Why Forward Bloc - Subhas Bose

Indian National Congress was born from the soil of India as a 'historical necessity' and the growth and development of the organisation took place as the result of 'its inner urge'. Similarly an inner urge and historical necessities led to the birth of Forward Bloc. Neither personal factors nor accidental circumstances is responsible for its birth. He put forward the Hegelian Theory of Thesis, antithesis and synthesis for the birth of the new phenomenon. He discarded the necessity of 'Unity at all cost' he agreed that sometimes it so happened that the left gathers strength from the right but in a different circumstances left wing has to move of its own.
Gandhiites of 1920 was the left wing of the Congress now it had lost its leftism. During 1936 and 1938 left wing had grown and was moving with the right wing, Gandhiites, upto 1939, but it was not possible to move together. The right wing had cut off the relation with the left wing for their existence.
Hence the Forward Bloc is not only the product of an inner urge but also a historical necessity.

1. Subhash Chandra resigned from Congress President Ship on 29 April 1939. On 3 May 1939, he declared the formation of Forward Bloc.
2. On 22 June 1939 was held the All India Session in Mumbai where the Constitution and programme of Forward Bloc was adopted.
3. First All India Conference of Forward bloc was held in Nagpur, from 18 to 22 June 1940. In his Presidential Address, Subhash Chandra gave a concrete plan of action for winning Puma Swaraj or complete freedom in the immediate future. The conference resolved that, in order to win independence for India, and in order to preserve it, as soon as possible the following steps be taken :

   The struggle launched at Ramgarh (March 1940) be intensified locally and further widened in its scope under the slogan 'All Power to Indian People'. Steps are taken to promote and develop national unity on as many fronts and in as many directions as possible. Measures are adopted for forming Panchayat in every locality, beginning from the village right up to the center, to function as organs of struggle and later on as organs of administration.

4. It was 17 January 1941, dead of night, that the 'Great Escape' of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose from India opened a new chapter of the political history of the country. Forward Bloc leaders and workers came under sharp torture and humiliation of the British police and its intelligence. A huge number of them were put to jails and confinements. And Forward Bloc was declared banned on 23 June 1942.

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Leaders of the Forward Bloc and Left Consolidation Committee.

In early July, 1939, Bose announced the personnel of the Forward Bloc Working Committee. It included ;

1. Subhas Bose - President

2. Sardar Sardulsingh Caveeshar (Punjab), - Vice-President. 3. Lal Shankarlal (Delhi) - General secretary, 4. Pandit Viswamabhar tripathi, 5. and K.F.Nariman (Bombay), Secretaries, 6. other Prominent members ; Mr.Annapurnia (Andhra), 7. Danapati Bapat, 8. and H.V.Kamath (Bombay)

In the Bengal Provincial forward Bloc , Satya Ranjan Baksi, long time confident of Bose, was appointed Secretary.  

Past leaders of AIFB

General Secretary : Hari Vishnu Kamat (1940)

President : Sardar Sardul Singh Kaveesher (1947)

General Secretary : Sheel Bhadra Yajee (1947)

General Secretary : K.N.Joglekar (1948)

General Secretary : R.S.Ruikar (1948)

President : General Mohan Singh (1952)

General Secretary : G.S. Dhilan (1952)

President : Hemanta Kr. Basu (1955)

Vice President : U. Pasumpon Mathuramalingam Thevar (1955)

General Secretary : R.K.Haldulkar (1955)

President : Mukhia Thevar (1979)

General Secretary : Chitta Basu (1979)

President : P.D. Paliwal (1984)

President : A.R.Perumal (1991)

President : Ayyanam Ambalam (1998)

President : D. D. Shastri (2001)
" i observed that the ......Socialists and Communist friends with whom this matter was discussed after the Haripura Congress agreedwith this view . It was generally felt that all progressive and , radical and anti Imperialist elements in the Congress , who might not be ready to join the Socialist or Communist Party, should be organised on the basis of a Common minimum programme . I felt , further, that only by that means could the onslaught of the rightist be resisted and the soil prepared for the growth of a Marxist Party." Subhas wrote in the editorial of Forward Bloc on 12.8.1039.