Bhupesh Gupta

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.[1] Bhupesh Gupta joined Bengal revolutionaries in his school days. He had been held in detention for four years and more; and while in prison, he read Marxism. Bhupesh was not released from prison, but was put on the ship by the police and when it was about to set sail, his detention order was revoked; with that, he was served with a new order forbidding him from active participation in politics when abroad and restricting his movements within Britain.

But once Bhupesh reached London, he joined the clandestine group of Indian Communists. He actively participated in the India League's propaganda work among the British public, pressing for India's demand for complete independence. Despite poor health, a byproduct of his years in prison, Bhupesh was singularly active, eluding the British police. Bhupesh's circle however was not confined to Communists. Young and old, many others were drawn to him. This way it was not surprising that he was very friendly with Feroze Gandhi and Indira Nehru, friendships which survived many a storm. All the three of them returned home by the same boat during wartime. Coming back, Bhupesh went straight into the Communist Party's central underground where he worked under P.C. Joshi for some time. In 1941 he came out in the open and became active in Bengal. He was one of the pioneers in setting up the Friends of the Soviet Union along with Jyoti Basu. From the days in Britain, both were close to each other. Close comradeship which continued uninterrupted until 1964, when the communist movement was split, Bhupesh choosing to stay with the CPI while Jyoti joined the leadership of the CPM. Even later, when the United Front Ministries were formed in Bengal in 1967–69, Bhupesh kept up his friendship with Jyoti though belonging to a different party. In fact, Jyoti Basu was the one CPM leader whom Bhupesh regarded as being nearest to him. When the ban on the CPI was lifted in 1942, Bhupesh was at the forefront of the Janaraksha movement (people's defence movement against scarcity and famine). This was the period when he took to public speaking. By the time Independence came, Bhupesh had emerged as a young but significant political personality in Bengal. There was promise of many heights to conquer.

But the communist movement was led into disastrous channels by a leadership that was thoroughly sectarian itching for adventurism. Early in 1948 when the CPI Congress was about to take place, Bhupesh was naturally perturbed by the blatant move to remove Joshi by a thoroughly opportunist combination of Ranadive with Dange. When PC Joshi passed away on November 9, those around Joshi informed eminent Party leaders, but the one who turned up to take Joshi's body from the hospital to his house was Bhupesh, while the better-off leaders did not find it convenient to be disturbed in a cold winter night. In the sectarian underground set-up, Bhupesh was a misfit. It was therefore natural that when the sectarian leadership was thoroughly exposed, Bhupesh was in the forefront of those engaged in what is called, in communist parlance, inner-party struggle. Out of this struggle many of the present-day leaders of the communist movement emerged as all-India figures. Bhupesh was one of them. In 1952, when the Rajya Sabha was set up, Bhupesh came by virtue of the Communist strength in the West Bengal Assembly. Bhupesh came to eminence by his fearless courage to stand up against injustice or inequity or to uphold national dignity. One can narrate a hundred episodes bringing out Bhupesh's dauntless fight within the Rajya Sabha. It was not that Bhupesh was a profound thinker, one who would elaborate the perspective. By sheer hard work, mastery of details of each and every document he could lay his hands on, Bhupesh used to prepare for his parliamentary bouts.

His work table was full of paper, all sorted out and classified. He was his own private secretary. He would never recommend an individual case, not to speak of favours. He also used to make it a rule that he would take up a case with a Minister, not with the officials. Bhupesh was one of the few Communist leaders who understood the importance of the press. He might attack a press baron or a servile editor, but he would never berate a reporter. He knew that whatever an MP had to say in Parliament assumes importance only when it moves the masses outside, and the main channel for that is the press.

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. In his personal life there was never even the breath of a compromise. An ascetic from the day he joined the revolutionaries in his student days. Bhupesh never had any attachment to any personal property. His clothes, his belongings, his home, he never let any sense of attachment trouble him. Bhupesh came from a zamindar family of Mymensingh but when he went underground, he signed off his share of property to one of his relatives lest the British Government forfeit it. When the party became legal, he was furious that the relative would not let him hand over his patrimony to the Party. When Indo-Pak negotiations led to the arrangement of compensation for evacuee pro-perty, Bhupesh refused to take any compensation. How could he do that when he was demanding the takeover of zamindaris without compensation. Bhupesh was attached to one form of property: books. He would lend or borrow this precious commodity to and from friends and comrades he could. Bhupesh was a very human personality. There was nothing of the protocol stiffness of a leader about him. He could crack a joke at his own expense: we used to tease him that he could not get married because he could not muster courage to propose to a girl, for fear of being jilted. Bhupesh enjoyed this as much as all of us. Bhupesh was a nationalist, in the best sense. He would never discard his dhoti and Punjabi kurta even for a Rashtrapati Bhavan banquet. He died At Moscow following illness on August 5, 1981.

Bhupesh: Some Reminiscences,Nikhil Chakravarthy,Mainstream, VOL LIV No 44 New Delhi October 22, 2016