Currently, the CPI has two members in Lok Sabha and two members in Rajya Sabha. In addition, it has 22 MLAs across four states and one MLC in Bihar. It has the current ECI status of a state party in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Manipur.[9]
CPI was heavily involved in resistance to British colonisation, the fight against the caste system and for land reform.[10] Between 1921 and 1933, many communist leaders were arrested and imprisoned. In 1934, the British colonial administration banned the Communist Party and its affiliated trade union and peasant organisations, making membership a criminal offence.[11] The Communist Party continued its activities clandestinely, despite the repression. Between 1946 and 1951, it structured the peasant revolt in Telangana and organised guerrilla warfare against the feudal lords.[11] The CPI was the main opposition party in India during the 1950s to 1960s.[12]
CPI was part of the ruling United Front government from 1996 to 1998 and had two ministers under Devegowda and Gujral Ministry. The Left Front gave outside support to the V. P. Singh government (1989–90) and UPA government (2004–2009). The Left Front governed West Bengal for 34 years (1977–2011) and Tripura for 25 years (1993–2018).[13]
As of December 2023, the CPI is a part of the state government in Kerala led by LDF. The CPI have four Cabinet Ministers and a Deputy Speaker in Kerala. In Tamil Nadu, it is in power with SPA coalition led by DMK. In Telangana, it is in alliance with the INC.[14]
CPI, along with the Left Front, is part of the INDIA bloc formed to defeat the incumbent BJP-led right-wing NDA government in 2024 General elections.[15]
There is a dispute on the year of formation of CPI. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) which split from CPI in 1964, considers 17 October 1920 as the founding day of Communist Party of India. On this day, M. N. Roy, Evelyn Trent-Roy, Abani Mukherji, Rosa Fitingov, Mohd. Ali, Mohamad Shafiq, and M. P. T. Acharya met in Tashkent to form the communist movement in India. Though 1920 and 1925 both dates are insignificant, because on both of these occasions, the CPI did not adopt a "Party Constitution", which was a foremost prerequisite required to be considered for the membership of the Communist International. The CPI considers 1925 as their founding day, but CPI(M) thinks 1920 as the year, when communist movement in India was founded. There is a technical dispute between both parties on this issue.[16]
Involvement in independence struggle
During the 1920s and the early 1930s the party was poorly organised, and in practice there were several communist groups working with limited national co-ordination. The government banned all communist activity, which made the task of building a united party difficult. Between 1921 and 1924, there were three conspiracy trials against the communist movement: the Peshawar Conspiracy Cases, the Meerut Conspiracy Case, and the Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case. In the first three cases, Russian-trained muhajir communists were put on trial. However, the Cawnpore (now spelt Kanpur) trial had more political impact. On 17 March 1924, Shripad Amrit Dange, M. N. Roy, Muzaffar Ahmad, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani, Malayapuram Singaravelu, Ghulam Hussain, and R. C. Sharma were charged, in Cawnpore Bolshevik Conspiracy case. The specific pip charge was that they as communists were seeking "to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India, by complete separation of India from Britain by a violent revolution." Pages of newspapers daily splashed sensational communist plans and people for the first time learned, on such a large scale, about communism and its doctrines and the aims of the Communist International in India.[17]
Singaravelu Chettiar was released on account of illness. M. N. Roy was in Germany and R. C. Sharma in French Pondichéry, and therefore could not be arrested. Ghulam Hussain confessed that he had received money from the Russians in Kabul and was pardoned. Muzaffar Ahmed, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani and Dange were sentenced for various terms of imprisonment. This case was responsible for actively introducing communism to a larger Indian audience.[17] Dange was released from prison in 1927. Rahul Dev Pal was a prominent communist leader.
