New Delhi: At the inaugural Sitaram Yechury Memorial Lecture, marking the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s former general secretary's first death anniversary, eminent historian Irfan Habib urged his audience to revisit Marxist critiques of some of the most crucial chapters of India’s freedom struggle, especially those that he felt cast a shadow, even if incorrectly, on the role of Indian communist movement.

“It may be time to look into our own shortcomings,” Professor Habib said, firmly identifying himself as a Leftist intellectual.

Considered a path-breaking medieval India historian globally, but whose works include studies in diverse time periods from early to modern India, Habib, now in his 90s, appeared for the first time in the last decade at a public lecture in the national capital on Monday (September 15). CPI(M) general secretary M.A.Baby introduced him as “93-year-young” while eminent economist Prabhat Patnaik said that Habib is among those global intellectuals like Albert Einstein and Jean-Paul Sartre who openly espoused their politics, breaking away from the Indian tradition in which public intellectuals have not been politically active.

In his lecture titled 'The Left in the National Movement and its Legacy', Habib pointed out that Marxist historical writing hasn’t given its due to the immense contribution of moderate Congress leaders Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt, who first exposed how the British were draining India’s wealth. Well known as the “Drain of Wealth” theory, Naoroji and Dutt’s theses in the 1880s preceded what later became Marxist critique of British imperialism that propounded a similar understanding of colonialism.

“The communist critique of British colonialism preceded the communist movement in India. (Karl) Marx and (Friedrich) Engels offered a critique of colonialism in the 1840s but Naoroji and Dutt developed that critique (in India). We should celebrate them too,” Habib said.

Habib went on to point out that “communists were an important element of the Indian National Congress, often in alliance with the socialists”, before differences between the two emerged in post-independent India.

However, he said that communists made a strategic mistake by “equating Muslim League and the Congress”.

From the 1930s to 1947, the Congress and Muslim League were “pulling in different directions”, he said. “Congress wanted immediate and full freedom and the Muslim League demanded Muslim dividend,” Habib said, arguing that while the communists supported the Congress’s call, they wrongly equated both the political formations.

“Muslim League was communal, the Indian National Congress was a national party…Muslim League supported Partition, Congress did not. On what grounds can we say that both were same,” Habib said.

“How could we not see the difference between the two? Congress already had a socialist programme,” he added.

Habib recalled how the undivided Communist Party of India, in treating the Congress and Muslim League as one and the same, followed a policy of sending its Muslim party workers to Muslim League and Hindu members to the Congress, effectively treating “the Congress as a Hindu Party”.

“The communal problem was not handled by Communists well,” Habib said.

“It was an enormous error,” he said, recalling some of his memories of how many Muslim communists distanced themselves from Marxism after being forced to work with Muslim League.

However, he reminded that even when the Communists were following a contentious political line, a major communist spokesman of the time R.P. Dutt devoted a separate chapter in his landmark book India Today (published in 1940) on why India should not be divided along religious lines. However, he said his treatise was ignored by the then Communist Party of India general secretary P.C. Joshi who followed a “policy of appeasement towards the Muslim League”.

Even as he offered a critical take on the way the Indian communist movement looked at certain chapters of the freedom struggle, he also defended the Left’s position to not support the Quit India Movement – an episode in India’s modern history that has often been weaponised by both the Hindu Right and the Congress to attack the Left and its role in India’s freedom struggle.

Habib said that the Bombay Resolution of 1942 that was adopted by the Congress to kickstart the Quit India movement was “mistimed”. He said that the Congress gave the Quit India call when the Japanese forces were lurking around India’s borders, and the communists rightly identified fascist forces as their first enemy, which effectively meant that they shifted their fight against British colonialists for later.

Instead of being defensive, “we should stand by the communists” in their opposition to the Quit India movement.

Habib urged all to consider the points he raised, and hoped that communists could debate and discuss those “freely” and with “a sense of reason”.

Habib ended his lecture by talking about the demands of current times, and how India’s communist movement should move forward.

“In India today, we should not only propagate socialism but also full democracy. Both socialism and democracy are not merely values, but priceless values. One can’t be of value without the other…We should propagate socialism as far as possible but ensure that it is accepted by a mass majority,” he said.

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