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'''Bhupesh Gupta''' ({{lang-bn|ভূপেশ গুপ্ত}}) (20 October 1914 – 6 August 1981) was an Indian politician and a leader of the ]. He was a member of the ] for five terms from West Bengal, from 3 April 1952 till his death. He was reelected in 1958, 1964,1970 and 1976. '''Bhupesh Gupta''' ({{lang-bn|ভূপেশ গুপ্ত}}) (20 October 1914 – 6 August 1981) was an Indian politician and a leader of the ].


==Early life== ==Early life==
He was born at Itna, in the erstwhile ] of ] in ]. He studied at the renowned ] of the ].<ref>{{harvnb|Datta|2008|p=592}}</ref>{{Request quotation|date=December 2021}}
He was born on
October 20, 1914 at Itna in ] of ] in ] (now ]). His father, Shri
Mahesh Chandra Gupta was a rich landlord. Though
born in a wealthy family, Bhupesh hardly cared and
plunged into national movement at the age of 16, and
never looked back. He chose to remain a life-long
bachelor with single-minded devotion to the serviceof the country and the communist cause. Bhupesh Gupta: Outstanding Parliamentarian,
Builder of Communist Movement Bhupesh all along was a
brilliant student, educated at renowned ] of the ] and ] He passed his F.A. and B.A.
examinations of Calcutta
University from Behrampur detention
camp with distinction. In
Berhampur, he was in the
same cell for four years
as ], a
founder of CPI in Bihar.


Bhupesh Gupta joined Bengal revolutionaries in his school days.
==In revolutionary and communist movement==


==Later life==
Soon Bhupesh was
He was a member of the ] for five terms from West Bengal, from 3 April 1952 till his death. He was reelected in 1958, 1964,1970 and 1976. He was a skilled parliamentarian. He died in Moscow on 6 August 1981.
drawn into the magic
circle of national revolutionaries, joining the
revolutionary group
] headed by
].
He also took an active
part in Civil Disobedience Movement, and was arrested several times: in
1930, 1931 and 1933, and was kept in detention till 1937. It was then that he came in touch with the
Marxist ideology.

His father wanted Bhupesh to keep off politics, and as such wrote to the government requesting Bhupesh be sent to England for higher studies. Government agreeing, Bhupesh went
to England to study law and was called to the Bar from the Middle Temple, London.

But in England he came in contact with the ] and student movement, and turned a communist. He met a large
number of communists including Indian ones. Bhupesh returned to India in 1941 and devoted himself full-time to ]. Initially he worked
in the underground headquarters of CPI. He was
also one of the founders
of the ] (FSU) in
1941.

As a member of Jana
Raksha Samiti, Bhupesh
did tremendous amount
of work during the Great
Bengal Famine of 1943.
He also was a founder of
the People’s Relief Committee. He defended the
accused in [[Tebhaga movement|Tebhaga
peasants’ movement]] of
1946. He also defended
the workers of Jamshedpur including of TELCO in 1946 in compulsory adjudication under the Defence of India Rules.

==During BTR period and in Parliament==

Bhupesh went underground during the left sectarian adventurist period of BTR Line of 1948-50, which had done
much damage to the party.

In 1947, he was elected
to the West Bengal Provincial Committee of the
CPI and was appointed
as chairman of the editorial board of party’s Bengali daily ‘Swadhinata’ in 1951. Since the CPI was declared illegal by the government, he was arrested in 1951 and detained till April, 1952.

After the party decided to fight elections,
he was elected to the
Rajya Sabha in 1952.
Since then he was its
member till his death, as
the longest serving
member. He was especially felicitated on June
22, 1977 on the occasion
of the 100th session of the
RS and its 25 years.

He was closely associated with peace
movement and ] (AIPSO).
Newspapers in Kingston, Jamaica,
hailed him as the hero of
the Commonwealth Parliamentary conference after his speech on racism and apartheid in 1979.

==Positions in the party==

Bhupesh Gupta was
elected to CC of the CPI
at its third Congress,
Madurai, 1953-54. He
was elected to the Polit
Buro for the first time at
Palghat Congress in
1956. After organizational restructuring at
Amritsar in 1958, he was
elected to central secre-
tariat, a position he held
till his death in 1981.

He was the editor of ] from 1954 to
1957 and from 1966 till his
death in 1981. Especially
on Sundays he would be
hammering away his
editorials and articles on
a vintage Remington
typewriter of 1937
brought from England.
His last article was on the
Resolution of the CC CP
China meeting of July
1981, written from Mos-
cow. In this resolution
the CC CPC had criticized the socalled ‘cultural revolution’ in
China, holding Mao re-
sponsible for the
destruction.

