Nehru, communists and the funding for their propagandas

From Reading the Russians by Inder Malhotra

• Nehru’s decision to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and take up with the Soviet leaders his problems with the Communist Party of India was the piece de resistance of the entire exchanges. Politely but candidly, the prime minister made three pertinent points. First, that the role of the CPI because “it was often coming in conflict with nationalist sentiment” bred ill-feeling in the country and even came in the way of Indo-Soviet relations.

• Secondly, the communists who until a year earlier were saying that India was not independent and were engaged in insurrection in 1948-49 also stated openly that whenever in doubt about the “right line of action”, they took instructions from the Soviet Union. On one occasion in 1951-52, Nehru added, four communist leaders had gone to Moscow “illegally and without passports”, and on return had said they had got “directions from Mr Stalin”. Last September, one of their “principal leaders”, Ajoy Ghosh, went to Moscow and said he had come back with “fresh instructions” to “play down opposition to the government” but remain “ready to start insurrection again when necessary”. Thirdly, Nehru said, the communist party got “considerable sums of money from outside”, that Indian communists wrote “misleading” articles in Soviet magzines like New Times about their country, and so on. 

• Nehru…….. write to Lady Mountbatten: “I have been wondering if there has been a basic change in the character of those who write in the newspapers in England. I associated some restraint and some balance of mind with them but evidently this is lacking now. I am distressed because this kind of thing has big reactions on our own people and, out of anger and bitterness, little good can come.”