Namboodiripas' fusillade was just the opening
salvo, it turned out. The Communist Party of India published a
series of pamphlets - Arun Shourie's Slanders Rebutted History has
indicated the Communists, 1942 August Struggle and the Communist
Party of India... Translated into several languages, these were
distributed far and wide. Today, they are prophylactics -- anyone
who reads them will be immunised against the abuse of these 'leading
intellectuals' and their parties!
"This is not the first time that the Quit India
movement has been forked out to slander and attack the communist
movement in our country," began the Foreword by the General
Secretary of the CPI, C Rajeshwara Rao.
"Whenever the ruling circles and reactionary vested
interests are in a tight corner or the communist movement is making
headway, they would dig up old fables to whip up anti-Communist
prejudices. The pet theme is the so-called 'betrayal' of the freedom
struggle in 1942 by the united Communist Party of India. Such things
have happened a number of times in the past, even as late as 1975,
during the days of Emergency imposed by Mrs Indira Gandhi' -- that
last bit was truly audacious! For it was the General Secretary's
very own Communist Party which had supported Mrs Gandhi's
Emergency!
"Now the extreme reaction is worried because of the
forging of left unity through the united struggles of the toiling
people and also its gathering round of democratic allies," the
General Secretary pronounced. "Hence this resurrection of the ghost
of 1942 once again by Mr Arun Shourie in order to isolate the
communist movement by fanning anti-communism."
"One would have ignored these attacks since we know
very well that this is not the first time that such attacks have
been leveled against us," the publication declared. "Arun Shourie,
howsoever his journalistic talent may be, stands no comparison to
such eminent personalities who have attacked us in the past. The
eminent barrister, Langford James, of Meerut Conspiracy Case called
us anti-God, anti-family, anti-decent everything with no sense of
humour. History vindicated us. The Communist Party of India grew
from strength to strength since those days of 1929. Today the
Communist Movement is a strength to reckon with."
What all this had to do with the facts which I had
set out, what I had to do with that barrister of 1929 was and
remains a mystery. But 'devastating refutation' it was! And remember
the line, 'One would have ignored these attacks...' -- it too is a
standard one. The facts which have been brought to light, even more
so those who have brought the facts to light are always beneath
their dignity to answer. In his article 'refuting' what I had
written, Panikkar had been the embodiment of lofty self- abnegation:
"The alternative of suing for defamation the likes of Shourie is
below one's dignity.... "
Now that a heap of new facts have been revealed, he
is loftier still -- Shourie is not a historian, he is a
mythologist... a political pornographer... I shall not dignify him
by answering his diatribe...
Apart from everything else, one reason it is a
waste of one's time to do so is that the dunce is not going to be
able to comprehend the reality in any case. "It will be a waste of
effort and also good space to refute this nonsense which betrays
Shourie's utter Ignorance of history and world events," the
Communist Party publication continued.
"We do not want to go into his vapid nonsensical
utterances in the last installment," wrote the Communist Party
publication. "They are tarred with the same rotten anti-Communist
stuff with the hackneyed claim that communists are but the agents of
Moscow (or rather of the Soviet Union) and as such they have to
be treated with contempt. (On the contrary, my argument had been
that precisely for this reason they ought to be treated with
wariness, that their potential for harming the country, for
poisoning discourse must not be ignored!)
"Even a cursory reading of the names of the
Communist Party members who have found their way from other streams
Of the national movement, either of the national revolutionary or of
the orthodox Gandhian type (And what about those who saw through the
Communist Party, including several of the topmost functionaries of
the Party, and left it?) and the whole host of intellectuals who
have adored (sic) the ranks of the Communist Party, and the large
mass of workers and peasants who have acquired a new stature in
their life by joining and working for the Communist Party would
belie Arun Shourie's vile slanders."
Suppose for a moment that all the intellectuals of
India had fallen to 'adoring' the ranks of the Communist Party, that
every worker and peasant had become a devotee of the Party, how
would that alter the assistance the Party had rendered to the
British?
