All India Forward Bloc
Encyclopedia : A : AL : ALL : All India Forward Bloc
The All India Forward Bloc is a leftwing nationalist political party in India.
Background
The Forward Bloc of the Indian National Congress was formed on 3 May 1939 by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, who had resigned from the presidency of the Indian National Congress after being outmanouvered by Gandhi. Initially the aim of the Forward Bloc was to rally all the leftwing sections within the Congress and develop an alternative leadership inside the Congress. Bose became the president of the Forward Bloc and S.S. Cavesheer its vice-president. The 1st All India Conference of the Forward Bloc was held in Bombay in the end of June. At that conference the constitution and programme of the Forward Bloc were approved.
The following year, on June 18-19, the Forward Bloc held a conference in Nagpur. The conference passed a resolution titled 'All Power to the Indian People', urging militant action for struggle against British colonial rule. Soon thereafter, on July 2, Bose was arrested and detained in Presidency Jail, Calcutta. In January 1941 he escaped from house arrest, and clandestinely went into exile. He travelled to the Soviet Union via Afghanistan, seeking Soviet support to the Indian independence struggle. Stalin declined Bose's request, and he then travelled to Germany. In Berlin he set up the Free India Centre, and rallied the Indian Legion.
In August 1942 the British authorities banned the Forward Bloc. Its offices around the country were ransacked. In 1943 Bose was transported to Asia, were he took over the leadership of the Indian National Army. During the final phase of the war the INA fought alongside the Japanese against the British army.
At the end of the war, the Forward Bloc was reorganized. In June 1945 R.S. Ruiker organised a All India Workers Conference. The conference declared the formation of the 'FB Workers Assembly', in practice the legal cover of the still illegal Forward Bloc. Notably some leading communists from Bombay, like K.M. Joglekar and Soli Batliwalli, joined the 'FB Workers Assembly. Ahead of the 1946 elections the ban on the Bloc was lifted.
However, the Bloc was clearly divided along ideological lines. One section was influenced by Marxism whereas the other upheld 'Subhasism', a syncretic ideology consisting of socialism, nationalism and India spiritualism.
The Bloc held its 2nd All India Conference in Arrah, Bihar on January 11-14 1947. S.S. Cavesheer (a leading member of the Subhasist sector) was elected president and Sheel Bhadra Yagee (a leading member of the Marxist sector) was elected general secretary. The party took the name 'All India Forward Bloc'. The conference denounced the understanding between the Congress and the British government for the Independence of India, and called upon the Forward Bloc members present in the Constituent Assembly to withdraw from it.H.K. Kamath, a Forward Bloc executive committee member and delegate in the Constituent Assembly, refused to go along with this order. He kept his seat in the Constituent Assembly and resigned from the party.Subsequently, a national council was held in Bauria, West Bengal, which reaffirmed the demand of boycotting the Constituent Assembly as well as issuing a decree that Bloc members of state legislatures would resign.
Following Independence and Partition, the party national council met in Varanasi February 1948. The national council meeting was also preceded by a decision of the Indian National Congress in the beginning of the year to expell all dissenting tendencies within the Congress, including the Forward Bloc. Thus the party decided to renounce any links with the Congress once and for all, and reconstruct itself as an independent opposition party.Bose, K.; Forward Bloc. Madras: 1988, Tamil Nadu Academy of Political Science. p. 85 Moreover, it passed a resolution that the party be divided into a Forward Bloc for India and a Forward Bloc for the new nation of Pakistan. This would soon prove to be very controversial. The general secretary Yagee did, in line with the Varanasi resolution, dissolve the Bengal committee of the Forward Bloc and set-up ad hoc committees for West Bengal and East Bengal. Now the division between 'Marxists' and 'Subhasists' resurfaced. The 'Subhasists', and S.S. Cavesheer in particular, criticized Yagee's actions. Yagee resigned from the post of general secretary.
The split was now a fact. The 'Subhasist' group, led by Ruiker and Cavesheer, called for a conference in Chandranagar, West Bengal. On the same day Yagee called for a conference in Calcutta. Effectively there was now two Forward Blocs, the Forward Bloc led by Ruiker and the Forward Bloc led by Yagee. Yagee was elected general secretary and K.M. Joglekar chairman of the Yagee-led group. Notably, the Yagee-led group adopted a red flag with a leaping tiger and a hammer and sickle.
The same year Yagee's party decided to join the United Socialist Organisation of India, a front led by Subhas Chandra Bose's elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose. Joglekar revolted against this decision. His followers, which were found in West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, rallied to form the Forward Communist Party.
