EMINENT PARLIAMENTARIAN MONOGRAPH SERIES BHUPESH GUPTA LOK SABHA SECRETARIAT NEW DELHI 1990 LSS (PRIS-ES~ EPM/6 .. © Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1990 •• October, 1990 Price: Rs. 50.00 \ •I Published under rule 382 of the Rules of Procedure and CqncIuct of Business in Lok sakla (Seventh Edition) and printed by the Manager, 'Photo Litho UnIt, Govemment of India Press. MVtto Road. New Delhi. FOREWORD The Indian Parliamentary Group has recently celebrated the birth anniversaries of some eminent parliamentarians in order to reCjllI and recount their valuable and multifarious contributions to our national and parliamentary life. In pursuance of this endeavour, a new series known as the "Eminent Parliamenta- rians Monograph Series" was started in March, 1990 and three monographs on Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, Dr. Lanka Sundaram and Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee have been brought out so far. The present monograph seeks to provide some glimpses into the life and parliamentary activities of Shri Bhupesh Gupta-a veteran leader of the Communist Party of India and a distin- guished parliamentarian. This monograph is being published in Hindi, Bengali and English. The monograph consists of three parts. Part one contains a profile of Shri Bhupesh Gupta, giving a brief account of his early days, his education, his ideas, his role as a freedom fighte.s a leader of the communist movement in India, as a cham of weaker sections of society, as a staunch supporter of women's rights, as a votary. of secularism and national integration, as a distinguished writer and journalist and above all, as an outstanding parliamentarian. Part two contains excerpts from select speeches delivered by him in the Rajya Sabha of which he was a member for almost three decades. Part three highlights a lesser-known aspect of his personality by recalling certain witty interventions made by him during the course of discussions. in the House. On the occasion of his birth anniversary, we pay our respectful tributes to the memory of one of the tallest in the House of Elders, Bhupesh Da, as he was popularly known and hope that this monograph would be read with int~rest and found useful. RABI RAY Speaker, Lok Sabha New Delhi; and December, 1990 President, Indian Parliamentary Group Contents FOREWORD PART ONE His life 1 BHUPESH GUPTA A Profile 1 PART TWO His Ideas Excerpts from some select speeches of Shri Bhupesh Gupta in Rajya Sabha 2 Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Bill (17) 3 Conference of World Powers on Nuclear Test Explosions (26) 4 Economic Development (33) 5 Promotion of Hindi Language (39) 6 Prevention of Intrusion of Big Money and use of Government Machinery in Elections (55) (iii) 7 Centre-State Relations (67) 8 Right of Employment as a Fundamental Right (74) 9 US Military Assistance to Pakistan (82) 10 Status of Women in India (98) 11 Lowering of Voting Age (111 ) 12 Parliamentary Committees (123) PART THREE Some Lighter InterI.... (132) (iv) PART ONE His Life- 1 Bhupesh Gupta-A Profile Comrade Bhupesh Gupta, one of the leading luminaries of the communist movement in India, an able par~amentarian and a gifted orator, was born on 20 October, 1914 at Itna in Mymensingh district of East Bengal (now called Bangladesh). His father, Shri Mahesh Chandra Gupta was a rich landlord. Born in a wealthy family, Shri Bhupesh Gupta could have led a life of ease and affluence but he hardly cared for it. The urge to serve the country led him to live a life of simplicity and dedication to the cause of the motherland. He took the first perilous plunge in this field at an early age of 16, never looking back or regretting the dolce vita that with his social background he had chosen deliberately to abjure. Wedded to an active public life at such an early age, it is not surprising that Shri Bhupesh Gupta chose to remain a life-long bachelor with single-minded devotion to the service of the country and the communist cause. His education Shri Bhupesh Gupta, all along a brilliant student. was educated at Scottish Church College, Calcutta and University College, London. He joined India's struggle for fr8'edom at an early age and was deta.ined several times but his quest for knowledge remained undiminished. He passed his I.A. and B.A. examinations of the Calcutta University from Berhampur deten- tion camp with distinction. Later on, his father wrote to the Government that he wanted to send his son to England for higher studies. The Government agreeing, Bhupesh went to 2 England to study Jaw and was called to the bar from the Middle Temple, London. Aa • fteedom fighter Bhupesh Gupta, a born fighter as he was, fought against the British imperialism right from his student days. Even after the attainment of independence, he continued his valiant struggle against neo-colonialism and other