“ Rapidly marching events left no choice for Bengal Congress. In December we communists broke with the Forward Bloc. Bose wanted to give a call for n… - Puran Chand Joshi

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. ”

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).

“ 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.’