On 26 December 1925, a communist conference was organised in Kanpur.[18] Government authorities estimated that 500 persons took part in the conference. The conference was convened by a man called Satya Bhakta. At the conference Satyabhakta argued for a 'National communism' and against subordination under the Comintern. Being outvoted by the other delegates, Satyabhakta left the conference venue in protest. The conference adopted the name 'Communist Party of India'. Groups such as Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan (LKPH) dissolved into the CPI.[19] The émigré CPI, which probably had little organic character anyway, was effectively substituted by the organisation now operating inside India.
Soon after the 1926 conference of the Workers and Peasants Party of Bengal, the underground CPI directed its members to join the provincial Workers and Peasants Parties. All open communist activities were carried out through Workers and Peasants Parties.[20]
The sixth congress of the Communist International met in 1928. In 1927 the Kuomintang had turned on the Chinese communists, which led to a review of the policy on forming alliances with the national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries. The Colonial theses of the 6th Comintern congress called upon the Indian communists to combat the 'national-reformist leaders' and to 'unmask the national reformism of the Indian National Congress and oppose all phrases of the Swarajists, Gandhists, etc. about passive resistance'.[21] The congress did however differentiate between the character of the Chinese Kuomintang and the Indian Swarajist Party, considering the latter as neither a reliable ally nor a direct enemy. The congress called on the Indian communists to use the contradictions between the national bourgeoisie and the British imperialists.[22] The congress also denounced the WPP. The Tenth Plenum of the executive committee of the Communist International, 3 July 1929 – 19 July 1929, directed the Indian communists to break with WPP. When the communists deserted it, the WPP fell apart.[23]
On 20 March 1929, arrests against WPP, CPI and other labour leaders were made in several parts of India, in what became known as the Meerut Conspiracy Case. The communist leadership was now put behind bars. The trial proceedings were to last for four years.[24][25]
As of 1934, the main centres of activity of CPI were Bombay, Calcutta and Punjab. The party had also begun extending its activities to Madras. A group of Andhra and Tamil students, amongst them P. Sundarayya, were recruited to the CPI by Amir Hyder Khan.[26]
The party was reorganised in 1933, after the communist leaders from the Meerut trials were released. A central committee of the party was set up. In 1934, the party was accepted as the Indian section of the Communist International.[27]
The League Against Gandhism, initially known as the Gandhi Boycott Committee, was a political organisation in Calcutta, founded by the underground Communist Party of India and others to launch militant anti-Imperialist activities. The group took the name 'League Against Gandhism' in 1934.[28]
In connection with the change of policy of the Comintern toward popular front politics, the Indian communists changed their relation to the Indian National Congress. The communists joined the Congress Socialist Party, which worked as the left-wing of Congress. Through joining CSP, the CPI accepted the CSP demand for a Constituent Assembly, which it had denounced two years before. The CPI however analysed that the demand for a Constituent Assembly would not be a substitute for soviets.[29]
In July 1937, a clandestine meeting was held at Calicut.[30] Five persons were present at the meeting, P. Krishna Pillai, K. Damodaran, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, N. C. Sekhar and S.V. Ghate. The first four were members of the CSP in Kerala. The CPI in Kerala was formed on 31 December 1939 with the Pinarayi Conference.[31]
The latter, Ghate, was a CPI Central Committee member, who had arrived from Madras.[32] Contacts between the CSP in Kerala and the CPI had begun in 1935, when P. Sundarayya (CC member of CPI, based in Madras at the time) met with E. M. S. Namboodiripad and Krishna Pillai. Sundarayya and Ghate visited Kerala at several times and met with the CSP leaders there. The contacts were facilitated through the national meetings of the Congress, CSP and All India Kisan Sabha.[26]
In 1936–1937, the co-operation between socialists and communists reached its peak. At the 2nd congress of the CSP, held in Meerut in January 1936, a thesis was adopted which declared that there was a need to build 'a united Indian Socialist Party based on Marxism-Leninism'.[33] At the 3rd CSP congress, held in Faizpur, several communists were included into the CSP National Executive Committee.[34]
