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The Political Memoirs of
an Indian Revolutionary Naina Singh Dhoot
(1904-1989)
After Independence, the Congress remained in saddle for 30 years, and the thrust obviously had been on iconising and lionsing Congress stalwarts like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi et al. That the revolutionaries of all political hues vehemently fought for country’s freedom parallel to the Congress is less emphasised. Ironically, the role of communist revolutionaries nearer home (Punjab) still remains out of public gaze. In this context, the book is a important piece of history brought out by Surinder Singh who, with keen eye of a historian and cool temper of a researcher, dug out the self-written memoirs (in Punjab) of Naina Singh Dhoot, a revolutionary of Dhoot Kalan in Hoshiarpur district, and superbly rendered these in an easy-to-understand language that seems to have come originally from Dhoot himself. The book, comprising 10 chapters, covers five decades of active life of the revolutionary—migration to foreign lands, underground life during British rule, involvement in peasants and industrial workers’ struggles on the lines of communist ideology, again underground in independent India, when the CPI remains banned for five years (1948-52). To remain without food for days, sometimes hiding in cremation grounds, miraculous dare devilry acts and confrontations with death come alive to the reader. It is an engaging account; the reader tends to be glued to the book. On his return from Russia, where his grounding in the Communist Party’s study circles and conditioning in Marxist ideology had made him a master strategist and organiser, Dhoot plunged into organising the Communist movement and fighting battles of peasants and industrial workers in different parts of the country. When the Forward Block sought his help for a rally to be addressed by Netaji Subhash Chander Bose at Jamshedpur, Dhoot met Bose in Calcutta. Apart from rally, Netaji specifically sought Dhoot’s help: "My position here is like one who is nazarband. I want to get out of this place if could you help me." These were the days when Netaji was planning to escape from India in 1939. About the Congress Party’s role in freedom struggle, Dhoot has candidly mentioned Shahid Bhagat Singh’s case: "When Bhagat Singh was sentenced to death, two words from Gandhi could have prevented the British from carrying out the sentence." Apart from the hair-raising events in different struggles, the memoirs also give out the formation, rise and ultimate split of the CPI in 1964. The annotation is skillfully done. Incidentally, there is a fund of historical information in this book. The introduction is exhaustive. Apart from important events of Dhoot’s life, it establishes annotator/translator Surinder Singh’s wide knowledge of Communist ideology, the movement in India and his grasp of the economic conditions of India vis-à-vis globalisation and economic reforms launched by the government. The book would be of interest to research scholars. |
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