A History of the Left in Pakistan – 23

By Ahmed Kamran

Chapter Four: The Road to Pakistan – (Continued)

Formation of the Communist Party of Pakistan

The Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) was formally established in the Second Congress of the Communist Party of India (CPI) held in February-March 1948 in Calcutta It was in line with the decision taken in the central committee of the party in July 1947 when the policy switch took place between losing P.C. Joshi group and the rising B.T. Ranadive group in the party. Out of about 800 delegates to the Congress only three members represented the areas now forming Pakistan. These included Prof. Eric Cyprian from Punjab, Muhammad Hussain Ata from NWFP (now KPK), and Jamaluddin Bukhari from Sindh. Two other nominated delegates from Punjab, Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim and C.R. Aslam couldn’t attend the Congress as they were reportedly caught in the last moment organising a railway workers’ strike in Lahore. Moreover, Kanwar Moni Singh, Khokha Roy and Kalpana Dutt (69) attended the Congress together with about thirty other delegates representing party organisation in the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Because of the partition and resulting transfer of population, the communist organisation in the areas of the newly established Pakistan had suffered a major set-back. In the wake of drawing arbitrary lines of partition of Bengal and Punjab provinces, cutting each into Pakistani and Indian parts, worst communal riots among Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs erupted. In these communal riots, massive killing, arson, torching of homes and commercial properties, and abduction and rape of women on unprecedented scale engulfed particularly Punjab, Bihar, and Bengal. An estimated number of about one and half million were killed, 75,000 women were raped, and about 15 million people were uprooted and crossed the border on either side to save their lives and honour. Most of the prominent CPI leaders and communist workers from Pakistani areas belonged to Hindu and Sikh religion. All of them from Punjab and NWFP barring a few exceptions in Sindh migrated to India, leaving behind a severely fractured and almost dysfunctional party in Pakistan. Western Punjab and eastern Bengal were engulfed in the flames of worst communal riots never witnessed before. The situation was equally gruesome in the Indian parts of the eastern Punjab and western Bengal. The CPI leadership, however, made efforts to reorganize the party structure with the help of local Muslim members in Pakistan including a few veterans of 1920s e.g. Firozuddin Mansoor, Fazal Elahi Qurban and Amir Hyder Khan. These local communists were gradually joined by those Muslim comrades who were immigrating into the new country from the areas now forming India. The party organization was still a part of CPI, with its headquarters in Bombay.

Ajoy Kumar Ghosh had been made in-charge of the activities of the Pakistani communists. He visited Lahore in October 1947 and re-organised the party structure with the remaining Muslim and a few Christian members of the party who opted to live in Pakistan. Punjab Provincial Committee was formed with Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim (secretary), Chaudhry Rehmatullah (C.R.) Aslam, Firozuddin Mansoor, and Eric Cyprian as members. Whereas Jamaluddin Bukhari was made secretary in Sindh and Muhammad Hussain Ata held the position of secretary in NWFP.

The Lahore District Committee had Shamim Ashraf Malik (Secretary), Abdullah Malik, Ghulam Muhammad, Prof Muhammad Safdar, and Abdul Ghafoor as members. Rawalpindi District Committee had Mirza Aziz (Secretary), Dada Amir Hyder, and Soofi Allah Ditta as members. Ajoy Kumar Ghosh was followed by Sajjad Zaheer visiting Pakistan in November 1947 to mobilize party members for the Calcutta Congress. He came to Lahore staying at 114, McLeod Road, the CPI headquarter in Lahore. He extensively toured other parts of Punjab, NWFP, Sindh and Karachi to do his spade work for the Party Congress and held organizational meetings. He also organised a conference of the progressive writers at Lahore on December 5, 1947 at YMCA Hall. He returned to India in January 1948. At the time of Calcutta Congress, the CPI had only four Muslim members in the Central Committee: Syed Sajjad Zaheer and S.S. Yousuf both from the U.P. and Muzaffar Ahmed and Ismail, both from Bengal. Sajjad Zaheer was Incharge of the Muslim front, Progressive Writers Association, and the Editor of one of the party organs ‘Naya Zamana’. Few other prominent Muslim leaders of the party attending the Calcutta Congress, included Mohyuddin Farooqi, Z.A. Ahmed, and Mehmudul Zafar from UP, and Makhdoom Mohyuddin from Hyderabad, Deccan.

The Calcutta Congress of Feb-Mar 1948 approved founding of a separate party for Pakistan namely the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP). The Congress also nominated and approved the appointment of Syed Sajjad Zaheer as the first General Secretary of the proposed party. In line with the approved B.T. Ranadive Thesis, the newly formed CPP was to organize a militant struggle to replace the weak and unstable reactionary regime in Pakistan that had just taken over the reins of power in the new country. In accordance with the party Congress decision, the delegates from areas forming Pakistan, together with few other Muslim delegates from India immediately held a separate meeting presided over by the General Secretary, Sajjad Zaheer to formalize the founding of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) in early March 1948. A Central Committee of the CPP was elected with Jamaluddin Bukhari, Muhammad Hussain Ata and Mirza Ibrahim as its members.

In terms of the informal structure of the then Cominform, most of the parties in Europe, America and other parts of the world were to seek ideological and other guidance from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of India (CPI) was, however, not reporting directly to Moscow but to the Communist Party of Great Britain. The Communist Party of Pakistan was made subservient to CPI and was not supposed to approach directly to the British Communist Party in London. Similarly, a separate organising committee was formed for the East Pakistan with Moni Singh as its secretary, reporting directly to CPI Calcutta office instead of CPP headquartered in Lahore. On the question of providing initial support the CPI declined to provide any funds to the newly established CPP but, instead, handed it over its three printing presses, one at Karachi and two at Lahore. Peoples Publishing House at Lahore was also transferred to CPP to use its income to meet local expenses. One of the presses was declared evacuee property by the Punjab government after its Sikh caretaker left for India and the other press was taken over by the Industries department. Having not much cash available to meet daily expenses, Sajjad Zaheer decided to sell the Party’s press in Karachi for Rs. 16,000.

To bolster support of the nascent party, Muslim members of CPI were encouraged to migrate to Pakistan and work for organising CPP. Sajjad Zaheer requested his former colleagues and friends in CPI, especially Dr. Ashraf, Z.A. Ahmed, and Ismail to come to Pakistan and help him but they all politely declined. Sibte Hasan (from Azamgarh, UP), Hasan Nasir (from Hyderabad, Deccan) and few others, however, joined him and migrated to Pakistan. Hameed Akhtar who got trapped amid Hindu-Muslim riots in his home town near Ludhiana in East Punjab where he had gone from Bombay to visit his family, somehow managed to escape on a long trail of fire and blood to cross the border and reach Lahore, where the news of his death in the riots in Punjab was already circulating (70).

The First Schism

Even before its formal incorporation at Calcutta in March 1948, the Communist Party of Pakistan experienced its first leadership dispute. Shortly before partition, there already had developed two sub-groups within the Punjab Communist Party; one was led by Sohan Singh Josh and included Karam Singh Mann and Firozuddin Mansoor while the other was led by Teja Singh Swatantar and included Fazal Elahi Qurban and Abdul Qadir, with support from Qadir Bukhsh Nizamani in Sindh. Nizamani was already disgruntled with the leadership of CPI because ill treatment of him in 1941. In the heat of the partition of India and after being expelled from the party, Teja Singh formed a separate ‘Pakistan Communist Party’ in July 1947. He later migrated to India, handing over the leadership of the new ‘Pakistan Communist Party’ to his protégé, Fazal Elahi Qurban. Teja Singh, subsequently, formed an independent ‘Red Flag Communist Party’ in East Punjab in India.

The CPI’s central leadership took Fazal Elahi Qurban’s actions as a violation of party discipline and termed him as ‘disruptionist’. Ajoy Kumar Ghosh during his visit in October 1947 did his investigations and asked Qurban to repent and retrace his steps but Fazal Elahi Qurban evaded signing a statement declaring Teja Singh’s actions and the formation of ‘Pakistan Communist Party’ as ‘anti-party, anti-national and anti-working class revolt’. Ajoy Ghosh accordingly left Qurban out of the interim Provincial Organising Committee. After the arrest of leading communists in Lahore like Eric Cyprian and Firozuddin Mansoor, Qurban with the help of his supporters in the Punjab party attempted to occupy the CPI Punjab office located at 114, McLeod Road, Lahore. Sajjad Zaheer, after assuming his role as the new General Secretary of the CPP formally Issued a charge sheet to Qurban on 18 March, 1948 and finally expelled him and other ‘disruptionists’ from the party in October 1948.

This was, perhaps, the first sign of an under-current in the Communist Party reflecting the brewing conflict between the communists in the Punjab and the dominance of the leaders from other regions, particularly from U.P. The already restless communists from Punjab were even more concerned at the prospect of an impending imposition of a leadership from outside, particularly from UP. Although, Ajoy Ghosh (incharge of Punjab Party) was from Bengal but had mostly lived in the UP, Sajjad Zaheer from UP oversaw the work among Muslims and was a strong and likely candidate for leading the yet-to-be-formed new Communist Party of Pakistan. The sitting General Secretary of the CPI, P.C. Joshi, among other many leading communists, was from Almora in northern UP (now included in the newer province of Uttarkhand) had good working and personal relations with Sajjad Zaheer.

The apprehensions of the Punjabi communists turned out to be quite true with the predominant positions soon occupied by the communists arriving in large number from UP, C.P., and Deccan. With the expulsion of Fazal Elahi Qurban in Punjab and Abdul Qadir Nizamani in Sindh, Syed Jamaluddin Bukhari was hastily sent from Punjab to take over as the secretary of the Sindh Communist Party.

B.T. Ranadive Thesis

The new Secretary General of CPI, B.T. Ranadive’s aggressive policies adopted in the Second Congress in Calcutta in 1948 were soon manifested in the party activities everywhere. A spate of calls for general strikes and revolutionary fervor in trade unions in Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, and other industrial towns was evident. The party rejected the independence as false and partition of India as an ‘imperialist conspiracy’ and exhorted the people for a renewed militant struggle for a real independence. This policy was translated into a catchy slogan: “Yeh Azadi Jhooti Hai.” (This is a false freedom!). Faiz Ahmed Faiz had put it in a subtler and beautifully poetic way:

Yeh daagh daagh ujala, yeh shab gazeeda sahar
Woh intizar tha jis ka, yeh woh sahar tau nahiN

…

Nijaat-e deeda-o dil ki ghari nahiN aa’yi
Chaley chalo keh woh manzil abhi nahiN aa’yi

Translation.

This stain-covered daybreak, this night bitten dawn,
This is not that dawn of which there was expectation

…

The hour of deliverance of eye and heart has not arrived
Come on, come on, for that goal has still not arrived.

Notes

69. Kalpana Dutt was the wife of P.C. Joshi.
70. Hameed Akhtar, Ahwal-Waqyi, Book Home, Lahore, 2005, p. 360.

Chapter 4… Concluded

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A History of the Left in Pakistan – 22

By Ahmed Kamran

Chapter Four: The Road to Pakistan – (Continued)

Political Awakening

Like many other riverine societies, the political and economic life of Sindh essentially revolved around the only river flowing through its lands – the mighty Indus. Unlike Punjab with its multiple rivers and located inside the Monsoon catchment area, Sindh is almost out of this rain system. Its economic life is almost wholly dependent on the perennial Indus river which bisects its land and empties itself into the Arabian Sea, forming a large delta east of Karachi. Most of the population traditionally lived along the Indus cultivating only Kharif crop in summer for its living in the silt brought in yearly floods during Monsoon inundating its lands. Traditionally, there was very limited Rabi (winter) crop in Sindh. Others lived a semi-nomadic life in pasture lands. The country was poor and the life for landless peasants (Haris) was particularly harsh.

Like Punjab, British colonial administration in Sindh also intervened in its natural water distribution system by building canals and barrages, albeit on a smaller scale compared to Punjab and other parts of India. The objectives and the planning of this man-made irrigation system in Sindh had been almost identical but the method and policy of distribution of newly irrigated lands in Sindh was different. Unlike Punjab, here very little changed in the relationship between cultivators, landlords, and the state. Because of these significantly large irrigation projects the patterns of new class formations and impact on society as witnessed in Punjab are conspicuously missing in Sindh. The reason for the stark difference in outcomes compared to those witnessed in Punjab lies in selection of different class of people as beneficiaries of land grants in Sindh. Significantly large hydraulic engineering projects in Sindh (Jamrao canal, Sukkur Barrage, Ghulam Mohammad Barrage) didn’t result in any significant ‘social engineering’ of the society.

In the wake of irrigation development works in Punjab, some minor canals were initially built in upper Sindh and Tharparkar district during 1880s. Apart from other objectives, one of the consideration was to provide employment for the disbanded Sikh army after the annexation of the Punjab in 1849. The first sizable project was Laikpur canal in Hyderabad in 1890s but Sindh lagged far behind Punjab in this development work. The first big project undertaken in Sindh was the Jamrao canal in southeast of Sindh in 1899. Due to shortage of surplus Sindhi labour, the project relied on Punjabi and Baloch workers. The administration was concerned that should the Sindhi Hari was diverted from Zamindar’s existing cultivable lands to the construction project the current agricultural productivity might be seriously affected. The project was an extension and significant renovation of the existing eastern Nara Canal system providing water to 934,00 acres of cultivable land, of which only a third was cultivated each year because of limited water supplies. The Jamrao canal was designed to provide water for both Kharif and Rabi crops in a year thereby effectively increasing the cultivable land. This project for the first time brought the issue of colonization of lands in Sindh to the fore, which has since then remained a thorny issue in Sindh’s politics. Of necessity, the British policy of colonization was driven by two considerations: firstly, and foremost, the need to maintain political stability, and secondly, the promotion of modern and efficient (i.e. more productive) cultivation to make it financially viable for capital investment. The revenues from the sale of land and agricultural taxes must at least cover the project cost, and preferably, turn a profit for the government. Unlike Punjab’s clearing of mostly virgin lands or lands belonging to the local Jangli tribes who were politically very weak and marginalized, most of the land in Sindh was already pre-owned by big and locally powerful landlords and Jagirdars. The first concern of political stability resulted in “85% of available land was given to Zamindars whose estates were in or adjacent to Jamrao tract: they automatically had first right of refusal on new squares… This policy was expressed in terms of concern for the pre-existing legal rights held by these Zamindars over the land” (59). Only 12% of land was distributed to settlers from outside of Sindh, mainly from Punjab while 2% was granted to Zamindars from other parts of Sindh. However, they were required to settle on the granted land itself and were not permitted to bring any Haris with them who were already cultivating lands irrigated from government canals in Sindh: they had to recruit locally or import labour from outside Sindh. Remaining 1% lands were given on the same terms to military pensioners and few men of political significance. The Talpur Mirs, living of pensions from the British government, were one of the major beneficiaries who were encouraged to move from their ancestral lands and settle in new land grants. The Collector of Sukkur said in one of his note, “The condition of these Talpurs, gentlemen of high birth with the traditions of hereditary rule to look back upon and now often – literally – hard put to it for their daily bread, has long been well known… and this opportunity that has now been given to them to make a decent livelihood for themselves and their descendants is one which I consider should not be hampered by want to liberality” (60). The chief of Baloch Bugti tribe, Nawab Shahbaz Khan was granted 4,000 acres of land near Sanghar. Apparently, the driver of political stability had overshadowed the consideration of economic viability and productivity enhancement. The Punjabi immigrant settlers, limited as they were, were made to settle in sufficiently large groups to form autonomous communities in segregated villages having separate water courses connected to their farms from nearby Sindhi landlords to avoid possible friction over water sharing. Sufficient land parcels were also reserved for camel breeding for its regular supply to meet the expanding British army needs.

The political awakening in Sindh followed almost the same pattern as had emerged in NWFP except for one but significant difference; unlike NWFP, the urban middle class intelligentsia, business leaders and moneylenders in Sindh were in very large number either Hindu or ‘immigrant’ Goanese, Anglo-Indian, Gujarati, Memon, Khoja, Bohra, or Parsee. The first Sindhi Muslim intelligentsia had class origin in rural Sindh, mostly belonging to rich middle-peasants. They also experienced their initial political awakening in political reformation with nationalist and anti-colonial perspective. Most began their anti-colonial political activism (like G.M. Syed and Sheikh Abdul Majid) in Khilafat movement and in the struggle for separation of Sindh from Bombay to get free from the dominance of Bombay based Gujarati, Marwari and Parsee urban capitalists. The question of separation of Sindh from Bombay was the first political issue that generated an awakening among Sindhi Muslims and helped making the alignment of economic and political interests of different classes and communities clearer. With the Lloyd Barrage over Indus at Sukkur under planning with a promise of large areas of new land becoming cultivable and new economic activities to be spawned in Sindh, the Gujarati, Marwari industrialists, commodity traders, and petty bourgeoisie in Bombay as well as big landlords, rich peasants, and middle classes in Sindh and partly in Punjab were looking at Sindh with hopes of enriching themselves with the upcoming economic benefits. For this reason, while the Gujarati-Marwari capitalists of Bombay and Indian Congress as their representative was opposed to the separation of Sindh, many landlords and rich peasants in Sindh were supporting its cause. However, still many of the Sindhi landlords enjoying personal privileges in the colonial administration were also opposed to the separation believing that owing to their strong local influence and right connections in Bombay government they would be able to reap much of the benefits for themselves. The committee headed by Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto that was formed by the provincial assembly in 1928 to work with the British ‘Simon Commission’ did not support the Muslim League’s demand for separating Sindh from Bombay. Only two members of the committee dissented from the majority vote. On the contrary, Punjab Assembly committee demanded for the separation of Sindh.

Due to preponderance of Hindu Bania moneylenders in Sindh, it also suffered the similar effect of the introduction of modern British commercial laws in 1866 on its land-owning pattern as was witnessed in the Punjab. By 1892, the number of Hindu Bania owners of 200-acres or more of land by way of land transfers had reached to 1,771 from none in 1864. During six years alone between 1890 and 1896, 22% of Muslim-owned land had been either transferred or mortgaged in favour of moneylenders. In 1896, 59% of the Muslim landlords were deeply indebted and 42% of the total cultivable land had passed into the Hindu moneylenders’ ownership. After the Simon Commission report, the First Round-Table Conference was held in November 1930 in London. In the sub-committee on Sindh, Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah and M.A. Jinnah presented the case of Sindhi Muslims. Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah said, “the army that conquered Sindh in 1843 came from Bombay so it was annexed to Bombay. At that time, Punjab was not part of the British India. Had it been so, perhaps, Sindh would have been annexed to Punjab whose traditions, people’s life style, and the revenue and irrigation system are like those of Sindh… Hindus are not in small numbers in Sindh. They are about 25% of the Sindh’s population and their economic power is significant. All Sindhis are held in debt to them. These 25% Hindus own 40% of the land in Sindh and another 30% is mortgaged to them. This way, only 30% of its land is left with Muslim majority” (61). Yet, the big Muslim landlords, Pirs, and Syeds were ensconced in their paramount feudal status enjoying petty luxuries in their homes but displaying slavish subordination to the British collectors, magistrates and police officials in public life.

The Sukkur (Lloyd) Barrage irrigation system commenced operation in June 1932. This system had four irrigation canals on the right bank of Indus and three on the left bank. This increased the Indus-irrigated lands to about 7.5 million acres most of which was already privately owned. After adjustment of uncultivable lands and reservations for public purpose about 1.5 million acres were available for sale. These newly irrigated lands were in Sukhur, Larkana, Khairpur, Dadu, Hyderabad, and Tharparkar in Sindh and Nasirabad in Balochistan. A section of Sindhi Muslim intelligentsia was apprehensive that these new irrigated lands and related economic benefits might be usurped by local and outsider Hindu moneylenders and capitalists. In anticipation of the commissioning of the under-construction barrage in 1925, the Governor of Bombay, Leslie Wilson, wrote to Lord Birkenhead, the Secretary of State in London, “The political effect of the Barrage is going to cause considerable trouble. The great majority of the land in Sind is at present owned by the old Sind Zemidar, who is a fine type of the old Mohammedan loyalist, but generally out of date, and nearly always extremely lazy. This vast area to be brought under inundation by the canals from the Barrage must mean, if we are to sell the land at all, a great influx of population from the Punjab and from the north and south of Sind, with the result that the Sind zemindari will be in in a very different position to that which now occupies, and the Hindu element will be enormously increased. The Sindhi will not like this at all, but it is inevitable if the Barrage is to be paid for” (62). As before, it was a tradeoff between political stability and economic viability. But now the financial stakes were much higher than the previous occasion and the considerations of economic viability could not be simply set aside in favour of political stability. In the end, 350,000 acres, about a quarter, were allocated for subsidized grants (63) to existing landlords. Next, the Sindhi peasants were offered priority concessionary terms for sale of land on payment in yearly installments spread over 15 years up to 40 years. But the total price payable in long term installments with profit was effectively about three times of that offered to the landlords. Only Sindhi peasants were eligible for these long-term payment terms. All others were offered the market price. 10,000 acres were allocated for servicemen but on the condition of full payment.