During the days of
Maoist ideological-political assaults from the
CPC and the consequent
split in CPI in 1964,
Bhupesh Gupta tried his
best to seek ways to
avoid split, and after
split, to bring about a
reconciliation. But his
efforts did not succeed.
==World Communist movement==

Bhupesh Gupta was a
staunch internationalist
and a tireless crusader
against apartheid and
racism. He attended the
Bucharest preparatory
meeting of the [[1957 International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties|International Communist
Conference (1957)]]. He
was a member of the CPI
delegations at the 1957,
1960 and 1969 confer-
ences of World
Communist Movement.
He was also a member of
CPI delegation led by
general secretary ] to Peking in 1959 and met Mao Tse-tung
(Mao Zedong). Bhupesh
Gupta was active in
]. In
fact, the last conference
he attended was International Conference of
Solidarity with Syria and
] (PLO) in
Damascus (1981).

==Condemning Chinese aggression==

Bhupeshda demon-
strated that communism
is the best form of patriotism. His patriotic fervour was very much
evident when taking part in Rajya Sabha discussion on Defence of India Bill during Chinese aggression in 1962, he emphatically said: “I
declare on the floor of the
House that I do not know
of any Communist or a
trade-unionist of that sort
who is opposed to the
defence of the country or
who is in sympathy with
the aggression that has
taken place. If any-
body… went against
resolution and the patri-
otic position of the
country…, he would be putting himself outside
the pale of the Communist party and the movement. “

He was the symbol of the Marxist integration of patriotism and proletarian internationalism.

==Champion of rural labour and women==
Bhupesh Gupta was a
great champion of the
weaker sections of soci-
ety: the Harijans, Adivasis, the khet mazdoors, women and
others. Both inside and
outside Parliament, he
utilised every opportunity to further their cause.
He was happy when
] (BKMU) was formed in 1968 at Moga,
Punjab. In May, 1972, Bhupesh delivered inaugural address at the second conference of BKMU held at Mannargudi in Tamil Nadu.

He demanded strict
implementation of minimum wages, regular employment and legislation to protect the
weaker sections and improve their living and
working· (e.g. Rajya
Sabha Debates, Decem-
ber 6, 1962) He said,
without improving the
lot of agricultural workers, all the talk about
rural development was
useless.

In 1975, when the ] began, he made an impassioned speech in
Parliament urging the
government to take concrete measures to improve the social status
and living conditions of
the vast majority of
women and not confine
to celebrations alone.” (In
RS, May 13, 1975) In this
speech, he observed:
“Emancipation of
women is not a sectarian
problem of emancipation of a section of the people. It is essentially a
problem of emancipation of womankind…the very foundation ultimately of our social life.”

==On secularism and national integration==
Bhupesh was in-charge of the
sub-committee of CEC
CPI on National Integration. He opined that
discrimination against
Harijans was an impor-
tant factor hindering
process of national inte-
gration. Bhupesh used
every possible forum to
raise his powerful voice
in the defence of the secu-
lar democratic set-up of
our country and for
strengthening national
integration. He was
party’s representative
and main spokesman in
the National integration
council for nearly 15
years. He stressed that
the fight against commu-
nalism was a matter of
our survival as a
civilised and forward-
looking society. He
meticulously worked
out concrete and con-
structive proposals for
meetings of NIC to defeat
the designs of such forces
and preserve secular set
up. At NIC held in
Srinagar in June, 1968, he
made an important sug-
gestion saying that in
case of lack of confidence
on the part of minority
community in a dis-
turbed area on any
official, he should prima
facie transferred imme-
diately. For breakdown
of communal peace in
any area, conduct of all
officials should be held
responsible.

==A powerful writer and speaker==
He had eight books in
English to his credit,
namely: i) Freedom and
the Second Front; (ii)
Terror over Bengal; (iii)
Second Five Year Plan -
A critique; (iv) The Big
Loot: An Analysis of foreign exploitation in
India; (v) Why this Food
Crisis; (vi) Quit Commonwealth; (vii) India
and American aggression in Vietnam; and
(viii) Right reaction’s bid
for power. Bhupeshda
wrote quite a few books
in Bengali also, for example: (i) Nehru Sarkarer
Swarup; (ii) Pak-Markin
Samarik Chukti 0 Markin
Samrajyabad; and (iii)
Kala Kanuner Rajatva.
They reflect an eloquent
testimony to the intellectual height of Bhupesh
Gupta.

