On May 3, 1939, Subhas Chandra Bose founded the political
faction which later became the All India Forward Bloc. This political party is
small in size but is active in many states of the country.
The Forward Bloc of the Indian National Congress was
formed by Bose, who had resigned from the presidency of the Indian National
Congress on April 29 after being outmaneuvered by Mohandas K. Gandhi. The
formation of the Forward Bloc was announced to the public at a rally in Calcutta.
Initially the aim of the Forward Bloc was to rally all
the leftwing sections within the Congress and develop an alternative leadership
inside the Congress. Bose became the president of the Forward Bloc and S.S.
Cavesheer its vice-president. A Forward Bloc Conference was held in Bombay in
the end of June. At that conference the constitution and programme of the
Forward Bloc were approved. In July 1939 Subhas Chandra Bose announced the
Committee of the Forward Bloc. It had Subhas Chandra Bose as president, S.S.
Cavesheer from Punjab as its vice-president, Lal Shankarlal from Delhi, as its
general secretary and Pandit B Tripathi and Khurshed Nariman from Bombay as
secretaries. Thereby, the leading positions were distributed amon members in
the main cities of the country.
Bose arriving at the 1939 Indian National Congress annual session. He was re elected president but later resigned (Personal album of Tony Mitra, Wikimedia Commons) |
In August the same year Bose began publishing a newspaper
titled Forward Bloc. He travelled around the country, rallying support
for his new political project.
The following year, on June 20–22, 1940, the Forward Bloc
held its first All India Conference in Nagpur. The conference declared the
Forward Bloc to be a socialist political party, and the date of June 22 is
considered as the founding date of the party by the Forward Bloc itself. From then on, it functioned as a separate political party as against a faction within the Congress. The
conference passed a resolution titled 'All Power to the Indian People', urging
militant action for struggle against British colonial rule. Subhas Chandra Bose
was elected as the president of the party.
Soon thereafter, on July 2, Bose was arrested and
detained in Presidency Jail, Calcutta. In January 1941 he escaped from house
arrest, and clandestinely went into exile. He travelled to the Soviet Union via
Afghanistan, seeking Soviet support for the Indian independence struggle. Stalin
declined Bose's request, and he then travelled to Germany. In Berlin he set up
the Free India Centre, and rallied the Indian Legion.
In August 1942 the British authorities banned the Forward
Bloc. Its offices around the country were ransacked. In 1943 Bose was
transported to Asia, where he took over the leadership of the Indian National
Army. During the final phase of the war the INA fought alongside the Japanese
against the British army.
Inside India, local activists of the Forward Bloc
continued the anti-British activities without central coordination. For
example, in Bihar members were involved in the Azad Dasta resistance groups,
and distributed propaganda in support of Bose and INA. They did not have,
however, any organic link neither with Bose nor the INA.
Bose died on August 18, 1945, from severe burn wounds after
the plane he was traveling crashed in Taipei, Formosa. His political party was
reorganized after the war. Its stronghold remains to be West Bengal while
powerful sections are also present several other states. In
the 2009 Indian General Election, the party contested as part of the Left Front
and won 2 seats in West Bengal.
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