IPTA was formed in 1943 during the British rule in India, and promoted themes related to the Indian freedom struggle.

Its origins lay in the first Progressive Writer's Association Conference that was held in 1936, the establishment of the Youth Cultural Institute at Calcutta in 1940, and the setting up of the People's Theatre in Bangalore by Anil De' Silva in 1941.

The squad included musician Prem Dhawan, drum player Dashrath Lal, singer Reva Roy and actress Usha Dutt.

[3] Some of the initial members of the group were Prithviraj Kapoor, Bijon Bhattacharya, Balraj Sahni, Ritwik Ghatak, Utpal Dutt, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Salil Chowdhury, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Jyotirindra Moitra, Niranjan Singh Maan, S. Tera Singh Chan, Jagdish Faryadi, Khalili Faryadi, Rajendra Raghuvanshi, Safdar Mir, Hasan Premani, Amiya Bose, Sudhin Dasgupta, Annabhau Sathe, Shahir Amar shaik etc.

Dramatist: Piyus Sarkar, Tapan Hazra, Ashis Chatterjee, Manish Ghosh, Jayanta Chakraborty, Shyamal Bhattacharya, Paritosh Bhattacharya, Shibankar Chakraborty, Actor: Samudra Guha, Subhajit Dhar, Bolanath Mukherjee, Musumi Joarder, Rubi Gandhi, Bapi Dasgupta, Somya Bhowmik, Madhuja Ghoshal, Atanu Mandol, Abhijit Chatterjee, Sandhya Halder, Goutam Saha, Pinakpani Dasgupta, Sugata Banerjee and others.

Hemango Biswas, the founder secretary of the chapter, worked with some of the prominent personalities of the state such as Jyotiprasad Agarwala, Bishnu Prasad Rabha and Bhupen Hazarika among others.

Biswas and Hazarika jointly organized the third Assam conference of IPTA in 1955, when the likes of Balraj Sahni, Salil Chowdhury and Hemanta Mukherjee participated, among others.

[9][10] Some of the famous plays presented by IPTA were Sonali Dhanani, Seujia Kuhipaat, Tofaan, Navaprabhat, Sapasalor Seka etc.

[13] On the occasion of platinum jubilee of IPTA, the chapter organized a drama festival on 11–12 March 2019 at District Library, Guwahati.