Today is our topic of discussion Muzaffar Ahmad .
Muzaffar Ahmad
Born in a lower middle class family in the island of Sandwip in Noakhali district in August 1889 Muzaffar Ahmad was brought up in a distressed environment. Due to intense poverty his early education was hampered. He studied at the Sandwip Middle English School between 1905 and 1910 and at the Noakhali Zilla School from 1910 to 1912 from where he passed his Matriculation Examination in 1913.2 He then got admitted to the Hooghly Mohsin College and later to the Bangabashi College in Calcutta.
He was, however, unsuccessful in his Intermediate Examination and gave up college education.4 He then looked for jobs. He did several jobs, mostly journalistic, and each for a very short time.5 He had got involved in politics at a very early age and had participated in several meetings and demonstrations mostly of religio-political nature.
He became attracted to revolutionary politics but did not join any particular party. He took part in political meetings and demonstrations organized by the extremist parties. He was thrilled by the news of the victory of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 and got interested in Communism. 8 While continuing to work as a journalist he started reading extensively on western ideas of liberalism, democracy and communism, on Marxism and on Leninism.
He founded the Bangiya Mussalman Sahitya Samity (The Bengali Muslim Literary Society) in 1918 of which he was Assistant Secretary and edited its monthly journal, The Bangiya Mussalman Sahitya Patrika. 10 In 1920 he brought out the Navajoog jointly with Kazi Nazrul Islam, who also held radical views on politics and society.
By this time Muzaffar Ahmad had decided to take up politics as his career. 12 He was seriously drawn to Marxism and began to establish contact with Communist organization outside India. 13 Educated Bengali youths went out of the country. They got interested in Communist ideas.
Basically Bengali youths were inclined to extremist movement. They had made efforts from outside to overthrow colonial rule in India. These youths were attracted to Marxism. M.N. Roy was drawn by the Communist movement and the ideology So was Muzaffar Ahmad. M.N. Roy had initiated the formation of Communist Party of India at Taskent on 17 October 1920.14 Muzaffar Ahmad established contact with the third Congress of the Communist International at Moscow through M.N. Roy.
Success of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in October 1917 had encouraged the growth of labour movement in India. The industrial workers had become restive and there had been numerous strikes in the years between 1918 and 1921 particularly of the tea coolies and the transportation unions in eastern Bengal.
Labour unions had been formed in Madras, Ahmedabad and Calcutta during this period. The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was formed in 1920.17 Around 1922 and 1923 when C.R. Das (1870-1925) was trying to form the Swaraj Party, Muzaffar Ahmad presided over the All India Trade Union and attempted to influence the Congress to take greater interest in the economic upliftment of the masses.
Subhas Chandra Bose (1897-1945?) was also involved in trade union movement during this time. In the 1930’s when he was the president of the BPCC Muzaffar Ahmad was the vice-president. Indian Communist Party was then at its early stage. The chief contact and organiser of the Communist Party of India was Muzaffar Ahmad. Throughout the 1920’s M.N. Roy, the architect of Communist Party in India, had called for the formation of Peasants’ and Workers’ Party within the Congress.
Muzaffar Ahmad had been actively involved in the peasants’ and workers’ associations in Bengal and other provinces. Kisan Sabhas and various peasant organizations were formed in Bengal, Punjab and the Uttar Pradesh between 1919 and 1927.20 Gandhi had called for the non-co-operation and civil disobedience movement but after the Chauri Chaura incident he suddenly called it off in February 1922. This had greatly disappointed the left-oriented youths in India.
Roy and his followers, at this stage had hoped that mass participation in Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement, if chanelled in that direction could be directed against the bourgeoisie.
He had advised the communist followers in India to capture the various organs working with the Congress 21 Roy later realised that Gandhi’s movements were petty bourgeois as well as bourgeois, because he had, most of the time called off non-co-operation movements when the proletariat were about to capture it 22 Roy had, in fact, overestimated the strength of the proletariat in India and also failed to realise that the so-called proletariat in India was not yet formed in a conscious, unified and militant form.
Muzaffar Ahmad had followed Roy’s directions. In 1924 he got arrested for Cawnpore Conspiracy Case 23 Government of India was strictly against any communist activity and therefore arrested Muzaffar Ahmad and others like Sawkat Usmani and Sripath Amrita Dange only because of their association with The Communist Internationale.
In fact, there was no such conspiracy to overthrow the British government in India or any plan for sabotage 24 There was, of course, direction by the fifth Congress of the Communist Internationale in 1924 that the Indian Communists should reorganize the trade union movement “on a class basis and purge it of all alien elements. ”
Although the Congress did not want to emphasize class conflict, neither did it want to encourage the communist direction, several conspiracy cases were instituted against communist elements during and after the non-co-operation movement 26 Muzaffar Ahmad was first charged of involvement in the Peshawar Communist Conspiracy Case in 1922 but was later retreived 27 He was then arrested in May 1923 on suspicion of conspiring against the British government and then again in April 1924.
