WEARY of being wrongly interpreted by his followers, Karl Marx is said to have famously declaimed: “Thank God I am not a Marxist.”

Going through some correspondence, recently published by a group of Delhi University professors, between senior Indian communists and Stalin on the India-Pakistan rivalry over Kashmir, it becomes clearer why Marx had to resort to the extreme invocation.

Here were leaders of the fabled Communist Party of India, who had rightly or wrongly once supported the idea of Pakistan; and now, by late 1951, the same leaders were fervently pleading with Stalin, of all people, to show them the way in dealing with the nation whose creation they, and to an extent he, had so completely supported. Reading Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan’s letter in this paper on Tuesday — a tribute to an Indian comrade she lost recently — we can imagine millions like her who have lived to rue the partition. Having said that, what comes across from the correspondence between Stalin and the Indian communists is that these were upright and, equally importantly, principled people. They were unmistakably devoted to their quest in an absolutely selfless way. They were open to discussion, both among themselves and with their foreign interlocutors, to arrive at an agreeable conclusion on issues that would often decide the destiny of the masses that followed them.

In other words a transparent and democratic discussion about what India’s approach should be over the gathering military stand-off with Pakistan took place between leaders of the Indian communist movement. That they involved Stalin and his aides like Malenkov, Molotov, Gromyko, Bulganin and even Beria among those who eventually directed the course their party would take makes for fascinating reading. It was published in the April edition of Revolutionary Democracy.

There were at least three divergent opinions about the path ahead and CPI chief Ajoy Ghosh forwarded all three for Stalin’s perusal. The separate notes came from S.A. Dange and Rajeshwar Rao, who eventually went on to succeed Ghosh as party general secretary. Years later, in 1955, Nehru was to complain to Khrushchev, when the Soviet leader visited New Delhi with Bulganin, that he was puzzled why Indian communists were always rushing to Moscow for advice.

Khrushchev, according to Nehru’s correspondence released in his selective writings, flatly denied meeting any of the members in Moscow. He also denied knowledge of their correspondence with Stalin. For this reason the letters now made available offer a rare peep into what really happened vis-à-vis the communist line on India-Pakistan ties and why. It also puts paid to Soviet assertions that Indian communists were not being guided from Moscow.

The majority of the comrades in the politburo, according to Ghosh, were of the opinion that though essentially “both governments are collaborations” Pakistan was under a much greater influence of the “American and English imperialists”. Therefore, it would be a mistake to equate the policies of the Indian and Pakistani governments. The war hysteria drummed up in 1951 was meant to force India to reassess its refusal to accept the UN proposals, said Ghosh in the secret missive to Stalin. Then came the queries, which Nehru had an inkling of but were denied by Khrushchev.

The communists thought they should back India’s right to repel any attack by Pakistan on Kashmir but they also did not support the idea of India occupying Kashmir. “We would like to know your opinion on this question, if possible in the very near future,” Ghosh requested Stalin. “There is not enough clarity and unity of opinion regarding the Kashmir question itself.” So he asked the Soviet leader to respond to the following questions: Should Kashmir unite with India or remain an independent state? Should the party demand removal of the Indian and Pakistani armed forces as a preliminary step towards convening a freely elected Constituent Assembly of the united princely state?

And finally, should the party just declare that the Kashmir issue must be resolved by India and Pakistan through mutual agreement and through peaceful means, by ascertaining the will of the Kashmiri people, or should it forward a proposal for conducting a plebiscite under the observation of the five great powers?

Ghosh also told Stalin that some of the Indian party leaders held the view that Kashmir should become an independent state and its sovereignty should be guaranteed by its neighbour states: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the USSR and China. “The majority of the members of the politburo have objections to this view as they think that an independent Kashmir will fall under the domination of the American imperialists,” he added.

It is interesting of course that communists were not alone among Indian groups that sought inspiration from foreign ideologies. The entire Hindu right-wing was predicated on Italian fascism and even praised Hitler’s treatment of German Jews. The Congress, although it had become a mass movement under Gandhi, was happy with a Westminster style of parliamentary democracy. But the communists remained unique in routinely asking for advice and guidance from Moscow even though there were differences within their own ranks over this approach.

Dange, who became the general secretary after Ghosh, differed with him and he said so to Stalin. In his view discussion on Kashmir would be meaningful only if other regional and global factors were taken into account. He observed, perhaps presciently, that in the Kashmir discussion “we must proceed from the Anglo-American contradictions in the Middle East and also from the desire of the English and the American imperialists to set up strategic bases against the USSR and China.” He said the ‘war slogans’ of Pakistan and the ‘peace slogan’ of India would mean little without understanding the wider picture. “Just the Kashmir question alone does not explain the significance of the ‘peace slogan’ and the illusions that have been created by the Nehru government with the help of this slogan.”Rajeshwar Rao, with his rural background, stacked his questions with a different priority. “Our demands are: 1) No talks with the UN; 2) The governments of the Indian Union and Pakistan must find methods for a peaceful and democratic resolution of the question. 3) The Constituent Assembly should immediately end the rule of the Maharaja and carry out agrarian and other democratic reforms.”

As we look at the role India’s mainstream communists continue to play in the struggle against India’s rightward tilt, and that too without the pillar of support they once leaned on, they come across as a dedicated lot. They are selfless, very learned but ever so often prone to committing major errors of judgment. Not unlike the one that Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan referred to. Even so, we can only thank God they are such a different breed.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com