Karl Marx felt Hegel's dialectic was 'stood on its head' and he put it back on its feet. But CPI general secretary AB Bardhan made history stand on its head when he said that Communists were the first to talk about Purna Swaraj (complete independence). Mr Bardhan mouthed these words at the 80th anniversary of the Communist Party of India. I don't know whether Mr Bardhan was referring to the Purna Swaraj resolution passed by the Congress in 1929, the concept of complete independence of India from Britain, or the Communists' contribution to freedom struggle in general. If he meant any of the three, he could not have been further off the mark.
The concept of complete independence from colonial rule is reflected in the nationalist writings of Sri Aurobindo. In Karmayogin, Sri Aurobindo spoke of the "inalienable right of the nation to independence". He wanted Indians to be as free in India as the British were in Britain, Americans in the USA and Frenchmen in France. This spirit of freedom became manifest in the Swadeshi agitation that erupted in Bengal in 1905 when Lord Curzon decided to partition the province.
Veer Savarkar, in his early twenties, founded Abhinav Bharat (on the lines of Giuseppe Mazzini's Young Italy) and advocated the cause of complete independence of India. They were far ahead of a Congress that demanded a better quality of colonial administration. Subhash Chandra Bose, although a dedicated Congressman between 1921 and 1939, was inspired by the writings of Sri Aurobindo. In fact, in his adolescent years, Subhas Chandra Bose nourished the hope that Sri Aurobindo would come out of his retreat in Pondicherry and lead the country to freedom.
Communist ideology had not yet hit the shores of India when Sri Aurobindo and Veer Savarkar were advocating these radical ideas. The Bolshevik revolution had not taken place when Rash Behari Bose was entrusted by Lala Hardayal to coordinate the Ghadar movement across Punjab and the United Provinces. In 1915, Rash Behari Bose had planned a military uprising in cantonments from Peshawar to Singapore, in an attempt to revive the uprising of 1857, to drive out the British. feedback@dailypioneer.com
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