All India Forward Bloc (Ruikar) was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

, emerging out of split from the

All India Forward Bloc The All India Forward Bloc ( AIFB) is a left-wing nationalist political party in India. It emerged as a faction within the Indian National Congress in 1939, led by Subhas Chandra Bose. The party re-established as an independent political party ...

History

In the spring of 1948 the recently reorganized All India Forward Bloc split into two factions. In February the Central Committee of AIFB met in

Varanasi Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic t ...

to discuss the situation after Independence and Partition. At the meeting it was decided that AIFB should break all relations to the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British ...

and that a separate party should be created out of the branches in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. The then general secretary of the party,

Sheel Bhadra Yagee Sheel Bhadra Yajee (1906–1996) was an activist from Bihar who was associated with the non-violent and the violent form of the Indian independence movement. Life Sheel Bhadra Yajee was born on 22 March 1906 at Bhaktiyarpur village in Patna di ...

effectively dissolved the

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

state committee of the party, and appointed ''ad hoc'' committees in

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the four ...

and

East Bengal ur, , common_name = East Bengal , status = Province of the Dominion of Pakistan , p1 = Bengal Presidency , flag_p1 = Flag of British Bengal.svg , s1 = Eas ...

. This spurred discontent inside the party. Leading the rebellion against Yagee was the party president,

S.S. Cavesheer Sardul Singh Kavishar (1886–1963) was an Indian newspaper editor, and a major figure in the Indian independence movement. Born in Amritsar,

. Yagee decided to resign as general secretary. In May the Central Committee met again and appointed

Ramchandra Sakharam Ruikar Ramchandra Sakharam Ruikar was a pioneer of the Indian labour movement. He was born on 8 January 1895 in Rui, Kolhapur, Maharashtra. He went graduated from college from Pune and Nagpur with a masters in history and economics. He created a legal ...

as the new general secretary. Yagee grouped his followers around himself, and by this time the two factions virtually functioned as two separate parties. The group led by Ruikar had its emphasis on

nationalism Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...

rather than

Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialec ...

, and called themselves 'Subhasists'. On December 29–31 the Ruikar faction held a congress in

Ashutosh College Asutosh College (Bengali: আশুতোষ কলেজ) is a college affiliated to the University of Calcutta, situated in Southern Kolkata, close to the Jatin Das Park Metro Station, gate No. 2. It was established in 1916 as the South Subu ...

Hall,

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comm ...

. Ruikar was elected general secretary and Cavesheer as president. At the same time the Marxist faction held a congress in Hooghly. Thus the split was complete. The Ruikar-led party adopted the

n tricolour with a leaping tiger as their flag, identical to the one used by

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Subhas Chandra Bose ( ; 23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945 * * * * * * * * *) was an Indian nationalist whose defiance of British authority in India made him a hero among Indians, but his wartime alliances with Nazi Germany and Imperia ...

Indian National Army The Indian National Army (INA; ''Azad Hind Fauj'' ; 'Free Indian Army') was a Collaboration with the Axis powers, collaborationist armed force formed by Indian collaborators and Imperial Japan on 1 September 1942 in Southeast Asia during Worl ...

. In 1951 the issue of reunification was raised inside Ruikar's party. In June the Central Committee of the party held a meeting which decided to move ahead with the reunification of Forward Bloc. Ruikar and

Leela Roy Leela Roy (2 October 1900 – 11 June 1970), was a radical leftist Indian woman politician and reformer, and a close associate of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. She was born in Goalpara, Assam to Girish Chandra Naag, who was a deputy magistrate, ...

disagreed with the decision, and were expelled. The two Forward Blocs held a joint central committee meeting in

Howrah Howrah (, , alternatively spelled as Haora) is a city in the Indian state of West Bengal. Howrah is located on the western bank of the Hooghly River opposite its twin city of Kolkata. Administratively it lies within Howrah district, and is t ...

on June 23, in which the two parties merged. Ruiker and Leela Roy did however mobilize their followers and reconstituted themselves as a separate party. In the 1952 general elections, the Electoral Commission let the Ruikar-led party contest as 'Forward Bloc (Ruikar)' and the other AIFB group as 'Forward Bloc (Marxist)'. FB(R) contested six

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-pas ...

seats, 3 in

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital city, capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar, and Rewa, India, Rewa being the othe ...

, 1 in

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Tamil Nadu, the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and territories of India, Indian state. The largest city ...

and 2 in

. The elections resulted in a humiliating defeat for Ruikar's party. In total the six candidates got 133 936 votes. In the West Bengal legislative assembly election the party was a member of the

People's United Socialist Front The People's United Socialist Front was an electoral alliance in West Bengal, India, formed ahead of the 1952 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election. The front was composed of the Socialist Party, the Forward Bloc (Ruikar) and the Revolutiona ...

, together with the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...

and the

Revolutionary Communist Party of India (Tagore) The Revolutionary Communist Party of India, also known as RCPI (Tagore), was a political party in India, led by Saumyendranath Tagore. RCPI (Tagore) emerged from a split in the Revolutionary Communist Party of India in 1948. RCPI (Tagore) had a ve ...

. The party contested 32 assembly seats, and won two (the only two PUSF to win any seats). The elected MLAs of the party were Atindra Nath Bose from

Asansol Asansol is a (Tier-II) metropolitan city in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the second largest and most populated city of West Bengal and the 33rd largest urban agglomeration in India. Asansol is the district headquarters of Paschim Ba ...

and Biren Roy from

Behala Behala is a locality of South West Kolkata, in the Indian state of West Bengal. Behala is a part of Kolkata Municipal Corporation area. It is broadly spread across Ward Nos. 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, ...

.List Of Political Parties
The following year the party was disbanded and merged into

Praja Socialist Party The Praja Socialist Party, abbreviated as PSP, was an Indian political party. It was founded when the Socialist Party, led by Jayaprakash Narayan, Rambriksh Benipuri, Acharya Narendra Deva and Basawon Singh (Sinha), merged with the Kisan Mazd ...

Sources

#Bose, K., ''Forward Bloc'', Madras: Tamil Nadu Academy of Political Science, 1988.

References

{{reflist Defunct political parties in India Political parties established in 1948 1948 establishments in India Political parties disestablished in 1951 1951 disestablishments in India