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Shaukat Usmani (Maulla Bux Usta) (1901–1978) was an early Indian
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
, who was born to artistic USTA family of Bikaner and a member of the émigré Communist Party of India (Tashkent group), established in Tashkent in 1920, and a founding member of the
Communist Party of India Communist Party of India (CPI) is the oldest Marxist–Leninist communist party in India and one of the nine national parties in the country. The CPI was founded in modern-day Kanpur (formerly known as Cawnpore) on 26 December 1925. H ...
(CPI) formed in
Kanpur Kanpur or Cawnpore ( /kɑːnˈpʊər/ pronunciation (help·info)) is an industrial city in the central-western part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1207, Kanpur became one of the most important commercial and military stations o ...
in 1925. He was also the only candidate to the British Parliament contesting elections, while he was residing in India—that too in a prison. He was sentenced to a total of 16 years in jail after being tried in the Kanpur (Cawnpore) Case of 1923 and later the
Meerut Conspiracy Case The Meerut Conspiracy Case was a controversial court case that was initiated in British Raj in March 1929 and decided in 1933. Several trade unionists, including three Englishmen, were arrested for organizing an Indian railway strike. The Bri ...
of 1929.


In émigré Communist Party of India

M.N. Roy Manabendra Nath Roy (born Narendra Nath Bhattacharya, better known as M. N. Roy; 21 March 1887 – 25 January 1954) was an Indian revolutionary, radical activist and political theorist, as well as a noted philosopher in the 20th century. Roy ...
, an ex-member of the Anushilan Samiti, a powerful secret revolutionary organization operating in East Bengal in the opening years of the 20th century, went to Moscow by the end of April 1920, and soon after founded the émigré Communist Party of India at Tashkent on 17 October 1920. The fledgling party became a part of Communist International (
Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...
) in 1921. Usmani had been a very early leading activist of the émigré Communist Party of India. M.N. Roy was sent by Lenin to Tashkent as head of Central Asiatic Bureau of Comintern as well as the Indian Military School to train an Indian army of revolutionaries.Roy, Samaren ''M.N. Roy: A Political Biography'' Orient Longman. 1997. p.55. The Indian Military School was closed in April 1921, as a ''quid pro quo'' for industrial assistance that Britain promised to Soviet Russia, under Anglo-Russian Trade Pact in March 1921. But before its closure, the School indoctrinated many
Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
volunteers( muhajireens) who were on their way to Turkey to fight for the restoration of Caliphate. After the closing down of the School, the Comintern started Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow. Usmani was one of the muhajireens who was tutored both at Moscow as well as at Tashkent. Early in 1922 thirteen Indians belonging to the émigré Indian Communist Party crossed the Pamirs and reached India. They were all arrested and put in jail in Moscow- Peshawar conspiracy case. Usmani was not in this group, but a later batch, upon many of whom the British government clamped the Kanpur conspiracy case. The Tashkent-Moscow alumni who had dispersed all over the country did not have a smooth working relationship with the local leadership in India under
S.A. Dange Shripad Amrut Dange (10 October 1899 – 22 May 1991) was an Indian Politician who was a founding member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and a stalwart of Indian trade union movement. During the 20th century, Dange was arrested by the ...
, Muzaffar Ahmed,
S.S. Mirajkar Shantaram Savlaram Mirajkar (8 February, 1899– 15 February 1980) was an Indian communist politician and trade unionist. He was part of the old guard of the Communist Party of India, led the All India Trade Union Congress as its president for ...
, S.V. Ghate etc.Roy, Samaren ''M.N. Roy: A Political Biography'' Orient Longman. 1997. p.61. At the same time a different kind of tension was building up between the Communist Party of Great Britain and the émigré communists. As a result, four members of the émigré CPI, including Usmani, went to attend the sixth congress of Comintern without seeking émigré Communist Party of India's nomination. All these tensions did not come into open because of the strict police surveillance. By this stage, Usmani was operating underground under the
nom de guerre A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
of Sikander Sur; his Comintern code name was D A Naoroji (sometimes wrongly rendered as Naoradji).Stevenson, Graham, ''Shaukat (pron. Shavkat) Usmani''.
Compendium of Communist Biographies.


