Mohit Kumar Maitra was born in Natore, Rajshahi. He was a famous journalist and revolutionary. He came in contact with the revolutionaries like Satish Pakrashi in his student life in school. He was driven out from the hostel for organizing protest rally of the students on the occasion of Jallianwallabag massacre in 1919.He was arrested for joining Non-Cooperation movement in 1921. He joined the magazine "Forward" after release established by Deshbandhu Chittaranjan. He conducted movement under the leadership of "Sangbadik Sangha" for long time against the notorious press act of 1930. He published reports and picture, with risk of his life, the misrule of the Princely States like Dhenkanal, Talche etc of Orissa in 1937 and sent all those papers to Governor Dinabandhu Andrews and Lord Linlithgo. He worked in these movements along with Harekrishna Mahatab and Nabakrihna Choudhury. He became leader of the association "The Nation" established by Sarat Chandra Basu in 1949. He came to Calcutta and remained underground when arrest warrant was issued in his name for Dacca Conspiracy Case in 1910.He was arrested in 1915 under DI rule from the area Telaff of Chittagong. He was released in 1920 and he joined the special session of Congress of Calcutta in 1920. He moved forward under the advice of Gandhiji. He became editor for a small period in Andndabazar Patrika. He courted arrest for conducting rally against the proposal of Round Table Conference in 1930 defying order of Police Commissioner and was imprisoned for 6 months.He showed unique example of revolutionary journalism by writing in "Bharat" magazine against the Quit India movement in 1942. He was arrested and remained intern for some time upto 1945. He was founder of Sonarang National School of Dhaka. According to Sedition Committee report this schoolhad strong influence over the students and organised many Political Dacoities.
CHAPTER XXII: A Wave of Mass Agitations
There was a massive upswing in the democratic movements in West Bengal after the first general elections. The Communist Party’s proposed programme on democratic unity adopted in November 1956 said, “Such a need to organize all the democratic forces together has never been seen in any earlier elections. This is a major step ahead in the fight against the ruling class and its improper policies.” The booklet, which contained this programme, detailed some significant peoples’ movements launched by the party between 1952–1956 in West Bengal. The first such movement began right after the first general elections on the issue of the prisoners held without trial and how the government was forced to release these detenus under the leadership of Left parties and progressive-minded people like Dr Meghnad Saha. After this, during 1953–54, the food movement was also a major step. Not to forget the agitation against the tram fare rise; this particular struggle was not only restricted to the Left parties but percolated to the people at large, cutting across party lines. The people were slowly rising against the policies of Congress. The reach of this struggle was evident in the way volunteers were sent and general strikes were observed during the Goa liberation war. Again, during the agitation against the proposed merger of states, it could be noticed that we were slowly assuming major national influence.
The Anti-Merger Agitation
I will discuss at length the plot by the then chief ministers of West Bengal and Bihar, Dr B. C. Roy and Shree Krishna Sinha, respectively to usurp the identity of Bengal and how the people of West Bengal rose against t against the merger plan. Dr Meghnad Saha, lawyer Atul Gupta and many other nationalists were with us.
An anti-merger committee was set up with Mohit Maitra as its convenor. The two chief ministers issued a joint statement on January 23, 1956, proposing the merger and attested the documents. We were told that they even named the proposed state as “Purba Pradesh”. Prime Minister Nehru also supported this and said that the two chief ministers had set an example for the country!.
On January 24, the Politburo issued a statement saying that such indiscriminate merger proposals would only accentuate differences and create disunity. Our party unit in West Bengal discussed the issue at length and unanimously decided to fight the proposal.
On June 26, I held a joint press conference with Jogindra Sharma, secretary of the Bihar unit of the party, where the merger proposal was described as “exremely reactionary, confusing and anti- democratic”. On the same day, I presided over a rally against the proposal at Wellington Square. Some of the speakers were Mohit Maitra, Jatin Chakraborty, Sunil Das and Satyapriya Banerjee. The then leader of Bolshevik Party, Barada Mukutmoni, also spoke.
On January 31, the Opposition stated a walkout in the Assembly and on February 2, over two lakhs students organised a successful strike against the merger proposal. On February 5, the Provincial Committee of the Bihar Communist Party issued a statement which said the national unity would be at stake. Before this, I had said that the Congress working committee’s proposal was totally opportunistic and did not have any fragment of natural justice.
It was only to negate West Bengal’s justified demands that the commission recommendation to ensure a division on the basis of language was ignored. The Congress government had only increased the sense of deprivation of Bengalis by keeping out large Bengali speaking areas of Purulia from outside Bengal. I called on the people to launch a sustained attack on such policies.