In the year, the Sukkur Barrage was commissioned, the Communal Award legislation was enacted in August 1932. The Award distributed the provincial assembly seats in a manner that about 75% of Muslims were allocated 60% (36 seats) whereas 25% of Hindu population was allocated 40% (24 seats), significant enough to hold balancing power and with a few Muslim seats easily bought over the balance may easily be tilted against a fragmented and divisive Muslim polity. The Indian National Congress in Sindh wholly represented the Hindu moneylenders and urban Hindu petty bourgeoisie. Deeply divided along tribal, caste, and class differences and unable to put up a strong united platform, the Sindhi Muslims were, therefore, dependent upon support of Hindu parties and their strong interest groups. The Sindhi Muslim’s early political organizations were made non-communal like Sindh United Party formed in July 1936 on the model of Punjab’s Unionist Party, just in time to contest 1937 elections sending message to Jinnah not to meddle in Sindh’s affairs. All prominent Sindhi Muslim leaders at that time (64) were unwilling to side with the Muslim League till as late as 1938. None of these leaders were even ready to be included in, or associated in any manner with, the reception committee for welcoming Muhammad Ali Jinnah during his visit to Sindh before 1937 elections, seeking Muslim leaders’ interest in nomination as Muslim League candidate.

But, by October 1936, the sponsors of Sindh United Party had split over distribution of seats. Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah, Ayub Khuro, and Mir Bande Ali Talpur separated and formed their own Sindh Muslim Party. In 1937 elections, Shahnawaz Bhutto of Sindh United Party lost his seat and the party could win only 18 seats. Sindh Muslim Party won 4 seats, and other independent Muslim candidates won 9 seats. The Muslim League didn’t get any seat. Despite its non-communal intents, Sindh United Party was practically reduced to be a Muslim party as no non-Muslim was elected from its platform. Indian Congress had won 8 seats, Hindu Sabha had 11 seats and the remaining 10 seats were divided among Hindu independent candidates. With the support of British Governor of Sindh, Graham Lancelot and of Hindu Sabha, Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah of Sindh Muslim Party with his only four seats formed the first provincial government in April 1937. With a wink from the governor all other Hindu and Muslim independents queued up to support the government. Despite begging largest number of seats in the assembly as a single party, the Sindh United Party was not favored for forming the government because of its somewhat radical middle peasant (G.M. Syed) and urban petty bourgeois (Hashim Gazdar) character. Unlike Punjabi Zamindars, the Sindhi landlords were unable to attract Hindus in their fold. The Hindu urban middle classes, moneylenders and business leaders remained strongly attached to the Indian National Congress. Drawn from rich peasants and small landholders and jagirdars, the early Sindhi Muslim politicians were under multiple strong pressures: the political dominance of mainly Hindu urban petty bourgeoisie, new trends of commercial economy and monetization of agricultural taxes, and resulting burdens of mounting indebtedness with Hindu moneylenders of mainly Amil Bania and Sethi castes. Increasing agricultural land transfers to city based absentee moneylenders and investors was a frightening prospect. During the times of economic hardship, faced with dwindling rent payments form their tenants but still maintaining an extravagant wasteful lifestyle, and finding no escape from payment of full taxes and water charges to the state revenue collectors, the Sindhi Muslim landowners must resort to borrowing from the moneylenders. The rivalry between Muslim Zamindars and Hindu moneylenders was intensifying and therefore the Muslim Zamindars were gradually distancing away from the Congress. By 1938, they were grudgingly compelled to seek support from the Muslim League. Well-known popular Sindhi nationalist leader G.M Syed switched side and became the architect of a revived Muslim League in Sindh in 1938. He explained his class predicament, “My dreams of a non-communal party government in the best interest of Sindh and ultimately of India were belied both in the Sindh United party which had met with such a cruel end at the hands of its own leader and the Congress party, and it was after protracted deliberation, and not without a pang of pain, that I realized that the only way of arresting the anti-Muslim and anti-masses forces in Sindh was to organize the Muslims, and do so on purely communal lines, so as to create a strong public opinion amongst them, which was so sadly lacking until then” (65). On the other hand, the Hindu moneylenders who dominated Congress leadership in Sindh also helped exacerbating the growing communal divide. Large number of Congress workers attended a conference organized by a rejuvenated Hindu Mahasabah party in Sindh at the end of 1939. The Congress also came out supporting the Hindu’s efforts to eject Muslims from the Manzilgah buildings opposite Sadhbelo, a revered Hindu temple in Sukkur (66). Admittedly, an issue was made from non-issue by certain disgruntled Sindhi Muslim leaders fully supported by the Muslim League in its bid to topple Allah Bukhsh Soomro’s ministry. Manzilgah was a set of ancient caravan inn’s buildings with a small abandoned mosque as its part that were for long in government use as a warehouse. The Muslims laid claim on the whole building as a mosque to be restored and rehabilitated for regular prayers. The demand gained support of Muslim community of Sukkur but Hindus strongly opposed the claim due to its proximity to the ancient Sadhbelo temple. The controversy led to the first serious communal riot in Sindh, in which mainly Hindus suffered significant loss of life and property. The incident played a major role in cementing the split between Hindus and Muslims in Sindh.

Although, modern education was introduced in Sindh since 1880s, the Sindhi Muslim society generally remained bogged down in pervasive illiteracy, traditional and extremely conservative customs and abject poverty. The Muslim elite comprising of big landlords, tribal chiefs, Syeds, and Mirs completely dominated the Sindh politics. Well-known Sindhi educationist and writer Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah had depicted Sindh’s life in an early writing in 1943. “Of 32 lacs (3.2 million) Muslims [of Sindh], about 300,000 live in towns… remaining 28 lacs live in rural areas and are peasants. Of these 28 Lacs Muslims, 27 Lacs are landless peasants; 14 lacs are wandering gypsies not permanently settled anywhere. They keep changing their landowner employers. Except for probably few thousand, all of those 300,000 living in cities are labourers. You don’t find non-Muslim labour in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and other towns. Of the total non-Muslim population only 8% are agricultural workers and these are also from Hindu ‘untouchable’ castes” (67). Although, not directly connected with mainstream politics of Sindh, there was a military action undertaken against a particular Sindhi community in 1940s. After British occupation of Sindh in 1843, a spiritual leader Pir Pagaro in Sanghar had declared his ‘spiritual community’ of extremely dedicated followers as ‘Hur’ (free) from the British rule. The British had declared Hurs as a ‘Criminal Tribe’ virtually confining them in their reserve or in jails and concentration camps. As the scope of Second World War expanded in Asia threatening the British India, the need for massive military buildup and logistics movement on the borders of Afghanistan and Iran were needed. The British finally removed the irritant of ‘Hurs’. Martial Law was declared in the area from June 1942 to May 1943 and a military operation was carried out against Hurs. Pir Sibghatullah Shah Rashdi II, the sixth Pir Pagaro was captured and tried in a military court. Pir Pagaro tried engaging M.A. Jinnah for defending him in the Military Court in Hyderabad but despite his many desperate messages Jinnah declined the brief. The Pir was hanged to death in March 1943. His two young sons were taken to England as hostages; Pagaro’s sons could return to Pakistan only in December 1951. The elder son, Sikandar Shah Mardan Shah II became the new Pir Pagaro in February 1952 till he died in 2012.

The Sindhi Muslim intelligentsia, with its rural and mostly rich-peasant middle class origin, generally remained isolated from poor peasants and toiling rural classes. Very few ventured to work among down-trodden Haris and landless peasants and organize them for effective class actions. The provincial politics remained mired in tribal and caste rivalries and factional feuds. The earliest communist work in Sindh, probably, was initiated by Narain Das Becher, Qadir Bukhsh Nizamani, Abdul Qadir, and Amin Khuso together with Jethmal Pursram and Abdul Qadir around 1937. Sobho Gyan Chandani, Autar Kishan (A.K) Hangal who after migrating to India later emerged as a known Bollywood film actor, Kazi Mujataba, and Pohumal were also included in the organisation with Qadir Nizamani as the Secretary. They started work in the name of Hari Committee in 1930s as part of larger network of Kisan Sabhas and Kisan Committees in Punjab and other parts of India. Hyder Bukhsh Jatoi joined Sindh Hari Committee in 1945 and led many Hari agitations. Sindh Chief Minister Allah Bukhsh Soomro is said to have sympathy with the communists and many times he had protected them. Once most of the prominent communist party leaders in Sindh were arrested from a meeting being held in Sindh Zamindar Hotel in Saddar Karachi on the charges of anti-war propaganda during the first phase of the Second World War, it was Allah Bukhsh Soomro who helped dropping the charges and releasing the activists.

Sindh Communist Party also had a distinction of being the first party organization publicly coming out in support of the World War efforts only six days after the Hitler invaded Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. The Communist Party of India together with the international communist movement at that time was still in anti-war gear, declaring it as a reactionary imperialist war. With the Hitler’s invasion of Russia, the Sindh’s Communist Party organisation came out with a declaration on 28 June that the character of the war has changed from imperialist war to a peoples’ defence war. This was, however, taken as a violation of party discipline by publicly opposing official line of CPI and the Communist International. The Central Committee took disciplinary action against the Sindh party, expelling Qadir Nizamani from the party and suspending the membership of Amin Khuso, who quickly repented and tried to shift all blame to Qadir Nizamani. After his self-criticism, he was made the secretary of the party in place of Nizamani. On the instructions from the central leadership, Jamaluddin Bukhari from Punjab visited Sindh a few times to look into the local party organisational matters. Firozuddin Mansoor also accompanied him on few visits. Later, when Communist International changed its position on the war declaring it as ‘Peoples War’ and advised all communist parties in the world to fully support the war efforts, the CPI also changed its gear in reverse. Embarrassed with its stern disciplinary action in Sindh, it finally admitted its mistake and restored the membership of Qadir Nizamani. But, by now Nizamani and few other communists in Sindh in sympathy with the rebel group in Punjab were disenchanted with the authoritarian central leadership of the party.

Only after the Congress-backed government of Allah Bukhsh Soomro resigned in 1942, the Muslim League’s supported factions could form their government under Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah. In March 1943, in line with the Muslim League’s 23 March 1940 resolution at Lahore, G.M. Syed moved a resolution in Sindh Assembly opposing a central unified government and demanding for separate states for the Muslims of India. The resolution was almost unanimously approved by the Muslim members, except for Allah Bukhsh Soomro who was absent and 3 Hindu votes against it. Other Hindu members decided to walk out. This was a unique and first of its kind resolution of a provincial assembly in India. In June 1943, G.M. Syed was appointed president of the Sindh Muslim League by Jinnah in place of Ayub Khuro in Muslim League’s bid to win over Muslim middle classes towards the ideal of Pakistan.

But with the rise of Muslim League’s fortunes and the Pakistan movement gaining significant strength and an unprecedented resurgence by 1945 it was keen to finally win over big and influential

Zamindars and landlords in its fold to make a decisive strike for an independent Pakistan. It was also necessary to support its claim to be the exclusive universal representative of all Muslims in India. In this backdrop, the central Muslim League leadership at that stage was not prepared to let the small group of Sindh’s rising middle & rich peasant class disrupt the balance of power in Sindh by factional in-fighting between them and the powerful landlords represented by Ayub Khuro and Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah. When, because of these internal feuds and clannish conflicts G.M. Syed lost support of most of the big landlords of Sindh in his opposition to the Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah’s ministry, he raised the flag of ‘Sindhi nationalism’ and the cause of poor Haris. G.M Syed also agitated against government’s decision in Nov 1945 to allot lands developed after clearing of Lakkhi forest to Punjabi ex-soldiers. These lands were recovered after recent cleansing operation of Hurs in their strongholds. This anti-Punjabi position in Sindh was also counter-productive for a larger ground swell in Punjab for a united front for Pakistan. In his local power contest, G.M. Syed sought support from the central Muslim League leaders in his attempt to overthrow the sitting Muslim League government. Due to their own class interests, the Muslim League leaders were by no means interested in this ‘national’ and ‘people’s’ cause. Secondly, Muslim League’s primary objective at that critical time was to maintain unity of all factions of Muslim interests under its flag at any cost to strengthen its case against the Congress as the only representative party of the Muslims in India. The central leadership of a confident and resurgent Muslim League finally expelled G.M. Syed from Muslim League in January 1946. There was hardly a significant protest on his expulsion. By now, almost all leaders of Sindh had fallen in line for following the commands of Jinnah. In December 1946 elections of the Sindh Assembly, Muslim League won 35 seats, and Congress won 19 seats. G.M. Syed’s group could get only two seats with G.M. Syed himself losing contest against Muslim League candidate Qazi Akbar by a wide margin. The new Muslim League government (12th government in 10 years) of Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah passed ‘Landholders Mortgages Bill’ imposing restrictions on the transfer of mortgaged lands to moneylenders. It also passed the ‘Sindh University Bill’ for setting up a Sindh’s own university and restricting educational institutions of Sindh to have affiliation with any university outside of Sindh. The Indian Congress and an All Sindhi Hindu Conference held in April, 1947 in Karachi strongly opposed both new laws asking Hindu graduates not to accept fellowships in the proposed Sindh University and requesting universities of Bombay, Banaras, and Delhi for extending affiliations to their educational institutions in Sindh. At this stage, Rahim Bukhsh Soomro, a son of former Chief Minister Allah Bukhsh Soomro raised demand of an independent state of Sindh. Jinnah was not in favour of this idea, though, he had supported the similar idea of an independent Bengal and had, in fact, encouraged Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy to work for it together with Sarat Bose. But soon this issue was killed with the Mountbatten’s decision in Shimla in May that under any circumstances India will not be divided into more than two parts. It is reported that Talpur ruler of Khairpur state had also requested for accepting its accession to India instead of Pakistan but Nehru declined the offer (68). Sindh University Act came into force on 2 June 1947 and affiliation of all educational institutions of Sindh to the University of Bombay ceased to have effect. The Sindh Minister Pir Ilahi Bukhsh issued a statement on 11 June in Delhi inviting Muslim industrialists and investors to come to Karachi for establishing their industry and businesses. He even suggested them to come and take possession of buildings vacated by Hindu businessmen and start their businesses right away.

With the partition of India and the transfer of power from the British Indian government to the new governor-generals of India and Pakistan, a new state of Pakistan emerged. It inherited the fractured state apparatus of the British India in its areas of jurisdiction.

Notes

59. Commissioner-in-Sind James to Secretary to Government of Bombay, 08.10.1896, quoted by Timothy Daniel Haines, p. 55.
60. Quoted by Timothy Daniel Haines, p. 59.
61. Zahid Choudhry, Pakistan ki Siyasi Tareekh (Political History of Pakistan), Vol. 6, Ed. Hasan Jafar Zaidi, Idara-e Mutala-e Tareekh, Lahore, 1994, p. 58.
62. Quoted by Timothy Daniel Haines, p. 107.
63. Land grants for existing Zamindars were offered at Rs.15 per acre against a capital cost of Rs. 30 per acre.
64. These included G.M. Syed, Abdullah Haroon, Mir Ghualm Ali Talpur, Pir Ilahi Buksh, Hashim Gazdar, Ali Muhammad Rashdi, Hatim Alavi, Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto and Bande Ali Talpur.
65. Syed Nesar Ahmed, p. 213.
66. Nandita Bhavnani, The Making of Exile: Sindhi Hindus and the Partition of India, Tranquebar Press, Chennai, 2014.
67. Quoted by Zahid Choudhry, p. 93.
68. K.R. Malkani, Thrown to Wolves in SindhiShan, Vol. 7, Issue 3, Jul-Sep, 2008.

Chapter 4… To be Continued

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A History of the Left in Pakistan – 21

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By Ahmed Kamran

Chapter Four: The Road to Pakistan – (Continued)

Sindh – Developing a Rural-Urban Divide

In early 1840s, the British had finally conquered Sindh to clear the way for their undisturbed approach for military expeditions to Afghanistan and Iran via Balochistan for countering the threat of Russian Czar’s southward thrust in the Central Asia. First, the British military vessel Wellseley took control of Manora and the small harbor at Karachi on 1 February 1839, without a gunshot being fired. Manora had a small fort and a few rusty canons brought from Muscat were installed there. Unfortunately, Talpur rulers of Sindh at Hyderabad (160 Km north-east from Karachi) were sunk in deep torpor, unable to even fully appreciate the implication of this British move. Since the end of Sindhi ruling dynasty of Kalhoras (1701-1783), this area had been essentially a lose confederacy of powerful Talpur Baloch tribes. For centuries, the Sindhi society was stagnating under decadent but highly oppressive class of big landlords, tribal leaders, Syeds and Pirs (revered religious leaders who had acquired large tracts of land in grants from corrupt rulers). Most of these big landlords were descendants of Baloch or Pukhtun tribal chiefs who over a period entered Sindh had occupied large tracts of land and had permanently settled here. The tribal social system was on similar pattern as Sardari system in Balochistan, at least in the Baloch dominated areas of northern and western parts of Sindh.

Sindhi rulers didn’t have a trained army. They only had some ill-equipped Lashkars (armed bands) of unruly tribesmen primarily for settling scores among themselves in their unending tribal feuds or to suppress their Haris. These ill-organized tribal armed bands were hardly capable of defending against a trained regular British army. No wonder, in the final battle with the British at Miani, near Hyderabad in January 1942, the British General Charles Napier could rout Talpur’s Lashkar in one day with over 5,000 Sindhi Baloch killed against only 257 casualties on the British side. Karachi was made an army town and a military cantonment was established. Lines were laid to bring water supply from Damloti in Malir to Karachi town. Basic modern police and judicial system was built for the first time. After four years in 1847, the strategic administration of Sindh was appended to the British residency at Bombay from where the Napier’s forces came to subdue this part. The extremely conservative tribal-feudal Sindhi society outside Karachi was, however, left practically undisturbed in its harsh traditional bonds.

In mid-1850s, from a purely military perspective plans were made to lay a railway line from Kotri to Karachi, connecting its sea port with the nearest inland waterway on the Indus River flowing down from Punjab and north-west. This railway link was to be extended up to Quetta in Balochistan. The Karachi harbor at Keemari was improved and it was connected with the mainland by building a Mole (causeway) across Chinna creek. The Karachi-Kotri rail link was completed in 1861, after a brief interruption due to 1857 mutiny in the northern India. On a short inaugural drive of a locomotive engine carrying departing Sindh Commissioner Bartle Frere to Keemari port for his voyage to Calcutta, John Brunton, the Scottish Chief Engineer of the ‘Scinde Railway’ wrote in his diary, “The native of Scinde had never seen a Locomotive Engine, they had heard of them as dragging great loads on the lines by some hidden power they could not understand, therefore they feared them supposing that they moved by some diabolical agency, they called Shaitan [Satan]. During the Mutiny, the Mutineers got possession of one of the East Indian Line Stations where stood several Engines. They did not dare to approach them but stood a good way off and threw stones at them!” (56)

During construction of this railway line, it was also suggested to detach Sindh from Bombay bringing it under Punjab’s unified administration but the proposal was not implemented. At this moment, due to an event, otherwise entirely disconnected with Sindh or India, taking place in faraway America the Karachi-Kotri rail link turned out to be an extremely useful and timely investment for the British Raj. The far-reaching impact of these developments elsewhere played a crucial role for a paradigm shift in the life of Karachi and consequently of Sindh, which remains largely unnoticed. In the American Civil War (1861-1865) seven major cotton producing southern states of USA rose in rebellion and declared independence from the northern federation. It caused a major disruption in the supply of American cotton to the thriving British textile industry. Over 80% of its cotton was imported from the USA. The British textile industry (the world’s largest at the time) faced a historic ‘cotton famine’ and closure of over 2,000 mills, threatening employment of over 360,000 textile workers in Lancashire alone. Alternate sources for immediate supply of cotton were identified in Egypt and India. While Lancashire industry focused more on the Egyptian supplies, the Scottish textile industry in Glasgow relied heavily on Indian cotton. The Glasgow and Lancashire Chambers of Commerce jointly demanded from the Secretary of State for India that “India make good the [cotton] shortfall to protect the livelihood of the 4 millions of our people who are directly or indirectly dependent for their daily bread on our cotton manufacturers” (57). In addition to supplies from Surat, the cotton produce of recently conquered Sindh and Punjab regions was also proved critical. Immediate logistics arrangements for regular supply of cotton via shortest route from Karachi to reach England were made. Cotton from Sindh and Punjab was brought via Indus River on barges to Kotri and transported by train to Karachi for swift shipment to the ports of England. The opening of transport route via Karachi port considerably reduced the transit time for cotton and other agricultural produce from Punjab compared to the long and arduous transportation across whole of north India to Calcutta in the north-east or Bombay in the south-west. The critical time-sensitive commercial transportation needs necessitated rapid development of logistics and trade services infrastructure at Bombay and Karachi. The Government of India directed “those provincial governments with substantial cotton-producing regions to report immediately on what needed to be done to improve the lines of traffic between the cotton producing districts and the ports of shipment” (58). This development suddenly catapulted Karachi town from an obscure position to become a key staging station in the modern global commercial sea lanes.

