India’s first general election after Independence, held in 1952, saw the emergence of the Communist Party of India (CPI)—the ban on which had been lifted only a few months earlier. Several of its top leaders continued to be imprisoned, as they were ideologically the most coherent opposition to the Indian National Congress.

Its success was significant in terms of the share of both the votes and the seats in Parliament, especially considering that it had little access to electoral finance, relatively little time to reconstruct its organisation for legal functioning, and even less time to mobilise people’s support.

The remarkable record of the CPI, during the 1940s, in mobilising people on land reforms, price rise, wages, workers’ rights, and the rights of various linguistic nationalities, contributed to its electoral successes in 1952. In the Madras Presidency, too, the CPI did very well. It was in a position to form a government with its allies but was thwarted from doing so by clever, even if not wholly ethical, political tactics employed by the Congress.

The tallest leader of the CPI legislature party was P. Ramamurti. Although he was only in his 40s PR, as Ramamurti was widely known, had been an active fighter for India’s freedom from his teens. He moved from the Congress to the Congress Socialist Party before joining the CPI in 1934.

Along with P. Jeevanandam, PR played a key role in expanding the communist party’s influence in the Tamil-speaking regions of the Madras Presidency. PR won the Assembly election from the North Madurai constituency even while he was in prison, a reflection of the popular support he and the CPI commanded, by virtue of their dedicated political work.

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The role of the communists in the freedom movement and beyond remains an inadequately researched area. But Bharathi Puthakalayam, a young and respected publisher, has brought out a volume containing some key speeches of PR in the Madras legislative Assembly between 1952 and 1957 as Leader of the Opposition.

The volume also includes a Tamil translation of a brilliant articulation of the language question in India by PR in the Parliament in 1967, during the debate on the Official Languages (Amendment) Bill. It powerfully highlights the need to articulate matters, whether at legislatures or courts, in the language of the people of the State. He however argues the case for the continuance of English as the official national language.

Manitha Uyirkalaa? Soththudamaiyaa? (roughly translated: Human Lives, or Private Properties?) contains 10 speeches of PR between 1952 and 1954 in the Madras Assembly. They remain remarkably relevant 70 years later. The volume includes a crisp commentary on the speeches by K. Balakrishnan, the secretary of the Tamil Nadu State committee of the CPI(M). The eminent lawyer, R. Vaigai, has written the preface.

In an overview of the outcome of the Madras Assembly election in 1952, Narmadha Devi, who worked with Vaigai in compiling the essays in the book, highlights the fact that while the Congress, which had led the freedom movement, emerged as the single largest party, it lacked a majority on its own. On the other hand, despite challenges it faced in the electoral battle, the CPI emerged as the largest opposition party. 

While reading PR’s speeches, one is struck by the consistency of his outlook on the government’s budget, the demands from the departments of land revenue, police, factories, and labour welfare; schemes for the upliftment of the Dalit community; agrarian land reforms, and the rights of tenants and farm workers.

We get a sense of the political shenanigans underlying the manufacture of a majority in the Assembly for the Congress, and also the controversial back-door entry of C. Rajagopalachari, who was installed Chief Minister after he was literally sneaked into the Assembly, via the Legislative Council.

Manitha Uyirkalaa? Soththudamaiyaa? 
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By Special Arrangement

On every issue that PR spoke on, he articulated the interests of working people: farmers, agricultural labourers, industrial workers, the self-employed, and small-scale industrialists. They collectively suffered from restrictions on freedoms, and were impacted by government policies that favoured big business and landlords.

The problem of ‘god‘

Speaking on the double standards of the Congress government in Madras in its refusal to issue an ordinance to stop the eviction of tenants, PR says: “It is possible for the Government to issue an Ordinance for enhancing the petrol tax where only a few lakhs of rupees of revenue are involved. But where it is a question of preventing landlords from evicting thousands of peasants and of depriving them of their lands, no Ordinance could be issued.”

When Chief Minister Rajagopalachari invoked a belief in “god” during legislative proceedings on the motion of confidence he sought from the Assembly, PR retorted sharply: “…let us also remember that the Constitution provides for an oath or affirmation. Therefore, faith in God or no faith in God can never be an issue in this House or anywhere in the country so long as we are functioning under the Constitution, the Constitution of a secular state which it is claimed to be.”

Speaking on the Tanjore Tenants and Pannaiyal Protection Bill at the Assembly in November 1952, PR demanded that tenant evictions be stopped at once. He sought the immediate promulgation of an ordinance throughout the State banning evictions and restoring land to tenants. He also demanded that the Ordinance should apply to the entire State, and not be restricted to Thanjavur alone.

He also sharply highlighted the elitism of the so-called land reforms brought in by the Congress-led State government: these reforms were intended not to protect the interests of tenants and pannaiyals (farm labourers employed on an annual basis, with varying conditions of servitude), but to save the landlords and protect their interests, he demonstrated.

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In his landmark speech on the Official Languages (Amendment) Bill, PR said: “If democracy in this country is to flourish, if every single man, woman and child in the state has got to participate in the administration of the state, in the legislature of the state and in all the activities of the state, the creation of linguistic provinces alone will help them to do so. Then alone there can be democratisation of public life. So long, therefore, as there are no linguistic provinces, all talk of democracy loses its force because otherwise people cannot practise democracy.”

The standards of contemporary Parliamentary and legislative debate will improve if our parliamentarians and legislators learn from stalwarts like PR. 

Venkatesh Athreya is an economist deeply interested in issues of science, technology, and the political economy of development.