Historian Irfan Habib on Monday, September 15, highlighted the crucial contribution of communists to India’s freedom struggle, stressing that their role has often been marginalised in mainstream narratives of the national movement.

Speaking at the first Sitaram Yechury Memorial Lecture held at HKS Surjeet Bhawan in Delhi, Habib emphasized how communist critiques of colonialism were informed by both global and Indian traditions, and argued that the movement’s interventions remain under-recognised in academic and political discourse.

The lecture hall at Surjeet Bhawan was filled to capacity, attended by party members, historians, students, and activists who came to pay tribute to CPI(M)'s former general secretary Sitaram Yechury, who passed away last year.

During the event, CPI(M) leaders announced the establishment of a centre in Yechury’s memory at Surjeet Bhawan, to be led by economist Prabhat Patnaik, with the CPI(M) general secretary, M A Baby, serving as an ex-officio member. The centre’s first initiative will be to develop a digital archive documenting communist and working-class movements across the Asian region, and it will also organize annual thematic seminars across the country.

In his lecture, titled “The Left in the National Movement and its Legacy,” Habib pointed out that Marxist historical writing has not adequately recognised the significant contributions of moderate Congress leaders Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C. Dutt, who first exposed how the British were draining India’s wealth. Well known as the “Drain of Wealth” theory, their theses in the 1880s preceded the Marxist critique of British imperialism, which later articulated a similar understanding of colonialism.

“The communist critique of British colonialism preceded the communist movement in India. (Karl) Marx and (Friedrich) Engels offered a critique of colonialism in the 1840s but Naoroji and Dutt developed that critique (in India). We should celebrate them too,” Habib said.

Habib further noted that “communists were an important element of the Indian National Congress, often in alliance with the socialists,” before differences emerged between the two in post-independence India.

However, he criticised the communists for making a strategic mistake by “equating Muslim League and the Congress.”

He explained, “From the 1930s to 1947, the Congress and Muslim League were ‘pulling in different directions.’ Congress wanted immediate and full freedom and the Muslim League demanded Muslim dividend.”

He argued that while the communists supported the Congress’s call, they wrongly equated both political formations.

“Muslim League was communal, the Indian National Congress was a national party… Muslim League supported Partition, Congress did not. On what grounds can we say that both were same,” Habib said. “How could we not see the difference between the two? Congress already had a socialist programme,” he added.

Recounting historical decisions, Habib recalled how the undivided Communist Party of India treated the Congress and Muslim League as one and the same, sending Muslim party workers to the Muslim League and Hindu members to the Congress, effectively treating “the Congress as a Hindu Party.”

“The communal problem was not handled by Communists well,” he said.

“It was an enormous error,” Habib added, recalling how many Muslim communists distanced themselves from Marxism after being forced to work with the Muslim League.

“A Pakistani politician once told me that had PC Joshi not pursued that policy, there might have been no Pakistan, only Marxism,” he revealed.

Habib stressed that the intellectual foundations of anti-colonial resistance were built not only by Indian leaders but also by Marx and Engels.

“It is very rarely mentioned in our universities that Marx and Engels had a long-standing critique of colonialism in India. This tradition was carried forward by Dadabhai Naoroji and R.P. Dutt, but their contributions are inadequately recognised in our curriculum,” he said.

He highlighted the significant role played by the Communist Party of India in mobilising workers and peasants during the independence movement, and at times exerting considerable influence within the Congress.

“There were periods when communists even secured a majority in Congress sessions with Nehru’s support, much to the consternation of Mahatma Gandhi himself,” Habib noted.

Drawing from personal history, Habib spoke about the Meerut Conspiracy Case of 1929, revealing the compromises of colonial justice.

“Shah Suleiman, who later became Chief Justice, once admitted to my father that he found the communists innocent but upheld the sentences because he wanted promotion. That was the kind of compromise justice suffered under colonial rule,” Habib said.

On the Quit India resolution of 1942, Habib questioned its timing, observing that Japan was advancing on India’s borders.

“Even Nehru, though formally a supporter, confided to friends that he feared Japan more than Britain,” he said.

He added that communists were correct in cautioning that launching such a movement at that juncture could weaken the fight against fascism.

He also pointed to international solidarity with the Indian freedom struggle, citing a British MP who was imprisoned for advocating Indian independence.

“His daughter did not even know he had gone to jail in India. At his funeral, his coffin was draped in the tricolour. This shows that the Indian national movement had its friends abroad as well,” Habib remarked.

The lecture was part of a series of events organized in memory of Yechury, who became CPI(M) general secretary in 2015 and was widely recognised for his parliamentary interventions and role in shaping the party’s ideology and organisation. He was a prominent voice for secularism, federalism, and the rights of workers and farmers.

Habib concluded by urging a more nuanced reading of India’s freedom struggle, one that fully acknowledges the role of communists and the working-class movement.

“If we ignore these contributions, we not only diminish the history of our struggle but also weaken our understanding of how democratic rights were fought for and achieved,” he said.