Two communists, E. M. S. Namboodiripad and Z. A. Ahmed, became All India joint secretaries of CSP. The CPI also had two other members inside the CSP executive.[29]
On the occasion of the 1940 Ramgarh Congress Conference, CPI released a declaration called Proletarian Path, which sought to use the weakened state of the British Empire in the time of war and gave a call for general strike, no-tax, no-rent policies and mobilising for an armed revolutionary uprising. The National Executive of the CSP assembled at Ramgarh took a decision that all communists were expelled from CSP.[35]
In July 1942, the CPI was legalised, as a result of Britain and the Soviet Union becoming allies against Nazi Germany.[36] Communists strengthened their control over the All India Trade Union Congress. At the same time, communists were politically cornered for their opposition to the Quit India Movement.[37][38]
CPI contested the Provincial Legislative Assembly elections of 1946 on its own. It had candidates in 108 out of 1585 seats, winning in eight seats. In total, the CPI vote counted 666 723, which should be seen with the backdrop that 86% of the adult population of India lacked voting rights. The party had contested three seats in Bengal, and won all of them. One CPI candidate, Somnath Lahiri, was elected to the Constituent Assembly.[39]
The Telangana armed struggle (1946–1952), was a peasant rebellion by communists against the feudal lords of the Telangana region in the princely state of Hyderabad. Guerrillas of the Telangana armed struggleCPI election campaign in Karol Bagh, Delhi, for the 1952 Indian general electionFirst Council of Ministers, First CPI Ministry in Kerala
During the period around and directly following Independence in 1947, the internal situation in the party was chaotic. The party shifted rapidly between left-wing and right-wing positions. In February 1948, at the 2nd Party Congress in Calcutta, B. T. Ranadive (BTR) was elected General Secretary of the party.[41] The conference adopted the 'Programme of Democratic Revolution'. This programme included the first mention of struggle against caste injustice in a CPI document.[42]
In several areas the party led armed struggles against a series of local monarchs that were reluctant to give up their power. Such insurgencies took place in Tripura, Telangana and Kerala.[43] The most important rebellion took place in Telangana, against the Nizam of Hyderabad. The communists built up a people's army and militia and controlled an area with a population of three million. The rebellion was brutally crushed and the party abandoned the policy of armed struggle. BTR was deposed and denounced as a 'left adventurist'.
In Manipur, the party became a force to reckon with through the agrarian struggles led by Jananeta Irawat Singh. Singh had joined CPI in 1946.[44] At the 1951 congress of the party, 'People's Democracy' was substituted by 'National Democracy' as the main slogan of the party.[45]
A Communist Party was founded in Bihar in 1939. Post independence, the Communist Party achieved success in Bihar (Bihar and Jharkhand). The Communist Party conducted movements for land reform, trade union movement was at its peak in Bihar in the sixties, seventies and eighties. Achievement of communists in Bihar placed the Communist Party in the forefront of left movement in India.[46] Bihar produced some of the legendary leaders like Kishan leaders Sahajanand Saraswati and Karyanand Sharma, intellectual giants like Jagannath Sarkar, Yogendra Sharma, and Indradeep Sinha, mass leaders like Chandrasekhar Singh and Sunil Mukherjee, Trade Union leaders like Kedar Das and others.[47] In the Mithila region of Bihar Bhogendra Jha led the fight against the Mahants and Zamindars. He later went on the win Parliamentary elections and was MP for seven terms.[48][49]
In the early 1950s, young communist leadership was uniting textile workers, bank employees and unorganised sector workers to ensure mass support in north India. National leaders like S. A. Dange, Chandra Rajeswara Rao, and P. K. Vasudevan Nair were encouraging them and supporting the idea despite their differences on the execution. Firebrand Communist leaders like Homi F. Daji, Guru Radha Kishan, H. L. Parwana, Sarjoo Pandey, Darshan Singh Canadian and Avtaar Singh Malhotra were emerging between the masses and the working class in particular.[50] This was the first leadership of communists that was very close to the masses and people consider them champions of the cause of the workers and the poor.
