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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...