Kanpur conspiracy case

After Peshawar in 1922, two more conspiracy cases were instituted by the British government, one in Kanpur (1924) and Meerut (1929). The accused in the cases included, among others, important Communist organisers who worked in India, such as S.A. Dange, Muzaffar Ahmad,
Nalini Gupta Nalini (Devanagari: नलिनी) is a female gender Indian given name, which means "lotus", "goddess Gayatri","mother of Vedas", "sweet nectar", "Amrit", Feminine "lily" in Sanskrit.''Baby Names''"Nalini" Retrieved on 9 January 2016. The name ...
and S.V. Ghate, and members of the émigré party, such as Rafiq Ahmad and Shaukat Usmani. On 17 March 1924, M.N. Roy, S.A. Dange, Muzaffar Ahmed, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani,
Singaravelu Chettiar Malayapuram Singaravelu (18 February 1860 – 11 February 1946), also known as M. Singaravelu and Singaravelar, was a pioneer in more than one field in India. In 1918, he founded the first trade union in India. On 1 May 1923 he organised the fir ...
, Ghulam Hussain and others were charged that they as communists were seeking "to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India, by complete separation of India from imperialistic Britain by a violent revolution.", in what was called the Cawnpore (now spelt Kanpur) Bolshevik Conspiracy case. The case attracted interest of the people towards Comintern plan to bring about violent revolution in India. "Pages of newspapers daily splashed sensational communist plans and people for the first time learned such a large scale about communism and its doctrines and the aims of the Communist International in India."Ralhan, O.P. (ed.) ''Encyclopedia of Political Parties'' New Delhi: Anmol Publications p.336 Singaravelu Chettiar was released on account of illness. M.N. Roy was out of the country and therefore could not be arrested. Ghulam Hussain confessed that he had received money from the Russians in Kabul and was pardoned. Muzaffar Ahmed, Shaukat Usmani and Dange were sentenced for four years of imprisonment. This case was responsible for actively introducing communism to the Indian masses. After Kanpur, Britain had triumphantly declared that the case had "finished off the communists". But the industrial town of Kanpur, in December 1925, witnessed a conference of different communist groups, under the chairmanship of Singaravelu Chettiar. Dange, Muzaffar Ahmed, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani were among the key organizers of the meeting. The meeting adopted a resolution for the formation of the Communist Party of India with its headquarters in Bombay (now: Mumbai) . The British Government's extreme hostility towards the bolsheviks, made them to decide not to openly function as a communist party; instead, they chose a more open and non-federated platform, under the name the Workers and Peasants Parties.


Meerut conspiracy case

The British Government was worried about the growing influence of the Communist International in India. The government's immediate response was to foist yet another conspiracy case—the Meerut Conspiracy Case—on them. Usmani along with 32 persons were arrested on or about March 20, 1929 and were put on trial under Section 121A of the Indian Penal Code, which declares,
Whoever within or without British India conspires to commit any of the offenses punishable by Section 121 or to deprive the King of the sovereignty of British India or any part thereof, or conspires to overawe, by means of criminal force or the show of criminal force, the Government of India or any local Government, shall be punished with transportation for life, or any shorter term, or with imprisonment of either description which may extend to ten years.


The charges

Though all the accused were not communists, the charges framed against them betrayed the government's fear of growth of communist ideas in India. "For example, Lester Hutchinson, later released as innocent after spending four years in prison, was arrested as an afterthought when he took up the task of carrying on some of the trade union and agitational work after the arrest of the others, was a merely journalist on the ''Indian Daily Mail'' and unconnected with the trade union movement."''Stevenson, Graham'', ''Shaukat (pron. Shavkat) Usmani''.
Compendium of Communist Biographies
The main charges were that in 1921 Dange, Shaukat Usmani and Muzaffar Ahmad entered into a conspiracy to establish a branch of Comintern in India and they were helped by various persons, including the accused Philip Spratt and Benjamin Francis Bradley, sent to India by the Communist International. The aim of the accused persons, according to the charges, was
to deprive the King Emperor of the sovereignty of British India, and for such purpose to use the methods and carry out the programme and plan of campaign outlined and ordained by the Communist International.
The Sessions Court in Meerut awarded stringent sentences to the accused in January 1933. Out of the accused 27 persons were convicted with various durations of 'transportation'. While Muzaffar Ahmed was transported for life, Dange, Spratt, Ghate, Joglekar and Nimbkar were each awarded transportation for a period of 12 years. Usmani was given ten years. On appeal, in July 1933, the sentences of Ahmed, Dange and Usmani were reduced three years. Reductions were also made in the sentences of other convicts.


