P. C. Joshi

Puran Chand Joshi, one of the early leaders of the communist movement in India was born on April 14, 1907, in a Brahmin family of Almora, in Uttar Pradesh. In 1929, at the age of 22, the British Government arrested him as one of the suspects of the Meerut Conspiracy Case. The other early communist leaders who were arrested along with him included Shaukat Usmani, Muzaffar Ahmed, S.A. Dange and G.V. Ghate.

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thumb|600px|right|">Portrait of 25 of Meerut Prisoners taken outside the jail. Backrow:(left to right) K.N. Sehgal, S.S. Josh, H.L. Hutchinson, Shaukat Usmani, B.F. Bradly, A. Prasad, P. Spratt, and G. Adhikari.Middle Row: K.R. Mitra, Gopan Chakravarthy, Kishore Lal Ghosh, K.L. Kadam, D.R. Thengdi, Goura Shanker, S. Banerjee, K.N. Joglekar, P.C. Joshi, and Muzaffar Ahmed.Front Row: M.G. Desai, G. Goswami, R.S. Nimkar, S.S. Mirajkar, S.A. Dange, G.V. Ghate and Gopal Basak.Joshi was given six years of transportation to the penal settlement of Andaman Islands.Considering his age, the punishment was later reduced to three. After his release in 1933, Joshi worked towards bringing a number of groups under the banner of the Communist Party of India (CPI). In 1934 the CPI was admitted to the Third International or Comintern. After the sudden arrest of Somnath Lahiri, then Secretary of CPI, during end-1935, Joshi became the new General Secretary. He thus became the first general secretary of Communist Party of India, for a period from 1935 to 1947.

At that time the left movement was steadily growing and the British government banned communist activities from 1934 to 1938. The Raj re-banned the CPI in 1939, for its initial anti-War stance. When, in 1941,Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, the CPI proclaimed that the nature of the war has changed to a people's war against fascism.

In the post- freedom period, the Communist Party of India, after the second congress in Calcutta (new spelling: Kolkatta) adopted a path of taking up arms. Joshi was advocating unity with Indian National Congress under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru. He was severely criticized in the Calcutta congress of the CPI and was removed from the general secretaryship. Gradually he was sidelined, though rehabilitated through making him the editor of the Party weekly, "New Age". After the Communist Party of India split, he was with the CPI. Though he explained the policy of the CPI in the 7th congress in 1964, he was never brought in the leadership directly. In his last days, he kept himself busy in research and publication works in Jawaharlal Nehru University to establish an archive on the Indian communist movement.

He was married to Kalpana Dutt.

External links

* [http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/06/stories/2006050602870901.htm The Hindu report on P.C. Joshi denying split in CPI]