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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. 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.
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 the Soviet 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).
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 opportu- nity to further their cause. He was happy when Bharatiya Khet Mazdoor Union (BKMU) was formed in 1968 at Moga, Punjab. In May, 1972, Bhupesh delivered inau- gural address at the second conference of BKMU held at Mannargudi in Tamil Nadu.
He demanded strict implementation of minimum wages, regular employment and legis- lation to protect the weaker sections and im- prove 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 International Women’s Yearbegan, he made an im- passioned speech in Parliament urging the government to take con- crete 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 for- eign exploitation in India; (v) Why this Food Crisis; (vi) Quit Com- monwealth; (vii) India and American aggres- sion in Vietnam; and (viii) Right reaction’s bid for power. Bhupeshda wrote quite a few books in Bengali also, for ex- ample: (i) Nehru Sarkarer Swarup; (ii) Pak-Markin Samarik Chukti 0 Markin Samrajyabad; and (iii) Kala Kanuner Rajatva. They reflect an eloquent testimony to the intellec- tual height of Bhupesh Gupta.
He exhorted that the Rajya Sabha should al- ways be a “vibrant and living institution” to mirror the urges and as- pirations of the people. For example, in a discus- sion in Rajya Sabha on decision of the U.S. Gov- ernment 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 mili- tary base. So it should not be taken as if only Paki- stan is interested in building up the arms race and America is not or that America is just a seller of arms. .... The US imperi- alism knows very well that unless India is brow- beaten, curbed, menaced and threatened, it would not be possible for them to have their domineer- ing 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, bril- liant 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 cham- pion of the toiling millions and the greatest defender of the down- trodden and the oppressed.
He never counte- nanced 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. Be- sides, on major issues like foreign policy, President’s address, Finance Bill, Appropria- tion Bill and discussions on working of ministries, he used to make excel- lent speeches laced with solid arguments.
To give an illustra- tion, on April 22, 1954, when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru stated in Rajya Sabha that “It has been the policy of Gov- ernment for the last six years not to allow any foreign troops to pass through or fly over In- dia”, 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’ belong- ing to the French Air Force landed at Dum Dum and left for Indo- China. A few days later, he again referred to a re- port 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 Moscow 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.Indira Gandhi 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
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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