The 'this-is-an-old-charge' defence again: "These
slanders themselves are not of Arun Shourie's original imagination
either; they are products of a diseased and jaundiced view of the
state of affairs which cannot bear the thought of the ordinary
worker and peasant, of the ordinary man taking part and having a say
in the political life of the country..."
Mockery, derision, scorn, the charge of conspiracy,
of secret funds being pumped in by un-named forces, the charge that
the critic is privilege-personified and therefore cannot stand the
fact that, because of the struggles put up by the Left, the masses
are coming into their own - an avalanche to scare everyone from
doing what this fellow has done. "The argument would be similar to
say, 'When did you last stop beating your wife?'," the Party
publication declared. "This pearl of wisdom which Shourie seems to
be bestowing cannot just be called a fool's paradise in which he may
be lurking. It is a dangerous game to sow dissensions In the minds
of the young political workers. And there are many other interests
in the country who are financing it as is evident from various
translations and other media coverage that have gone with it."
But hope also, confidence too -- lest the rank and
file lose heart: "But truth is truth and must stand out, even when
Shourie indulges in making a lot of 'shor' (noise), but with a
purpose no doubt."
The great names who saw the light and acknowledged
that the Communists are the ones who had been right... : "They all
did this out of a process of understanding of national events in the
context of international developments which is beyond the mental
horizon of Arun Shourie or similar other anti-Communist scribes who
have slandered us in the past..." Two key points in that - the ones
who criticise them are deficient in understanding, and they are
congenitally anti-Communist.
That last bit - about being congenitally
anti-Communist -- is doubly believed: On metaphysical grounds, as
well as practical ones. Once you believe in a religion which
maintains that the Revelation has been handed to it alone, it
necessarily follows that, if a person does not see the truth of that
religion, there is something congenitally wrong with him! In
totalitarian societies -- Stalin's Soviet Union which our Communists
so adored -- there is a practical reason too: For anyone to stand
against the received Line in such a set up, he must necessarily be
congenitally mad!
"It is difficult for Arun Shourie to realise this,
devoid as he is of any political perspective" -- the person in
question can be said to have 'political perspective' only when and
if he reaches the same conclusions as The Theory dictates!
As the man lacks elementary political
understanding, it is always pointless to check up the facts which
such a person has adduced: I had published extensive extracts from a
120-page report which the Communist Party had submitted to the
British narrating the assistance its members were rendering by
sabotaging the Quit India Movement. "The so-called 120-page
document," the publication scoffed, "unfortunately I thought it a
waste of time to count whether it was actually 120 pages as Shourie
seems to have done. " Exactly what these historians maintained when
I nailed the concoction they had put out: Of 'rational' having been
surreptitiously changed to 'national' in the ICHR Resolution, of
three of the five objectives having been deleted from the
Resolution.
Hence, the confidence in the future: "We are aware
that the four articles by Arun Shourie both in English and other
languages are designed particularly to create a rift between the
left and the other democratic forces. We have every confidence that
this will fail and our healthy national movement will work steadily
towards the goal of bringing about the social transformation through
the path of peace, consolidation of national freedom, and
socialism."
"Shourie's series", began another publication which
the Communist Party put out, "is a long chain of distortions,
canards and slander against the Communist Party of India, the
international communist movement and the Soviet Union..." "From 1944
onward (and even earlier) paid pen-pushers and agents of imperialism
and the bourgeoisie have repeatedly run slander campaigns against
the CPI and the USSR..." Hansraj Vohra... Langford James, the
barrister again..., "the notorious Minoo Masani and later on his
worthy 'disciple' Sitaram Goel"... "Naturally enough questions are
being asked by people all over India: Why has Shourie started this
foul campaign now?... " That is always a useful question to ask:
When you can't answer a person on facts, ask: "But why now?" India
carries out its first nuclear explosion on 18 May 1974 at Pokhran.
And what does the redoubtable representative of the Communists ask
in the Lok Sabha? "We have been told that we have (had) the
capability for a long time, we could have set off this blast much
earlier, if we wanted to. Well, if we could have set it off much
earlier, we could have set it off much later also. My question is
about the timing of it. There must be some reason behind the timing
of this, this particular timing of 18th May. I am not clear about
it."
