This article is part of a series by The Wire titled ‘The Early Parliamentarians’, exploring the lives and work of post-independence MPs who have largely been forgotten. The series looks at the institutions they helped create, the enduring ideas they left behind and the contributions they made to nation building.
Through his life, Shridhar Mahadev Joshi – popularly known as SM – faced brutality from many sides. As a freedom fighter he was beaten up by the British police, for the cause of secularism and national integration he was thrashed by the Hindutva forces, and in free India he was arrested by Congress governments.
Joshi was born at Junnar in Poona district on November 12, 1904. Popularly known as SM, he belonged to a lower-middle-class Brahmin family. His father, Mahadev Janardan Joshi, was a clerk of the court at Junnar. He Joshi died in 1916, two years before the completion of his son’s primary education.
SM got involved with the independence movement when he was a student at Fergusson College in 1924. In 1928, he started a movement for the entry of Dalits into temples. In 1929, SM led a satyagraha at Poona to secure the entry of Dalits into the Parvati temple. The satyagrahis were mercilessly beaten by the orthodox opponents and Joshi suffered injuries. He had earlier led a morcha against the Simon Commission in Poona and was beaten up by the police.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Influenced by M.K. Gandhi and drawn to the freedom movement, Joshi participated in the protest against the Simon Commission in 1929 and in the Salt March 1931, for which he was arrested and punished. During this time in prison, he studied Marxist philosophies and socialist literature and developed strong socialist thoughts. In 1928 he, along with N.G. Gore and R.K. Khadilkar, successfully organised the Second Youth Conference at Poona under the presidentship of Jawaharlal Nehru.
In 1930, SM participated in the Civil Disobedience Movement and was sentenced to one year rigorous imprisonment. After his release he was again arrested and was charged with sedition for his speech on “Roy’s Day” that year – he made a speech in Bombay urging the release of the communist leader M.N. Roy. He was prosecuted under Section 124-A and awarded two years’ imprisonment. While in Nasik jail in 1931-32, he toyed with the idea of establishing a socialist party within the Congress.
SM was again prosecuted in 1940 for treason, for his speech at the Madgaon Shetkari Conference, and got a year’s imprisonment. Before that he was detained for over a month, along with Gore and Khadilkar, for anti-war propaganda.
He was instrumental in the formation of the Congress Socialist Party in 1934. He became a founder member of the CSP and was elected to its national executive in Bombay (1934-37). In his political career, he worked with tireless zeal as the secretary of the Maharashtra Youth Conference and the Mass-Contact Committee. He played a key role in the success of the Faizpur AICC Congress Convention and CSP’s National Conference in 1936.
SM was steadfast in his commitment to secularism. As veteran socialist leader Madhu Limaye writes in his autobiography, “I entered political life in 1938. I was quite young then but as I had passed my matriculation examination at a relatively early age, I also entered college quite early. Quite active in Pune in those days were the RSS and the Savarkarites (followers of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar) on the one hand and nationalist, socialist and leftist political organisations on the other. On May 1, 1938 we took out a march to observe May Day. The marchers were attacked by the RSS and Savarkarites when, among others, the well-known revolutionary Senapati Bapat and our socialist leader, SM Joshi, were injured badly.”
SM opposed the acceptance of office by the Congress in 1937 and led a peasants’ morcha demanding progressive tenancy legislation. He was General Secretary Poona Congress Committee, 1937-38. SM attended the Radical Conference at Calcutta in 1939 under Subhas Chandra Bose’s leadership.
He did not want to get married at first, but Tara Pendse, an educated woman, managed to change his mind. She worked as a teacher in a girls’ school and stood by him through many tough times.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
In 1942, SM went underground during the ‘Quit India’ movement, disguised as a Muslim moulavi. He was arrested in 1943, while hiding in Bombay, with his colleagues, but they were acquitted of the conspiracy charge for want of evidence. They were, however, detained as under-trial prisoners till 1946.
SM was one of the founders and chief organisers of the Rashtra Seva Dal, 1941-42, and led its activities in village work in 1941-42 and 1947-51. In 1947, Joshi held a big rally of the Rashtra Seva Dal at Satara.
When the Socialist Party separated from the Congress party in 1947, Joshi was elected as the chairman of its Maharashtra unit. He was among the founder members of Socialist Party in 1948. In 1952, the Socialist Party and another breakaway from the Congress, the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party, merged and the Praja Socialist Party was formed. He was with this new party till 1964. When another merger of two parties led to the formation of the ‘Samyukta Socialist Party’ (SSP), Joshi was unanimously elected its chairman from 1964 to ’69.
As parliamentarian
SM contested the election to the first Lok Sabha in 1952 as a Socialist Party candidate and lost, but was elected in a by-election to the Bombay legislature in 1953. He led the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti and was again elected MLA in 1957. Samyukta Maharashtra was formed in 1960, but Joshi was defeated in the 1962 election to the Maharashtra assembly. He was then elected to the Lok Sabha in 1967 as Samyukta Socialist Party and the Sampurua Maharashtra Samiti candidate. He was an MP till 1971. While in the Lok Sabha, he raised many issues of national and international importance.
Samyukta Maharashtra Movement, commonly known as the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, was an organisation in India that advocated for a separate Marathi-speaking state in Western India and Central India from 1956 to 1960. The Samiti demanded the creation of a new state from Marathi-speaking areas of the State of Bombay, a Marathi state, with the city of Bombay as its capital. The Samiti achieved its goal when the state of Maharashtra was created as a Marathi linguistic state on May 1, 1960.
After independence, SM became more and more interested in the trade union movement. He became a trade union leader and was the general secretary of the Defence Employees’ Federation, chairman of the All-India Federation of State Bank Employees Association, 1960, and chairman of the Transport Kamgar Sabha (Maharashtra). He led several workers strikes.
A socialist activist, politician and writer, Joshi participated in a variety of socio-political movements in both pre- and post-independent India. He also came under the influence of Sane Guruji and started the ‘Seva Pathak’ in his name for village work (1950). In the same year he also undertook a six month ‘Bhudan Pad-Yatra’. He was detained for the Anna Satyagraha (1952) for a month.
SM also took a prominent part in the Goa Independence Movement.
Be it uniting political parties in Maharashtra during the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti Movement that fought for a unilingual state, creating worker unions in Pune, participating in Dalit movements or setting up the Mandal commission, Joshi was actively involved in it all. He worked as a peace mitigator when language-based skirmishes broke out in Mumbai and religious riots took place in Pune.
He also actively participated in Jayaprakash Narayan’s total revolution movement, 1973-74. He was a founder member of Janata Party in 1977 and was president of its Maharashtra unit, 1977-80.
SM was a great organiser and even his opponents have acknowledged that he was the most useful and devoted volunteer.
Joshi also made a notable contribution in journalism. He edited the Daily News of Poona (1953) and the Lok Mira of Bombay (1958-62). He was an effective speaker and also a frequent writer of articles on politics and socialism in Marathi journals.
He wrote extensively for various magazines, and published a collection of stories, Urmi, and a volume on socialist thought, Aspects of Socialist Policy (1969).
Joshi passed away on April 1, 1989 at the age of 84.
Qurban Ali is a trilingual journalist who has covered some of modern India’s major political, social and economic developments. He has a keen interest in India’s freedom struggle and is now documenting the history of the socialist movement in the country.