Accelerated foreign trade operations from Karachi brought in their wake significant growth in port assets and a network of leading British (mostly Scottish) trading companies, banks, clearing & forwarding agencies, stevedores, civil contractors, food and commodity supply contractors, wholesalers and retailers in the market. Karachi and Bombay were connected with a direct telegraph link via a new submarine cable laid to link with an Aden-Malta cable to London. The first telegraph message from India to London was sent from Karachi in 1864. With the opening of Suez Canal in 1869, the sailing time from Karachi to European ports was further reduced from a long three-month journey around Africa via Cape of Good Hope. Within a short period of about ten years, a sleepy fishing Goth (hamlet) of Karachi grew into an important commercial town where hundreds of Europeans, Marwari, Hindu, Parsee, Jewish, Memon, Khoja, Bohra, and Chinioti investors and traders from London, Calcutta, Kanpur, and Bombay arrived. With them thousands of Anglo-Indians, Jews, Goanese, Punjabis, North Indians, and Gujaratis flocked into the city to service the unprecedented rapid growth of a thriving modern town. This sudden rushing in of people from outside of Sindh caused a significant impact on its demographic composition. Old inhabitants of Karachi—the Kutchis, Baloch, Makrani, and Sindhis were simply overwhelmed and marginalized by the new wave of energetic and skilled ‘foreign’ settlers. This unprecedented phenomenon taking place in Karachi on the outskirts of Sindh’s traditional rural life in 1860s and 1870s was, incidentally, to be repeated on even larger scale in about 90 years.

In 1878, the Karachi-Kotri railway line was extended to connect with Delhi-Punjab rail link at Multan in the north-western Indian railway system. During railway line construction, it was again proposed that for military strategic reasons Sindh should be attached to Punjab instead of Bombay for a unified north-western command. The Sindh’s separation from Bombay and its attachment with Punjab was in principle approved in London to take effect from 1 January, 1880 but due to the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880) it was deferred indefinitely. Karachi Port Trust was established in 1886 and the East Wharf was built at Keemari port and a public tram service commenced from Saddar to Keemari harbor in 1900. By 1914, Karachi had become the largest grain exporting port in the British Empire and in 1924 the first aerodrome was built near Malir making Karachi for a long time the first airport of call for airliners coming from Europe for entry into the Indian subcontinent. These developments brought Karachi in sharp contrast with the rest of Sindhi society.

The first modern but informal school was built for the children of few English families in Karachi in 1847 and the first proper English school was opened in 1854. But the introduction of modern education in Karachi town practically had no impact on Sindh’s traditional rural life. According to the Education Commission Report of 1882, among the list of all graduates of Bombay University (of which Sindh was a part) there were two Muslims with bachelors’ degree and only one had a masters’ degree. Though, it is not known from where these Muslim graduates originally belonged but it is highly unlikely that any of them was from Sindh. With the spreading influence of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s Muslim educational movement at Aligarh, Syed Amir Ali, president of Muhammaden National Association of Calcutta arrived in Karachi in 1882 and a Muhammaden National Association of Sindh was established with a Sindhi Muslim lawyer Hasan Ali Effendi as its first president. This Association established the first school— Sindh Madarsat-ul Islam in Karachi in 1885. The Sindh Arts College (later converted into D.J. College) was established in Karachi in 1887.

Notes

56. ‘John Brunton’s Book—The Diary of John Brunton, Engineer, East India Company’, Cambridge University Press, 1939, Reprint by City Press, Karachi, 1997, p. 96.
57. ‘Chasing Commodities Over the Surface of the Globe – Shipping, port development and the making of networks between Glasgow and Bombay, c.1850-1880’ by Sandip Hazareesingh in Commodities of Empire Working Paper No.1, The Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies, The Open University, Milton Keynes, 2007, pp. 11-12.
58. Ibid, p. 12.

Chapter 4… To be Continued

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A History of the Left in Pakistan – 20

By Ahmed Kamran

Chapter Four: The Road to Pakistan – (Continued)

Balochistan – A Tribal Rebellion

Among Muslim majority areas of British India and the princely states inside Pakistani territory, Balochistan occupied a unique position. It was neither a wholly British Indian province nor a subordinate princely state like Kashmir, Bhawalpur, Junagadh, and Hyderabad. Its relationship with British India evolved differently and this factor has continued to mar its relationship with Pakistani state till today. As a separate political entity in history, Balochistan evolved as a Rind-Lashari tribal confederacy, first established by Mir Chakar Rind in late 1400s. It comprised of a large swathe of mostly barren land, stretching from Kirman in the west (in present day Iran) to Derajat on the right bank of Indus River in the east, including Kalat highlands and the fertile areas of Kacchi and Sibi. It had united all Baloch inhabited areas in a political entity for the first time. The confederacy was centered around two most powerful Baloch tribes of Rind and Lasharis, each in turn constituting loosely organized federations of several lesser tribes. During his peak, Mir Chakar also advanced into Punjab, taking over Multan and southern parts of Punjab in the early 1500s. The 16th century saw not only the rise of Safavid power in Iran, but also the Mughal power in India, and the arrival of European ships in the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf. Towards the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese found their way to the region and captured several places along the Makran coast. In 1510 AD, they occupied the small port of Gwatr (not Gwadar), east of Chahbahar in western Balochistan. Later, they also occupied two other larger coastal settlements of Gwadar and Pasni further east. Thus, the conflict of interest between these three external imperial powers (the Persians, the Mughals and the Europeans) continued to influence the internal politics of the Baloch. Portuguese were soon replaced by the British. The first Baloch confederacy did not survive long. Mir Chakar Rind died in 1550 and lies buried at Sahiwal in Punjab. After witnessing periodic border expansions and contractions by the time British arrived in the area, the nominal seat of Baloch tribal confederacy was based in Kalat. Mir Ahmed Khan I established the dynasty of the last Khannate of Kalat in 1666 and since then the ruling family has been known as Ahmedzais.

The Baloch Confederacy had treaty obligations with Afghanistan (1758) from the time of Mir Noori Nasir Khan. In its ‘Forward Policy’ for securing the western borders of India and for resisting the southward push of the Russian Empire in the Central Asia, British needed to keep Afghanistan and Iran under its influence, or, at least, ‘neutral’ to serve as buffers between the two expanding European empires. But the British supply routes to Afghanistan and Iran could not be safeguarded without securing Sindh and Balochistan. For this reason, the British advanced into Kalat as early as November 1839. The reigning Khan of Kalat, Mehrab Khan was killed in the battle. His minor son was installed in his seat and a regent was appointed to oversee the British interests. To serve their military strategic interests, the British parceled out the Baloch country. The Derajat, Khangarh (now Jacobabad) and Kacchi area were detached from Balochistan and annexed to British India. Quetta and Mastung were given to a pliant ruler of Afghanistan, Shah Shuja in a treaty with Afghanistan. The British signed their first formal treaty with Kalat in 1854. Recognizing Khan of Kalat’s nominal sovereignty over Baloch areas, an annual subsidy was agreed to be paid to him in exchange for his loyalty. British expansion towards Afghanistan continued and it annexed its Pishin, Zhob, and Loralai regions. Meanwhile, taking advantage of the situation now Qajar Shahs who had in the meantime replaced Safvi rulers of Iran also captured parts of western Balochistan and included them in their territory.

In 1876, Britain signed a new treaty with Kalat as an independent state but under protection from Britain and the British troops were stationed in Kalat. The establishment of the Balochistan Agency with its headquarter at Quetta followed in early 1877. In the same year, Scottish General Robert Sandeman was transferred from the post of Assistant Commissioner Punjab to Balochistan. Having experience of working as district officer of Dera Ghazi Khan, he was appointed Agent to the Governor General (A.G.G) and Chief Commissioner of the Agency for Balochistan. Under an agreement with the Khan of Kalat in 1883, the British obtained Quetta, Nushki, Bolan Pass, and Nasirabad areas on lease from Kalat and attached them with the British controlled Pashtun regions renaming the area as the ‘British Balochistan’. With a view to lure Afghanistan and Iran away from Czarist Russia, the Britain unilaterally ceded some parts of Baloch areas of Kalat State territory to Iran and Afghanistan. Thus, the Baloch country was arbitrarily divided into several parts. Initially, Khan of Kalat was included in the border negotiations but later he was excluded from the process and unilateral boundary decisions were taken by the British (44). Under a British-Iranian agreement the ‘Goldsmith Line’ drawn in 1871 as border between Iran and British interests, large parts of the western Balochistan were ceded to Iran. Similarly, a little later the ‘McMohan Line’ drawn in 1896 demarcating boundary between Afghanistan and the British Balochistan left a northern portion of Baloch area with Afghanistan. Large tracts of eastern Balochistan including Kacchi, Sibi, Jacobabad and adjoining areas together with Quetta and other Pukhtun areas remained with the British administration under long term lease contract. The rest of the Baloch territory was left in possession of the Kalat State. Thus, the Baloch territories were divided among three states – India, Afghanistan and Iran. In India, the Baloch areas were sub-divided between British Balochistan (areas under direct British rule) and the State of nominally independent Kalat. In theory, Kalat was a sovereign state, much like Nepal and Bhutan and was different from other Indian Princely States. The responsibility for its defence and foreign affairs were handed over to the British Crown based on mutually agreed friendly treaties promising British support to Kalat in case of need in the maintenance of a just authority and protection of territories from external attack. The Kalat state was further carved into the agencies’ territories of mainly Pukhtun belt and the federation of Baloch States (Kalat, Makran, Kharan and Lasbela) with the Khan of Kalat as the head of the federation. The Khan of Kalat was, however, traditionally bound to consult the Jirga (Council) of main tribal Sardars (chiefs) on all important social and political matters. During First World War, some tribes of Marri-Khetran and Mengals revolted against conscription and British interference in their areas but the revolt was crushed and some tribal leaders, including Misri Khan Baloch, fled to Afghanistan and to the newly established Soviet Union for assistance (45).

Over time, the Baloch tribal system, unlike the Pukhtun tribal system, had ossified into a highly oppressive feudalistic Sardari system, giving near absolute control to the Sardar (Chief of tribe) over life and death of its subjects, perpetuating their abject poverty and deprivation. The Kalat Confederacy was not exactly a princely kingdom in its strict sense either. It evolved differently. Nina Swidler of Fordham University, New York, a pioneering scholar on the subject completing her doctorate thesis on The Political Structure of a Tribal Federation in 1969, succinctly explains the characteristic of the Confederacy thus, “Even though the Ahmedzais consolidated a new order of structure, they did not integrate Kalat into one uniformly administered territory. Although a central bureaucracy developed, the khan never succeeded in incorporating the tribes economically. No revenues of any kind were exacted from them. Each tribal constituent of the Khannate was internally and territorially autonomous. The khan had no access to the tribes except through the chiefs…The autonomy of tribal constituencies in the Khannate is based on the authority of the sardar, which is largely a result of Brahui tribal structure” (46). The nature of a despotic Sardari system developed in Balochistan may be adequately depicted by an observation by Sylvia Matheson in her book The Tigers of Balochistan (1967) recording the remarks of a typical representative of Baloch Sardars, Tumandar Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti on a question to him during her interview sometime in 1948 about his plain admission that he had killed the first man when he was only 12, he said, as he sipped his tea, “Oh that! Well that man annoyed me. I’ve forgotten what it was about now, but I shot him dead. I’ve rather a hasty temper you know, but under tribal law of course it wasn’t a capital offence, and, in any case, as the eldest son of the Chieftain I was perfectly entitled to do as I pleased in our own territory. We enjoy absolute sovereignty over our people and they accept this as part of their tradition” (47).

Due to arid lands, stagnant repressive social conditions and little agricultural and commercial opportunities coupled with religious persecution (Shia rulers persecuting mostly Sunni Baloch) in Iranian parts of western Balochistan gradual migration of Baloch population from both eastern and western Balochistan into Sindh and Southern Punjab resulted in more Balochs living in Sindh and Punjab than in Kalat itself. Many of these migrating Baloch settled in Karachi making it the largest Baloch urban centre. Balochistan in general and Kalat confederacy remained one of the most under-developed and poor parts of India. There were almost no modern schools. In 1903, there were only 21 schools in Balochistan with 800 students, mostly children of non-Baloch servicemen of British Administration in Quetta. To move its part of Balochistan away from Persian influence, British made Urdu as its official language replacing Persian. The first newspaper ‘Balochistan’ was started in 1927 by Abdul Aziz Kurd and Master Pir Bukhsh. Inspired by the bold ‘modernist’ political developments taking place in Turkey (Mustafa Kamal) and Iran (Reza Shah) in 1920’s, the earliest Baloch political activists included Yousuf Ali Magsi and Abdul Aziz Kurd who established an underground organization ‘Young Baloch’, which was later converted into an open ‘Anjuman-e-Ittehad-e-Balochan’ (Baloch Unity Organization) in late 1920s. This Anjuman marked the beginning of modern Baloch middle class nationalist movement. Yousuf Magsi was the scion of Nawab Qaisar Khan, the Chief Sardar of Jhal-Magsi area in Balochistan, who was made to abdicate and exiled to Punjab by the British-appointed Chief Minister of Kalat. In his youth, Magsi lived in Multan and Lahore and was influenced by the then Indian independence movement. Aziz Kurd was the son of a middle class civil servant of the Khannate of Kalat. Karachi, having the largest Baloch urban population, also played an important role in the development of Baloch nationalist movement. A ‘Baloch League’ was founded in Karachi with Ghulam Nooruddin as president (48). The Baloch League held its conference in Karachi in 1930. After graduating from Aligarh College, noted Baloch nationalist leader Ghaus Bukhsh Bizenjo also first joined the Baloch League in Karachi. By early 1930s, Anjuman-e Balochan was demanding political reforms in the Khannate of Kalat, reunification of all Baloch territories in one political unit and the establishment of a united independent Balochistan. The demands of political reforms included establishment of an elected parliament and a cabinet under the Khan of Kalat. A Baloch Unity Conference was held in December 1932 at Jacobabad. The Anjuman’s weekly magazine ‘Al-Baloch’ from Karachi also published a map of ‘Greater Balochistan’ showing the State of Kalat together with British leased and Iranian occupied parts of Baloch territory, including large parts of Sindh and the state of Bhawalpur as a united Baloch political entity. The Khan of Kalat, Muhammad Azam Jan, died in 1933 and his young son, Ahmad Yar Khan, 31, ambitious for a Greater and United Balochistan took over the reins in his place. He sent Yousef Magsi of Anjuman Balochan to London in 1934 as his personal representative for pleading the case for Balochistan’s sovereignty but the mission failed as the British Government in London did not pay serious attention to the Baloch pleadings and refused to introduce reforms in Balochistan. At this stage, Magsi is also said to entertain the idea of seeking help from the Soviet Union and start an armed struggle but it seems no meaningful step was taken in this direction. Magsi was killed in the severe Quetta earthquake in 1935.

In 1937, the Anjuman was converted by its left-wing workers influenced by the socialist and communist ideas led by Mir Ghaus Bukhsh Bizenjo, Gul Khan Naseer, and Abdul Aziz Kurd into Kalat State National Party seeking constitutional rule in the Khanate and founding of an independent Balochistan after British leave from India. The principal objective of the nascent middle class and petty bourgeoisie of Balochistan was to get freedom from an overbearing traditional Sardari (tribal chief’s) system of oppression, which was supported and perpetuated by the British and the Khan of Kalat in their own interests. Unlike Muslims of other parts of India, the Baloch intelligentsia was not threatened by the Hindu domination and, therefore, did not find Muslim League’s struggle in British India for ‘protectionist’ rights of Indian Muslims attractive for itself. Herein lied its predicament; on the one hand, it was seeking more political and economic space for itself from the oppressive Sardari system with Khan of Kalat as the overlord of the whole system, and, on the other hand, it was rallying around the Khan in his ambitions for getting full independence from the British rule. The Khan of Kalat was not interested in relenting any democratic rights or equal economic opportunities to the Baloch people. He never allowed even those limited political and democratic rights that were granted in the British Balochistan and neither did he promoted any social or educational development of people in his Kalat state. But, he was keen to exploit the political activism and popular appeal of the middle class nationalist leaders in his grand monarchical designs. In return for some pep talk by the Khan and few symbolic gestures by him in theory (nothing changed in practice) like announcement of abolition of Bigar (free compulsive labour) and other illegal taxes, the National Party gladly conferred the title of ‘Khan-e-Muazzam’ (the Great Khan) on the Khan of Kalat in 1938 as a gesture of party’s full support and loyalty to the Khan. The British government through its political agents was adept at using the self-centered tyrant tribal Baloch Sardars and Pukhtun tribal leaders to put pressure on and keep the Khan of Kalat under check. The strong opposition of Kalat National Party frustrated British efforts at obtaining Jiwani port on lease from Kalat. Unhappy over the Kalat National Party’s increasing activities and Khan’s tacit support to it, the powerful Sardars with a wink from the British retaliated against the party. On 6 July, 1939, a tribal Lashkar (armed band) attacked the National Party convention at Mastung and dispersed the gathering. On the demand from Sardars, the National Party was banned by Khan of Kalat and its leaders were expelled from the state, and strict restriction was imposed on its newspapers and literature entering the state from British Balochistan. As a measure of delimiting Khan of Kalat’s influence and cut him to size, the British government had also ‘encouraged the vassals of the Khannate in Makran and Lasbela to emerge as separate protectorates and thus there was a practical administrative trifurcation of the Khannate even within British India, i.e. the British India, the Khannate and independent princely states of Makran, Kharan, and Lasbela, and [Pukhtun] tribal territories’ (49).

With the Pakistan movement gaining traction and the transfer of power from Britain to one or two independent governments in India becoming imminent, the Khan of Kalat, Mir Ahmad Yar Khan, made efforts to obtain full independence for Kalat state. His argument was based on the fact that unlike other 560-odd Princely States of India, the state of Kalat as a sovereign state had special treaty agreement (1876) directly with the British government in London as the paramount power, and not with British Indian government in Delhi. Therefore, with the withdrawal of Britain from India the state of Kalat together with its leased territories like Quetta will legally revert to its original position before 1876 and it will be released from all treaty obligations and lease contracts; that no government in India, as successor to the British Indian government, can inherit that role. Khan of Kalat also engaged M.A. Jinnah as his lawyer in this regard who apparently agreed with this legal position. Khan of Kalat also presented a Memorandum to the visiting Cabinet Mission of the British Government in March 1946 through M.A. Jinnah as his lawyer. The Kalat state’s case was prepared by I.I. Chundrigar, a noted lawyer from Bombay and a future Prime Minister of Pakistan, Sir Sultan Ahmed, a noted barrister-at-law of India, and Sir Walter Monkton, an influential British lawyer and the Solicitor General in Winston Churchill’s caretaker government of 1945. The Khan of Kalat also sent Abdul Samad Achakzai, a member of All India Congress Committee, to plead his case with Nehru, and Ghaus Bukhsh Bizenjo, the head of Kalat National Party, to meet with Indian Congress President Abul Kalam Azad. But Indian Congress was mute and avoided coming out in Kalat’s favour fearing creation of a bad precedent for similar counter moves by the Muslim League in the matter of the states of Junagadh and Hyderabad inside the territory of India. This way, Indian Congress implicitly conceded the right of contiguous successor state of British India over Princely States falling inside its territory. Similarly, on 27 March, 1947, V.P. Menon was reported in an All-India Radio broadcast that India has declined repeated requests of Khan of Kalat for accession of his state to India instead of Pakistan. Although, subsequently this report was denied by Nehru (50) but the message to Khan of Kalat was clear that India may not help him at that stage. The Marri-Bugti Baloch tribal chiefs, Sardar Doda Khan Marri and Sardar Akbar Khan Bugti are reported to have sent memorandum to the British government for joining with the state of Kalat. Similarly, Sardar Jamal Khan Leghari, the father of future President of Pakistan Farooq Leghari, together with few other tribal chiefs is also reported to have sent a memorandum demanding their separation from Punjab and joining with the Kalat state. But, the British government ignored these requests.

