KULASAI'S Part in - Quit India revolt of 1942-43

A Tribute to a Remarkable Tamil Trotskyist

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Source: Charles Wesley Ervin about B.M.K. Ramaswamy (1914-1995)
Copyright: (c) 2008 Charles Wesley Ervin. Published here for the Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line with permission.

“Quit India!”

In August, 1942 Gandhi gave his famous “do or die” speech in Bombay, calling upon his countrymen to force the British to “quit India” immediately. Unlike the CPI, which flatly opposed any struggle that might weaken the war effort, the BLPI gave unconditional support to any actions that were directed against British imperialism. The government promptly arrested Gandhi and other top-echelon Congressmen. That provoked angry protests in the streets of Bombay and across India. The mobs uprooted railway tracks, cut telephone and telegraph lines, torched railway stations and other government buildings, and tried to create as much mayhem as possible. There was bloodshed on both sides. In Madras Province on September 20 some Congress militants attacked the Kulasekarapattinam salt factory, burned down the weighing shed, and killed the assistant manager.

In Madurai Ramaswamy went underground with T.G. Krishnamurthy and other militant Congressmen. Together they produced and distributed leaflets supporting the mass revolt. The British authorities, who thought that the Trotskyist party had been smashed in Madras Province, sat up and took note. The police reported that the Trotskyists seemed to be influencing the underground Congress movement in Madras Province. Indeed, some conservative Congressmen complained about the Trotskyist propaganda in Congress leaflets.

Recruiting on the Run

Always staying one jump ahead of the police, Ramaswamy, his brother, and T.G. Krishnamurthy toured throughout Tamil Nadu, making contact with underground militants and leading study classes in Marxism. Krishnamurthy started translating Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution into Tamil.

Ramaswamy seems to have been an amazing recruiter. Thanks to his work, the BLPI soon had a network of members extending from Madurai south to Thoothukudi (Tuticorin) and west to the hill country bordering what is now Kerala. In the Theni District alone, Ramaswamy recruited members in Bodinayakkanur, Lakshmi Naicken Patty, Thevaram, Theni, and Pannaipuram. A number of these recruits from the hinterland went on to play important roles in the BLPI and later Trotskyist parties.

During the Quit India struggle some Congress militants carried out dacoities (robberies) to get money to finance the struggle. This was a practice that the early Indian revolutionary groups had started in 1906 during the Swadeshi movement. T.G. Krishnamurthy apparently decided that his group, too, should carry out a dacoity. He assigned his hapless associate, Karrupa Pillai, to rob a rich family living in the town of Devakotti. The dacoity was bungled. Two or three months later, the police arrested Krishnamurthy and another comrade, A.K. Ponniah Ambalam, and they were sent to the Vellore Central Jail. In jail Krishnamurthy won over several Congressmen, including a militant who had been sentenced to death for participating in the attack on the Kulasekarapattinam salt factory.