The joint statement issued by Sharma and myself detailed our anti-merger stand. It said that this merger would not only harm national unity but divide the Biharis and Bengalis everywhere. It was also important to realise that Bihar, which was less developed than Bengal, would become an easy hunting ground for big businessmen of Calcutta. At the same time ,reactionary forces of Bihar would try and destroy the already established Left labour forces in Bengal. There would be a tremendous rivalry between the Bengalis and Biharis and the tenet of natural justice would be given the go-by. While the rest of the country was moving towards the setting up of states on the basis of language, this merger would be a step backward. It would be a throwback on the state of affairs during the Raj regime.
The economic reasons cited against the merger said that Congress leaders of these two states were always against any development. Our statement also said that the British imperialists had made out an almost similar case while trying to divide the people. I have spelt out the almost the entire statement because of its enormous significance; while the Congress was trying to spread the seeds of communalism nationwide, it was significant that the Communists of two states tried their best to maintain national unity and integrity.
On January 14, the committee set up to go into the re-organisation of states with Mohit Kumar Moitra as its secretary and members like myself, Makhan Pal (RSP), Sunil Das (PSP), Barada Mukutmoni (Bolshevik Party), Nihar Mukherjee (SUC), Hemanta Bose (Forward Bloc), Satyapriya Banerjee (Forward Bloc-Marxist), Baren Daw (Councillor, Calcutta Corporation), Pramode Sinha Roy (CL) and Jyotish Jowardar (SP) issued a statement at the end of a special meeting which said, “This is a case of total injustice and treachery by the Congress. This is emerging as a major challenge in front of the people of West Bengal. The people will give a befitting reply.” We called upon the people to take part in a protest programme on January 21, 1956.
On February 14, while taking part in the debate on the Governor’s address in the Assembly, I said that there had been no primary and major changesin the country during the First Five Year Plan period. Farmers, labourers and middleclass salaried people continued to suffer. Since the merger issue was not mentioned in the Governor’s address, I said, “Is the Governor trying to ignore this critical life and death question of Bengal or is he against the merger..? I also said_and there are Assembly records to crosscheck _ that it was West Bengal’s good fortune and Dr Roy’s bad luck that the people of the people of the state were still alive with a sense of trust and courage. The Congress had given the go-by to the aspirations of the people nurtured for the last 50 years. The anti-merger agitation spread like wildfire not only in West Bengal but some other states too. It was certainly taking the shape of a national movement.
During the middle of all this, there was shocking news from Delhi that Dr Meghnad Saha had died of a heart attack. Dr Saha had been elected the Calcutta North-West Lok Sabha constituency as an Independent candidate with the support of Left parties. He was fiercely against the merger and played an active role in the agitation.
I clearly made out a case along with the PSP’s legislator Sudhir Roy Chowdhury in the Assembly on March 17 that the chief minister was gambling dangerously with the fate of West Bengal. The next day around 50000 people assembled at a massive rally at the Maidan and pledged that the merger would be resisted at all costs. This rally was presided over by veteran revolutionary leader and legislator Jyotish Ghosh. It was made clear in the proposal moved by Mohit Maitra that the agitation was not aimed against the people of any state but the policies and plot of the government to divide the people of the two states. We also advocated the cause of reorganisation of states on the basis of language.
I said “It’s a happy day for us. Under pressure from the people, the chief minister has been forced to say in the floor of the Assembly that the merger issue will not be moved during the current session.”
I also announced that the chief minister had issued a challenge to us in the byelections which had been necessiated by DrSaha’s death. I added that we had accepted the challenge.
In the meantime, a decision was taken to stage dharnas outside various courts and collect signatures of 15 lakh people in favour of the movement by March 23. We issued an ultimatum that if the government did not relent, then there would be no stopping us, but Dr Roy remained stubborn. This, however, only served to fuel the agitation.
That the Congress and its government were slowly moving away from the people was evident from the result of another byelection. The Left supported PSP candidate Lal Bihari Das won by over 20,000 votes against the Congress nominee Bhikari Mondal from Midnapur’s Khejuri seat. The by election has been necessiated by the death of Congress member Kaustavkanti Karal. This meant that the Left had wrested a seat from the Congress with a huge margin.
On April 30, speakers at a rally held to felicitate the movement leaders at Wellington Square said that the Khejuri byelection result had calegorically proved that the merger proposal had been rejected by the people of West Bengal.
In the background of the Congress defeat in the byelection, the very next day, the chief minister had to withdraw the merger proposal. In a statement, he said, “An election is always the best indicator of the popular sentiment regarding an issue like the merger proposal. The Khejuri result may or may not be a true reflection of what the people of West Bengal think about the merger. But the overwhelming way in which the people of Calcutta have voted for Mohit Maitra, the secretary of the committee set up against the merger proposal, shows that the people of this city are not willing to accept the proposal. The people obviously have come to the conclusion that mere acres from some other state will not help solve the problems of Bengal. I thus withdraw my proposal”. It must be recalled here that Mohit Maitra _ till the day he died _ was an active party member and worked for our cause till his very end.The Left parties in a joint statement congratulated the people of Calcutta for defeating the Congress. ( Reminiscences of Jyoti Basu)
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