The Forgotten Communist Who Helped Form UPA

Comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet was a veteran CPI(M) leader, a prominent figure in the country’s communist movement, and a prominent national politician.

Mumbai: The Indian Communist politician from Punjab also known as “The Pragmatic Marxist Leader”, Harkishan Singh Surjeet who played a key role in keeping the BJP out of power in 1996 and eight years later helped the Congress form a coalition government at the center. He was hospitalized at the Metro Hospital of Noida on 25 July and took his last breath on 1 August 2008. Mr. Singh was earlier admitted to the hospital on May 6 following a severe cardiac arrest and slipped into a coma on May 16. He fought back and was discharged on June 3.

Along with another Marxist veteran, Jyoti Basu, Surjeet had played an important role in persuading Congresswoman Sonia Gandhi to rally secular forces after the 2004 elections.
From revolutionary to pragmatic politician and kingmaker, Harkishan Singh Surjeet has taken on many roles, but his dream of seeing a communist as prime minister remained unfulfilled, though it came from a far distance.

The former General Secretary was known for managing coalition politics, throughout his life he toiled for the party to invade the Cow Belt to abolish it as a mere tri-state phenomenon and make it a force to be reckoned nationally. Significantly, he was also one of those who played a leading role in introducing a 1989 non-congressional combination centered on First Coalition government with support from the BJP and outside Communists.

The 92 year old, Harkishan Singh Surjeet will also be remembered for prepping up the cadre-based party to mend fences with the rival Congress to form a non-congress government in the center to keep the “communal” BJP in check, then one for eight years. Congress-led government in Delhi later in 2004.

The veteran Marxist had led the CPI (M) through the tumultuous mid-1990s, playing the role of king makers. but had to remain a silent bystander when the party missed a golden opportunity to lead a government.
The decision not to appoint Jyoti Basu as prime minister in 1996, taken largely at the behest of some of the  party’s “young gunslingers”, saw the Marxist patriarch of West Bengal call him a “historic blunder” and Surjeet used all his ability to persuasion to avoid conflicts within the party.

Harkishan Singh Surjeet mastered the art of behind-the-scenes operations and played the game with poise. Although his detractors considered him a Machiavellian politician, Surjeet’s skills emerged and later proved   to be very fruitful.

Surjeet who was a hardcore Marxist never lusted for power. However, critics say he had his fingers in many camps, which became clear when he managed to forge an alliance to make Janata Dal HD leader Deva Gowda Prime Minister in 1996 and then install I K Gujral as his successor.
Surjeet could capitalize on the power play anytime within the ruling dispensation with just a phone call to the prime minister of the day : from Vice President Singh to Gowda and Gujral.

A contemporary of communist supporters like BT Ranadive, EMS Namboodiripad and AK Gopalan, Surjeet has been a strong advocate of forming a Third Front to fight Congress and the BJP and bring like-minded parties to a common platform.

Surjeet firmly believed that only a strong CPI(M) can help create a viable third alternative, based on a common political platform for conducting concerted struggles rather than just an electoral alliance, for what he called a “people’s government” to enforce in the center.

Elected secretary general of the CPI(M) in 1992, a position he held until 2005, he is also seen as mentor of leaders such as Prakash Karat, who succeeded him, and Sitaram Yechury, as well as bridging the gap between the old and new generation. of companions. Surjeet remained a father figure to revelers until the very end.

Harkishan Singh Surjeet of the Indian Communist Movement played a key role in providing significant external support to the Congress-led UPA government led by Manmohan Singh in the wake of a broken sentence in the 2004 Lok Sabha election, eliminating the possibility of swift polls .

Surjeet made the party’s position public in his speech at the 18th party congress here in 2005, when he said there were fundamental differences between the congress and the left due to their respective class characters and noted that the struggle between the two approaches will continue.
“However, we recognize Congress as a secular party. As the largest political party in the country, its role is important in defining the secular nature of the state at this time. It is this concern that has led us to expand support for Congress- led the UPA government, “he said.

History flipped completely when his party adopted UPA and attempted to overthrow the government it had helped form on the issue of the Indo-American nuclear deal.
Surjeet was a founding member of the CPI(M) after the vertical split of the CPI in 1964. He was a staunch opponent of municipal politics and kept pace with political events despite his age. He was also very outspoken in criticizing American imperialism and its campaign against Iraq.

Born on March 23, 1916 in a remote village in the Jalandhar district of Punjab, Surjeet was baptized with fire in politics at an early age when he joined the ‘Naujawan Bharat Sabha’ formed by none other than Bhagat Singh and other revolutionaries.

His strong nerves were on display when, at the age of 16 when he dared to tear the Union Jack and hoist the tricolor atop Hoshiarpur District Court, only to be shot twice by British police and end up in prison for the first time. He had spent a total of ten years in prison.
But it was only the beginning for the young “Sardar” who confronted the powerful colonial regime several  times head-on. His dark way of identifying himself as “London Tod Singh” when asked his name by a judge during a trial made him popular overnight. Like all first generation communist leaders, Surjeet had to go into hiding several times to avoid arrest, mainly during World War II and later between 1948 and 1952 when the party was banned by the first government of the Congress. He was arrested several times during the period.

Surjeet also worked to maintain communal harmony during the painful days of the Indo-Pakistani partition when he was secretary of CPI’s Punjab unit. His foray into the world of partisan politics began in 1934 when he joined the outlawed Communist Party. He became a member of the Socialist Congress Party in 1935 and also began working for the Kisan Sabha, which he led in the early 1950s.

A voracious reader, he edited many newspapers and party organs weekly, including Dukhi Duniya and Lok Lehar, and also authored socially and politically relevant books such as Land Reforms in India, Future of Kashmir, Happenings in Punjab and the “Outline of the History of the Communist Party”.
He founded a monthly “Chingari” (Spark) in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh in 1938 when he was deposed outside Punjab for anti-British activities.

Friends of the Marxist expert recall that he always wanted to become a poet and started writing under the pseudonym “Surjeet”. Although his pseudonym persisted, he did not become a poet.

At the CPI-M annual congress in Coimbatore, a sick Surjeet was removed from the party politburo at his request after serving for decades.
The death of Surjeet, a pragmatic politician with a sharp mind, opens the curtain on an era in the country’s Communist history and his party will surely lack his analytical skills and political acumen in the days to come.

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