Founders of the Socialist Movement in India

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This volume brings us face-to-face with fifty five fascinating faces of the founders of the Congress Socialist Party and their contributions without burdening the text with too many footnotes and references. At the same time, there are all essential references about the ideological interactions between the Marxist, the Gandhian socialists and post-Marxist socialists. It is a satisfactory primer about the engagements of the Congress Socialists with Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Dr. Ambedkar, Swami Sahajanand and other prime movers. It engages us about changing orientation of the socialists towards the Indian National Congress, Communist Party, the communal parties and the caste-based parties. There are interesting details about the socialist leaders who contributed in broadening the social base of the national movement through All India Trade Union.

Qurban Ali is a senior tri-lingual journalist who has covered some of modern India's major political, social and economic developments, including all the Indian elections since 1989, the Babri Masjid demolition, calamities like the Gujarat earthquake, Orissa cyclone, and conflicts such as the Gujarat riots and Kargil War, among other stories. He has worked with known media houses like the Anand Bazaar Patrika Group, British Broadcasting Corporation, ANI, Doordarshan, and Rajya Sabha Television over the past 35 years. Born to freedom fighter and veteran socialist, Captain Abbas Ali, Qurban has keenly followed India's freedom struggle and is now documenting the history of the socialist movement in the country. He lives in New Delhi, India.

Fascinating fifty-five faces of the Indian freedom Struggle - Founder-leaders of Indian Socialist Movement

Socialism has been one of the most enlightening systems of values, principles and programs for the victims of capitalism and imperialism everywhere in the modern world system. It promises togetherness of political freedom, social justice and economic progress. It is a socio-historical advancement towards an egalitarian future for the whole humanity. It is contingent upon putting an end to imperialist colonization, feudal domination and capitalist exploitation. It offers hope of victory for the countless under-privileged men and women around the world in their battles against destitution, deprivation and discrimination. Equality and cooperation have been two great inspirations for the socialists in the modern societies. But most of the collective initiatives for a socialist future have emerged in the societies which have gone through industrial revolution and capitalist development. Therefore, the birth of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) in colonial India in 1934 has been an astonishing phenomenon. It gets more interesting as the Congress Socialist Party was an organic part of the Indian National Congress which was main vehicle of the anti-colonial movement.

Freedom from foreign rule is an epoch-making achievement of the people of India. It gave birth to the Republic of India and Pakistan. It also inaugurated the era of de-colonization in Asia and Africa. The Indian freedom struggle was a century long protracted process which went through several stages between the First War of Independence of 1857 and the Quit India Movement of 1942. If the rebellious Indian soldiers of the East India Company led the first war of Independence, it was the rank and file of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) which courageously came forward to lead the Indian peoples' revolt against the British empire on the clarion call of Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress -'Do or die!'.

Congress Socialist Party was founded by an all India conference of freedom fighters in 1934 at a critical turn of the Indian national movement which needed infusion of new inspiration and energy. It came into being in embryonic form on the initiative of a group of freedom fighters imprisoned in Nasik Jail for taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1932-33. It was preceded by coming together of patriots in different parts of British India between 1931 and 1933 resulting into formation of organizations like Bihar Socialist Party (Patna), Socialist Party of Bombay Presidency (Poona), Punjab Socialist Party (Lahore), Utkal Congress Socialist Karmi Sangh (Cuttack), Socialist Party (Delhi) and U. P. Socialist Party (Banaras).

The first war for independence started against the British in India in 1857 under the leadership of the last Moghul King Bahadur Shah Zafar. There was no defined ideology in this rebellion except that it was against foreign rule and was limited to some parts of the country, fought on traditional warfare. The organised political battle through democratic means started only after the formation of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1885.

After the division of Bengal by Lord Curzon in 1905, the INC started reacting in a passive mode and it was only in 1919, after the unfortunate massacre of Jallianwala Bagh when Congress Party started the Non-Cooperation movement against Britishers under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. It was the first time when a movement against foreign rule was started nationwide. There were many streams in this freedom struggle which included Nationalist Congressmen, Swarajist, Muslim Leaguers, Hindu Mahasabhites, Akalis, Revolutionaries, Kisans, Labourers, Gandhians, and many more.

The Socialist movement began to develop in India with the Russian Revolution. The Communist Party of India was founded in Tashkent on October 17, 1920, soon after the Second Congress of the Communist International. The founding members of the party were M.N. Roy, Abani Mukherji, Mohammad Ali (Ahmed Hasan), Mohammad Shafiq Siddiqui and M.P.B.T. Acharya. The CPI began its efforts to build a party organisation inside India. Roy made contacts with Anushilan and Jugantar groups in Bengal.

Small communist groups were formed in Bengal (led by Muzaffar Ahmed), Bombay (led by S.A. Dange), Madras (led by Singaravelu Chettiar), United Provinces (led by Shaukat Usmani) and Punjab (led by Ghulam Hussain).

On May 1st, 1923 Singaravelu Chettiar founded the Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan in Madras. The LKPH organised the first May Day celebration in India, and this was the first time the red flag was used in India. On December 25, 1925, a Communist conference was convened by a man called Satyabhakta at Kanpur. The conference adopted the name 'Communist Party of India'. Groups such as LKPH dissolved into the unified CPI.

In the year 1927, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru visited then Soviet Union along with his father Motilal Nehru. He was greatly impressed with the Soviet model. After his return from Soviet Union, he advocated that Congress should also include planning and economic programme along with its main objective of gaining political independence in its agenda. At the same time, Acharya Narendra Deva and Sampurnanand prepared a ""Socialist agrarian programme"" under the aegis of UP Congress Committee and send it to the perusal of AICC meeting to be held in Bombay.

Jawaharlal Nehru got the AICC to accept this UPCC's Socialist Programme. In 1931 at Karachi session of the Indian National Congress, ""the socialist pattern of development"" was set as the goal for India and resolution on fundamental rights and the economic programme was passed by AICC. According to Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, who drafted the Karachi resolution of the AICC, the origin of this resolution was UPCC's resolution of 1929. (Pt. J. L. Nehru's Autobiography, P.267).

At that very time, Jayaprakash Narayan returned from America, impressed with Marxist thought and joined AICC. On his initiative in July 1931, Bihar Socialist Party was formed. Prof. Abdul Bari was its president and Ganga Sharan Singh, Phulan Prasad Verma and Baba Ranodar Das later known as Rahul Sankrityayan were its secretaries.

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