1964 split in the Communist Party of India

[4] And being present at the parliament in Delhi, in the vicinity of the central party headquarters, enabled Dange to emerge as a potential candidate to act as the replacement for the general secretary during Ghosh's medical absences.

[4] Whilst forming the Kerala state government in 1957 had strengthened the argument for parliamentary politics, the 1959 ousting of the Namboodiripad[f] cabinet refueled debates inside the party on tactics and strategy.

[132] Following the Longju incident, the CPI CEC resolution sought to take the middle ground, expressing confidence in non-aggressive character of China whilst committing to India's territorial integrity.

[132][13] A resolution was adopted which sought to find a balance between the factions in the party, on one hand affirming that CPI would be in the forefront to defend India but also arguing that the crisis was being aggravated by Indian reactionaries.

[13][133] On 7 October 1959 the Parliamentary Board of the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti (SMS, a Maharashtrian regional coalition in which CPI participated) issued a statement calling for a return to the Status Quo of 1954, affirming the McMahon line as the 'natural boundary' between the two countries and accused China of occupying Indian territory.

[132] On 23 October 1959 Hindustan Times reported discontent among CPI units in Trivandrum, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Patiala, Delhi and Hardwar over the Chinese actions in the border conflict.

Ahmed[b] had called expressing stronger disapproval of Chinese action whilst Joshi[k] had proposed highlighting the potential role of provocateurs and imperialist forces in aggravating the crisis.

[2][132] The Meerut meeting also censured Dange[a] and two other CPI leaders in Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, S.S. Mirajkar[ad] and S.G. Sardesai[av], for violation of party discipline.

[4] During the November 1959 CEC and May 1960 National Council meetings, when the issue of Ghosh's[o] medical leaves was discussed, the leftists opposed Dange as being designated as the acting general secretary.

[13] Following the meeting Promode Dasgupta[cg], the West Bengal state secretary of the party, circulated a document titled Revisionist Trend in the CPI.

[2] The lack of a defined division of labour between the posts of chairman and general secretariat would increase tensions, as both Dange and Namboodiripad tried to position themselves as the foremost leader of the party.

[13] During these 11 days, there were two significant developments in the international sphere - on 25 October 1962 Pravda reversed its position (reportedly due to the Cuban Missile Crisis) and voiced support to China against India, calling for repudiation of McMahon Line and urging restraint among Indian progressives.

[35] On 1 November 1962, after two days of heated debates, the CPI National Council issued a statement titled Unite to Defend the Motherland against China's Open Aggression, which took an unequivocally 'nationalist' position on the border conflict.

[2] Namboodiripad's document sought to highlight past and current errors, criticizing the rightist leadership for subservience to the Indian National Congress government and calling on CPI to remain neutral in the Sino-Soviet dispute.

[13] On 27 March 1964 P. Sundarayya[g] and T. Nagi Reddy[bb] issued a statement from Hyderabad, accusing the rightists of abusing the arrests to seize control over the party machinery.

Imbichi Bava[bm], Promode Dasgupta[cg], Muzaffar Ahmad[p], Basu[h], Abdul Halim[ck], Konar[j], Saroj Mukherjee[cl], P. Ramamurthi[q], M.R.

[27] Furthermore, the publication Thought claimed that at least ten 'leftists' had remained in the National Council meeting to the end, counting among them Dinkar Mehta[aa] (Gujarat), Josh[t] (Punjab) and Y.D.

Govindan Nair[c], Joshi[k], N. Rajasekhara Reddy[bc], Bhowani Sen[at], K. Damodran[ae], Chandra[r], Josh[t], Sardesai[av], Sharma[d], Bora[x], C. Rajeshwara Rao[n] and Ram Krishan Patti.

These radicals, represented by Suniti Kumar Ghosh, criticised the draft program proposal prepared by M. Basavapunniah[aw] for undermining class struggle and failing to take a clear pro-Chinese position in the ideological conflict between the CPSU and the CCP.

[195] The Tenali convention elected an organising committee for the Calcutta Party Congress - consisting of the 32 dissident CPI National Council members as well S.S. Srivastava[co] (Bihar), Bhattacharya[bf] (Assam), S.Y.

[4] But he argues that the failure of CPI to develop a common strategy for the party that would work well in divergent agrarian contexts "gave rise to the worst type of factionalism".

[4] During the pre-Independence development of CPI, a time when the party was debating on how to relate to the role of the national bourgeoisie, the struggle against British colonial rule and the Pakistan movement, it sought guidance in Marxist-Leninist canon.

[215][216] The 1964 split affected the small party organization adversely, but as CPI supported the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 it managed to recover politically, increasing its number of Legislative Assembly seats from one in 1962 to two in 1967.

[228] The state government responded to the pledge of allegiance of the Democratic Conference to the supposedly 'pro-China' CPI(Left) by arresting Saraf, Sethi, Malik and the Kisan Sabha leader Abdul Kabir Wani.

[226] The meeting elected Saraf as general secretary of the party and Malik, Sethi, Wani, Nahar Singh and Ved Paul Deep as the remaining members of its State Central Committee.

[26] In 1957 Dange[a], as the AITUC general secretary, had outlined a two pronged approach for 'responsible' unionism - helping build the national economy whilst defending working class interests.

[26] The CPI rightists managed to retain control of AITUC after split, to a large extent due to the personal following Dange had built up within the organization he was leading since 20 years.

[26][4] Prominent AITUC leaders that sided with Dange were P. Balachandra Menon[bn], Inderjit Gupta[bz], Ranen Sen[u] and Raj Bahadur Gour[db].

[308] In Rajasthan the rightists took advantage of the imprisonment of leftist trade unionists like Punamia[bt], Iqbal Singh, Rajbahadur Gaur and Radhaballav Aggarwal 1964–1965, and reconstituted the AITUC state unit.

[327] Their opponents, the right-wing tendency opposed to reconciliation with CPI(M) included Indradeep Sinha[bg] and Sharma[d] (Bihar), M. Kalyanasundaram[ax] (Tamil Nadu), C.K.