He exhorted that the
Rajya Sabha should al-
ways be a “vibrant and
living institution” to
mirror the urges and aspirations of the people.
For example, in a discussion in Rajya Sabha on
decision of the U.S. Government to resume arms
supply to Pakistan,
Bhupesh Gupta very
aptly remarked: “It is
quite clear that the United
States today wants to
build a new balance of
military power in our
region, and therefore
they are interested in
using Pakistan as a military base. So it should not
be taken as if only Pakistan is interested in
building up the arms race
and America is not or that
America is just a seller of
arms. .... The US imperialism knows very well
that unless India is brow-
beaten, curbed, menaced
and threatened, it would
not be possible for them
to have their domineering say in this region of
South Asia. Therefore,
they made us a special
target and that is why they
are supplying once again
arms to Pakistan.
(Bhupesh Gupta in Rajya
Sabha, RS Debates, March
10, 1975)

He was often sarcastic
but never vulgar, brilliant in his argument but
humble, and was in his
elements when it came to
questions pertaining to
the cause of the people.
He was literally a champion of the toiling
millions and the greatest
defender of the downtrodden and the
oppressed.

He never countenanced any single flaw of
the treasury benches and
had complete mastery
over parliamentary
rules and procedures.
Nothing mattered to him
more than the supremacy
and dignity of the two
Houses of Parliament.
Bhupesh Gupta was a
master of parliamentary
techniques, and used all
the possible openings:
special mentions, calling
attention, short notice
questions, haIf-an-hour
discussions, and ques-
tions, etc, to put across
his point of view. Besides, on major issues like
foreign policy,
President’s address,
Finance Bill, Appropriation Bill and discussions
on working of ministries,
he used to make excellent speeches laced with solid arguments.

To give an illustration, on April 22, 1954, when Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru stated
in Rajya Sabha that “It has
been the policy of Government for the last six years not to allow any
foreign troops to pass
through or fly over India”, it was Bhupesh Gupta who brought to
the notice of the House a
newspaper report saying
that on April 24, 1954, an
American ‘Globemaster’
carrying French troops to
Indo-China landed at
Dum Dum Airport and
then left after refuelling.
He quoted another report
of April 27, 1954, stating
that a ‘Skymaster’ belonging to the French Air
Force landed at Dum
Dum and left for Indo-China. A few days later,
he again referred to a report which said that on May 12, 1954, a
‘Skymaster’ belonging to
the French Air Force had
touched down at
Calcutta and “36 French
soldiers lived for a few
hours in Grand Hotel in
Room Nos. 315, 320, 466
and 490, and at about 3.30
a.m. in the early hours of
morning they left.” Ev-
erybody, friend and foe
alike, admired Bhupesh
Gupta’s masterly and
exceptional qualities as
a parliamentarian. He
was rightly referred to as
“the stormy petrel” of the
Rajya Sabha.

==Death==
Bhupesh Gupta was
admitted in the Central
Clinical Hospital in ] in last week of June.
He was operated for
stomach cancer on July
29, 1981.

He was recovering but died of severe
heart attack in Moscow
on August 6, 1981.
Prime Minister Smt.] had said
on his demise, “…with
the death of Comrade
Bhupesh Gupta, the nation loses one of its most dedicated and eloquent
sons.”

Bhupesh Gupta was
widely mourned.


==References== ==References==

Revision as of 13:57, 18 April 2022

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The Right HonourableBhupesh GuptaMP
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
In office
1952–1981
ConstituencyWest Bengal
Personal details
Born(1914-10-20)20 October 1914
Itna, Mymensingh District, Bengal Province, British India
(now in Bangladesh)
Died6 August 1981(1981-08-06) (aged 66)
Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union
(now Moscow, Russia)
OccupationParliamentarian
Part of a series on
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Bhupesh Gupta (Template:Lang-bn) (20 October 1914 – 6 August 1981) was an Indian politician and a leader of the Communist Party of India.

Early life

He was born at Itna, in the erstwhile Mymensingh District of Bengal Province in British India. He studied at the renowned Scottish Church College of the University of Calcutta.

Bhupesh Gupta joined Bengal revolutionaries in his school days.

Later life

He was a member of the Rajya Sabha for five terms from West Bengal, from 3 April 1952 till his death. He was reelected in 1958, 1964,1970 and 1976. He was a skilled parliamentarian. He died in Moscow on 6 August 1981.

References

  1. Datta 2008, p. 592

Sources

  • Datta, Asit, ed. (2008), "Some Alumni of Scottish Church College", 175th Year Commemoration Volume, Kolkata, India: Scottish Church College, OCLC 243677369


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