Puran Chand Joshi Quotes

P. C. Joshi issues a statement on August 27, 1945, “ on the reported death of Subhash Chandra Bose. ” He said: “ It is the British overlordship of our country that creates a Bose. But much worse has happened. The severity of post-August repression and the continued denial of power to the people has to-day led a great majority of our political leaders and the press to glorify Bose as a patriot and martyr ; some, of course, qualify by stating that he was misguided. To think only of his motives and forget the pro-fascist policy that he pursued is to lose the confidence and respect of the democratic elements abroad for the Indian freedom movement. Our differences with Bose and his Forward Bloc have been political. But we are against a foreign Government keeping them in prison. We demand and support the campaign for the release of his followers. ” (Communist Reply to Congress Working Committee Charges, p. 298).

We, therefore, quote from Joshi’s pamphlet. The Government circular stated: “ In the Party Congress held in Bombay from May 23 rd to June 1 st , 1943, there was an attack on the negative policy of the Congress and the resolution openly identified for the first time the Congress Socialists and Forward Bloc with the fifth-column elements who are accused of taking advantage of the Congress resolution of August 1942 to lead the country to the brink of disaster. Not only are the Communists almost the only Party which fought for victory; they alone have criticised the Congress defeatism from a political point of view as opposed, for instance, to the fundamentally communal criticism of the Congress policy by the Muslim League etc., and have openly attacked as traitors the off-shoots of Congress, the Forward Bloc and the Congress Socialists Party.

P. C. Joshi wrote in People’s War dated July 18, 1943 : “ The Axis Radio reports that Bose is no more in Berlin but has reached Singapore. On July 6, Bose himself announced that he has been appointed the ‘Commander-inChief of ‘Indian Independence Army’ and is coming with the Jap invasion force. The arch-traitor to India’s freedom and independence calls upon Indian patriots to open a ‘Second Front’ against British, to intensify ‘struggle’ and start a ‘Revolution’ in India while he, the ‘Commander in-Chief with Tojo’s grace, marches in with Japanese invading forces to ‘liberate’ India. But his lieutenants here in India know that here is no ‘struggle’ to be intensified and so they are making a trial start for this game on August 9. Their programme for August 9 must be looked upon as a dress rehearsal for the ‘Revolution’ which has to be started when ‘Commander-in Chief Bose comes to liberate India with the Jap Army. It will be suicidal blindness to celebrate August 9 th as we do any protest anniversary, e.g. Jallianwalah Bagh Day. ”

“ What would we say of a Congress leadership that attacks the Working Committee for being anti-struggle and does not itself launch a struggle ? Is it actual struggle or a paper resolution that related an immediate struggle to the ultimate struggle? To refuse to launch an immediate struggle when it would have brought the ultimate struggle itself nearer is to refuse to be serious about any struggle at all. Promise of struggle in the future and immediate disruption. Bourgeois politics produces the same result—whether it works its way from the Right or the Left.

“ One can tear off the hair of one’s head looking for some scientific system in Bose’s politics. He is happy without it. Gandhi relies on his ‘inner’ voice—Bose goes by intuition. We get behind Messiahs who are prepared to lead provided we follow them in their blindness. Such is the debacle to which bourgeois leadership, whether Right or Left, is reduced.

On our young shoulders to-day has fallen the great task of upholding the noble heritage of the Congress. It is the policy of our national leadership which would break this up and scatter it away. ”

Joshi wrote editorially : “ The Army is the one instrument that stands between our unarmed nation and the Fascist invaders. Fraternal relationship between the Army and the people, in all threatened zones, is the need of the hour. To-morrow, when actual invasion begins, the army will have to reap the harvest ; it will find that the apathy of the kisan has turned to hostility, his patriotic will to resist broken by defeatist Gandhian phrase-mongers, the flames of his grievances fanned by the Fifth-Columnists, by the traitor Forward Blocists. ”

“ After the appointment of the Ad Hoc Committee the B.P.C.C. had to choose its course of action finally. The Forward Bloc sought an agreement with us. We agreed to defy the Ad Hoc Committee provided the existing B.P.C.C. launched a struggle for Civil Liberties beginning from 26 th January—Independence Day. No preparations for struggle were made. The Central Council of Action was hardly functioning.

