In September 1938 I sailed to India, to see the political scene at closer hand, and with some schemes of historical study. I was the bearer of a lengthy document from the Communist International, which would have been cheering to the British authorities if it had fallen into their hands. Its gist was that Moscow could not campaign at present for legalisation of the Indian Party; the reason of course was Soviet eagerness for a collective security agreement with Britain. Conditions however had been improving for the Party since the installation of Congress Ministries in Bombay and other provinces, as a result of elections following the new Government of India Act of 1935 and its enlargement of provincial autonomy. Still illegal though it was, the Party was not being much harassed. Nehru’s socialist sympathies had some weight, and, as I was told by Soli Batliwala, a Parsee member of the leading committee, during Civil Disobedience some Communists like himself had rubbed shoulders in jail with Congressmen, and a sort of ‘old prison tie’ freemasonry had emerged.
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