Revolutionary Communist Party of India (Tagore)

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Revolutionary Communist Party of India (Tagore)
AbbreviationRCPI(Tagore)
Founded1948; 76 years ago (1948)
Split fromRevolutionary Communist Party of India
Merged intoRevolutionary Communist Party of India
IdeologyCommunism
Marxism

The Revolutionary Communist Party of India, also known as RCPI (Tagore), was a political party in India, led by Saumyendranath Tagore.[1] RCPI (Tagore) emerged from a split in the Revolutionary Communist Party of India in 1948. RCPI (Tagore) had a very minor role in Indian politics. Tagore served as the chairman of the party.[2] The party published the Bengali fortnightly Ganabani ('People's Voice').[3][4]

Split in RCPI[edit]

Tagore, the founder of RCPI in 1934, had been jailed in November 1947.[5] Tagore was released from prison in 1948.[5] At the time a sector of RCPI, led by Pannalal Dasgupta, insisted on turning the campaign of building panchayats into a general armed insurrection.[5][6] After his release from jail Tagore argued that armed revolution was premature in India.[5]

Dasgupta assembled an All India Party Conference in Birbhum in 1948.[5] Tagore requested to resign from the RCPI Central Committee, a request the Birbhum conference rejected.[5] After the Birbhum conference the followers of Dasgupta began to gather arms and prepare for armed struggle.[6] After the Birbhum conference Tagore, at a public meeting in Calcutta, denounced insurrectional line of Dasgupta.[5] Tagore's speech pushed the Dasgupta group to issue disciplinary action against him, accepting his resignation from the Central Committee.[5] Half a year later Tagore gathered his followers for a separate Party Conference, as its 5th Party Congress, in Burdwan.[5][6] Thus there were two parallel RCPIs, one led by Dasgupta and one led by Tagore.[5] The former grouping represented the majority in the RCPI.[7] The latter of the two parties came to be known as 'RCPI (Tagore)'.

Work amongst refugees[edit]

The RCPI (Tagore) joined the Refugee Central Rehabilitation Council, a body that challenged the main CPI-led United Central Refugee Council.[8][9]

1951–1952 elections[edit]

Ahead of the 1951–1952 general election RCPI (Tagore) joined the United Socialist Organisation of India of Sarat Chandra Bose, but in June 1951 the party broke with the USOI.[10] Instead, on July 18, 1951 RCPI (Tagore) along with the Socialist and the Leela Roy faction of the Forward Bloc formed the People's United Socialist Front (PUSF).[10][11][12][13] RCPI (Tagore) fielded 11 candidates in the 1952 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election.[11] None of the candidates was elected, in total the party obtained 35,645 votes (0.48% of the statewide vote).[11] The election symbol of the party was a flaming torch.[14]

Dissatisfied with what he perceived to be lack of support from the party during the election campaign, Kanai Pal and his Santipur-based group split away from RCPI (Tagore) in 1953.[5]

1957 election[edit]

RCPI (Tagore) joined the United Democratic People's Front ahead of the 1957 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, a front that brought together the Hindu nationalist Jana Sangh and Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, as well as dissident Congressmen.[15][16] RCPI (Tagore) contested 2 seats, winning none and obtaining 18,602 votes (0.18% of the statewide vote).[11]

Sixth and Seventh Party Congresses[edit]

RCPI (Tagore) held its Sixth Party Congress in February–March 1960.[6] The Party Congress characterized the Soviet Union as a 'labour bureaucracy' and China as moving towards 'totalitarian, bureaucratic rule'.[6] The Party Congress called for the creation of a new International of anti-Stalinist left-wing forces.[6] RCPI (Tagore) held its Seventh Party Congress in November 1961.[6]

Tagore visited Israel as a guest of Mapam in 1964.[17]

1969 elections[edit]

RCPI (Tagore) was the sole party that opposed holding mid-term state assembly elections in November 1968.[18] RCPI (Tagore) contested 4 seats in the 1969 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, but failed to win any seat.[19]

RCPI (Tagore) eventually fell into oblivion, being unable to join the CPI(M)-led fronts due to their ideological purism and history of conflict with the CPI(M)-aligned RCPI.[20]

Merger with RCPI (Das) and split[edit]

After the 1971 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election the Revolutionary Communist Party of India (Das) merged into RCPI (Tagore).[6] Tagore died in 1974.[21] After the death of Tagore, RCPI (Tagore) was split, with Das leading one of the factions and Bibhuti Bhushan Nandi the other.[6] As of the early 1980s RCPI (Das) opposed the Left Front whilst RCPI (Nandi) supported the Left Front government from outside.[6]

Merger with the main RCPI[edit]

In 2001, the party merged into its parent organisation, the Revolutionary Communist Party of India.[citation needed]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Asish Krishna Basu (2003). Marxism in an Indian State: An Analytical Study of West Bengal Leftism. Ratna Prakashan. p. 2. ISBN 978-81-85709-73-4.
  2. ^ Mapam Bulletin. Political Department of the United Workers' Party (Mapam). 1968. p. 14.
  3. ^ Registrar for Newspapers of India. Ganabani
  4. ^ West Bengal (India). Fact Finding Committee on Small & Medium Newspapers; Sasanka Sekhar Sanyal (1983). Report of the Fact Finding Committee on Small & Medium Newspapers, 1980. Information & Cultural Affairs Department, Government of West Bengal. p. 187.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k S. N. Sadasivan (1977). Party and democracy in India. Tata McGraw-Hill. pp. 88–90.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Alexander, Robert J. Trotskyism in India
  7. ^ Cahiers Leon Trotsky, February 1998
  8. ^ Suvir Kaul (2001). The Partitions of Memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India. Indiana University Press. p. 108. ISBN 0-253-21566-8.
  9. ^ Prafulla K. Chakrabarti (1990). The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal. Lumière Books. p. 88.
  10. ^ a b Sekhar Bandyopadhyay (3 June 2009). Decolonization in South Asia: Meanings of Freedom in Post-independence West Bengal, 1947–52. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-01823-9.
  11. ^ a b c d Communist Party of India (Marxist). West Bengal State Committee. Election results of West Bengal: statistics & analysis, 1952-1991. The Committee. pp. 300–301.
  12. ^ Atindranath Bose (1952). Current Affairs. A. Maukherjee. p. 342.
  13. ^ Madhu Limaye (1986). The Age of Hope: Phases of the Socialist Movement. Atma Ram. p. 36. ISBN 978-81-7043-044-5.
  14. ^ Times of India. A tale of election symbols
  15. ^ M.V.S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front - Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 216.
  16. ^ Economic Weekly: A Journal of Current Economic and Political Affairs. Vol. 14. January 1962. p. 367.
  17. ^ Mapam Bulletin (1-10 ed.). Political Department of the United Workers' Party (Mapam). 1964.
  18. ^ Inde. Election Commission (1970). Report on the Mid-term General Elections in India, 1968-69: 1968/69. Government of India Press. p. 24.
  19. ^ Subimal Kumar Mukherjee; Indian Council of Social Science Research (1975). Elections to the Howrah Parliamentary Constituency, 1971, with Reference to Three Assembly Constituencies Thereunder. World Press. p. 32.
  20. ^ Sajal Basu (1 December 1990). Factions, ideology, and politics: coalition politics in Bengal. Minerva Associates (Publications). pp. 117, 131. ISBN 978-81-85195-26-1.
  21. ^ Sutapa Chatterjee Sarkar (2010). The Sundarbans: Folk Deities, Monsters and Mortals. Berghahn Books. p. 157. ISBN 978-81-87358-35-0.
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