“ For a national struggle, Bose wants another Congress. In the name of struggle he disrupts the very organ of struggle and thereby renders struggle itself impossible. He only scatters to winds the achievements of the past struggles—the national unity they created and which is today embodied in the Congress. To raise the slogan of another Congress is not to be pro-struggle but just a disruptor, pure and simple. The slogan of another Congress is not only a cover for an anti-struggle policy, is not only disruptive of national unity but is an alternative road to compromise.

With the outbreak of the war, the world seems to have turned upside down, slogans changed sides, friends became foes and so on. Ours is a colonial slave country. The fundamental contradiction is between imperialism on the one hand and the entire nation on the other. The very outbreak of the war deepens this antagonism. National struggle becomes a practical proposal. But it is an explosive struggle with gloves off. The division between the Indian people becomes between those that stand for struggle and those that don’t. We do not have a national struggle because the bourgeoise is at the top of the national movement. The obvious course would be to free the national front from the influence of bourgeois reformism and develop the political strength of the proletariat within the common front so as to develop the forces of struggle in a manner so as to make a national struggle inevitable and overw’helm and isolate the cowardly bourgeoisie. ”

In People’s War dated August 23, 1942 Joshi came out with an editorial appeal-Tsolate the Fifth Columnists : “ True to their black role, the Fifth-columnists suggest blows that help their masters. The Boseites who till yesterday with their ‘nation wide struggle’ and ‘non-compromise’ slogans were the objects of every Congressman’s contempt as national disruptors, find that the present situation means half their job done. How are we to isolate and nail down this black crewl For isolate and nail them down, we must. Keep the peace. Isolate the Fifth-columnist as the arch goonda that trades on people’s blood. ” Joshi was too thick-headed to understand that the one and only Fifth-column, the Communist Party of India, had already been isolated, though elsewhere in the same issue of the People’s War he had admitted: “ The Boseites stood isolated as unscrupulous disruptors inside the national movement ; to-day they are coming back as ‘honest patriots’. The hidden Jap agents dared not show their faces ; to-day they are active among the patriots !” Of course, the Russian agent could see nothing but agents all around himself !

The defeat of Nazis at Stalingrad had made it clear that Hitler could not come to India. In May-June 1943, Subhash Chandra Bose left Berlin and came to Singapore (p. 158). We discussed the new situation. We called for fight against sabotage. We named the Congress Socialists, the Forward Bloc and the Trotskyites as groups that made the fifth-column, the agents of the Jap invader (p. 159).

“ The national leadership did not pursue the path of struggle but of settlement. The Working Committee would not give a call for struggle. ‘Let us demand a national struggle from the national leadership’, said the Forward Bloc, ‘but we must be prepared to start a struggle on our own.’

Joshi warned : “ In the world of to-day, with the great political awakening in India the British imperialists dare not directly and openly deny Indian freedom. Their present-day strategy is based on their firm belief that Indian parties will never come together and they will be able to impose their own plan for the future constitution of India. It is against this danger that our Party will rouse the people. In the extremely critical and difficult period that is coming ahead, we will ceaselessy work for CongressLeague unity as also for Congress-Communist united front inside one joint front for India’s freedom. ”

All open-eyed and serious people saw the change but there were two groups in our country who did not—the Congress Socialists and the Forward Blocists (p. 40). We took time to discuss the new world situation. The result of our discussion and collective opinion was embodied in a resolution of the Politbureau of our Party and a booklet by P.C. Joshi, Forward to Freedom. We came to the conclusion that it was an entirely new situation, demanding a new Policy, new strategy. We said: ‘We are a practical party and in a new situation it is our task not only to evolve a new form of struggle for it, but also to advance new slogans appropriate to the new stage, suiting the new form of our national movement. The key slogan of our Party which guides all our practical political activity is : ‘Make the Indian people play a people’s role in a People’s War.’ The second feature in the new situation was the entry of a new Power in the war, a power of a new type, a People’s Power, the Soviet union. We saw the new prospect for humanity that opened through the Soviet entry into the war (Pp. 44-45).