Meanwhile, as far as the British-controlled part of Balochistan was concerned, as per the local tradition, an assembly of Baloch & Pukhtun tribal leaders of the area (Shahi Jirga) was called on 29 June, 1947, which voted in favour of joining with Pakistan. The Municipal Council of Quetta also voted for Pakistan (51). However, in a round-table conference held in Delhi on 4 August, 1947 attended by the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Khan of Kalat, his Chief Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, Sir Sultan Ahmed, as advisor to the Indian Chamber of Princes, and M.A. Jinnah as Khan of Kalat’s legal advisor, it was decided that the Kalat state would become independent on 5 August, 1947. Subsequently, the rulers of Kharan and Lasbela were informed by the British government that control of their regions together with the Marri and Bugti tribal regions under British control had been transferred to Kalat State. After a series of meetings held between the leadership of Muslim League, including M.A. Jinnah, and Khan of Kalat, the Muslim League signed a joint ‘Stand-Still’ statement with Khan of Kalat on 11 August, 1947 saying, “The Government of Pakistan recognizes Kalat as an independent sovereign state; in treaty relations with British government, with a status different from that of Indian states. Legal opinion will be sought as to whether or not agreements of leases made between the British government and Kalat will be inherited by the Pakistan government” (52).

On Friday, 15 August, 1947 Khan of Kalat declared full independence of the State of Kalat, which was immediately ratified by the Kalat State parliament that was hurriedly elected only a few weeks before. The traditional flag of the state in green over red colour and the crescent and star in the centre was hoisted and a traditional Khutba (religious address) was read on the day in Khan of Kalat’s name in Friday congregational prayers in the Jamia Masjid of Kalat. The Khan of Kalat offered to negotiate a special relationship with Pakistan in the spheres of Defence, Foreign Affairs, and Communications. But, the Pakistani leaders promptly rejected Kalat’s declaration of independence and its offer for negotiation on its relationship with Pakistan, triggering a 7-month row over Kalat’s accession to Pakistan. In the changed circumstances, Jinnah in his personal capacity also advised Khan of Kalat to join with Pakistan but the Khan evaded the issue. Feeling the increasing pressure from the government of Pakistan, he also sought help from outside. He instructed Kalat’s army commander-in-chief, Brigadier General Purves to prepare for armed resistance and arrange for weapons and ammunition. Brigadier Purves approached the British Commonwealth government in London in December 1947 for supply of arms to Kalat state but the British government refused the request without the Pakistan Government’s approval (53). There were also reports that Khan of Kalat was seeking support from the Indian government and the Afghan King but with no success. Nehru, however, denied these reports (54). The rulers of Kharan, Makran and Lasbela, being too timid to side with Khan, voted to join Pakistan on 18 March, 1948, immensely weakening the Khan of Kalat’s position. Finally, after a Pakistan military action in Kalat, Mir Ahmed Yar Khan also signed the instrument of accession to Pakistan on 27 March, 1948. The state of Kalat as legal entity was abolished and merged with Pakistan. Most of the members of a short-lived Balochistan cabinet were arrested or exiled from Balochistan (55).

Notes

44. Balochis of Pakistan: On the Margins of History, The Foreign Policy Centre, London, UK, 2006 [henceforth FPC UK Report], p. 14.
45. Taj Mohammad Berseeg, Baloch Nationalism-Its Origins & Development, BalochWarna.org, p. 211.
46. Nina Swidler, The Development of the Kalat Khannate, monograph in the Journal of Asian and African Studies, p. 118.
47. Quoted in The Tumandar of the Bugtis by Ardeshir Cowasjee, Daily Dawn, Karachi, 3 Sep, 2006.
48. Waja Omar Bukhsh, Maulvi Muhammad Usman, Mehrab Issa Khan, Allah Buksh Gabol, and Abdul Samad Sarbazi were among its other leaders.
49. Balochis of Pakistan: On the Margins of History, p. 15.
50. FPC UK Report, p. 24.
51. Ibid, p. 16.
52. Ibid, p. 21.
53. Taj Mohammad Berseeg, p. 250.
54. FPC UK Report, p. 18.
55. Taj Mohammad Berseeg, p. 253

Chapter 4… To be Continued

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A History of the Left in Pakistan – 19

By Ahmed Kamran

Chapter Four: The Road to Pakistan – (Continued)

A Complex Knot

Indeed, for CPI it was highly complex and difficult situation. As soon as it was visible that the scepter of the foreign rule over Indian political horizon will not last for long, the ‘national question’ in its naked form in India overshadowed the ‘class question’. The Indian National Congress was started as a political party of the national bourgeoisie, the aspiring middle classes and petty bourgeoisie of the whole of India. CPI’s support for National Congress in its fight against British colonial rule, big absentee landlords, traditional Jagirdars, and Nawabs and Rajas of the princely states for a national democratic revolution was a progressive policy in the right direction, provided it had maintained its political independence and had built and maintained its organizational capacity for simultaneously pursuing its long-term goal of a peoples’ democratic revolution. But, confronted with the growing aspirations of other religious and national minorities and long suppressed Shudras and outcaste Achuts (Untouchables) of India, the National Congress had quickly reduced and crystallized itself into a representative party of upper caste Hindus, the big bourgeoisie, and the middle classes only. Failing in subduing the increasingly powerful Muslim identity and separatist movement led by its intelligentsia and financed by Muslim businessmen of Bombay and Calcutta, the big Hindu bourgeoisie was losing its patience for a protracted and, in their eyes, quite ‘useless’ negotiations with Muslim League. In fact, many of them realized the potential value and ‘political and electoral benefits’ of getting rid of ‘undesirable Muslim irritants’ in their future governance of Indian state. The big bourgeoisie was impatient, frustrated and worried about the stalemate. Powerful Indian industrialists such as G.D Birla were seeing in the plan of loose confederating units— as was proposed in the Cabinet Mission plan— all their dreams for a strong, centralized India coming to a naught. These industrialists and influential upper caste Hindu middle classes were hoping for a powerful central government in free India, footing the bill for capital-intensive projects, paving the roads, transmitting electric power and pumping the water supplies to develop new domestic markets that Indian business desperately needed. The Viceroy of India, Lord Wavell, after a meeting with Indian leaders, noted in his diary, “The Congress premiers of Bombay, UP, Bihar, Central Provinces and Orissa pressed for the establishment of a strong centre and said that the Muslims had been given far more concessions than they were entitled to” (42). The prospect of a large restive Muslim minority and particularly an army with dominant Punjabi Muslim recruitment was an undesirable ‘irritant’ for them to carry forward for vague emotional reasons. Without publicly admitting and taking blame for it in public, they were, in fact, quite willing or even encouraging to let these irritants cut away from the body politics of an independent India. But in an emotionally charged situation expected to develop because of the great human tragedies that were bound to follow this amputation the blame of the vivisection of the ‘Mother India’ was needed to be put on someone else’s doorstep.

On the other hand, by 1945-46, with the prospect of an ‘independent’ India becoming a reality getting brighter every day, the big Muslim landlords and Jagirdars of Punjab were getting fearful of Congress’ avowed policy program of radical land reforms. Failing to stem the tide and the great resurgence of highly charged and increasingly radicalized Muslim middle classes and peasants, they swiftly changed side and threw their weight with Muslim League to secure their position in its leadership and protecting their class interests in a free Pakistan. With this shift taking place in Punjab, the fate of a united India was completely sealed and Pakistan becoming a reality was almost assured. The joining of the big landlords and Jagirdars of the Muslim majority areas in an essentially a Muslim middle class movement for Pakistan sowed the seeds of strong undercurrents and intense conflicts in the factional politics of Muslim League in future in post-independence Pakistan.

Evidently, due to its lack of clear understanding of the conflicting class, social and national interests, and therefore, its inability to put forward bold political formulations for satisfying the political needs of all national and religious minorities and oppressed castes of the traditional Indian society in its confused bid of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, the CPI was discredited among Sikhs and the oppressed ‘scheduled’ castes alike. The Sikhs, particularly, faced a bitter prospect of getting nowhere. In a communally charged atmosphere of imminent partition of their homeland, Sikhs didn’t have the majority in any part, neither in east Punjab (to be part of India) nor in the west Punjab (to be part of Pakistan) where many of their revered religious centres were located. With an acute feeling of being loser on both sides of the divide, most of the Sikh Communists tended to take up independent Sikh ‘national’ cause with a new vigour as now Akalis were seen more committed to Sikh self-determination than either the Congress or the Muslim League. A CPI leader, Harkishan Singh Surjeet who later became a prominent CPI-M leader, described the helplessness of communists in Punjab, “if the ‘Peoples War’ line had meant that the cadre were working with their hands tied behind their backs, the vacillation on the nationality question tied up their feet as well and whatever success they achieved was remarkable considering they achieved it by crawling on their bellies” (43). The Kirti Communists, in particular, who had earlier grudgingly submitted to the discipline of CPI in 1941, were again restless. They were the mainstay of the communist party in Punjab. In the Kirti Kisan Party elections in 1946, Kirtis took most of the seats; Out of 258 delegates to the state conference, 229 were Kirtis while only 29 were from ‘CPI group’. Owing to their intransigence and formation of an independent group in the party in Punjab, CPI finally expelled Teja Singh Swatantar, Bhag Singh, and Ram Singh from the party in 1946. Teja Singh even formed a parallel Communist Party in Punjab but due to the eruption of extensive bloody communal riots in Punjab in 1947, Teja Singh and other Sikh communists were compelled to cross the border. They later founded a parallel Red Communist Party in January 1948 at Nakodar, Jalandhar. This was perhaps the first ever split in the CPI due to policy differences. Red Communist Party in Punjab also adopted aggressive radical policies and raised its military wing for carrying out direct armed revolutionary struggle. It exhorted peasants to refuse sharing of crops with landlords and paying water charges and other taxes. It also engaged in armed clashes with state police. In 1949, during an armed encounter with police at Kishangarh in Bhatinda a police inspector was killed and the police contingent was forced to take flight. Finally, the state government sent in army units to quell rebels and the Red CPI soon surrendered, with six of militants killed and 26 arrested.

NWFP – ‘The Pukhtun Question’

Unlike Punjab and Sindh, NWFP and Pukhtun parts of Balochistan, which were arbitrarily separated and made part of Balochistan in 1901 for administrative reasons, were a predominantly Muslim area with a remarkably egalitarian social structure and traditions of communal land holdings. The society was, however, divided along Pukhtun clans and tribes with Maliks as their tribal leaders among equals and traditionally bound by the decisions of a rudimentary democratic form of Jirga (a tribal council). All were, however, not equal. Few, like ‘settlers’ from other tribes and areas, menial service providers (shopkeepers and artisans) of village society, and Fakirs— landless peasants did not enjoy the privilege of a full member of the tribe. Syeds, Mullahs and religious leaders were traditionally allowed a degree of social respect and some share in the agricultural produce for their upkeep and occasionally some paltry land grants for the purpose. The Mughal Kings and subsequently British colonial administrators had given large land and cash grants to some prominent and powerful Maliks and bestowed titles upon them thus creating a thin top layer of Nawabs and Jagirdars, usually entrusted to collect and remit land revenues, keep their tribes under leash and main communication highways open for royal army movements, and provide soldiers when needed. The advent of modern commercial life and socio-economic interaction slowly gave rise to a Pukhtun intelligentsia of rural background, essentially belonging to rich peasant classes, which showed the first signs of ‘national consciousness’ and ‘political activism’ for socio-economic reforms in the Pukhtun society in the beginning of the twentieth century.

For the rising Pukhtun intelligentsia in its conflict with the traditional Nawabs, Jagirdars, big landlords and moneylenders of NWFP who were mostly Muslim here, the vehicle of Islam as a rallying tool was not useful at all. Therefore, the politics of Muslim League struggling for the Muslim minority rights had not much attraction for it. The Muslim League was unable to establish its provincial organization in NWFP till as late as 1937. But the contradiction of the Pukhtun intelligentsia and enlightened rich peasants with the colonial rulers in its bid for greater share for itself in civil services and government contracts was more direct. The British government in collaboration with the Punjabis dominating and holding the best jobs in the province were clearly seen as ruthless defender of an oppressive ‘colonial social order’. The early reformism of Khan Brothers of Uthmanzai near Peshawar—Dr. Ghani Khan and Abdul Ghaffar Khan and their ‘Khudai Khidmatgar’ (Servants of God) movement in late 1920s necessarily assumed a strong ‘anti-British’ and ‘anti-Punjabi’ Pukhtun nationalist colour. Although, located on the fringe of India and otherwise isolated from the mainstream Indian politics in large measure, the Pukhtun nationalism soon became a strange bed partner of the Indian National Congress. The absence of the push of anti-Hindu socio-economic compulsions in his homeland endeared Ghaffar Khan with Gandhi and Nehru rather than with a Muslim’s leader M.A. Jinnah, winning him the sobriquet of ‘Frontier Gandhi’. In their bid for independence from British rule, the budding Pukhtun middle class was eyeing for possibility of uniting all Pukhtun tribes on both sides of the Afghan-India border in a united ‘Pukhtunistan’ either as an autonomous federating unit inside a free India or as a separate state outside of it. The Durand Line was drawn as a border in 1894, between Afghanistan and British India, cutting across vast tracts of Pukhtun lands and splitting their tribes between Afghanistan and India. In India Pukhtun tribes were further divided between NWFP and Balochistan. The Khudai Khidmatgars gained significant support among Pukhtun middle classes and rich middle peasants in their rising ambitions. It could form provincial governments in coalition with Indian National Congress both in 1937 and 1946 elections. But, a rapid change in the political dynamics of Muslim majority parts of India in 1940s and an independent Pakistan as a separate country of Muslims becoming a reality the gradual political isolation of Ghaffar Khan and his party from the Muslim masses was becoming obvious and the going for it was getting increasingly tough.

Although, Muslim League had lost 1945-46 elections in NWFP it was still able to mobilize many people to gain support for its movement. The political influence of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement that was led by rich middle peasants and supported by the Congress was clearly on the wane. The failure of its government in bringing the promised change in the lives of poor peasants or providing any significant relief to them in reducing peasant debt and rent burden was slowly taking its toll. The few tenancy regulations that were introduced helped only an elite group of rich tenants. Though, CPI organization in NWFP was very weak and rudimentary but any attempt to organize the working class and poor peasants was suppressed by the Khudai Khidmatgar-Congress joint provincial government with colonial firmness. The best jobs in the province were still going to more educated Hindus and Punjabi and other settlers. Meanwhile, the top landed aristocracy of NWFP in the footsteps of big landlords and Jagirdars of Punjab was also getting fearful of the radical rhetoric of Congress and was gradually moving towards Muslim League. As the independence of India and the partition of Punjab and Bengal on religious lines was getting closer, the Red Shirt government demanded that instead of only two options of either joining with India or Pakistan in the proposed referendum to be held in NWFP, an option to secede and form an independent Pukhtunistan be also granted. But having this option been flatly denied by the British government and, consequently, in the face of clear prospects of most people opting for the only practical option of joining with Pakistan, Ghaffar Khan and his party decided to boycott the referendum. Obviously, the results of the referendum were almost assured; the overwhelming majority (98%) of those who casted votes (over 51% of registered voter turnout) opted for Pakistan.

Notes

42. Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan, Yale University Press, 2007, p. 59.
43. Mirdula Mukherjee, op cited, p. 219.

Chapter 4… To be Continued

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A History of the Left in Pakistan – 18

By Ahmed Kamran

Chapter Four: The Road to Pakistan – (Continued)

Punjab – The Main Battleground

Owing to its large fertile irrigated lands, majority Muslim population and economic strength, Punjab was going to be the principal theater for Muslim League’s battle with Congress. In its strategic importance for Pakistan in future, Punjab was even ahead of Bengal, which had been a forerunner in the Muslim’s independence movement. Bengal’s importance lied mainly in its large Muslim population; otherwise, barring for Calcutta and its jute mills the economic assets of the Muslim East Bengal were not significant. Muslim League desperately needed to mobilize the peasants and aspiring Muslim middle classes and petty bourgeoisie of Punjab, Sindh, and NWFP to exert full pressure on the big landlords for them to fall in line with its push. Despite it being a large producer of food grains, the food scarcity during the war followed by large scale post-war demobilization of soldiers created massive unemployment and restlessness in the rural areas of Punjab. It jeopardized the popularity of the Unionist Party among large agrarian producers who had been the traditional mainstay of the party. Muslim League’s political appeal to Punjab’s middle classes and rich peasants resting only on ‘religious’ and ‘communal’ issues had not been very successful. Muslim League was trying to lend a mass appeal to its campaign for Pakistan directly approaching the peasants, combining its religious appeal with economic appeal and bypassing the big landlords. Now it was the time for the Muslim League to re-brand itself and reach out to Muslim peasants and working classes in Punjab.

During about last 75 years being the principal ground of massive ‘social engineering’ experiment of canal colonies, a large part of Punjab had been through a ‘sea change’ in its class composition and patterns of class relations. Unlike much of the rest of India, Punjab’s rural area was the home of a very large number of independent peasants, petty bourgeoisie and rural middle classes who had long freed themselves from the traditional relations of production and feudal bonds. It was a unique feature of Punjab compared with other parts of north or south India. As Ian Talbot observed, ‘The rural elite which remained loyal to the Unionist Party could, the League leaders believed, be by-passed by a direct appeal to the peasant masses. Why did this policy achieve such limited success? The answer lies in the fact that, firstly, the Punjab League’s religious appeals were being made through the wrong channels, and, secondly, that even when they were made through the right ones, peasants are not readily moved by such appeals alone. They must be accompanied by efforts to solve their immediate social and economic problems.’ (Talbot, 1982:15). Joining hands with socialists and communists in Punjab was Muslim League’s master stroke to garner ground support for its cause among the rural middle classes and lower peasants of Punjab and to bring its traditional big landlords under check. The need to join hands was not one sided. Extending its hand towards Communists in Punjab was a timely tactical move on the part of Muslim League.

As we noted above, Muslim League’s popular support started gaining ground after 1940 with its shift in focus from Muslim-minority provinces to Punjab and other Muslim-majority provinces with a promise of an independent state comprising of Muslim-majority areas (see Chapter Three). This shift in focus in geography also accompanied with a simultaneous shift in its target audience. It now started directly addressing the students, urban and rural middle classes, and peasants in Punjab with a new promise. With the CPI’s policy of supporting Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan towards the end of 1942, the Muslim Communists in Punjab were encouraged to work closely with the Muslim masses and join Muslim League as their growing representative political party. Sajjad Zaheer, by now a member of the Central Committee of the CPI, was made in charge of the work among Muslims. He was, together with G. Adhikari, responsible for developing and defending CPI’s new and changed policy on Pakistan and the Muslim question. According to CPI’s political assessment in Punjab, the replacement of Unionist government of the big landlords by a Muslim League’s government was expected to be more liberal and, therefore, preferable. Sohan Singh Josh and Daniyal Latifi from CPI met Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Lahore in April 1944 to offer CPI’s support. Jinnah and the Muslim League welcomed the move but with caution. Liaqat Ali Khan made it a condition that the Muslim communists joining Muslim League must resign from CPI. Accordingly, Abdullah Malik and Daniyal Latifi formally resigned from CPI and joined Muslim League. Others joining Muslim League included Ataullah Jahanian, C.R. Aslam, Anis Hashmi, and Ghualm Nabi Bhullar. Firozuddin Mansoor was made in charge of the ‘Muslim Front’ in Punjab CPI. Daniyal Latifi went on to be appointed as the Office Secretary of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League and together with Abdullah Malik is said to have drafted the Muslim League’s election manifesto of 1944, declaring support for the land reforms and universal adult franchise. Marxist Urdu poets like Majaz and Makhdoom Mohiuddin wrote poetry for Pakistan. A young and ambitious Mian Iftikharuddin, a prominent progressive leader of the Congress enjoying confidence of Nehru, also joined Muslim League. Mian Iftikharuddin had close links with some prominent CPI leaders. He soon became a favored protégé of Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the fast expanding Muslim League, the kind of leader M.A. Jinnah was reported to pin his hopes on for the new Pakistan.

Nevertheless, despite Punjab being the largest pocket of upwardly mobile and ambitious Muslim peasants and petty bourgeoisie concentrated in the central and parts of western Punjab, the middle class was still not strong enough in national level politics to tilt the balance of power. The Muslim national bourgeoisie of Bombay, Gujarat, and Calcutta leading the Muslim League and relying on the petty bourgeoisie and middle classes of both Muslim majority and minority areas needed the decisive vote of the big landlords of Punjab, Sindh, and NWFP in their favour. In the given situation, all these diverse classes and interest groups could have been galvanized based on their ‘Muslim’ identity coupled with their ‘economic’ interests. Boldly coming out in support of the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan, CPI had successfully addressed the issue of the ambitious Muslim petty bourgeoisie and the middle classes, particularly of the Muslim majority areas. Sajjad Zaheer said, “the task of every patriot is to welcome and help this democratic growth which at long last is now taking place among the Muslims of Punjab. The last stronghold of imperialist bureaucracy in India is invaded by the League. Let us all help the people of Punjab capture it” (40). Envisioning themselves in a separate Pakistan, free from dominance of a large and overbearing Hindu petty bourgeoisie, the lure of Pakistan as it was getting closer to achievable reality was too powerful for them. CPI’s effective network in Punjab and its sympathizers supplemented the channels to gain access to the Muslim middle and lower peasants and petty bourgeoisie with vague promises of land reforms and expanded market opportunities. But, while reaching to the Muslim masses CPI could not simultaneously address the concerns of prosperous Sikh peasants and Hindu and Sikh petty bourgeoisie in Punjab. Thus, the Indian national aspirations sharply split into three conflicting and rising cross currents, which eventually swept the feet of the CPI leadership off the ground.

During 1945-1946 elections, Muslim League won all reserved Muslim seats in Punjab. CPI held a unique and an awkward position. It supported candidates from both the Congress and the Muslim League. Support of Indian Muslims’ separatist demand based on their right to self-determination should have logically lead to the conclusion of supporting Sikhs as well in their aspiration of a ‘Khalistan’ within or without India. The united Indian national aspirations viewed in this new prism sharply split into three divergent streams: Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh. A significantly large number of Communist leaders and party cadre in Punjab were Sikhs. The CPI’s support for Pakistan and its thesis of Muslims being a ‘nation’ qualified for self-determination led Sikh Communists to believe that they also qualify to be a nation to claim self-determination. By now many of the astute members of the Indian bourgeoisie leading the Congress Party had grudgingly reconciled to the idea of letting the upstart Muslim bourgeoisie spin off the Muslim majority areas in the west where in any case they had little political prospects in future; a kind of right-sizing the future India. In the process, they were getting rid of the nuisance of a significant part of a perpetually recalcitrant minority. But, further fragmentation of their market by allowing Sikhs, who were widely dispersed in Punjab and didn’t enjoy a majority in any significantly large part, or for that matter any other community to have their own sway was not acceptable to them. For the same reason, Congress bourgeois’ leadership strongly opposed and immediately killed the idea of Sarat Bose and Suhrawardy in 1947 for an independent undivided Bengal for which M.A. Jinnah is also said to have given his in-principle consent. The CPI’s policy shift on Pakistan, however, caused major ripples in the party, especially among Sikh and Hindu communists of Punjab. Sohan Singh Josh drafted a ‘Khalistan’ scheme but it was rejected by the Central Committee of the CPI. Among CPI leaders, Dr. Adhikari had realized that now with CPI having committed itself to support the idea of Pakistan, leaving Sikhs with no choice but to seek whatever terms they could negotiate for themselves with the Muslim majority of West Punjab, there was hardly any hope of winning Sikh’s support for this policy. To secure safeguards for Sikh’s interests in future Pakistan he even suggested various alternative plans (41). Caught in the rising cross currents, however, the party remained mute and essentially followed the Indian Congress in its bid to keep Sikhs firmly included in the new independent India.

Notes

40. Sajjad Zaheer, Light on League Unionist Conflict, People’s Publishing House, Bombay, July, 1944, pp. 26-33.
41. Mirdula Mukherjee, p. 218.

Chapter 4… To be Continued

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A History of the Left in Pakistan – 17

By Ahmed Kamran

Chapter Four: The Road to Pakistan – (Continued)

Pakistan Movement

As we noted earlier in Chapter 3, the Indian Muslims separate political consciousness evolved in early 20th century during their struggle for obtaining administrative autonomy in East Bengal and minority protective rights in Hindu majority provinces of UP, CP, Bihar, Madras, and Bombay.

The Muslims first spoke about their “national interests at the mercy of an unsympathetic majority” in their joint deputation to the Viceroy of India, Lord Minto, in 1906, at Shimla. The peculiar international situation developing before and during First World War also worked in raising Indian Muslim’s political consciousness. The Indian Muslims whole-heartedly joined in the struggle for Indian independence movement. M.A. Jinnah, an avowed liberal barrister from cosmopolitan Bombay and an active member of both Indian National Congress and Muslim League, helped craft the ‘Lucknow Pact’ between the two parties, ushering in a unique phase of unity and cooperation between Hindus and Muslims. He was acknowledged as ‘ambassador of unity between Hindus and Muslims’. This rare communal harmony and the spirit of cooperation was achieved based on mutual recognition of minority rights and obligations, separate electorate, reservation of quotas and special weightage for representation of Muslims and other minorities and providing structural assurances for protection of these rights. After the First World War, Muslims were particularly agitated against dismemberment of Turkish Empire and for the protection of Ottoman Caliphate. Appealing to their acute sense of injustice meted out to Muslims and their strong resentment against aggression of the European powers in Muslim lands, the Muslim religious and communal leaders whipped up an emotional campaign in support of Khilafat and even calling for Muslim Jihad and migration (see Chapter 1). Gandhi and Indian National Congress supported the Muslim agitation (albeit, with strong reservation from certain sections within Congress and opposition from Hindu fundamentalists represented by Hindu Mahasabah) to bring Muslims in Non-Cooperation movement against British government launched in Apr 1919. M.A. Jinnah and Muslim League, however, stayed away from this agitation. Jinnah strongly opposed mass agitation at this stage and injecting raw religious beliefs and archaic cultural symbolism in the Khilafat and non-cooperation agitation to whip up public emotions. He felt that rousing of rabble to religious frenzy was bound to explode the fragile communal unity and that it will pit Hindus and Muslims against each other, both brandishing opposing religious and historical narratives. Due to strong opposition from Gandhi, Jinnah resigned from the Home Rule League that he had once led (30). At the Indian National Congress session in December 1920 at Nagpur where Jinnah stood up to oppose Gandhi’s prescription for the future course of action, he was shouted at for his ‘want of courage’ and ‘howled down with cries of ‘shame, shame’ and ‘political impostor’. Gandhi held complete sway and Jinnah was rejected by the Congress and “reviled by fellow-Muslim Khilafat leaders even more than by the Mahatma’s devoutest Hindu disciples” (31).

Unfortunately, as was expected, without a solid foundation of agreement on constitutional safeguards for the minorities the dream of communal unity and harmony in Indian politics indeed proved short lived. M.K. Gandhi finally called off his Satyagrah agitation after the shocking incident of 22 policemen burnt alive in Chaura Chauri police station in UP by an angry mob in February 1922. But, the damage was done. The Hindus and Muslims turned against each other. The collapse of non-cooperation agitation and Khilafat movement was followed by unprecedented series of riots and killings between Hindus and Muslims across India. The Congress, Hindu and Muslim communal leaders had mobilized Hindu and Muslim masses around their respective religious beliefs, mythology, and historical narratives. The competing economic interests fueled by conflicting Hindu and Muslim idiom of political narrative and fiery rhetoric of communal leaders created a wedge between Hindus and Muslims. The gulf between the two communities only widened over time and was exacerbated due to uncompromising attitude on both sides, especially the Hindu majority leaders who were expected to step forward to allay the fears and apprehensions of minorities. The first major political breach was witnessed in August 1928. While Jinnah was abroad, the Congress and some leaders of the All Parties Conference formed a committee for preparing a draft nationalist constitution to counter Simon Commission proposals for the future constitutional arrangement of India. The Committee (headed by Motilal Nehru and Jawaharlal Nehru as its secretary) under increasingly belligerent pressure from Hindu Mahasabah formulated its draft report in July 1928— commonly known as ‘Motilal Nehru Report’. It ignored the basic principle of agreement between Hindus and Muslims (Lucknow Pact of 1916) of separate electorates and proposed a strong centre with all residuary powers. Also, no meaningful safeguards were offered in compensation to satisfy the apprehensions of Muslim minority. With a clear Hindu majority population in the country, a strong centre was anathema to the Indian Muslims and other minorities due to fears of the tyranny of majority. But, the Muslim demands of continuing with separate electorate, constitutional safeguards and weightage for minorities were thorny issues for Hindu Mahasabha and for increasingly aggressive Hindu leaders of Indian National Congress. To escape from this impasse and find some common ground, Jinnah had crafted an ingenious constitutional scheme in March 1927. Working out a mutually acceptable compromise formula, Jinnah accommodated Congress’ insistence of restoring joint electorate for both Muslim and Hindu population, provided certain guarantees are ensured in the proposed constitution to adequately protect Muslim minority interests, and Muslim majority control is granted over three new proposed provinces of Sindh, NWFP, and Balochistan. At that time, Sindh was still a part of Bombay province and NWFP and Balochistan were not yet given status of full provinces and were governed by Chief Commissioners. Twenty-nine leading Muslim leaders had agreed to Jinnah’s scheme called Delhi Muslim Proposals. The proposals were ‘substantially’ accepted by the Congress in May 1927 and again a hope appeared to see Hind-Muslim unity on the road to independence. Meanwhile, the 1921 census figures had revealed “rapid growth among Muslims in both wings of the north that they were now a majority in the Punjab (54.8 percent) and in Bengal (52.7 percent). This development stimulated demands for renegotiating the Lucknow Pact formula, with many League leaders from both Muslim-majority provinces no longer willing to rest content with the prospect of mere minority council seats” (32). In this backdrop of rising hopes and expectations of Muslims and corresponding rise of Hindu’s fears and apprehensions, Nehru Committee Report as finalized in August 1928 plainly ignored and repudiated the compromise formula acceptable to all communities at this critical juncture. Upon his return from abroad, Jinnah was angry at his friend Chagla and other Muslim leaders who had acquiesced to Nehru’s proposals effectively undermining Jinnah’s position on the issue and thereby encouraging Indian National Congress to ignore a weakened Jinnah’s objections. At All Parties Convention at Calcutta in December 1928 convened to discuss the Nehru Report, “Jinnah’s proposed amendments were rejected and he felt deeply ‘hurt’. He believed his proposals were reasonable. He wanted separate electorates to continue; one-third of the seats to be reserved in the provincial and central legislatures for Muslims; and the residuary powers to be vested in the provinces and not at the centre. Jinnah wanted a federal system with a weak centre” (33). The breach had occurred. It was a major turning point between Muslims and Hindu national aspirations and the foundation of a major political breach had been laid. This effectively sealed the prospects of a meaningful and sustainable compromise between the two communities so vital for a future united India. It was, as Jinnah had put it, ‘a parting of ways’ from ‘Motilal Nehru and his lot’ (34). For a while, Jinnah stood alone rejected by both Congress and Muslims and proceeded to London and lived there in isolation. He observed in London, as per his friend, Durga Das, “The Congress will not come to terms with me because my following is small. The Muslims don’t accept my views for they take orders from the Deputy Commissioners” (35).

Undoubtedly, other factors also played their role in this breach. In a political triangle of contest between the British imperial interest on one hand and Hindu and Muslim nationalist interests on the other, the third party, the British, could not have been expected to sit quietly, twiddling their thumbs. Clearly, the British imperialist interests were at play in maneuvers and exploiting the conflict between Hindus and Muslims by making them forward empty promises of promoting communal harmony and raise platitudes but preventing them from laying the foundation of a real and meaningful consensus built on concrete constitutional safeguards for mutual confidence. Maintaining elements of political breach and distrust between two major communities was to enable imperialist rulers continuing their hold over a prized trophy of Indian Empire (36). When British government had sent Sir John Simon’s Commission in February 1928 to evaluate and recommend constitutional reforms in India, Congress had opposed it on the grounds of its all white members and no Indian representation in it. Muslim League was divided and a group in Punjab headed by Sir Mohammad Shafi and Dr Muhammad Iqbal had separated a faction of the League deciding to welcome the Simon Commission. However, despite his differences with Congress leaders on method and strategy, Jinnah had strongly opposed the Commission. Simon’s boycott in Bombay led by Jinnah was so effective that even Gandhi had congratulated him on this singular performance (37). But, cleverly playing a double game of feigning to side with Muslims and frightening Hindus to take an uncompromisingly hostile position and thereby securing a breach between the two, Secretary of State Lord Birkenhead had urged the Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin, to undermine the position of M.A. Jinnah. He wrote, “I should advise Simon to see at all stages important people who are not boycotting the Commission, particularly Moslems and the depressed classes. I should widely advertise all his interviews with representative Moslems.” He then announced, as baldly as it had ever been put into writing by a British official, the ‘whole policy’ of divide et impera, advising that Simon’s ‘obvious’ goal was “to terrify the immense Hindu population by the apprehension that the Commission is being got hold of by the Moslems and may present a report altogether destructive of the Hindu position, thereby securing a solid Moslem support, and leaving Jinnah high and dry” (38). The stratagem seems to have worked well. But, at the end of the day, the blame of failing to reach an amicable agreement squarely lies at the doors of Hindu and Muslim leaders themselves for not displaying sufficient far-sighted vision to develop a compromise among themselves based on mutual respect, and for allowing a third party to successfully manipulate their intrinsic differences.

Unlike Europe and Americas, the Global Depression and economic downturn of 1930s did not cause universal stagnation in India nor did it affect all spheres of Indian economy uniformly. While export-oriented industries had suffered considerably and their output declined, some other industries that were more oriented towards domestic market were not greatly affected. In fact, the aggregate industrial output of India during 1930s grew at a faster rate than the average growth of rest of the world. The industries that the economic slump had hit hard were jute and cotton manufacturing, mainly based in Calcutta and Bombay respectively in which budding Muslim capitalists also had built their interests. The combined value of these industries fell from 51.2% to 37% of the total industrial output. To remain competitive, the Indian textile manufacturers tried to cut wages and production costs resulting in labour unrest. Although, initially, the big Indian bourgeoisie including Muslim capitalists were highly cosmopolitan and generally free from communal prejudices but as the competition grew more intense the polarization of bourgeoisie along social and communal dividing lines also became apparent. On the other hand, the demand for some new import-substitution industries like sugar, paper, cement, wool, iron, steel, and safety matches increased significantly. This gave rise to a new breed of Hindu Marwari and Gujarati capitalist ‘marketeers’ who had a mindset different from the cosmopolitan outlook of the old breed of industrialists. These new rising Hindu businessmen tended to organize themselves along communal and caste lines for much needed intra-caste credit facilities or credit from special communal funds, exchange of business intelligence or a joint united effort against competition. Muslim trading castes— Memons, Khojas and Bohras— had only limited access to this type of ‘communal’ credit facilities compared to their Hindu counterparts. As Levin observed, “the division of the Hindu bourgeoisie into isolated caste and religious-communal groups has already and in itself created favorable conditions for capitalist competition to take the form of inter-caste competition and religious-communal conflicts” (39). The Second World War brought immense profits and influence to large sections of Indian capitalists by expanding war business, reduced foreign competition for domestic industry as a result of cessation of imports from Germany and Japan, lucrative war supply contracts of food and materials for a greatly enlarged British army (the British army personnel increased to 160,000 and the number of Indian soldiers expanded to over two million), and ‘marketeers’ widespread speculation in food grains and commodities had provided opportunities for making extra-ordinary profits. But the war also created an economic dislocation. The additional and increasing requirement of food and other supplies for the army in expanding war fronts in East Asia resulted in shortage of essential food commodities. Millions died of famine and starvation in Bengal. Wheat requisition by the government and hoarding of its stock by the profiteers caused these commodities to disappear from the market. Not only Bengal but for the first time the farmers of otherwise relatively prosperous Canal Zone in Punjab were also hit hard. The Muslim capitalists felt the impact of intense competition from the Hindu capitalists more than ever. They were reaching to a point of no return and this led the Muslims to rethink and reset their political identity in the independence movement.

It was at this stage when slowly the idea of Pakistan evolved from an earlier position of fighting for autonomous Muslim-majority provinces within a united Indian Union to ‘independent and sovereign’ Muslim-majority ‘states’ as a last resort. Indications are that initially Jinnah had taken the posture for ‘independent sovereign’ states more as a negotiation ploy for obtaining greater and meaningful ‘autonomy’ for Muslim minority than as a primary objective of his political struggle (Ayesha Jalal). By now, Muslims were in majority in Bengal, Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, and Balochistan. With gradual introduction of political reforms in British India electoral system of public representation was introduced for local, provincial and central government legislatures for limited governing functions. In Bengal, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and NWFP, Muslim landed aristocracy together with a few representatives from their co-religionist urban middle classes had been able to share elected government positions in their respective provinces with Hindus but most of the economic power, trade & industry, urban property, bureaucratic positions, and influential professions, other than those held by Europeans, were still pre-dominantly occupied by Hindu merchant castes and Hindu middle classes. In Bengal, even much of the landed estate was owned by Hindu landlords. Therefore, despite their common heritage of language, culture, and customs the Muslims political struggle against Hindus was essentially for getting economic independence and governance largely in their own hands.

On the other hand, there also was developing a strong case of reasoning among some Hindu leaders that it was, perhaps, better for big Hindu bourgeoisie and upper castes’ political and economic interests that a major part of Muslims in the borderlands are separated from India rather than trying to keep them in. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, himself a converted Buddhist from Hindu Scheduled caste origin, had argued that a Hindu India would rather gain, instead of losing anything, in terms of net revenue income, and at the same time getting rid of a potentially dangerous and disproportionately large Punjabi Muslim army and a permanently hazardous counter balancing Muslim voting power in a united India. He said, ‘it is better that they should be without and against rather than within and against… That is the only way of getting rid of the Muslim preponderance in the Indian army’. He further argued that, ‘but in the N.W.F.P. and Sind, owing to the scattered state of the Hindu population, alteration of boundaries cannot suffice for creating a homogenous State. There is only one remedy and that is to shift the population…That the transfer of minorities is the only lasting remedy for communal peace is beyond doubt.’ Eventually, this idea prevailed among real power brokers in Indian National Congress and the fate of a united India was sealed.

In the beginning, Muslim League had a narrow and limited support base confined to the Muslim elite in the urban centres of Muslim minority provinces of India. Out of 144 resolutions passed by Muslim League during 1924-26, only 7 had barely touched upon social and economic problems of common Muslim men. Its Council decisions were taken by an extreme minority quorum of 10 out of 310. Muslim League was conspicuous by its absence in the Muslim majority provinces of Punjab, NWFP, Sindh, and Balochistan. In 1927, Muslim League’s total membership was said to be 1,330. Its 1930 session at Allahabad where Dr. Muhammad Iqbal delivered his famous presidential address wherein he suggested the vision of a Muslim state in the North-West comprising of Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, and NWFP had barely managed to get the quorum of 75 members. Muslim League didn’t do well in 1937 elections, particularly in the Muslim majority provinces. It had secured 43 out of 272 Muslim seats, obtaining only 4.8 per cent Muslim votes. Muslim League won 37 out of 117 seats allotted to Muslims in Bengal and that was the best performance; it won only 3 seats out of 33 in Sindh. It chose to contest only 7 seats out of 84 Muslim seats in Punjab but barely managed to win 2. Punjab’s Unionist Party emerged again as the major party in the province. By now, Muslim League had only built an appeal for the upstart Muslim bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie of mainly Muslim minority areas. But despite its growing support among Muslim urban intelligentsia and artisans, in terms of modern electoral politics it had serious numerical limitation in Muslim minority provinces. With the idea of Pakistan gradually crystalising into some concrete shape, it was getting clearer that the Muslim League would eventually lose its territorial base in the Muslim minority areas to India. Its attention was turned to Punjab.