He was released in September 1925 on medical grounds. Towards the end of the 1920’s many strikes took place in some of the big cities of India, particularly in Bombay and Calcutta 28 World wide economic depression was going on.
Peasants, workers of mills and factories, dock workers and labours were involved in such strikes. The then Viceroy, Lord Irwin believed that those strikes were instigated and promoted by the communists from abroad 29 In March 1929 the government arrested several communists to trial in a case which came to be known as the Meerut Conspiracy Case.
Muzaffar Ahmad, Shawkat Usmani, S.A. Dange, Philip Spratt and Benjamin Francis Bradley were brought on change of overthrowing the capitalist and imperialist power in British India 30 There was “red scare” in India about the Communists as in other capitalist countries of the world as in the United States under President McCarthy. It was from his time that Muzaffar Ahmad became known to the Bengalis as one of the leading figures of the communist movement in India. He was released in 1936.
Spread of communist ideas in Bengal in the 1930’s was a significant aspect in a society which was still then very much feudalistic. India was not a capitalist country yet and therefore, an obvious question arose regarding the logic behind preaching Marxism in a semi-feudal society like India. The role of the bourgeoisie in India as in other countries was similar, only in India the bourgeoisie was mostly the zamindars who protected their interests.
Gandhi, who had led the nationalist movement was not much in favour of the proletariat as such. Congress was very much dependent on financial assistance of the the mill owners and capitalists. Besides, India was divided by castes, religion and culture. With such a diverse background, India, in a colonial state seemed too unrealistic a country for application of Marxist theory.
Even though Lenin had bypassed Marxist theory by successfully carrying out the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 it was almost like importing Lenin’s theory and applying it to India. Trotsky’s idea of “exporting revolution to other parts of the world”, particularly those under colonial rule, was applied in India by the communists but it was M.N. Roy who mainly guided and directed them in forming the communist strategy in India at various times.
In Bengal, particularly, extreme ideas always attracted the younger generation. A large number of educated youths in Bengal were involved in terrorist movement since early twentieth century. Communist ideas were considered extreme in Bengal.
As the terrorist movement began to die out by the mid 1930’s due to government repressions through various acts, communism began to get spread among the youths as an alternative driving force to change the fate of the nation. To them ideas of communism was associated with liberal thought of the west. Religious tolerance and secularism were also significant aspects associated with communism and very much relevant to contemporary politics in India.
Although attempts of establishing the demands and rights of the peasants and workers had started by the early 1920’s such attempts were comparatively very slow and insignificant because India was under imperialist rule. Ideas of communism and secularism, however, attracted large number of youths in India but very few Muslims got interested. Anti- god and anti-religious aspect of communism, risk of losing government jobs were reasons which shuddered them from joining the communist party.
Besides, most Muslims, particularly in Bengal were poor peasants. Socio- economic structure in India was almost similar to that in Russia. Proletariat in Marxist term were industrial workers. Russia was a purely agricultural country before the Bolshevik revolution took place. But Lenin had mobilized the peasants, the war-affected soldiers and the workers together. In Bengal, to mobilize the proletariat meant mobilizing the peasants which was difficult to do on communist lines.
Besides, the existence of Krishak Samities and the Krishak Proja Party in Bengal had lessened the significance of communist propaganda among large majoirty of population in the province. The Bengal Tenancy Amendment Acts between the years 1938 and 1940 had to a great extent fulfilled the demands of the peasants. However, communist ideology was getting popular among those who held radical views to change the society.
Muzaffar Ahmad and Kazi Nazrul Islam were the two prominent Muslims in the 1930’s and the 1940’s who attempted to propagate the ideals of communism, equality, secularism and humanism. In the decades when most Muslims were drawn towards political separatism their views in respect of society, religion and politics set a very radical trend.
Fear of domination by the Hindu majority led to the growth of Muslim separatist movement. The “two -nation” theory of the Muslim League was made popular in the 1940’s to such extent that partition of India, had become inevitable.
The Communists of India, though secular in ideological sense, supported the demand for a separate homeland for the Muslim on principle of self-determination. In the 1940’s the Communists had developed a multinational theory. They asserted that each nationality should have the right to secede from the Indian Union.
They, therefore, supported the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan. In 1944 M.N. Roy prepared a draft constitution on behalf of his party then named the Radical Democratic Party, in which he proposed a federal state where the units of the federation would be “autonomous”, 32 Roy and the Communist Party of India had supported the British war effort because to them, it was a war against fascism.
Gandhi and the Indian national Congress had started the ‘Quit India’ movement in 1942, which the members of the CPI had opposed and it was on this issue that the CPI broke off with the Congress Socialist Party (The CSP).
However, as the CPI had switched to the “peoples’ war” line in 1941 and supported the right of various “nationalities” of India on grounds of separate language, culture and tradition to form separate states, the party and its members came in direct conflict with the ideology of the Congress and in the years after partition the Communist Party of India had to pay the price for it.
n March 1948 Kiron Sankar Roy, the minister of Bengal had ordered the police to seize arms from the Communists under the Public Safety Act, and banned the party in Bengal. Official newspapers of the party in West Bengal, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh were also banned and prominent leaders like S.A. Dange, Jyoti Basu and Muzaffar Ahmad were arrested.