In 1952, CPI became the first leading opposition party in the 1st Lok Sabha, while the Indian National Congress was in power.[51]
In the 1952 Travancore-Cochin Legislative Assembly election, the Communist Party was banned, so it couldn't take part in the election process.[52] In the general elections in 1957, the CPI emerged as the largest opposition party. In 1957, the CPI won the state elections in Kerala. This was the first time that an opposition party won control over an Indian state. E. M. S. Namboodiripad became Chief Minister. At the 1957 international meeting of Communist parties in Moscow, the Chinese Communist Party directed criticism at the CPI for having formed a ministry in Kerala.[53]
Liberation of Dadra-Nagar Haveli:
The Communist Party of India, along with its units in Bombay, Maharashtra, and Gujarat, decided to start armed operations in the area in the July 1954. Both the areas were liberated by the beginning of August. Communist leaders like Narayan Palekar, Parulekar, Vaz, Rodriguez, Cunha, and others emerged as the famous Communist leaders of this movement. Thereafter, the struggle to liberate Daman and Diu was begun by the Communist Party in Gujarat and other forces.[54]
Goa Satyagraha:
The countrywide Goa satyagraha of 1955–1956 is among the unforgettable pages in the history of freedom struggle, in which the communists played a major and memorable role. The CPI decided to send batches of satyahrahis since the middle of 1955 to the borders of Goa and even inside. Many were killed, many more others arrested and sent to jails inside Goa and inhumanly treated. Many others were even sent to jails in Portugal and were brutally tortured.
The satyagraha was led and conducted by a joint committee known as Goa Vimochan Sahayak Samiti. S. A. Dange, Senapati Bapat, S. G. Sardesai, Nana Patil and several others were among the prominent leaders of the Samiti. Satyagraha began on 10 May 1955, and soon became a countrywide movement.[55]
During the period between 1970 and 1977, the CPI was allied with the Congress party. In Kerala, they formed a government together with Congress as part of a coalition known as the United Front, with the CPI-leader C. Achutha Menon as Chief Minister. This government continued governing throughout the emergency period and was responsible for the many acts of repression throughout the period carried out against political opponents in the guise of fighting naxals, manifesting most infamously in the Rajan case. The United Front government also used this opportunity to pursue class struggle by punishing those from the managerial classes, money lenders, bosses with anti-labour stances, ration shopkeepers and truckers engaged in black marketing, under stringent provisions of MISA and DIR.[57]
In 1986, the CPI's leader in Punjab and MLA in the Punjabi legislature Darshan Singh Canadian was assassinated by Sikh extremists. Altogether about 200 communist leaders out of which most were Sikhs were killed by Sikh extremists in Punjab.[62][63]
Present situation
Left parties' regional control
State/s which has/had chief ministers from both the CPI(M) and the CPI.
State/s which had chief ministers from the CPI(M).
States which have Governments of coalition of parties including Left parties like CPI(M), CPI, CPI(ML)L and AIFB.
States which did not have/had a chief minister from the CPI(M) or the CPI.
The CPI was recognised by the Election Commission of India as a 'National Party'. Until 2022, CPI happened to be the only national political party from India to have contested all the general elections using the same electoral symbol. Owing to a massive defeat in 2019 Indian general election where the party saw its tally reduced to two MPs, the Election Commission of India sent a letter to CPI asking for reasons why its national party status should not be revoked.[64][65][66][67][68] Due to repeated poor performances in elections, the Election Commission of India withdrew its national party status on 10 April 2023.[9]
On the national level, they supported the Indian National Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government along with other parliamentary Left parties, but without taking part in it. Upon attaining power in May 2004, the United Progressive Alliance formulated a programme of action known as the Common Minimum Programme.[69][70] The Left bases its support to the UPA on strict adherence to it. Provisions of the CMP mentioned to discontinue disinvestment, massive social sector outlays and an independent foreign policy.
On 8 July 2008, the General Secretary of the CPI(M), Prakash Karat, announced that the Left was withdrawing its support over the decision by the government to go ahead with the United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act. The Left parties combination had been a staunch advocate of not proceeding with this deal citing national interests.[71]
As of 2020, the CPI is a part of the state government in Kerala. Pinarayi Vijayan is Chief Minister of Kerala.[74] CPI have four Cabinet Ministers in Kerala. In Tamil Nadu, it is in power with SPA coalition led by M. K. Stalin. The Left Front governed West Bengal for 34 years (1977–2011) and Tripura for 25 years (1993–2018)
"The tenure of the General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary, if any, and State Secretaries is limited to two consecutive terms—a term being of not less than two years. In exceptional cases, the unit concerned may decide by three-fourth majority through secret ballot to allow two more terms. In case such a motion is adopted that comrade also can contest in the election along with other candidates. As regards the tenure of the office-bearers at district and lower levels, the state councils will frame rules where
necessary."[83]
Hirendranath Mukherjee-Parliamentarian & He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 1990 and Padma Vibhushan in 1991 by the President of India for his lifelong services
Ila Mitra – Peasant Movement Leader from West Bengal
Indrajit Gupta – Parliamentarian, former general secretary and a former central minister
Jagannath Sarkar – former National Secretary, freedom fighter, builder of communist movement in Bihar and Jharkhand
Satypal Dang- He was a legislator of Punjab State Legislative Assembly, representing the Communist Party of India for four terms and a Minister of Food and Civil Supplies in the United Front ministry led by Justice Gurnam Singh and Padma Bhushan Awardee.
indicates in government or in Coalition government
Results from the Election Commission of India website. Results do not deal with partitions of states, defections and by-elections during the mandate period.
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^M. V. S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 92-93
^M. V. S. Koteshwar Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 111
^ abSaha, Murari Mohan (ed.), Documents of the Revolutionary Socialist Party: Volume One 1938–1947. Agartala: Lokayata Chetana Bikash Society, 2001. p. 21-25
^M. V. S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 47-48
^M. V. S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 97-98, 111–112
^Ralhan, O.P. (ed.). Encyclopaedia of Political Parties – India – Pakistan – Bangladesh – National -Regional – Local. Vol. 23. Revolutionary Movements (1930–1946). New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 2002. p. 689-691
^M. V. S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 96
^ abE. M. S. Namboodiripad. The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 7
^Surjeet, Harkishan Surjeet. March of the Communist Movement in India – An Introduction to the Documents of the History of the Communist Movement in India. Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1998. p. 25
^Roy Subodh, Communism in India – Unpublished Documents 1925–1934. Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1998. p. 338-339, 359–360
^ abRoy, Samaren. M. N. Roy: A Political Biography. Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1998. p. 113, 115
^Thiruvananthapuram, R. KRISHNAKUMAR in (26 August 2004). "A man and a movement". Frontline. Archived from the original on 23 April 2022. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
^"Founders". CPIM Kerala. Archived from the original on 8 December 2020. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
^E. M. S. Namboodiripad. The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 6
^E. M. S. Namboodiripad. The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 44
^E. M. S. Namboodiripad. The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 45
^Ralhan, O. P. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Political Parties – India – Pakistan – Bangladesh – National -Regional – Local. Vol. 24. Socialist Movement in India. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1997. p. 82
^Surjeet, Harkishan Surjeet. March of the Communist Movement in India – An Introduction to the Documents of the History of the Communist Movement in India. Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1998. p. 55
^M. V. S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 207.
^Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (2009). Decolonization in South Asia: Meanings of Freedom in Post-independence West Bengal, 1947–52. Routledge. ISBN978-1-134-01823-9. As a protest against Partition, the Hindu Mahasabha and the Communist Party of India (CPI) did not participate in the celebrations of 15 August.
^Chandra, Bipan & others (2000). India after Independence 1947–2000, New Delhi:Penguin, ISBN0-14-027825-7, p. 204
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