Notes

30. In reply to a letter from Gandhi seeking his return, asking him to take ‘his share in the new life that has opened up before the country, and benefit thye country by your experience and guidance’, Jinnah wrote back in the autumn of 1920, ‘if by “new life” you mean your methods and your programme, I am afraid I cannot accept them; for I am fully convinced that it must lead to disaster… that your methods have already caused split and division in almost every institution that you have approached hitherto, and in the public life of the country not only amongst Hindus and Muslims but between Hindus and Hindus and Muslims and Muslims and even between fathers and sons; people generally are desperate all over the country and your extreme programme has for the moment struck the imagination of mostly of the inexperienced youth and the ignorant and the illiterate. All this means complete disorganisation and chaos. What the consequences of this may, I shudder to contemplate; … I do not wish my countrymen to be dragged to the brink of a precipice in order to be shattered.’ M.H. Saiyid, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, S.M. Ashraf & Co., Lahore, 1945, p.264-265 as quoted by Stanley Wolpert in Jinnah of Pakistan, Oxford University Press, New York, 1984, p. 70.
31. Stanley Wolpert, p. 72.
32. Stanley Wolpert, p. 87.
33. D.N. Panigrahi, India’s Partition-The story of imperialism in retreat, Routledge, New York, 2004, p. 23.
34. Durga Das, India from Curzon to Nehru and After (London:1969), p. 154 as quoted by D.N. Panigrahi p. 24.
35. Durga Das, India from Curzon, p. 154 as quoted by D.N. Panigrahi, p. 35.
36. Outgoing Viceroy of India, Lord Reading, offered Jinnah the honour of knighthood but Jinnah firmly declined the offer writing back in Dec 1925, ‘I prefer to be plain Mr. Jinnah. I have lived as plain Mr. Jinnah and I hope to die as plain Mr. Jinnah.’ Fazal Haque Qureshi in Every Day with Quaid-i-Azam (Karachi: Sultan Ashraf Qureshi, 1976), p. 394 as quoted by Stanley Wolpert, p. 87.
37. Gandhi wrote to ‘tender my congratulations to the organisers for the very great success they achieved…it did my soul good to see Liberals, Independents and Congressmen ranged together on the same platform.’ M.K. Gandhi, Young India, February 2, 1928, as quoted by Stanley Wolpert, p. 92.
38. Second Earl of Birkenhead, F.E. The Life of F.E. Smith, First Earl of Birkenhead (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1960), p. 516 as quoted by Stanley Wolpert, p. 93.
39. Quoted in Syed Nesar Ahmed, Origins of Muslim Conciousness in India: A World-System Perspective, Greenwood Press, Connecticut, 1991, p. 230.

Chapter 4… To be Continued

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A History of the Left in Pakistan – 16

By Ahmed Kamran

Chapter Four: The Road to Pakistan – (Continued)

Kirti Communists in Punjab

After the periods of significant unrests of Ghadar Party (1914-1916), Jallianwala Bagh (1919) and Babbar Akali Jatthas (1920-1925) in Punjab, a monthly Kirti (Worker) journal was published by Santok Singh from Amritsar in February 1926. Santok Singh and Rattan Singh of Ghadar Party had been to Soviet Union for training and had attended the fourth congress of the Comintern in 1922 (16). The first Kirti conference was held in Hoshiarpur on 6-7 October, 1927. Sohan Singh Josh presided over the meeting that demanded freedom of India, eight-hour work day for factory workers, and expressed its support for the Chinese freedom struggle and Russian revolution. The second conference under Tara Singh was held on 17 October, 1927 in Lyallpur. In early 1928, Sohan Singh Josh and Bhag Singh Canadian called for a larger conference at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in April 1928. Over 60 workers attended the conference. Among those who attended Mir Abdul Majid and Firozuddin Mansoor were among the first trainees of the Communist University in Moscow during 1921. Kirti Kisan Party was formed with Sohan Singh Josh elected as secretary and M.A. Majid as joint secretary. It’s headquarter was at Amritsar. The second conference of the Kirti Kisan Party held on 28-30 September, 1928 at Lyallpur. The Communist leaders from other parts of India, including S.A. Dange, Philip Spratt, and Ben Bradley also attended this conference. Kirti Kisan Party held many peasant conferences in various towns, including, Rohtak, Sargodha, Hoshiarpur, and Lahore. Party’s leadership including, Sohan Singh Josh, Kedar Nath Sehgal, and M.A. Majid were arrested in March 1929 in Meerut Conspiracy case.

The aftereffects of the world economic recession in 1929 marked the beginning of a new unrest in Punjab, mainly emanating from its rural areas. Former soldiers of the British Indian Army, now facing extreme hardship due to economic depression and rising cost of living joined peasant movements. Ex-soldier Risaldar Anup Singh marched to Lahore with a band of about 1,000 ex-soldiers demanding for the lands promised to them by the army officials at the time of recruitment but denied after de-mobilization. For British administration, Anup Singh’s Morcha was a dangerous turn in the rural unrest in Punjab. Nehru attended the Naujawan Bharat Sabha’s (NJBS) conference in August. Despite the policy leads given by the Comintern for breaking off relations with the Indian Congress, the demarcation line between CPI and the Congress in Punjab was still unclear. The conflict between the new ‘party line’ apologetically pushed down from the top and the ground realities caused confusion and the agitation was gaining momentum. Although, an anti-Congress tone was noticeable at the Kirti Kisan Conference held in Lahore in December 1929 but the speakers in the Kirti Kisan Political Conference in Hissar on 21-22 February, 1930 openly supported the Congress’ Civil Disobedience movement. The Congress had decided in December 1929 at Lahore to launch civil disobedience movement and declared 26 January, 1930 as the date for the complete independence of India. At this time, a circular letter dated 14 January 1930 issued by the Chief Secretary of Punjab addressed to the Commissioners and the Police administration in Punjab said, “The Congress has not only declared itself the enemy of the Government as at present established, and of the British connection, but also of all stable interests in the country… Under the guidance of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru the new Congress creed is derived from Moscow…[he] directly attacked the important interests on which the stability of the country depends… the landed proprietors, and it is clear that the independent India which the Congress has in view will not contain this class. The land is either to be nationalized or divided among the peasants” (17). But, with the signing of Gandhi-Irwin Pact in March 1930, however, the Indian Congress leadership abruptly called off the Civil Disobedience movement.

As Mirdula Mukherjee observed, “the Kirti Kisan Party was able to achieve a significant enhancement of its influence among peasants in some of the central districts of Punjab and had been able to contribute to the process of their organization and politicization” (18). While Congress was more effective in the districts of Rohtak, Karnal and Hissar (present day Haryana in India), the Kirti Kisan Party was stronger in the central districts of Amritsar, Lahore, Sheikhupura, and Lyallpur, most of which are in Pakistan today. Now, the trend of convergence between radical small peasant organizations and moderate middle-peasant organizations was also emerging. The Zamindar League of Sir Chhotu Ram of Rohtak agreed for holding joint session of and uniting the Punjab Zamindar League with the Punjab Zamindar Sabha (or Kisan Sabha) at Raiwind on 4 April 1931. The session was reportedly attended by large number of peasants; some estimates are as high as close to 10,000. The Zamindar League of Sheikhupura held its annual meeting in May and changed its name to Kisan Sabha. A Ghadarite Kirti leader Teja Singh Swatantar was elected as the president. By November, the Punjab Kirti Kisan Sabha had grown so influential and confident that it called for affiliation of all Kisan Sabhas, Mazdoor Sabhas and Kirti Kisan parties in Punjab, Delhi and NWFP with the Kirti Kisan Sabha (19). The party also held a conference in Karachi in 1931, and at Nankana Sahib in 1932 in which reportedly over 2,000 delegates attended. The party celebrated May Day in 1933 at Amritsar and Lahore. Around this time the Ghadar Party in U.S.A had given its second call for return to India (see Chapter-3).

Based on their assessment of the failure of first Ghadar Party rebellion in 1914-1915 due to lack of ideology and proper political and military training, the Ghadar Party’s new president Giyani Singh and his colleague Rattan Singh had travelled extensively in early 1920s in the U.S.A and South America motivating party sympathizers to get formal military and political training for joining the struggle for independence (20). Several batches of Ghadar Party volunteers travelled to Soviet Union. They were enrolled in a typical two-year course of ideological, political and military training at the Communist University in Moscow during 1926-1935. Many trainees recruited in USA, Canada, and South America were sent to Moscow. Teja Singh Swatantar was also one of them. In all, about 76 volunteers received training in Moscow. Interestingly, in this effort an element of ideological puritanism was also at work. For example, one of the recruit, Hazara Singh Hamdam, was rejected by the Moscow University and sent back home owing to his family having too much land (30 acres) in Punjab. He was categorized as a ‘Kulak’ (rich peasant) and, therefore, unfit for becoming a ‘communist revolutionary’ (21).

After receiving their political training in Moscow, these workers started arriving in India. According to an official file note in November 1933 as quoted by Mirdula Mukherjee, the Director of Intelligence Bureau said, “if it was not for this batch of ‘Soviet agents’ that had just arrived last month, he would be in favour of releasing the six state prisoners—Ghulam Muhammad, Fazal Elahi, Abdul Waris, Harjap Singh, Ehsan Elahi, Karam Singh—arrested in 1930… But he did not want them to establish contact with these Soviet agents therefore he was in favour of postponing their release” (22). Almost all of the Moscow trained Ghadar Party volunteers joined and worked as the mainstay of Kirti Kisan Party. They were commonly known as ‘Kirti Communists’.

In late June 1933, Karam Singh Mann, a barrister who had returned from London called a meeting of left workers at Lahore for revival and reorganization of CPI in Punjab, which was almost disintegrated after the massive arrests in Meerut Conspiracy case. Mann, together with Sajjad Zaheer, was a member of the ‘London Group’ of bright, young Indian students who had converted to communist ideology under the influence of CPGB luminaries like Rajini Palme Dutt and Shahpur Saklatwala in London. Meanwhile, Sohan Singh Josh and M.A. Majid were also released in November 1933 after completing their jail terms. By April 1934, most of the ‘left’ workers were re-organized in Punjab in a new communist group that worked in the front organization of the Anti-Imperialist League. This Punjab group was later integrated into CPI at the time of its revival under P.C. Joshi. Fazal Elahi Qurban and Abdul Waris were also released in March 1934 and joined the CPI group.

CPI was declared illegal in July 1934 and the Kirti Kisan Party was also banned in September 1934. Its journal Kirti ceased publication. It, however, reappeared as weekly Kirti Lehar from Meerut in 1935. It continued publication until 1939. Communists working in Kirti Kisan Sabhas and CPI had formed Qarza (Debt) Committees for cancellation of the mounting rural debts burdening the peasants. Meanwhile, Punjab politics had undergone a significant shift. The Communal Award of 1932 and the Government of India Act of 1935 had far reaching impact on Punjab politics. The electoral balance between towns and countryside was recast, further reducing urban seats from one-fourth to about one-seventh of the rural constituencies; the towns now had only nineteen seats compared to 130 rural seats. This severe curtailment of towns’ sphere of influence greatly weakened and almost destroyed the Congress in Punjab, which was already divided in two factions after the death of Lala Lajpat Rai. Its identity was starkly reduced to representing Hindu trading and moneylender interests in the province, which in turn changed its relationship with the radical left. The Muslims in India had generally been disappointed and were drifting away from the Congress. To save it from near extinction, the Punjab Congress had to re-brand itself to appeal to the larger rural electorate and to forge alliances with radical socialists and communists in the Punjab. A radicalized Indian National Congress under Jawaharlal Nehru initiated its expansion drive to reach out to the Punjabi peasants. By 1936, the Comintern and CPI had changed their line in favour of the ‘united front’ with Indian Congress and the Congress Socialist Party. As the CPI got better organized after its revival by P.C. Joshi, its organization in Punjab became more visible and distinct in and out of Kirti Kisan Party. The CPI group was led by Sohan Singh Josh, and Karam Singh Mann. CPI Punjab was bringing out a magazine Communist in Urdu and Gurmukhi and the Kirti group brought out Lal Jhanda (Red Flag). The Kirtis in general had a strong streak of Ghadar party tradition among themselves. Their primary motive for political activity was anti-British anger.

The communists were now freely working in both the organizations. Seven communists were nominated by the Congress for the elections due in January 1937. These included, Sohan Singh Josh, Teja Singh Swatantar, Kabul Singh, Harjap Singh, Bibi Raguhbir Kaur, Mange Ram and Baba Rur Singh. Karam Singh Mann was active in Mian Iftikharuddin’s election campaign. From the Congress’ High Command, Jawaharlal Nehru frequently visited Punjab and addressed meetings during 1937 election campaign. One of the British police report says, “There is a great activity among Socialists and communists in this district in preparation for a conference which Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is expected to attend. … Much of the speaking is actionable and all of it is objectionable and dangerous when delivered to illiterate audience. It is a crude blend of socialism, communism and hardly veiled sedition, and full vintage is being taken of any local grievance, real or imaginary, to stir up discontent’ (23). CPI leader Sohan Singh Josh wrote in his memoirs on his being elected in 1937, “Before the election I was just a district leader. But after I was elected to the Punjab Legislative Assembly…I overnight became one of the leaders of entire Punjab. I was welcomed and honoured everywhere—a Communist getting elected to the Assembly was a big and new thing then in the eyes of the Punjabi people” (24). The 1936-1937 election campaign contributed significantly to the process of politicization of peasants. The election campaign was galvanized on the issue of anti-British or pro-British political stance of candidates. In this backdrop, province-wise Kisan movements were organized. An All-India Kisan Sabha was already established at Lucknow in April 1936 with Sohan Singh Josh and Munshi Ahmed Din as delegates from Punjab. The Punjab was represented on All-India Kisan Committee by Karam Singh Mann, Sohan Singh Josh, Munshi Ahmad Din, and others.

A Punjab Kisan Committee was formed on 7 March 1937 in Lahore with Baba Jwala Singh as its president. Its first conference held in October 1937 in Lyallpur was presided over by Sajjad Zaheer. The Punjab Kisan Committee played a leading role in 1938 peasant agitation across Punjab. About 25,000 peasants & agri-tenants went on strike refusing to pick cotton and sow wheat in Multan and Montgomery districts. Similar strikes and agitations were carried out in other parts of Khanewal, Multan, Lyallpur, and Lahore. The agitation of Lahore Kisan Committee turned into an All-Punjab Morcha (battle-front) with jatthas (bands) marching on foot to Lahore from Amritsar, Jalandhar, Gurdaspur, Lyallpur, Firozpur, Hoshiarpur, and Ambala. Close to six thousand peasants were arrested and jailed during this movement (25). The Lahore Morcha lasted for about five months till September 1939, when the Second World War broke out.

Initially, both CPI and the Indian National Congress strongly opposed the involvement of India into an imperialist war in Europe. In 1939, Sohan Singh Josh of CPI was the general secretary of Punjab Congress and in 1940 Mian Iftikharuddin who was very close to CPI became the president of Punjab Congress. In June 1940, many workers of Kirti Kisan Party, CPI and Indian Congress were arrested. With a view to isolate these radical political leaders from other workers and prisoners, the government decided to put them all in an isolated camp at Deoli in Rajasthan. These prisoners included most of the senior CPI and Kirti Kisan party leaders. The Communists in CPI had been working together with Kirti Communists in Kirti Kisan Party (KKP) and the Congress, but there has been an undercurrent of mistrust between communists of CPI group and the Kirti Communists of Ghadar Party background. The CPI leadership always had a feeling of disquiet about the Kirti Communists because of their frequent display of independent anarchist tendencies. They viewed Kirtis’ commitment to communist ideology as being driven more by Ghadarite anti-colonial hatred rather than a scientific understanding of Marxist theory. Deoli Camp confinement provided an opportunity to the senior CPI leaders and Kirti Communists to come closer to each other. After some initial discussions, a ‘unity committee’ was formed; Bhagat Singh Bilga, Gurmukh Singh Lalton, and Achhar Singh Chinna represented Kirti Communists whereas Karam Singh Mann, Sohan Singh Josh, and Abdul Aziz represented the CPI. Prominent Kirti leader Teja Singh Swatantar also made an appeal from Campbellpur Jail for forging organizational unity in the party. Kirti Party decided on 16 Jul 1941 to fully merge with CPI and the merger formally took effect on 28 May 1942 when CPI Punjab held its reorganization conference after its leaders were released from Jail including, Teja Singh, Bhagat Singh Bilga, Achhar Singh Chinna, Iqbal Singh Handal from Campbellpur, Sohan Singh Josh, Firozuddin Mansoor, Fazal Elahi Qurban, and Karam Singh Mann from Gujrat (26). The new Punjab Committee had Sohan Singh Josh as the Secretary; Iqbal Singh Handal was elected central committee member. The Kirtis, much to their distaste also grudgingly accepted (at least, for a while) CPI’s new ‘Peoples War’ line supporting the British government in its war efforts. And so did the All-India Kisan Sabha and the Punjab Kisan Committee (27).

To their credit, and perhaps due to somewhat different social norms in Punjab, Kirti Kisan and Communist activists succeeded in mobilizing a sizable number of Punjabi women in radical politics (28). These women underwent rigors of a radical communist movement in a colonial state, including incarceration in jails but remaining lifelong activists, rising to prominence in left politics of India. Sushila Kumari Chain, Dhan Kaur and Usha organized study circles and brought several women into radical politics. Kirti Kisan Party circulars of 1941 and 1942 indicate party’s efforts to encourage active participation of women in the Kisan Committees and Mazdoor Sabhas. In a provincial conference held in Lahore in February 1942, 100 women delegates attended. In this meeting,

Progressive Women’s Conference was formed. Bibi Raghubir Kaur was elected as the president and Sitadevi (of Congress) and Baji Rashida Begum (of Muslim League) as vice presidents, and Sushila Kumari was the general secretary. By March 1942, the membership of the organization was said to have risen to 2000 (29).

Notes

16. After his return to India in 1923, Santok Singh spent two years of confinement orders within his village. After his release, Santok Singh had started Kirti but he soon died in May 1927.
17. Mirdula Mukherjee, Peasants in India’s Non-Violent Revolution: Practice and Theory, SAGE Publications India, New Delhi, 2004, p. 90.
18. Mirdula Mukherji, p. 105.
19. Mirdula Mukherji, p. 104.
20. ‘Some Aspects of the Communist Movement in Colonial Punjab: Testimony of the Participants’ by Surinder Singh of Punjab University, Chandigarh.
21. ‘Colonial Dominance and Indigenous Response’ by Hari Vasudevan and Anjan Sarkar in Aspects of India’s International Relations, 1700-2000: South Asia and the World, Ed. Jayantha Kumar Ray, Centre for Studies in Civilization, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 39-40.
22. Surinder Singh, p. 116.
23. Home Political File 18/6/36, Fortnightly Repor,t June 1936, NAI quoted in Shalini Sharma, p. 71.
24. Shalini Sharma, p. 82.
25. Quoted in Mirdula Mukherjee, p. 89.
26. Ajmer Sidhu, From Ghadar to Naxalbari: Baba Bhuja Singh, An Untold Story, Chandigarh, 2013, p. 68.
27. Mirdula Mukherjee, p. 208.
28. Raghubir Kaur, Ghulam Fatima, Sushila Kumari, and Shakuntla Sharda were few prominent names. Sushila was the sister of Amolak Ram and later she became wife of Chain Singh whereas Shakuntla was the sister of Shiv Kumar Sharda and later married Kunj Bihari Lal. All of them were Kirti activists. Sushila also became a formal communist party member.
29. Surinder Singh, op cited.

