MANY communist pioneers were also leaders of social reform movements. The Communist Party, as can be seen from various documents adopted from its initial days, was firmly against discrimination and oppression based on caste and religion. They were also for equal status to women. Many youngsters and freedom fighters were attracted towards the Party due to these ideals and also because of the practical work done by the communists among the masses. This further strengthened communist base among the downtrodden sections.

Whenever communists were conducting struggles for the rights of the workers and agricultural labourers, they consciously raised the demands of dalits among these classes. For instance, during the working class strike in Bombay in 1928, communists raised the demand that dalits should be allowed to work in the cloth weaving department, where thread had to be moistened with the worker’s saliva, while winding it on the shuttle. Raising this demand had attracted many dalits to the communist movement. R B More was attracted towards the communist movement after getting acquainted with such activities of the communists. More was a close associate of Dr B R Ambedkar and was instrumental in organising the Mahad dalit conference and satyagraha, where Ambedkar led dalits to drink water from the Chavdar lake.

In fact, More was the first person from dalit community to join the Party after having been in the forefront of Ambedkar’s movement and consciously attaining an understanding of Marxism-Leninism. More was conscious that communists were aware of social issues on seeing the demands being raised during working class struggles. He was also influenced, when he noticed that dalits and non-dalit workers, Muslims and Hindus, forgetting their caste barriers fought in unison for their rights. Such struggles further influenced dalits to join the communist movement.
More was one of the first generations that built the communist movement in India. He became a member of the Communist Party in 1930. More was instrumental in organising various sections of the working class, from municipal workers to teachers and also cultural troops. Through these organisations, he succeeded in attracting many dalit workers into the Communist Party. He also organised agricultural workers and peasants in Konkani region and mobilised them against the oppressive landlord system.

More ensured that his entire family was involved in Party activities. His family was felicitated as ‘Red family’, in the first All India Congress of the Communist Party held in Bombay (1943).
B T Ranadive was another young communist leader who played an active role in the social reform movement. Even from his school days (late 1910s), Ranadive was influenced by radical ideas and stood for the rights of dalits and women. He used to teach dalit students and buy books for them from whatever money he got from his parents and relatives. Intolerant students and parents from higher caste families used to throw stones at Ranadive for these acts. But this did not deter him. Ranadive was thoroughly dissatisfied with Gandhi and his support for the varnashrama dharma, which went against his anti-caste understanding and social reform outlook. In his search for radical alternatives to the Congress, he got attracted to communism and the working class movement.

Ranadive, along with More, worked to ensure that caste discrimination, sub-consciously practiced in trade unions, was put to an end. They stopped the practice of having two mud vessels for drinking water in the union office – one for the upper-castes and one for the dalits. They stated that those who thought of pollution due to caste considerations, can go out and drink water from elsewhere. This is how they showed that communist led unions should be strict in the matter of caste discrimination.
P Ramamurti, who was active in the freedom movement from his school days, came into contact with the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, started by Bhagat Singh and his compatriots in Benaras. He also joined the Jat Pat Thodak Samaj, an organisation against caste system started by the Naujawan Sabha and immersed himself in activities against caste system and for its abolition.

Ramamurti was against the denial of temple entry for dalits. He taught dalit cobblers devotional songs and some general mantras. When he found out that elections for trustees of a Vaishnav temple in the locality were being held, he prepared 200 dalits and applied vaishnavite symbols, sanku and chakra (conch and wheel) on their arms and demanded their registration as voters. This enraged brahmins, who approached the civil court. Ramamurti helped dalits contest the case, which went on to the High Court. The coaching given by Ramamurti helped dalits in convincing the judges and attain a favourable ruling. This was a unique case where the rights of the dalits to enter temples was judicially validated against the wishes of brahmins. Gandhi, who was advocating a ‘change of heart’ policy, was forced to recognise this development.

Ramamurti, by this time, was already acquainted with socialist ideas and attended the founding conference of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP). Together with his social reform activities, he played a pivotal role in organising workers and building the trade union movement in the state.

Along with Ramamurti, P Jeevanandan and B Srinivasa Rao also played an important role in the social reform movement. Jeevanandan was an active worker in the self-respect movement of Periyar Ramaswamy and later became a prominent leader of the communist movement. Srinivasa Rao led the agricultural workers in their struggle against landlord exploitation and also caste oppression.

A K Gopalan, a mass leader in Kerala, was also moving along these lines. He did not accept the prevalent discriminatory practices and initiated many struggles against them. One such struggle was the famous Guruvayoor temple satyagraha, demanding temple entry for dalits. He was severely beaten by upper-caste Hindus, who got him arrested and tortured. In spite of all these hardships, he persisted with the movement, which had attracted national attention. P Krishna Pillai, another founding member of the Communist Party, was also an important leader of this movement in Guruvayoor. EMS Namboodiripad and P Krishna Pillai helped AKG in his decision to join the CSP and later the Communist Party.

Right from his student days, EMS Namboodiripad regularly wrote on the need for social reform within the Namboodiri community, apart from participating in the freedom movement. Coming from an orthodox Namboodiri family, he was well aware of the plight of women in that community and other obnoxious practices. He actively campaigned for widow remarriage and against polygamy. He also fought against the purdah system prevalent among Namboodiri women and also for their right to cover their upper body. After his first imprisonment, EMS’ elder brother severed his relations, as the practice in the Namboodiris at that time was to excommunicate any person who spent time in prison. Such measures failed to wean him away from his chosen path of struggle for social and economic emancipation. He continued in this path, moved towards socialist ideas, joined the CSP and became its all India joint secretary. Later, he played a major role in ensuring that the entire state unit of CSP in Kerala converted itself into the Communist Party.

P Ramamurti, EMS, AKG – all of them acknowledge the contribution of P Sundarayya in helping them identify Communist Party as the real alternative. Sundarayya himself started his political life through organising agricultural labourers, amongst whom majority were dalits. He vehemently opposed the discrimination of dalits, who were even denied entry into the houses of upper-castes and the practice of untouchability. He started the first union for agricultural workers and also organised ‘common dining’ (sahapankti bhojan) for dalits and upper-castes. He not only rebelled against the practice of untouchability in his own household, but in defiance, worked shoulder-to-shoulder with dalit agricultural workers in the fields, ate with them, attended to their common medical ailments and also ran fair price shops for their benefit. In this manner, he not only fought against caste discrimination, but also showed them an alternative through his welfare activities. It is in this process that he had even cut the caste suffix from his name.

Guided by egalitarian ideas, communists put in efforts to campaign among dalits, explain the reasons for their social oppression and economic exploitation and organise them under the banner of the Communist Party. Because of such pioneering work among agricultural workers by leaders like Sundarayya and M Basavapunnaiah, the Communist Party in Andhra Pradesh, was even called as a ‘Party of the dalits’, at that time.

Communist pioneers, through their practice, found out that Marxism-Leninism is the only ideology and Communist Party the only force that can guide the struggle for the establishment of an egalitarian society. They formed various class and mass organisations and took up issues of social oppression as a part of their struggle for the establishment of such a society. These efforts laid a strong foundation for the Communist Party and helped it withstand the repression unleashed by the British government and also native landlords. They also paved way for the rapid advancement of the communist movement, particularly from the second half of the 1930s.