Communist candidate from Spen Valley

During Meerut trial Usmani stood unsuccessfully as a candidate in a British general election for the Communist Party of Great Britain from his prison cell in India, for the 1929 general election for the constituency of Spen Valley. Usmani is believed to be the only candidate ever to stand in a British General Election whilst resident in India. The Spen Valley seat was significant since it was the focus of an attempt by the leader of a pro-Tory group of right-leaning Liberals,
Sir John Simon John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon, (28 February 1873 – 11 January 1954), was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second World War. He is one of only three peop ...
, to get back into Parliament. He had been the man who declared in 1926 that the General Strike was illegal, and who in 1930 headed the Commission to report on the situation in India. Usmani’s selection as candidate arose from his prominence in the Meerut trial. Since he was a prisoner thousands of miles away, he was unable to conduct the campaign himself, so a deputy to represent him was chosen - one Billy Brain. Communists from many parts of Britain converged at Spen Valley. The campaign was successful in the sense that it brought into focus Meerut and harshness of British rule in India, which were hitherto unknown to many.


Candidate from South East St Pancras

The long drawn Meerut trial enabled the Communist Party to again run Usmani in the 1931 general election for St. Pancras South East against Tory South African mining millionaire, Sir Alfred Lane Beit. The candidature of Usmani was aimed by the
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...
to ensure freedom for India, and to highlight the plight of the Meerut prisoners. In this election, the communists polled seventy five thousand votes, which was a 50% increase on the previous, 1929 General election figure. The party was dismayed at the result. Harry Pollitt, the new general secretary of the Party, had expected that between one hundred and fifty thousand and two hundred thousand would vote communist. He was shocked, and told a meeting of the British Commission of the Communist International that he could not understand why after two Labour Governments, and the betrayal of the General Strike, that still almost seven million workers could vote Labour.


