An If of History-1

Amid India's fight for freedom, a shadowy alliance of communists, colonialists, and the Muslim League unfolded vis-à-vis a prospective meeting between Doctorji and Subhas Bose that never materialised

- ANIRBAN GANGULY

Referring to the communists' collaboration with the British and the Muslim League throughout the decade of 1940s, H.V. Sheshadri calls it a "British-League-Communist Hook-up." The early 1940s were crucial years for India and Indian communists came out in full support for Jinnah's Pakistan scheme. Jinnah found, Seshadri writes, a "strange bed-fellow in the communists." The communists, he points out, "had not stopped at supporting the Muslim League in their Partition demand. It had directed a large number of its Muslim members to join the Muslim League" so that it could provide the "intellectual muscle" to the two-nation-theory. The communists went still further, Seshadri observes, "and began planting seeds for further dismemberment of the country by propagating that every linguistic group was a distinct national entity and had the right to secede."

Seshadri refers to this as the "British-League-Communists gang-up to subvert the cause of India's freedom and integrity." Jinnah used communists for his propaganda but heaped derision on their politics. Addressing a Muslim League session in Lahore, Jinnah said that he found communists to be the "cleverest party" carrying on propaganda but that he was also suspicious of them. "They have got so many flags, and I think they consider that there is safety in numbers. They have got the Red flag; they have got the Russian flag, they have got the Soviet flag, they have got the Congress flag. And now they have been good enough to introduce our flag also... Well when a man has too many flags, I get suspicious."