BOOK REVIEW: AN EARLY COMMUNIST: MUZAFFAR AHMAD IN CALCUTTA 1913-1929
By Suchetana Chattopadhyay
By Suchetana Chattopadhyay
Tulika Books, New
Delhi, 2011, pp., Rs.600.00
VOLUME XXXVI NUMBER 5 MAY 2012
Suchetana Chattopadhyay's book is three things wrapped in one
cover. It is a narrative of the life of Muzaffar Ahmad, the founding figure of
the Communist Party of India at the Bengal front. But it is not a biography of
this leading Indian Communist. This book is rather about a few early years of
Muzaffar Ahmad's life, a period from 1913 to 1929 to be exact, bound by the two
years signifying Ahmad's entry into the city of Calcutta in his early youth, on
the one hand, and his emergence as one of the central figures of Indian
Communism in relation to the Meerut Conspiracy case and the foundation of the
Communist movement in Bengal, on the other.
By centring round the life of an early Communist the author also
explores the early phase of Communist politics in the region. The author,
however, focuses on the city of Calcutta. This reveals the third aspect of this
academic venture, i.e., comprehending the spatial perspective of the early Communist
movement in Bengal. The author reads the early response of the City of
Calcutta, which had been the prime mover of colonial politics and anticolonial
activities in the eastern front, to the incoming ideas of socialism to evolve
out of it an alternative mode of decolonization as well as a wider struggle for
human emancipation. Ahmad's initiation into socialism and his own contribution
to the emergence of a new brand of politics out of it have been understood in
this geographical setting. The author thus addresses a crucial question related
to Indian Communism regarding its roots in and relevance to the Indian
necessities.
Through a cityscape she shows the significance of socialism for
moulding a sensitive youth with an awakening political mind. The story begins
with a study of Muzaffar Ahmad's native village in a remote island called
Sandwip at Noakhali in present-day Bangladesh. Although long distanced from the
urban facilities of the colonial set-up as well as the burning zeal of the
nationalist protest against colonial exploitation, this island was fully
exposed and subordinated to colonial capital. This brunt of colonialism,
according to the author, did not automatically add a political dimension to the
social identity of the peripheral and marginalized rural people.
Nevertheless, as a logical consequence of colonial rule there
was continuous outflow particularly of young people from the rural hinterland
to the central hub of colonial rule in search of ...
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