Chapter 4… To be Continued

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A History of the Left in Pakistan – 15

By Ahmed Kamran

Chapter Four: The Road to Pakistan

The areas now forming today’s Pakistan i.e. the western wing of the country at the time of its establishment in 1947 had a long and chequered history. For a long time, this region remained the centre stage and cradle of the ancient Indian society. It’s the home of the most ancient known civilization in the world. Well until Shahjahan’s reign of Mughal dynasty, this northwestern region of India remained one of the most important theaters of military expeditions and station for Maharajas, kings and emperors continued royal presence for long periods. Despite Delhi being the nominal capital of the empire, most of Mughal emperors spent more time in Lahore or on other military expeditions than in Delhi itself. Western Punjab always occupied an important strategic position as the only gateway of foreign invasion into fertile Indian plains. During its twilight days when Mughal Empire was undergoing rapid decay after Aurangzeb, successive ineffective rulers in Delhi lost their capacity to hold this region firmly in their grip and the western regions slowly turned into a periphery of shrinking Mughal Empire. For an understanding of the evolution of the communist and larger left movement in Pakistan and to correctly asses its role in the country’s politics it is important to understand the political backdrop of Pakistani politics and the cross currents in its society together with its class composition and conflicts of key interest groups shortly before and after founding of Pakistan. Briefly revisiting and reviewing the historical context of the political issues and class positions in different areas forming Pakistan will the help reader to correctly position the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) and its policy responses and actions in practice in the given wider political spectrum that had evolved in recent past. In the process, it is important to have a brief look at the classes formation and their alignments and political developments leading to the formation of Pakistan. The regions comprising Pakistan didn’t have uniform economic and social evolution. Each area had a different path for its political development.

Changing Dynamics during British Rule

Marx’s incisive articles on Indian society, written in a series for the New York Daily Tribune in 1853, are one of the most seminal, albeit lesser known, of all his writings. There are numerous references to India in his most celebrated work Capital and several more are found in his copious and equally brilliant correspondence with Frederic Engels. “Those small and extremely ancient Indian communities,” Marx observed in Capital, “some of which have continued down to this day, are based on possession in common of the land, on the blending of agriculture and handicrafts, and on an unalterable division of labour, which serves, whenever a new community is started, as a plan and scheme ready cut and dried…Hence, production here is independent of that division of labour brought about, in Indian society as a whole, by means of the exchange of commodities. It is the surplus alone that becomes a commodity, and a portion of even that, not until it has reached the hands of the State, into whose hands from time immemorial a certain quantity of these products has found its way in the shape of rent in kind” (1). Engels wrote to Marx on 6 June 1853, “…the absence of property in land is indeed key to the whole of the East. Herein lies its political and religious history” (2). Describing the self-sufficient and self-contained social structure of Indian village, Marx remarked, “The simplicity of the organization for production in these self-sufficing communities that constantly reproduce themselves in the same form, and when accidentally destroyed, spring up again on the spot and with the same name—this simplicity supplies the key to the secret of the unchangeableness of Asiatic societies, an unchangeableness in such striking contrast with the constant dissolution and refounding of Asiatic States, and the never-ceasing changes of dynasty. The structure of the economic elements of society remains unchanged by the storm-clouds of the political sky” (3). Marx’s references to the ‘Asiatic Society’ here were mostly related to the Indian society.

In ‘The Future Results of the British Rule in India’, the concluding part of his series of articles on India, published in New York Daily Tribune on 8 August 1853, Marx remarked, “the village isolation produced the absence of roads in India, and the absence of roads perpetuated the village isolation. On this plan a community existed with a given scale of low conveniences, almost without intercourse with other villages, without the desires and efforts indispensable to social advance.” He also observed, “it is notorious that the productive powers of India are paralyzed by the utter want of means for conveying and exchanging its various produce. Nowhere, more than in India, do we meet with social destitution in the midst of natural plenty, for want of the means of exchange… when grain was selling from 6s. to 8s. a quarter in Khandesh (4), it was sold at 64s. to 70s. at Poona, where the people were dying in the streets of famine, without the possibility of gaining supplies from Khandesh, because the clay roads were impracticable” (5).

The unchangeable nature of this almost frozen in time rural village life of India was not going to remain intact forever. The British colonial rule was about to change it in a big way. Marx said, “The British having broken up this self-sufficient inertia of the villages, railways will provide the new want of communication and intercourse.” He further observed, “The [political] unity [of India], imposed by the British sword, will now be strengthened and perpetuated by the electric telegraph.” Finally, with an amazing foresight Marx concluded, “The ruling classes of Great Britain have had, till now, but an accidental, transitory and exceptional interest in the progress of India… But now tables are turned. The millocracy have discovered that the transformation of India into a reproductive country has become of vital importance to them, and that, to that end, it is necessary, above all, to gift her with means of irrigation and of internal communication. They intend now drawing a net of railways over India. And they will do it. The results must be inappreciable” (6). The resulting effects on Indian society, particularly on those areas where massive irrigation projects were undertaken and railway lines were laid to connect the rural hinterlands with market and port cities were indeed what we call today a ‘sea change’. Thus, India got the distinction of being the first country in Asia to have railways and unprecedented canal irrigation system.

Punjab – Massive Social Engineering

Ranjeet Singh’s Kingdom of Punjab was one of the last areas of India to fall under British control in 1849. At that time, Punjab included vast territories of present day Punjab and KPK (former NWFP) provinces up to Jamrud in Pakistan as well as the present day Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and parts of Uttarkhand. Today’s KPK of Pakistan was detached from Punjab as a new North West Frontier Province (NWFP) only in 1901. The province of Punjab was essentially rural. Of 24.4 million of its population in 1901, close to 90% people lived in rural areas in, as Marx had put it, ‘unchanging self-sufficient’ village communities.

The British Punjab could be roughly divided for ease of reference into three regions: Eastern Punjab, from Kangra hills to Ambala, with Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, and Ludhiana as its big towns, was the most prosperous but densely populated part. With 55 percent Muslims, 32 per cent Hindus and 13 per cent Sikhs, it mostly had small landholdings. In terms of traditional social structures of India, the population was predominantly Rajput and Jat communities closely knit around their sub-castes and kins, cutting across all three major religions. Apart from Rajputs and Jats, Muslims also had Syeds, Sheiks, and Aarains. The central Punjab with Lahore and Amritsar as its major towns had dominant Hindu moneylenders and traders. Amritsar also had significant share of Muslim trading community. Although, Amritsar was the centre of Sikh religion and culture but they had only 15 per cent share of its population in the district. The western Punjab stretched from NWFP borders in north-west along river Indus and Balochistan in the west to the Cholistan desert region in the east to the border of Rajasthan. It had vast tracts of infertile and dry lands and, for a change, it mostly had large landholdings. Muslims had 80 per cent share of its population but its towns had large numbers of Hindu moneylenders and trading community. Soon after Punjab’s annexation in 1849, the British administrators astutely sensed the special strategic importance of Punjab for the British Empire in India. For them, Punjab acquired special position because of following primary reasons: (i) Due to its vast swathes of fertile lands and natural river system its enormous potential to meet the Empire’s growing need for agricultural produce, (ii) as a bulwark against the threat of Russian Czar’s expanding empire in the Central Asia, and (iii) as a source of recruiting and maintaining a ‘less expensive’ sturdy and loyal army to take care of Empire’s military needs on Indian borders and other colonial possessions in Asia and Africa, without the need of putting the lives of a large number of youth recruited from England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland at stake. The last dimension of their peculiar view of Punjab, the British political and military administration had quickly learnt to their delight during successful recruitment of soldiers for putting out mutiny erupting in the northern India in 1857.

To exploit the unique agricultural and economic potential of the Punjab’s virgin plains, the British carried out an unparalleled massive physical and social engineering feat. The waters of the Himalayan system of five rivers flowing through Punjab were harnessed in an ambitious irrigation development comprising a massive network of canals and canal-colonies. The first modern canal was built in Multan to bring water and cultivation to infertile dry lands in 1859 only ten years after Punjab’s occupation and immediately after the mutiny of 1857 was subdued. Subsequently, more canals were built in the central Punjab clearing the woods. The Upper Jhelum canal alone brought over 350,000 acres of infertile land under cultivation. The Lower Chenab canals brought 2.5 million acres of unproductive land to cultivation. In all, it transformed about six million acres of uncultivated barren lands into one of the richest agricultural regions in Asia. It was a stupendous attempt to create from scratch a whole new world of neatly cut Murraba’s (squares) of land in canal colonies with a newly crafted legal and administrative system by bringing in thousands of enterprising sturdy farmers from central and eastern Punjab and implanting them in the newly fashioned colonies with land-lease grants. The new market towns were laid out with engineering precision. Though, immensely crowded and dirty today the eight straight-lane bazaars radiating out from a central clock tower in the image of a Union Jack in Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) is a testimony to this social engineering experiment in Punjab over a century ago. It was the first of its kind of social revolution in the history of rural India. The project was completed after 40 years of labour, fundamentally changing the demography and topography of the central and parts of western Punjab. The massive migration of enterprising sturdy farmers, technical workers, and labour to take part in the engineering endeavor and cultivate newly developed lands dramatically increased population of new cleared lands. The population of Montgomery (now Sahiwal) and Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) rose from 416,669 and 60,306 respectively in 1891 to 1,814,000 and 2,157,000 in 1951. As it is commonly observed, however, the patterns of cultural and social relations die hard and the peasant farmers in the new canal colonies in Punjab tried to recreate their social relationships in the image of old village communities but the underlying land-ownership pattern had been fundamentally altered. In the plains of Punjab there emerged a new class of peasants and enterprising farmers freed from ancient and traditional ‘relations of production’. The contrast was particularly visible in comparison with the land-ownership patterns still well-entrenched in some north- and south-western parts of the west Punjab where the canal network was not built due to mountainous terrain rising from the Punjab plains towards north-west and Afghanistan.

The British over-enthusiasm for precision in crafting everything of these colonies afresh in their own image was, perhaps, reflected most in the drafting of Land Colonization Bill of 1906. In drafting this bill, the English mind sought to regulate every aspect of community and lay down procedures of reward and punishment for every colonization activity in European fashion; the eligibility criteria for lease grant and development of government lands in the colonies, including compliance of defined parameters for living, maintenance, sanitation, and cancellation of land leases in the event of failure of compliance of the lease contracts. Also, because new settlements, the government sharply increased the land revenue taxes in Rawalpindi and water user charges from Bari Doab Canal, irrigating the Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Lahore districts. Perhaps, it was too strong a prescription for essentially rural and traditions-bound peasants coming from semi-feudal social background with decidedly tribal and ‘caste’ outlook. The harsh provisions of the proposed bill sparked protests and agitations that was led by Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh who were arrested and banished in exile. The colonial administrators initially tried to suppress the opposition and agitation with characteristic colonial brute force. But with the painful sword of possible cancellation of land grants in the event of non-compliance of strict regimen of alien procedures threateningly hanging on their heads, the unrest and agitation among farmers was not going to die down easily. Eventually, the proposed bill was passed after significant amendments and removal of irritants as the Colonization of Government Lands (Punjab) Act of 1912 that replaced the Government Tenants (Punjab) Act of 1893. The new British legal system enforced in the country had two faces: its ‘public’ face enforced English Common Law and British criminal law in ‘modern commercial transactions’, while its other ‘private’ face defended and reinforced the primordial traditional and tribal laws. It is to be noted that these ‘personal laws’, however, were not rooted either in Muslim Sharia and or in Hindu religion. These were essentially the tribal and traditional community customs.

From the 1860’s onwards, agricultural prices and land values soared in Punjab. New cash crops such as wheat, tobacco, sugar cane and cotton were introduced following improved communications and new extensive canals. By 1920s, Punjab produced one tenth of India’s total cotton crop and one third of its wheat. The wheat, which had previously rotted whenever a bumper crop had occurred was now exported in vast quantities via the new railway network. Per capita output of Punjab’s crops had increased by nearly 45 percent between 1891 and 1921. The British investment in Punjab’s canal system proved highly profitable. The revenue earned by only those Punjab canals that were specifically built with profitable investment perspective (7) increased from Rs.1.46 million per annum during 1860-69 to Rs.8.0 million during 1937-1946, and by the year 1945-46 the net profit earned from canals exceeded the total capital investment by more than 200% (8). The rapid socioeconomic transformation, however, greatly disturbed the traditional class and economic structure—the old ‘relations of production’. While increased imports of British manufactured goods at the expense of Indian cottage industry cruelly destroyed its workers and craftsmen in urban towns, its interventions in the agriculture of the country, mainly in Punjab, threatened its rural order as it was accompanied by mounting indebtedness and social and political rise of the moneylenders and urban petty bourgeoisie. In a rapidly expanding economy spurred by new canal colonies, rising agricultural produce and far reaching commodity trade immensely expanded the cash economy and farmers’ propensity to pile up debt to finance consumption. Newly introduced alien and complex British legal system to foreclose debts of mortgaged land caused havoc with the traditional rural society. Land parcels began to pass into moneylenders’ hands at alarming rates, particularly in less developed and agriculturally backward areas. The malaise had pervaded into the vast rural areas of India and was threatening not only the traditional social class structure but also its unique and extremely conservative and regressive caste system. Karl Marx had foreseen the social ruin that the new economic forces were to bring to India while destroying its traditional, and, so far, mostly ‘undisturbed’ society. He had remarked, “now, sickening as it must be to human feeling to witness those myriads of industrious patriarchal and inoffensive social organizations disorganized and dissolved into their units, thrown into a sea of woes, and their individual members losing at the same time their hereditary means of subsistence, we must not forget that these idyllic village communities, inoffensive as they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism… England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindustan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution” (9).

Nevertheless, the British colonial administration in India was not an agent of a ‘social change’ with some lofty purpose. They were solely driven by their economic and administrative interests. The British administration quickly sensed the possibility of other harmful dimensions of this ‘social revolution’. The ground was slipping under the feet of traditional landowners as lands started to pass into the hands of absentee moneylenders. The unrest among this bulwark of despotism was palpable. A Revenue Department Note on Land Transfers observed in October 1885, “It is essential on the one hand that the management of the villages should be in the hands of men who possess the confidence of the villagers, and it is equally essential on the other hand that if the executive is to be obeyed and its objects rightly understood, there should be a class of men intermediate between the Government and the mass of the people who, while trusted by government, should have influence over their neighbours. In this respect moneylender can never take the place of the large ancestral landlord or the substantial yeomen who he dispossesses” (10).

Sir Denzil Ibbetson, author of the magisterial 1881 Punjab Census Report, writes in his confidential report on land transfers in 1895, “To secure the contentment of the masses is our first duty in India; in it lies our safety. As long as they are loyal to and contented with their rulers, the internal peace of the country is secure, and the professional agitator powerless. And most of all the loyalty and contentment of the sturdy yeomanry from whose ranks we draw our native soldiers, the safe foundation upon which our rule can rest secure” (11).

The Punjab Land Alienation Act of 1901 was a watershed legislation that prevented the urban commercial classes—the moneylenders and non-agricultural ‘professional’ petty bourgeoisie from permanently acquiring lands held by the ‘statutory agriculturalist’ tribes. For the purpose of this Act, even the lower castes of the villages traditionally engaged in menial support services for the villagers (the so-called Kammis, Mussalis, and the ‘Shudras’ of Indian society) were excluded from the ‘statutory agricultural’ classes exclusively entitled to own and hold agrarian land thus depriving them ever to come out of the straitjacket of the traditional caste system. Among the British districts (excluding semi-autonomous princely states), the population was roughly cut into half between agricultural castes and non-agricultural castes. Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Governor of Punjab during 1912-1919 had remarked, “As a result of the [1901] Act the Punjab landowner, the finest body of peasantry in the East, who but for it would now be largely a landless proletariat, … which have been staunchly loyal to the British Government. The best proof of this is that we were able to raise from them three hundred sixty thousand fighting men … in the four years of the Great War” (12). The organic growth of disruptive modern capitalist forces in Indian society was forcibly blocked to protect and preserve traditional land-owning relationships in both feudal and non-feudal regions and their associated social, economic and caste structures in rural society. Naturally, the bourgeoisie, moneylending interests and urban petty bourgeois elements of Indian society were furious at their abrupt exclusion from playing full force. The Indian National Congress, mainly representing the urban middle classes and the moneylenders strongly protested this imperialist intervention on behalf of the ‘decadent’ land-owning classes of society who mostly remained loyal to the colonial rulers. The Unionist Party was founded after 1920 to defend the agriculturist interests against the urban ‘outsiders’. It was a divide between ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ and between agriculturist ‘landowning’ classes and non-agriculturist ‘bourgeois’ money lenders and trading classes. Unfortunately, there were some other thorny twists in Indian social fabric that later played their role in political developments in regions comprising Pakistan.

The troublesome requirement of political stability and agricultural development in Punjab lies at the foundation of the core Imperialist contradiction between order and transformation. As Ian Talbot observes, “The closing decades of the nineteenth century saw the colonial strategic imperative of rural stability and order in Punjab threatened by the transformation arising from the commercialization of the region’s agriculture” (13). By 1875, the British Indian Army drew a third of its recruits from the Punjab. By 1914, the proportion was an astounding 60%, though the Punjab then accounted for only 10% of the India’s population. The ‘imperative to secure order in its rural recruiting areas understandably exerted a profound impact on British policy in the province’ (14) and had its lasting effects on the development of a ‘praetorian’ garrison state in Pakistan.

In the British mind, Punjab was seen as a buffer between British India and the expanding Russian Empire. This rivalry acquired a new ideological dimension after the successful Bolshevik revolution in 1917. These imperial imperatives necessitated development of unique methods of iron clad administration in Punjab compared to other parts of India. This ‘Punjab School’ of British administration relied heavily on securing loyalty of Punjab’s rural hinterland with a heavy hand on urban towns. Punjab was allowed to have its first political council 36 years after the Council Act of 1861 was implemented to establish legislative assemblies in other parts of British India. ‘As late as 1909, the government of the Punjab continued to nominate all nine Indian members in the fledgling council in Lahore… So every non-official representative in the Punjab Council was nominated by the administration, which to a man, stuck to its rule that the Punjab needed its traditional native leaders to keep the ‘classes below them in order’ (15). The Government of India Act, 1919 restricted urban seats to a mere ten of ninety-one seats in the council; five additional seats were given specifically to the landlords; urban politicians were strictly restricted to contest from rural seats. Interestingly, the same prescription was effectively used after independence of Pakistan in Sindh due to development of its unique ethnic dimension of urban-rural divide.

Notes

1. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, Vol. I, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1974, p. 337.
2. ‘On Colonialism’: Articles & Correspondence of Marx & Engels, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976, p. 312.
3. Karl Marx, op cited, pp. 338-339.
4 Khandesh, in the northwestern part of Maharashtra state, is about 400 Km from modern Pune (Poona) using modern network of roads. Pune is about 148 Km southeast of Mumbai. 5. Marx & Engels, ‘On Colonialism’, pp. 82-84.
6. Marx & Engels, ‘On Colonialism’, pp. 40-41.
7. The British planners had divided all development works in India into two categories: ‘protective’ and ‘productive’. Protective works were those that were required for carrying out necessary governance and usually included facilities for official use whereas the ‘productive’ works were carried out with investment purpose with a view to earn financial profit in the form of interest on loans provided by the government for the work and resulting enhanced tax revenues.
8. Timothy Daniel Haines, Building the Empire, Building the Nation: Water, land, and the politics of river development in Sind, 1898-1969, PhD Thesis, Royal Holloway College, University of London, 2011, Pg. 53.
9. Marx & Engels, p. ?
10. Quoted by Ian Talbot in ‘The Punjab under Colonialism: Order and Transformation in British India’.
11. Ian Talbot, op cited.
12. Michael O’Dwyer, India as I Knew it (London: Constable, 1925), p. 39 as quoted in Shalini Sharma, Radical Politics in Colonial Punjab: Governance and Sedition, Routledge, London, 2010, pp. 17-18.
13. Ian Talbot, op cited.
14. Ian Talbot, op cited.
15. Shalini Sharma, p. 16.

Chapter 4… To be Continued

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A History of the Left in Pakistan – 14

By Ahmed Kamran

Chapter Three: The Rise and Fall of Indian Communists
(1933-1951) – (Continued)

Stalin’s Advice

In the party, however, a uniformity of ideas and a broad consensus on policy matters was still a far cry. Strong disagreements persisted along fractured lines in the party. The party organization in Bombay led by Ajoy Ghosh, S.V. Ghate and S.A. Dange opposed this new policy as a ‘mechanical application of the Chinese model’. Together, they issued a ‘Three P’s Letter’ (Prabodh, Purshotam, Prakash; pseudonyms of Dange, Ghate, and Ajoy Ghosh respectively) in the party advocating withdrawal of the armed struggle and forming a united front with Nehru against imperialism and feudal lords in its struggle for the international peace. P.C. Joshi also came out opposing the new radical line saying that conditions were not ripe for immediate armed revolution in India. Again, the central committee could not have functioned properly, leading to another organisational paralysis. Towards the end of 1950, CPGB also came out with a letter addressed to CPI rejecting the ‘Andhra Thesis’. A second Party Plenum was called in December 1950, restoring Ajoy Ghosh and S.A. Dange back into the central committee. But the stalemate continued and the party was on the verge of a formal split.

