This document is the “Open Letter” sent to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on July 27, 1958, by the Socialist Party of West Bengal. It was signed by Chairman Satyananda Bhattacharya and Secretary Naresh Bhowmick.
The letter is a powerful and trenchant critique of the Nehru government’s performance twelve years after India’s independence. It accuses the ruling party of failing to solve the nation’s problems, leading to a “polarisation of poverty” while the privileged few accumulate wealth. It condemns the suppression of protests with police and military force, criticizes the government’s foreign policy, and takes offense at remarks Nehru had recently made about Calcutta.
Citing “abysmal tyranny and torture,” the letter concludes with a direct and forceful demand for the Prime Minister’s immediate resignation.
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July 27, 1908. An Open Jottor Sri Jawaharlal mohy, Prime Minister of lumia, Calcutta Camp. Sir, It is indeed painful for us to write you this later. Hormally the citizen of this great city of Caloutta consider it only a proud privilege to welcome, in their midst, аnу ротоми по matter who the peren maybe, but, in so far as you are concerned, this certainly is not the case. Not only that today the citizene of Caloutte consider you to be the most unwelcome quest. And there are valid reasons for that too. Ever since your party cane to power, way back in 1947, the whole country has been passing through one crisis after another. Mumerous problems remain unresolved, the people gasp and groan, and yet the ruling party, of which you are the lender, romains cynically impasive. The hopes and aspirations, and tribulations of the people are looked down upon with the most contemptuous disrogard. the struggles and strivings of the people are ansored with police and ilitary firing, resulting in cold blooded marders. The long. melancholy twelve years of macabre nisrule, by the ruling part y wwsulted in has been a polarisation of poverty, of the masses, on the one hand; and an unparalled accumulation of wealth by the privileged fow, on the other. So much so that, the whole country has the appearanc of a vast sea of filthy poverty dotted by a few pockets of prosperity The situation, which is entirely your creation, stinks to the high heaven. And when, in utter desperation, the people protot against this intolerable situation, an aggressive attitude is adopted by Lord you which rowinde the people of what the lato Birkenhond said: "Let the dons bark, the Caravan will pass on". Along with this, we are constrained to state that, your profession of noutrality and pacifism, in the field of internation politics, isothing but a mockery of those principles which sho (2) have guided the foreign policy of the country. of colonial imperialiom loses all meaning when we witness your determination to koop the country hitched to the british Commonmalh We are of the considered opinion that your role, in international politics, has been that of a common tout, alternately rendering services to both the power blocs, namely the Atlantic and the Bovist Last but not the least disgusting has been your offensively indccent remarks about the city of Calcutta. We are amazed at your presence in this city which, the other day, you declared to be nothing but a 'deserted big village", At this point, we do not considor any useful purpose will be served in preparing a systematic list of the specific criminal acts of the ruling party. Suffice it to any that, you and your party have transformed the whole country into a criminally misruled barren land of abysmal tyranny and torture. Hece, Er. Prime minister, wo dement, in the name of democracy and on behalf of the people of the country, your inmediate resignation from the stewardship of the country In the end we shall repeat what Gandhiji once said that, an ar chy we will prefer tyrenny to your misrule. Nanash Mowmicle Seo re tary, 27/7/88 Socialist Party, West Bengal. Yours sincerely, Satyananda Bhattacharya 27/7/58 Chairman, Socialist Farty, West Bengal