Humiliation of  Netaji, and Tojo’s DOG

SARASIJ MAJUMDER

Indian Communists Party, and Indian Communists,  launched a massive hate campaign against Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose during the later part of  Second World War. In the party’s mouthpiece, PEOPLES WAR- through  articles after articles, they vilified Netaji with worst names! BUT..WHY??

We will try to find answers later, but first discuss the formation of Indian Communist Party. 

Formation, and further development of Indian Communist Party.

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. 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). Gradually, they combined—but, it took much time, and only after USSR recognition of CPI was achieved.

Rajani Palme Dutta, a member of British Communist Party also played an important role for the Comintern by supervising the Communist Party of India for some years. During this time, Conspiracy Theory was founded by HIM. The Safety valve' concept gave rise to conspiracy theories. The Indian National Congress, according to R.P. Dutt, arose from a conspiracy to suppress a popular uprising in India, and the bourgeois (middle-class) leaders were complicit in it.

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. The group took the name ‘League Against Gandhism’ in 1934.

On the occasion of the 1940 Ramgarh Congress Conference CPI released a declaration called Proletarian Path, which sought to use 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. It was not having support of Congress, and General People of India. It failed miserably.

However, till then, CPI was an ILLEGAL Entity in British India.

In July 1942, the CPI was legalised, as a result of Britain and the Soviet Union becoming allies against Nazi Germany. But, CPI was not independent—their BOSS was USSR, and they were mere mouthpiece of RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY. However, CPI started strengthening 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. Nevertheless—this time they turn 180m degree, and  give SLOGAN to support BRITISH, at all costs to BRITISH INDIA, in the second world war. This was strongly opposed by NETAJEE, who had immense popularity in INDIA.

[{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)—CPI(M). Further Ideological difference split CPI(M)  and gave birth to CPI (ML) in 1967 via NAXALBARI movement—this group was following MAOIST LINE.}]

VILLIFYING NETAJEE

Communists derided Netaji as running dog of imperialism when he defied the Communist call for support to the British during World War II. They, through the mouthpiece of the undivided CPI, hurled  choicest abuses against Netaji, variously describing him as a cur held up by Goebbels, the running dog of Japanese general Tojo, the donkey carrying Tojo, a midget being led by a Japanese imperialist, and as a mere mask of the Japanese imperialist ogre. On the 105th birth anniversary of Netaji, then West Bengal Chief Minister and CPI (M) leader  Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee admitted that the communists had misunderstood Subhash Chandra Bose’s actions during India’s freedom struggle. He said that “We still oppose Netaji’s role in aligning with axis... powers like Germany, Italy and Japan to liberate India from the British. But we [the Communists] should apologise for making a wrong evaluation of the great leader.”  ......

Communists Launched a Hate Campaign Against Netaji   People’s War, Vol.I No.2 dated July 19, 1942 came out with front page cartoon sharply indicating the new line of the CPI vis-a-vis Subhash Chandra ...

Reviewing the war, G Adhikari, a prominent Communist leader who wrote the official CPI history, wrote in People’s War dated July 18, 1943: “Hitler has sent Bose to Tojo. Tojo has made the BOSE  the Commander-in Chief of a fifth-column Indian Army. Bose is screeching every day over the Singapore Radio. The significance of Hitler-Tojo Bose conspiracy is clear enough. We can and  must smash it in the interest of our brother  China.”......

People’s War dated September 13, 1942 came out with another front-page cartoon and a long article by SG Sardesai. Sardesai bewailed the Gandhi-Subhash combine:-

:                      “Not for nothing does Azad Hind Radio shout Hail to Gandhi and Subhash together. The logic of Gandhi’s line inescapably leads us into the arms of Subhash-a hangman at the head of a life-saving mission! What a picture! Moscow patriot Sardesai could not understand that, inspite of all their differences and quarrels, Mahatma Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose were bound together by a commonly shared loyalty to Mother India.

People’s War dated July 25, 1943 warned about ëTraitors from the Airí with the following appeal: “Bose recently announced over the Singapore Radio about the formation of an Independence Army with himself as its Commander-in Chief. The first act of this Independence Army formed under the aegis of Japanese militarists will be to drop parachutists in India. These traitors from the skies, though they may be of Indian origin and dressed in some kind of national garb, are not messengers of freedom but of slavery.”

It is fact that Netaji wrote two letters to Russian Communist leader Joseph Stalin, seeking help to fight against the British. One was in 1941, and the other in 1943. However, he didn’t receive any response at all!

Congress and Communists Conspiracy

Historian and Netaji researcher Purabi Roy believes the Communist Party of India, Communist Party of Soviet Russia and the Congress were co-conspirators in Netaji’s disappearance. She holds all three responsible for the mystery that shrouds the enigmatic leader to this day.

Roy, who made several trips to Russia (formerly USSR) to unravel the mystery surrounding Netaji’s death has time and again emphasised that, “Don’t blame Congress alone. The Communists are equally to blame. While Congress hushed up the matter to protect Nehru’s link, isn’t it curious that Indian Communists have never once demanded the truth on Netaji be revealed?”

© SARASIJ MAJUMDER.

References:- 1.0 Old editions of People’s War. 2.0 Netaji, and CPI—Sitaram Goel, 1955.

                       3.0 Conundrum—By Anuj Dhar