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| The Right HonourableBhupesh GuptaMP | |
|---|---|
| Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha | |
| In office 1952–1981 | |
| Constituency | West Bengal |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1914-10-20)20 October 1914 Itna, Mymensingh District, Bengal Province, British India (now in Bangladesh) |
| Died | 6 August 1981(1981-08-06) (aged 66) Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union (now Moscow, Russia) |
| Occupation | Parliamentarian |
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 on October 20, 1914 at Itna in Mymensingh District of of Bengal Province in British India (now Bangladesh). 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 Scottish Church College of the University of Calcutta and University College London 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 Sunil Mukherjee, a founder of CPI in Bihar.
In revolutionary and communist movement
Soon Bhupesh was drawn into the magic circle of national revolutionaries, joining the revolutionary group Anushilan headed by Surendra Mohan Ghose. 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 Communist Party of Great Britain 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 Communist Party of India. Initially he worked in the underground head- quarters of CPI. He was also one of the founders of the Friends of theSoviet Union (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 Com- mittee. He defended the accused in 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 Pro- vincial Committee of the CPI and was appointed as chairman of the edito- rial board of party’s Bengali daily ‘Swadhinata’ in 1951. Since the CPI was de- clared illegal by the government, he was ar- rested in 1951 and detained till April, 1952.
After the party de- cided 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 espe- cially 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 All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation (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 New Age 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 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 Ajoy Ghosh to Peking in 1959 and met Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong). Bhupesh Gupta was active in World Peace Council. In fact, the last conference he attended was International Conference of Solidarity with Syria and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Damascus (1981).
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
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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