The Communist Party of India, Netaji and the Quit India Movement
During the Second World War, the Communist Party of India opposed the Quit India Movement and attacked Subhas Chandra Bose in its newspaper People's War, which ran a cartoon showing him as a donkey carrying Japan's prime minister, Tojo. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the CPI followed Moscow's line, declared the conflict a "people's war" and supported the British war effort.
This documentary traces the CPI from its founding in Tashkent in 1920 by M.N. Roy, through the Meerut Conspiracy Case, to its role against Quit India and its support for the Muslim League's demand for Pakistan.
Chapters
00:00 Intro: CPI propaganda art against nationalist leaders
00:35 The unlikely revolutionaries
01:38 Moscow's playbook: the Comintern
03:11 World War II and the People's War flip
04:30 Crushing the Quit India Movement
06:10 The Muslim League, Partition and the CPI
7:30 Conclusion
Read the full essay
The Communist Party of India, Bose and Quit India, with full sources.