Finally, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) intervened and called two representatives each from both the Radical Left and the Right factions of the party to Moscow. Ajoy Kumar Ghosh and S.A. Dange of the ‘Right’, and Rajeswar Rao and M. Basavapunnaiah of the ‘Left’ reached Moscow for holding consultative meetings with the CPSU leadership in February-March 1951. Both cases were presented before an Inquiry Commission comprising of V.M. Molotov, Mikhail Suslov, Gregory Malenkov, and J.V. Stalin. Detailed accounts of what transpired in these crucial meetings have been recorded (with some differences) by Basavapunnaiah, (34) S.A. Dange, (35) P. Sundarayya, (36) and Mohit Sen, (37). The personal narratives of the first two who were personally present in the meetings and the other two who were close confidantes and comrades of the key participants do not differ with each other much, except in some details. The Russians have also now released the official minutes of the meeting.

According to the detailed personal accounts and the Russian minutes of the meetings, Stalin advised CPI leaders that the ‘expulsion of P.C. Joshi from the party in 1948, even if his line was incorrect, was a mistake’. ‘Instead’, he said, ‘an inner party discussion should have been pursued’. Referring to two contesting theses advocating the ‘China Path’ or the ‘Russian Path’, Stalin informed Indian communists that the talk of India being on the path to a socialist revolution with sole reliance on the insurrection of working classes in cities and general strikes [Ranadive’s Calcutta thesis of ‘Russian path’] ‘is very dangerous thesis’. He said, ‘the Indian conditions were similar to ‘China’s path’ in as much as India’s revolution is also primarily an ‘agrarian revolution’, which means liquidation of feudal property and its distribution among peasants. He said, ‘we do not think that India is on the threshold of a socialist revolution… India is approaching the first stage of ‘people’s democratic revolution’. At this stage, there is no doubt, the entire peasantry, including the kulaks, needed to be mobilized against the feudal lords. But, then, there are significant dis-similarities with China’s conditions as well. The Chinese carried out an ‘armed revolution’ signifying the existence of ‘partisan warfare’ together with the participation of a sizable trained liberation army to set up bases. They were surrounded, escaped encirclement, abandoned the old liberated areas, created new ones, tried to avoid battle, and then longer it lasted the more the Chinese communists were cut off from the workers and cities and railroads. Off course, Mao Tse-tung did not want to break off ties with the workers, but the path of partisan warfare led to losing touch with the cities. This was an unfortunate necessity. Finally, in order not to be surrounded and broken up, they were based in Yenan where they defended themselves for a long time. After Japanese army surrender to the Soviet army in the Japanese occupied Manchuria in the north-east of China and ensuing Chinese civil war, the Chinese communists swiftly moved from isolated Yenan into Manchuria to hold positions creating a safe rear area, near borderlands of a friendly country [Russia] for themselves. After this, Chiang Kai-shek lost the ability to encircle the Chinese peasants. The ‘conditions in China were much more favorable than in India. There was a trained People’s Liberation Army in China. You do not have a trained army. China does not have such a dense rail network as India… India is more developed than China industrially. You don’t have such a friendly neighboring country on which you could rely as a backbone… the Chinese way was good for China.’ According to Dange, during the meeting, Stalin pointing towards the very heart of India on the map asked with unconcealed contempt, “Is this your Yenan?”

About the struggle against bourgeoisie and Nehru government, Stalin said, ‘I cannot consider Nehru’s government to be a puppet. He has his own roots among the population nevertheless. The top level of national bourgeoisie is already in league with the imperialists but this is only a part, and moreover, not a large one. The bourgeoisie is mainly interested in supporting you in the struggle for the complete independence of India. The national bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie of India, is the middle and big [bourgeoisie]; these are your own national exploiters. You need to say that you are not going against them, but against a foreign enemy, against the British imperialists. Many will be found among the national bourgeoisie who agree with you. I would not advise you to expropriate the big capitalists, even if they are in alliance with the American and British banking capitalists. If you have a demand to expropriate the big bourgeoisie in your platform, then it needs to be eliminated. You need to draw up a new platform or a program of action. It is very much to your advantage to neutralize the big bourgeoisie and split off nine-tenths of the entire national bourgeoisie from it. You don’t need to artificially create new enemies for yourself. You have many of them. The big capitalists’ turn will come, too… The problems of a revolution are decided in stages. All stages cannot be lumped together. Your people are copying our revolution. But these are different stages. You need to take the experience of the other fraternal parties critically and adapt this experience to the specific conditions of India. Don’t be afraid of being criticized from the left. Bukharin and Trotsky criticized Lenin from the left but they ended up ridiculous. Ranadive has criticized Mao Tse-tung from the left, but Mao Tse-tung is right – he is acting in accordance with the conditions of his own country.” Stalin asked CPI leaders to “pursue your own policy and pay no attention to leftist shouting.” He advised that the armed struggle being conducted in various areas, especially the Telengana region should be ended.’ According to Mohit Sen, Stalin said that it was ‘Comrade Rajeswar Rao who should travel to different camps and see that the arms were surrendered. This would be difficult but it was he alone who could do it.’

During his interview with H.D. Sharma, Basavapunnaiah observed in his reflections that the Russians and Stalin had said at the outset of the meetings in Moscow, “Our knowledge of the Indian conditions is very limited. With the available general knowledge that we have got about some dialectics and some Marxism and Leninism, we will try to help you”. At the end, the conclusions of the discussions were incorporated in a program that was seen by the Commission also. Stalin concluded by saying, “I gave you no instructions. This is just advice, which is not obligatory for you… Your party is sovereign. There is no more the Communist International. That is dissolved. From one centre we cannot run the international communist movement. That is why you are at liberty to follow your own independent line. Understand this, amend it, accept it, reject it, do anything you like. That is all for you to decide.” He, however, asked the leaders to “unite, work together, save the party and take it forward.”

After return of CPI leaders from Moscow, a new draft Party Program, Tactical Line and the Policy Statement were published by the Polit Bureau in April 1951.These were formally adopted by the All India Party Conference in Calcutta, in October 1951. The central committee was reorganized with Ajoy Kumar Ghosh taking over as the new Secretary General. On Telengana Question, the party stated, ‘With a view to establishing peaceful conditions in Telengana, the Central Committee as well as the Andhra Committee has decided to advise the Telengana peasantry and the fighting partisans to stop all partisan actions and to mobilize the entire people for an effective participation in the ensuing general election to rout the Congress at the polls” (38). CPI stalwarts of the Telengana movement, Rajeswar Rao and AK Gopalan helped CPI formally withdrawing the Telengana armed struggle. According to Mohit Sen, Rajeswar Rao later told him that ‘this was the most difficult task he had ever performed for the party’ (39).

Another failing of the CPI leaders at this stage, perhaps, was not acknowledging the communal excesses committed during Telengana movement in Hyderabad. As senior journalist Jaspal Singh Sidhu later observed, albeit from a Khalistani perspective, “it is astonishing that communist leaders are never heard of talking about and never they penned down the Hyderabad massacre of Muslims in 1949 as they are proudly referring to the Telangana armed revolt led by the communists during the same period and in the close vicinity of Nizam’s princely state capital—Hyderabad city. One wonders whether underground communist fighters did not take note of communal killings unleashed against the Muslim minority in Hyderabad after Army action there” (40).

Back in Moscow, it is reported that Stalin was not too pleased with the performance of Indian communists. He was polite to the visitors but, apparently, they did not win his respect. Stalin’s interpreter and diplomat Nikolai Adyrkahyev in his memoirs released on 118th birth anniversary of Joseph Stalin recounts that later that year in 1951 during a meeting with the Japanese Communist Party delegation on their party matters, Stalin observed: “In India they have wrecked the party and there is something similar with you”(41).

Joseph Stalin died on 5 March, 1953, leaving an enigmatic legacy and an indelible mark on the history of the international communist movement and of the world. Like other communist parties of the world, Stalin had inspired and greatly influenced the CPI and the communist movement of India from its inception. He had worked closely with M.N. Roy and other Indian communists and the last major impact he had on CPI’s strategic thinking was during his meetings with CPI leaders in Feb-Mar 1951. Although, already fallen from the grace of Stalin, M.N. Roy, while he was still in an Indian jail in Jan 1936, wrote about Stalin “…after all, I still remain a personal admirer of my ex-friend, who used to pride over our racial affinity, and called me ‘gold’. Now he won’t appreciate me even as copper! But I have the weakness of giving the devil his due. And in my account, his due is very considerable” (42). When Stalin died in 1953, Roy wrote in his journal Radical Humanist, that ‘Stalin was the most hated, feared, and maligned man of our time’. He added, ‘No great man has ever been an angel. Greatness is always purchased at the cost of goodness. Stalin did not do anything worse. He certainly deserves a place among the great men of history… He was the greatest military genius of our time… Stalin was undoubtedly the tallest personality of our time, and as such is bound to leave his mark on history’ (43).

After Stalin was roundly denounced by the CPSU leader Khrushchev three years after his death, Mao Tse-tung who was known to have sharp differences with Stalin on matters of policy and theory on many occasions, strongly defended Stalin saying, “The Communist Party of China has consistently held that Stalin did commit errors, which had their ideological as well as social and historical roots. It is necessary to criticize the errors Stalin actually committed, not those groundlessly attributed to him…Stalin … headed by Lenin …took part in the struggle to pave the way for the 1917 Revolution; after the October Revolution he fought to defend the fruits of the proletarian revolution. Stalin led the CPSU and the Soviet people, after Lenin’s death, in resolutely fighting both internal and external foes, and in safeguarding and consolidating the first socialist state in the world… Stalin led the CPSU, the Soviet people, and the Soviet army in an arduous and bitter struggle to the great victory of the anti-fascist war. Stalin defended and developed Marxism-Leninism in the fight against various kinds of opportunism, against the enemies of Leninism, the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, and other bourgeois agents… Stalin made an indelible contribution to the international communist movement in a number of theoretical writings which are immortal Marxist-Leninist works… Stalin stood in the forefront of the tide of history guiding the struggle, and was an irreconcilable enemy of the imperialists and all reactionaries… Stalin’s life was that of a great Marxist-Leninist, a great proletarian revolutionary. Stalin, a great Marxist-Leninist and proletarian revolutionary, also made certain mistakes; some could have been avoided and some were scarcely avoidable at a time when the dictatorship of the proletariat had no precedent to go by… In the work led by Stalin of suppressing the counter-revolution, many counter-revolutionaries deserving punishment were duly punished, but at the same time there were innocent people who were wrongly convicted; and in 1937 and 1938 there occurred the error of enlarging the scope of the suppression of counter-revolutionaries. In handling relations with fraternal Parties and countries, he made some mistakes. He also gave some bad counsel in the international communist movement. These mistakes caused some losses to the Soviet Union and the international communist movement… on the whole, his merits outweighed his faults. He was primarily correct, and his faults were secondary” (44).

CPI’s Impact on Society

The ideas of socialism and communist ideology, which were first introduced in India in 1920s and gained wider circulation in 1930s, had a significantly powerful impact on Indian society, particularly among people from academia, art and literature during 1930s through 1960s. Perhaps, few countries had had such a wide and far reaching impact of Marxist and socialist ideas on its social and cultural consciousness as it was witnessed in Indian society at the time. A very large number of essayists, teachers, university professors, writers, playwrights, poets, film-makers, theater artists, lyricists, and musicians who had their hearts in the right place were powerfully attracted towards the liberating ideas of Marxism. Particularly, the powerful Indian film industry that took off in 1930s and bloomed initially in Tollygunj, Calcutta (Tollywood) and, later, in Bombay (Bollywood) had considerably large number of leading actors, directors, producers and musicians who were influenced by socialist ideas and several them worked as active members of the Communist Party of India.

The Progressive Writers Association (PWA) was first founded in London in 1935 by few young Indian writers. Meeting once or twice a month in Nanking Restaurant in London, they also drafted its initial manifesto. These included, Syed Sajjad Zaheer, Dr. Mulk Raj Anand, Parmod Sengupta, Dr. M.D. Taseer, Dr., Jyoti Ghosh, Dr. K.S. Bhat, and Dr. S. Sinha. As a backdrop of this initiative of these young energetic Indian students there was a larger international effort of organising writers and poets for the human rights in Europe. Fascism was now clearly on the rise in Italy, Germany, and Spain. Similar trends were evident in other countries. International PEN (renamed as PEN International in 1910) was already founded in London in 1921 as an NGO for promoting cooperation among writers (poets, essayists, novelists, hence P.E.N.). An Indian chapter of the International PEN was founded in London in 1934 by Sophia Camacho Wadia (American wife of an Indian trade unionist and theosophist B.P. Wadia), K.M. Munshi, and Kaka Sahib Kalelkar with support from Gandhi. A little earlier, the Left Review had announced that a writers’ ‘International Congress for the Defence of Culture’ was to be held in Paris on 21-26 June, 1935. The Congress was “called by a committee of French Writers who believed that the perils confronting cultural freedom in a number of countries today are such that measures should be taken for its defence”. The committee for this congress was comprised of some of the most distinguished names in French letters, some of whom also had direct connection with India or Indians. Andre Gide had translated Noble Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali in French; Henri Barbousse had assisted Evelyn Roy, wife of M.N. Roy, in agitating at highest levels against expulsion of Roy from France in 1925; Romaine Rolland, had worked with Tagore and wrote his book Mahatma Gandhi; Andre Malraux had written a novel concerning the Chinese civil war (45). The Congress’ call was forwarded to many writers and journals throughout the world for information and circulation. In India, an appeal from this committee was printed in the journal Savera (Dawn) of Karachi (46).

Soon, Sajjad Zaheer returned to India and the Association under the name of Anjuman Taraqi Pasand Musanifin Hind (All India Progressive Writers Association: IPWA) was founded in Lukhnow in April 1936 with full support from CPI. Almost all prominent Urdu writers, poets, essayists and critics of that time supported and joined this new literary movement. Although, as most of its early sponsors were from Urdu literature in North India and the first IPWA congress was a galaxy of mainly Urdu luminaries, however, some very eminent Hindi and Bengali writers also attended and extended their support (47). The senior Urdu writers and literary luminaries who extended their full support to the progressive literary movement in its formative years including, Munshi Prem Chand, who also presided over its first conference in Lukhnow, and Maulvi Abdul Haq and Josh Malihabadi, carried hugely respectable and influential positions in Urdu literary field (48). Arguably, the ‘progressive literature’ movement had an enormous impact on the Indian belles-letters for a long time. A significantly large number of young writers of Anjuman (PWA) rose to literary prominence, almost completely dominating the Urdu language literary horizon from 1930s till at least 1970s in both India and later in Pakistan (49).

CPI also sponsored an Indian Peoples Theatre Association (IPTA) in 1942. Its founding members included Pirthvi Raj Kapur, Balraj Sahini, and Khwaja Ahmed Abbas (50). Shailandra, a noted music composer had worked as a welder in Indian Railways and was a union leader. The advent of Indian cinema in a big way in 1930’s and its evolution during 1940’s and 1950’s in cosmopolitan Bombay was mostly dominated by progressive film makers and artists playing a significant role in influencing changing lifestyles and worldview of Indian people, particularly in its big cities and towns (51). Bombay and Lahore were two big circuits of Indian films industry. By 1933, Lahore alone had sixteen cinemas. There were several regional theater associations also in Maharashtra, Gujarat,Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Bengal. Khwaja Ahmed Abbas adapted a Bengali play by Jyotianand Mitra called ‘Nava Jibonar Gaan’ and made a film ‘Dharti Ke Laal’ in 1946.

A Progressive Artists’ Group was also formed in 1947 that included M.F. Hussain, S.H. Raza, Manishi Dey, and Francis Souza who later emerged as the most eminent and internationally acclaimed artists from India.

Notes

34. Interview with Dr. Hari Sharma, Oral History Project of the Nehru Memorial & Library (NMML), June 1978.
35. Interview with Dr. Hari Sharma, Oral History Project of the Nehru Memorial & Library (NMML); and his radio talk on ‘My Visit to Russia’ in weekly BBC Marathi programme ‘Radio Jhankar’.
36. Interview with Dr. Hari Sharma, Oral History Project of the Nehru Memorial & Library (NMML). Sep. 1974; and ‘Telengana People’s Struggle and Its Lessons’ by P. Sundarayya, CPI-M, Calcutta, 1972.
37. Interview with Dr. Hari Sharma, Oral History Project of the Nehru Memorial & Library (NMML); and his Memoirs: ‘A Traveller and the Road: The Journey of an Indian Communist’, by Mohit Sen, Rupa & Co., 2003.
38. K.N. Ramchandran, op cited, p. 29.
39. Interview with Dr. Hari Sharma, Oral History Project.
40. ‘Role of Left in Punjab’ by Jaspal Singh Sidhu in CounterCurrents, January, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/sidhu060113.htm
41. ‘Of Quit India, Nehru & CPI Split’ by A.G. Noorani in Frontline, Dec 31, 2011 – Jan 13, 2012.
42. As quoted in Overstreet & Windmiller, op cited, p. 142.
43. ‘The Death of Stalin’ by M.N. Roy, Radical Humanist, XVII (March a5, 1953), pp. 121-132 as quoted in Overstreet & Windmiller, p. 143.
44. ‘On the Question of Stalin: Second Comment on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU’, by Mao Tse-tung in People’s Daily and Red Flag, September 13, 1963.
45. Marxist Influences and South Asian Literature, Vol.1, Ed. Carlo Coppola, Asian Studies Centre, Michigan State University, Michigan, 1974, p. 13.
46. Khalilur Rehman Azmi, Urdu mein Taraqqi Pasand Adabi Tarikh, Anjuman Tarraqi-e Urdu (India), Aligarh, 1972, p.30 as quoted by Carlo Coppola cited above.
47. Among Hindi writers, prominent names included, Shivdan Singh Chohan, Narendra Sharma, Ramesh Chandar, Balraj Sahini, Om Parkash, Acharya Narendar Dev, Pandit Ram Naresh Tirpathi and Amrit Rai. Manik Benerji, Tara Shankar Benerji, Budhdev Bose, Primatma Chaudhry, and Sarojni Naidu were among Bengali supporters while Vallathol Narayan Menon was a well-known Malayalam writer.
48. Other prominent senior Urdu writers coming out in support of Progressive Writers Association included, Hasrat Mohani, Chaudhry Mohammad Ali Rudelvei, Rabindranath Tagore, Qazi Abdul Ghaffar, Sufi Tabasum, Maulana Salahuddin Ahmed, Abdul Majid Salik, and Dr. Abid Hussain.
49. These young writers emerging in the progressive writers movement and dominating Urdu literature for some time include, Ahmed Ali, Mulk Raj Anand, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Krishan Chandar, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Kaifi Azmi, Ali Sardar Jafri, Quratulain Hyder, Ismat Chughtai, Rajendra Singh Bedi, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Israrul Haq Majaz Lakhnavi, Sahir Ludhyanvi, Jan Nisar Akhtar, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Syed Sibte Hassan, Amrita Pritam, Ahtisham Hussain, Saadat Hassan Manto, Majnun Gorakhpuri, Syed Mutalibi Faridabadi, Hamid Akhtar, Hajra Masroor, Khadija Mastoor, Saghar Nizami, Mumtaz Hussain, Ibadat Barailvi, and Ibrahim Jalis.
50. Others included, Bijon Bhattacharya, Ritwick Ghatak, Uptal Dutt, Salil Chaudhry, Jyotrindra Mitra, and Pandit Ravi Shankar.
51. Among prominent artists and writers in Bollywood who were powerfully moved by the Marxist ‘progressive’ movement included, Cheten Anand, elder brother of Dev Anand, Habib Tanvir, S.D. Burman, Ismat Chughtai, Kartar Singh Duggal, Vishwamitr Adil, David, Shayam, Kaifi Azmi, A.K. Hangal, Satay Jeet Ray, Bimol Roy, Sahir Ludhyanvi, Shabana Azmi, Jawed Akhtar, Akhtarul Iman, Shayam Benegal, Samita Patel, Amol Palekar, Nasiruddin Shah, Om Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Punkaj Kapur, Deepti Nawal, and Grish Karnad.

Chapter 3… Concluded

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