had
>> expressed admiration for the social strides made in the Soviet Union, he 
>> had
>> also been sharply critical of the Stalin regime's suppression of the 
>> freedom
>> of expression.
>>
>> Certain intellectuals associated with the Chinese Communist Party had 
>> been
>> sharply critical of Tagore during his visit to China in the 1920s. Some
>> other intellectuals and writers associated with the Chinese Communist 
>> Party
>> were welcoming and appreciative. However, the criticism of some of these
>> intellectuals of Tagore never gained any currency, either during the 
>> 1920s,
>> or afterwards, in Indian communist circles.
>>
>> As for Bose, yes, he was caricatured in cartoons in the CPI's paper
>> 'Peoples War' as a stooge of Japanese Imperialism. And no one can deny 
>> the
>> fact that Subhash Bose was both a subordinate bit player in Japanese
>> Imperial Military Strategy, and a long time admirer of Fascist and Nazi
>> methods. He was not alone in this, both he and Golwalkar of the RSS have
>> stated (on record) their admiration for Nazi Germany. Read the 
>> unexpurgated
>> edition of 'We, our Our Nationhood Defined' by Golwalkar, and the 'Indian
>> Struggle' by Bose. Both are not very difficult to find. I personally 
>> think
>> that the people of South Asia were spared great calamities by the timely
>> exit of the deeply authoritarian and militarist Bose from the Indian
>> political scene after 1945. Bose in power would certainly have worked
>> towards a fascist programme, his own stated political intentions were 
>> quite
>> explicit in this matter.
>>
>> As for the charge of being collaborators of the British in the 1940s. The
>> reality is (as usual) a little more complicated than you would perhaps 
>> like.
>> Thousands of Communist party members and activists were imprisoned, some 
>> for
>> more than a decade, without charge, from the 1920s onwards. The party 
>> itself
>> was deemed illegal. In 1942, when the undivided CPI declared that it 
>> would
>> support the war effort in India, because Britain and the USSR were on the
>> same side in the war, the undivided CPI was legalized, and some Communist
>> detenus and political prisoners were released (many of whom were re 
>> arrested
>> soon after). However, it is true that the undivided CPI got a breather of
>> sorts. Police surveillance on Communists, however, continued, especially 
>> on
>> those, who participated in the 42 struggles in their individual 
>> capacities.
>>
>> Several other organizations and individuals aided the war effort of the
>> then British Colonial regime in India. Including the RSS and the Hindu
>> Mahasabha, and its eminences such as Savarkar. Savarkar regularly 
>> addressed
>> rallies for recruitment in the colonial regime's army.
>>
>> So, if the source you pointed to is justified in dubbing activists of the
>> undivided CPI as spies for the British, then the same charge could just 
>> as
>> justifiably levelled against the RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha and the
>> predecessors and inspirations of the current Hindutva family of
>> organizations, including political parties such as the BJP.
>>
>> Shuddha
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
>> Raqs Media Collective
>> shuddha at sarai.net
>> www.sarai.net
>> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>>
>>
>> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
>> Raqs Media Collective
>> shuddha at sarai.net
>> www.sarai.net
>> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>>
>>
>>
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with 
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> 