Later life

Aftermath of the Meerut case was the emergence of a stronger CPI, instead of what the British planned for—obliteration of the party. After the release of the Meerut prisoners, in 1933, a party with a centralized apparatus came into being. The CPI came out with its own manifesto and was affiliated to the Communist International in 1934 However, Usmani did not figure in the Party building exercise. The leadership had gone to local (as opposed to émigré Tashkent-Moscow cadre) communists like
S.A. Dange Shripad Amrut Dange (10 October 1899 – 22 May 1991) was an Indian Politician who was a founding member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and a stalwart of Indian trade union movement. During the 20th century, Dange was arrested by the ...
,
P.C. Joshi Puran Chand Joshi (14 April 1907 – 9 November 1980), one of the early leaders of the communist movement in India. He was the general secretary of the Communist Party of India from 1935 to 1947. Early years Joshi was born on 14 April 1907, in ...
,
P. Sundarayya Puchalapalli Sundarayya (Born Sundararami Reddy on 1 May 1913 – 19 May 1985) popularly known as Comrade PS was an Indian Communist politician leader including of the peasant revolt in the former Hyderabad State of India, called the Telangan ...
etc. Nothing much had been heard about Usmani after release from the jail. Similar fate happened to other members of the émigré CPI. Muhammad Ali Sepassi, M.N. Roy's close aide stayed back in Paris and was shot dead by the Nazis in 1940. Muhammed Shafique, first secretary of émigré CPI, wandered about in Europe until 1932 and then vanished. Abdulla Safdar came to India only in 1933 when most of the comrades were booked under the Meerut case. He remained with M.N. Roy, who had by then, had only little standing in the international communist movement.
G.A.K. Lohani Ghulam Ambia Khan Lohani (2 December 1892 – 17 September 1938), stylized as G.A.K. Lohani, or Luhani, was a Bengali revolutionary, journalist, professor, and founder of the Communist Party of India, who struggled against British Raj, British ...
who had joined Roy in 1921 never returned to India. Like other émigré CPI members, Usmani also slipped into oblivion. After release from Meerut, Usmani worked in BB&CI Railway Work- ers’ Union, was arrested on July 14, 1940 in Agra, shifted to Deoli Camp, then to Bareilly, Fatehgarh etc, being re- leased on January 8, 1945. He became general sec- retary of National Seafarers’ Union in Bombay during RIN revolt of 1946. He was not allowed to return to India, so went to London in September, 1952 but returned to Bombay after 72 days. Working as a firm man- ager, he left again for London in 1955 and be- gan research work regularly in British Museum Library, doing odd jobs. Usmani joined British Labor Party and its executive. He used its platform to propagate the cause of Goa liberation struggle. Simultaneously, he continued his research till 1961, resulting in the book ‘Nutritive Values of Fruits, Vegetables, Nuts and Food Cures’, a widely appreciated work. He rejected offers of British citizenship and returned to India in 1962. He then shifted to Cairo, Egypt, in 1964 and re- mained there till 1974, working as journalist in Egyptian Gazette, Lotus of AAPSO etc. He also worked in Al Fatah of PLO. Upon return to India in 1974, Usmani joined the CPI. He worked for some time with Dr Adhikari in Ajoy Bhavan, his co-prisoner in Meerut. He went to Bikaner at the request of CPI comrades there in 1976 to celebrate his 75th birth anniversary. He had left Bikaner in 1920. Shaukat Usmani died on February 26, 1978. His son and other family members lived in ex- treme penury.


Books

''Peshawar to Moscow Leaves from an Indian Muhajireen's diary'', Shaukat Usmani's earliest book was published by Swarajya Publishing House, Benares in 1927. Much later in life, Usmani published a book on the same theme, ''Historic Trips of a Revolutionary - Sojourn in the Soviet Union''. The book gives an account of Usmai's part in the émigré Communist Party of India, and other examples of progress in his homeland like the Indian Military School. He gives colorful descriptions of his stays in Moscow, during which he lodges at the Hotel Delovoi Dior (which has a meaning something akin to the “Business Courtyard”), and boards at the Hotel De Lux, once a gathering place for Communist leaders from all over the world. He also describes a trip from Tashkent through the Ukraine to Crimea. This book is focused mainly on the Middle Eastern states of the Soviet Union. Usmani published in 1939 ''Char Yatri'' in Hindi and ''Char Musafir'' in ''Urdu'' and later in English as ''Four Travellers''.Karachi, Usta Publications Corp. 1950; First English Edition It is an account of a journey of four Indian revolutionaries through Jagdalak, Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif, Termiz,
Bukhara Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...
and
Samarkand fa, سمرقند , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from the top:Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zinda, ...
. He had also published a collection of eight stories in 1951 called ''Night of the eclipse''; a collection of 8 short stories. Karachi: Usta Publications Corp.


See also

*
S.A. Dange Shripad Amrut Dange (10 October 1899 – 22 May 1991) was an Indian Politician who was a founding member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and a stalwart of Indian trade union movement. During the 20th century, Dange was arrested by the ...
*
M.N. Roy Manabendra Nath Roy (born Narendra Nath Bhattacharya, better known as M. N. Roy; 21 March 1887 – 25 January 1954) was an Indian revolutionary, radical activist and political theorist, as well as a noted philosopher in the 20th century. Roy ...


Notes


External links


Stevenson, Graham, ''Shaukat (pron. Shavkat) Usmani''.
Compendium of Communist Biographies.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Usmani, Shaukat 1901 births 1978 deaths Indian communists Communist Party of Great Britain members Comintern people People from Bikaner 20th-century Indian Muslims Indian expatriates in the Soviet Union Communist Party of India politicians from Rajasthan Prisoners and detainees of British India