Next, redouble authority by quoting each other!
That is twice- blessed: It doubles the weight of your assertion,
and, as the comrade is being cited as an authority, it doubles his
weight for the future! And so the CPI publication fortified the
question it had posed - the hardy perennial, 'But why now?'- by
citing what E M S Namboodiripad had asked!
"Reputed Communist leader and General Secretary of
the CPI(M) E M S Namboodiripad," it said, "has queried: 'Why should
Arun Shourie have taken up the shop-soiled wares of Communist
Betrayal in 1942, 40 years after the Quit India struggle started?'
"
And the answer too was fortified by citing E M S
once again: "The seasoned anti-Communist Minoo Masani promptly
jumped into the fray, in defence of Shourie... E M S sharply
retorts: 'What Mr Shourie himself and Mr Masani are afraid of is
thus the coming together of opposition parties not opposed to the
Communists, but cooperating with them. This is exactly what I
suspected in my Bombay press conference.'..." "Thus the cat is out
of the bag," the publication proclaimed in triumph taking E M S'
assertion as proof.
"Large segments of the non-Communist non-left
opposition parties have repeatedly joined hands with the
Communist-led left opposition, both against the authoritarian forces
led by Indira Congress as well as against right-wing communal and
divisive forces like the BJP and others. This has alarmed both
Indira Gandhi and her entourage, as well as the BJP, RSS and their
allies. Shourie and Masani have come out as their spokesmen and in
their desperate efforts to drive a wedge between the Communists and
the non-Communist opposition parties. In this foul effort, what
better weapon can they take up than the shop- soiled ware of
anti-Communist, anti-Soviet canard?"
Thus, congenitally anti-Communist, vile motives,
desperation of the critic - all there!
Next, a repeat of denunciation-by-association: "let
us now have a brief look at the 'noble' anti-Communist predecessors
of Arun Shourie!," the publication proceeds. Hansraj Vohra... Minoo
Masani... And now comes Arun Shourie who is supposed to be a
talented journalist but who has been exposed as a communalist... And
who has published his articles? The Illustrated Weekly of India
which has also published an article (among the hundreds it would
have published in the period!) 'The RSS will stay' by an RSS member.
And so the truth manifest: "The communists must go and the RSS must
stay - the 'Weekly-Shourie-Masani tie-up is now crystal clear! This
is the basic reason why Shourie has picked up from the dustbin of
history the discarded weapon of anti-communism!"
Forty pages of such sterling refutations in one
publication, twenty-three pages in another. All leading to the
conclusion at once triumphal and defiant, and comic: "The CPI is a
party of heroes and martyrs of freedom struggle as well as of class
battles. The Shouries and Masanis can wear the shop-soiled dirty
shirt of anti-communism as long as they like, but their place is in
the dung-heap of history! The combined imperialist armies tried to
destroy the young Soviet State. They failed. Hitler tried it too and
was destroyed in turn.
"Today the Reagans and Thatchers are again trying
to play the same dirty game. They too will meet the fate of Hitler
and Mussolini! So also will their paid henchmen, who spatter mud at
the communists! Like old man Galileo facing the inquisition and like
our own Dimitrov, facing the butcher Goering, we Indian communists
also hurl defiance at the face of all our reactionary detractors and
persecutors and with rock-like conviction, resolutely declare:
Nonetheless, the Earth goes forward, and all roads lead to
Communism!"
Amen!
Twin lessons in that. To roll back their untruth,
we must immunise ourselves against their verbal terrorism. And among
the easy prophylactics is to cut out and store their vituperation --
in less than no time it mutates into the ridiculous.
The press conferences and pamphlets were hurled at
me in 1984. In 1986 in his A History of Indian Freedom Struggle, E M
S Namboodiripad acknowledged that communists had collaborated with
the British -- or rather, that they "did not hesitate to establish
contact with the government and accept the assistance...."! --
during the 'Quit India' Movement.
In 1984, as we have just seen, the Communists were proclaiming,
"Nonetheless, the Earth goes forward, and all roads lead to
Communism." In 1989 the Berlin Wall was pulled
down...