The Yagee-led party did however survive Joglekar's departure. Yagee was able to push through a merger between the Forward Bloc and the Desh Sevak Party, led by INA officers General Mohan Singh and Colonel Guridal Singh Dhillon. Both had worked closely with Subhas Chandra Bose. They had both been amongst the accused in the Red Fort trials. Now, Mohan Singh was appointed chairman of the Forward Bloc and Dhillon was appointed as its general secretary. This merger gave a considerable boost to the party. In June 1951 the majority of the Ruiker-led Forward Bloc reunified with the party. A joint central committee meeting was held on June 23, which confirmed the merger of the two parties. Mohan Singh and Dhillon were re-elected as the party chairman and general secretary.
In the 1952 general election the party contested as 'Forward Bloc (Marxist)', a denomination that differentiated it from the rump 'Forward Bloc (Ruiker)'.
In 1953 a group of party leaders from West Bengal, like Amar Bose, Satyapriya Banerjee and Suhurit Chaudhury, were expelled for breaking party discipline. The expellees formed the Marxist Forward Bloc.
In 1955 the Indian National Congress adopted socialism as its policy. Thus leaders like Yagee and Singh then proposed that as the Congress had become a socialist party, the Forward Bloc ought to merge with it. Singh and Yagee, without consulting the Central Committee nor the party membership, declared the unification of the Forward Bloc into the Congress. Many sections of the party disagreed with this move, and a Central Committee meeting was held in Nagpur May 11-15. The Central Committee decided to expell Singh and Yagee. Hemanta Kumar Bose was elected as the new chairman, Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar as deputy chairman and Haldulkar as general secretary.
Forward Bloc today
AIFB struggles for socialism in India but they consider that their ideology differs from that of Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India, as they build their socialism on foreign ideologues as Marx and Lenin, whereas the socialism of AIFB is the Indian socialism of Netaji.AIFB has branches throughout the country, but the main strength of the party is concentrated in West Bengal. It is part of the Left Front government in there, and Forward Bloc has various ministers in the state government. The party is also part of Left Front in Tripura, but since they've failed to win any seat in the State Assembly they don't have any minister in that government. Notably though AIFB is cooperating with CPI(M) in West Bengal, Tripura and on the national level, AIFB is not part of the Left Democratic Front in Kerala.
In the Lok Sabha elections 2004 the party received 0,4% of votes and three seats (All from West Bengal).
The current general secretary of AIFB is Debabrata Biswas.
Mass Organizations
- All India Youth League
- All India Students Bloc
- Trade Union Coordination Committee
- All India Agragami Kisan Sabha (peasants' organization)
- All India Agragami Mahila Samiti (women's organization)
| State | No. of candidates 2004 | No. of elected 2004 | No. of candidates 1999 | No. of elected 1999 | Total no. of seats from the state |
| Andhra Pradesh | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 42 |
| Arunachal Pradesh | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Assam | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 |
| Bihar | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 40 (2004)/54(1999) |
| Chhattisgarh | 0 | 0 | - | - | 11 (2004) |
| Goa | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Gujarat | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 26 |
| Haryana | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Jammu and Kashmir | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Jharkhand | 0 | 0 | - | - | 14 (2004) |
| Karnataka | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 28 |
| Kerala | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 29 (2004)/40(1999) |
| Maharashtra | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 48 |
| Manipur | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Meghalaya | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Mizoram | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Nagaland | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Orissa | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 |
| Punjab | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 13 |
| Rajasthan | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 25 |
| Sikkim | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Tamil Nadu | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 39 |
| Tripura | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 80 (2004)/85 (1999) |
| Uttaranchal | 0 | 0 | - | - | 5 (2004) |
| West Bengal | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 42 |
| Union Territories: | |||||
| Andaman & Nicobar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Chandigarh | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Dadra and Nagar Haveli | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Daman and Diu | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Delhi | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| Lakshadweep | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Pondicherry | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Total: | 10 | 3 | 15 | 2 | 543 |
State Election Results
| State | No. of candidates | No. of elected | Totalt no. of seats in Assembly | Year of election |
| Delhi | 5 | 0 | 70 | 2003 |
| Karnataka | 1 | 0 | 224 | 2004 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 1 | 0 | 230 | 2003 |
| Maharashtra | 1 | 0 | 288 | 1999 |
| Orissa | 1 | 0 | 147 | 2004 |
| Punjab | 2 | 0 | 117 | 2002 |
| Tamil Nadu | 1 | 1 | 234 | 2001 |
| Tripura | 1 | 0 | 60 | 2003 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 4 | 0 | 402 | 2002 |
| West Bengal | 34 | 25 | 294 | 2002 |
| Jharkhand | 4 | 2 | 81 | 2001 |
External link
Images
- [Towards Socialism], English language newspaper of AIFB
- [AIFB poster] celebrating the 23rd birthday of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose
- [Netaji Birthday poster] in Malayalam
- [AIFB poster] in Kerala
- [Tripura Bani], the Bengali weekly of AIFB in Tripura
- [AIYL Constitution]
- [Sign of Bengal Hawkers Association], affiliated to TUCC
Notes
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.