In Bengal, Muzaffar Ahmad had become a well-known communist figure after the Meerut Conspiracy Case Trial in 1929. The trial had countrywide political significance 37 The Communist Party of India also changed its strategy in the mid-1930’s. The British government had banned the party in July 1934. In 1936 the party direction was to join the Congress Socialist Party following the policy of the United Front against imperialism.
However, by December 1939, there was strained relation between the CPI and the CSP leaders. The Communist Party of India had adopted the policy of taking up the leadership of the socialist movement by capturing important posts in the Indian National Congress, the All India Trade Union Congress, the All India Kisan Sabha and the Students’ Federation.
In 1940 the Congress Socialist Party therefore, expelled the communists. From 1940 onwards the CPI took different strategy from that of the CSP and The Indian National Congress. World War II had started in 1939 and the Communist Party of India’s decision was to support the British war effort. Later, in the mid 1940’s, the party supported self- determination of states.
Muzaffar Ahmad’s role in Bengal, as a Communist leader in the backdrop of the international communist strategy/led by the Comintern in Russia on the one hand and by M.N. Roy, on the other.
Particularly the late 1930’s was mostly restricted to meetings and the preaching of communist ideology in the agrarian sector and among the trade unions. In 1938 he attended meetings, mainly agrarian, in Dinajpur, where he spoke against imperialism and capitalism.40 Kalipada Sen, another Communist leader from Calcutta was also present in this meeting.
The government accused them of inciting the agricultural population and attempting to indoctrinate them towards communism. 41 It is essential to note that these meetings were directed against landlords and against British imperialism but did not consider matters like distribution of Khas mahal or collection of rent by zamindars.
The members of the Communist Party wanted to treat peasants as part of the proletariat, but there was a basic controversy whether they could be treated as proletariat in the strictest Marxist sense. However, in Bengal, as in other parts of India, most communists and socialists belonged to upper-class and basically the bourgeoisie.
They were more attracted to the Communist ideology and were mostly active in preaching it rather than putting it into practice. Whereas, the Krishak Proja Party in Bengal, though a short lived party and formed as an alternative political platform to contest the 1936 elections, had fulfilled most of its election pledges concerning the Krishak and the Proja.
Communist activities among the workers was mainly restricted to the Trade Union Congress which worked in alliance with the nationalist political movement in India.43 The Trade Union Congress controlled by the Communist Party of India was banned in 1934. The Meerut Conspiracy Case judgement in January 1933 had provided transportation for life for Muzaffar Ahmad. Communist leaders had to remian underground for most of their working life and Muzaffar Ahmad was no exception.
The Meerut Case had brought him popularity and respect as a Communist worker among the younger generation in Bengal. The Communists in India were in favour of the Allied powers in their war against fascism, but had to face opponents inside the country. There had been clashes between the Communists and the Muslim League in Eastern Bengal, in Calcutta and in the industrial areas between the Communists and the Congress workers.
The Communists recruited volunteers known as Red Guards from among workers in industrial areas,45 There was also Communist involvement in the tebhaga movement in districts like Midnapore, Nadia, Jessore, Dinajpur, Pabna, Mymensingh, Faridpur and Chittagong 46 The Communists made intensive propaganda among the bargadars.
They were also active in the whole of 1946 in Jessore, Khulna, Rangpur, Pabna and Mymensingh. The Muslim League was not in favour of this movement, neither were the Hindu zamindars. There were fears of communal riots because most bargadars were Muslim and the majority of the landlords were Hindus.
Since most of the Communist leaders had to work from hiding, and since Muzaffar Ahmad was one of those who was sentenced to life in the Meerut conspiracy case judgement, most of his activities were secret. Although he was released in 1936 he was more involved in indoctrinating the younger generation. It must be mentioned here that unlike most Communist leaders who came from upper-class, Muzaffar Ahmad was an exception.
He came from a poor family and was completely a self-made individual who dedicated his life to an ideology intended to improve the condition of the poor and exploited peasants and workers. He was one of the few Bengali Muslim youth who, in his early life had accepted Communism and had remained so till the end of his life.
He is popularly known as “Comrade” Muzaffar Ahmad. One of his close associates was poet Kazi Nazrul Islam. Muzaffar Ahmad was as an individual, non-communal and humanitarian, who dedicated his life for the doctrine he so strongly believed.
In Bengal, he represented a trend that was contrary to the dominating trend of religious politics in the 1940’s. It is, however, sad that after such great sacrifices the Communist Party of India could gain so little in the years before partition. The fact was that the Indian revolutionaries were never united and they were jealous and suspicious of each other.
Besides, M.N. Roy’s shiftings in determining the party strategy in India also created dissension in the party. Muzaffar Ahmad’s memoir clearly indicate specific problems of working inside the country at Roy’s direction, who most of the time remained abroad 48 It is disappointing that his memoir reveal very little of his political activities and involvement in the Communist movement particularly in his later life.
See more: