Labour Monthly, October 1944
Source: Labour Monthly, October 1944, p. 317-318, reviews by R.P. D.;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.
British Soldier in India: the Letters of Clive Branson, Communist Party: 2s 6d.
The death of Clive Branson on the Arakan front in February, 1944 was the loss of one of the most promising and outstanding figures of the rising generation in Britain; an artist and poet; a communist; a thinker; a tireless organiser and political leader; and a fighter. It is loss that could ill be spared, and that will be felt the more deeply as these letters of his from India are read.
But this book is more than a memorial of Clive Branson. It stands in its own right as one of the most valuable books on India that could be put in the hands of any reader today. The problem often arises what introductory book on India could be recommended to the general reader, who does not yet want to study a political treatise, but wants rather a living picture of human beings. There are some novels like Forster’s classic Passage to India, though old, or Mulk Raj Anand’s stories which can help. But there can be no question what to recommend first now. Give your friend, no matter whom, no matter what his previous outlook, Branson’s British Soldier in India to read. It will open his eyes. Vivid, easily read, unforgettable, it will arouse passionate interest and concern in the most indifferent, and teach more than many bulkier volumes.
In very simple compass these letters, mingled with poems and sketches, give a picture of the Indian people and their conditions; of the army in India and the narrow world of the Sahibs; of the Congress and the tangled conflict of 1942-44; of the Communist Party of India and the workers’ movement; and finally of the famine.
It is also a picture of the writer: of one who was alive in every fibre of his being who could think and feel and act. It may help many to understand better, who may have been misled by the commonplace caricatures of Marxist “ dogmatists,” how a communist responds to life. It is a magnificent expression of a communist soldier in the present war.
It would be tempting to quote many passages at length. Here are one or two.
Never will any of us who have come to India for this war forget the unbelievable, indescribable poverty in which we have found people living wherever we went, and in millions. We are all agreed that if the people back home knew of these conditions there would be a hell of a row – because this state of affairs, is maintained in the name of the British. And yet, too, we are all agreed that there is no parallel, no common visual or verbal symbols that could convey the slightest understanding of this state of affairs to the people at home. How can I tell the people of Nine Elms that their condemned houses are palaces, compared with Indian slums? They just wouldn’t believe me – would think me a liar. At home one is shocked if families live in one room. But how often do people from India explain that millions of human beings here have no room at all, that whole families live in houses made of plaited grass, rags, bits of tin, a bit of carpet – in all not more than 8 ft by 4 ft. and perhaps 4 ft. high. And one can see this not only in every village, but on the outskirts of every town before one ever reaches the brick-built slums in the centre of the town.
The last part of my journey was like a nightmare. The endless view of plains, crops, and small stations, turned almost suddenly into one long trail of starving people. Men, women, children, babies, looked up into the passing carriage in their last hope for food. These people were not just hungry – this was famine. When we stopped, children swarmed round the carriage windows, repeating hopelessly “Bukshish, sahib” – with the monotony of a damaged gramophone. Others sat on the ground, just waiting. I saw women – almost fleshless skeletons, their clothes grey with dust from wandering, with expressionless faces, not walking, but foot steadying foot, as though not knowing where they went. As we pulled towards Calcutta, for miles, little children naked, with inflated bellies stuck on stick like legs, held up empty tins towards us. They were children still – they laughed and waved as we went by. Behind them one could see the brilliant fiendish green of the new crop.
The only piece of news of interest arises from a speech I have just read by Cripps, in England. He is reported to have told some Indians (industrial Bevin boys): “It is part of your job while you are here to study organisation of labour so that you may, on your return to your own country, help your fellow-workers to organise stable Trade Unions, not as political parties, but as protection for workers against exploitation and sweating and as a means of encouraging the sound development of Indian industries.
Would someone kindly inform Cripps that on May 1 at Nagpur the twentieth session of the All-India T.U.C. met – 300 delegates representing over 350,000 workers – and demanded, among other things, “as a protection for workers against exploitation,” the transference of power to a national government. Also on May 1, the same day as Cripps spoke, railwaymen, tramwaymen, textile workers, etc., were organising meetings in Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, demanding, mainly, the opening of the Second Front. And, above all, one should not forget the great Khan (peasant) organisations. It is always surprising to such “brilliant” legal minds as Cripps’ that the ignorant workers and peasants, in their own way, arrive at an understanding of politics far in advance of their betters. And also tell Cripps it would make the organisation of the workers much easier if Meerut trials and the imprisonment of men such as Dange and Mirajkar did not take place. “Safe” Labour, leaders are not fashionable among ignorant Indian and Chinese workers.
Always remember that one is given fate only one lifetime in which to work and live for humanity. There no greater crime, in my opinion, than to renounce the world, no matter for what excuse. If anything should happen, to either of us, never say, “This finished.” For we have both lived for one purpose, the emancipation of the working people. If by chance one of us has to leave this work before it is done, then let the other go on and see it through – not in the spirit of holy self-sacrifice – as a monk or a nun – but even more in the fullness of human experience. What we miss we can only find in knowing humanity more deeply and not in the ever-narrowing circumference of private memories. Life for me has only been worthwhile in so far as I have been able to show, even a few people, the way to forward living. And, above all, whatever happens, let us never for one instant, on the slightest excuse, forget we are human beings and belong to the brotherhood of man. Tyrants and hermits are tarred with the same brush. Whatever happens you must go on living there are so many years of grand work ahead.
British Soldier in India will remain, not only as a living picture of conditions in India under British rule in 1942-44, but as a permanent treasure of British communist literature.
R.P.D.