forms of domination with pungent tenacity. Completely dedicated to the cause of. motherland, Shri Bhupesh Gupta was drawn into the magic circle of national revolutionaries at a very young age. He joined a revolutionary group called Anushilan which was headed by Surendra Mohan Ghosh-the famous revolutionary leader. He took an active part in the Civil Disobedience Movement, was arrested several times during the years 1930, 1931 and 1933 and was kept in detention till 1937. But Bhupesh Gupta, was determined, to serve his country. He was sent to England by his father so that he could be kept away from the revolutionary movement. But in England, too, he took part in the Indian students' struggle to free their motherland from foreign domination. Thus, in preemi- nent measure, Bhupesh Gupta lived a life of devotion and dedication and of unremitting, single-minded endeavour in the task of national liberation. Aa • Communist Though a scion of a rich Zamindar family, Shri Bhupesh Gupta had no attachment to worldly pleasures. A spartan, he spurned all comforts and luxuries, too often associated with the elite class. His fascination for the communist ideology started in 1930s when he was put in a detention camp·'or being a member of Surendra Mohan Ghosh's revolutionary group. There he came in touch with the enlightening and humanist features of the Marxist ideology. After completing his studies in England. 'Bhupeshda', as he was endearingly called by his friends and fellow workers. returned to India in 1941 and devoted himself full-time to the work of the Communist Party of India (CPI). Initially he worked 3 at the underground .beadquarters of the CPI. He was also one of the founders of· the Friends of the Soviet Union (FSU) in 1941. In 1947, he was elected to the West Bengal Provincial Committee of the CPI and was appoint&d as Chairman of the editorial board of the party's Bengali daily Swadhinata in 1951. Since the CPI was declared illegal by the Govemment,· he was arrested in 1951 and detained till April, 1952. Comrade Bhupesh Gupta was elected to the Central Commit- tee of the CPI at its third Congress which was held at Madurai during December, 1953. At the Palghat Congress of the party in 1956, he was again elected to the Central Committee and thereafter to the Politbureau of the Communist Party. He held various prominent positions in all the leading bodies of the Communist Party. At the time of his death in 1981, he was a member of the Central Executive Committee and Secretary of the National Council of the CPI. During the split that occurred in the Communist Party in the year 1964, in the wake of the Sino-Indian Border War, Shri Bhupesh Gupta tried his best to seek a way to save the Communist Movement in India from splitting as it was being steadily undermined by the ideological conflict between the leftist and rightist groups within the Party. Even after the Division of the Party into CPI and CPI (M), Bhupesh Gupta endeavoured to bring about reconciliation between the two Parties. He wanted that CPI should work out a programme of 4 common action with the CPI (M) and conduct negotiations for reunification. However, this deadlock could not be resolved. Shri Bhupesh Gupta was also well-known outside the coun- try, especially among those associated with the Intemational Communist Movement. Ever since he joined the Communist Movement, Comrade Bhupesh Gupta remained a staunch internationalist. As a prominent Indian Communist leader, he outshined others in various national and intemational con;. ferences. He was a crusader against apartheid and racism. In the Conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Associa- tion held in Kingston, Jamaica in 1979, Bhupeshda's brilliant speech against those who had sought to justify and defend 4 racism and apartheid earned him the title "hero of the Kingston Conference". He attended the Bucharest preparatory meeting of the International Communist Movement. He was a member of the CPI delegation at the 1957. 1960 and 1969 meetings of the World Communist Movement. He was also a member of the CPI delegation led by the late Comrade Ajay Ghosh which went to Peking in 1959 and met Mao-Tse-Tung. Bhupesh Gupta was a member of the World Peace Council and was fully involved in its struggle for peace and against imperialism. In fact. the last conference he attended was organised by the Council when he left India on 22 June. 1981 to attend the International Conference of Solidarity with Syria and Palestine Uberation Organisation (PLO) in Damascus. His abiding faith in Communist ideology and soundless zeal earned him the reputation of being one of the most outstanding leaderS of the Communist Party of India. He was an alert and energetic politician and a parliamentarian non-pareil who totally identified himself with the oppressed and the downtrodden and who practised what he preached.