Literary-cultural dimensions of the communist movement in Assam (1940s-1960s)

This article examines the emergence of a progressive literary-cultural public sphere popularly called ‘progressive cultural movement’ in Assam between the 1940s and 1960s as a significant yet understudied dimension of the communist movement in the North Eastern State of Assam. Drawing on periodicals, archival sources, organisational materials, and select Marxist cultural formulations, the study situates Assam’s progressive cultural activism within broader all-India left cultural movement. Moving beyond organisational and political histories of the communist movement, it foregrounds the literary-cultural sphere as a site where class, ideology, artistic practice, and regional social reality intersected. The article also traces the internal ideological tensions, organisational split, and regional political dynamics that precipitated the movement’s marginalisation, positioning Assam’s experience as historically significant to understanding left cultural politics in India. It argues that between 1940s and 1960s Assam’s progressive writers, poets, musicians, and theatre practitioners reshaped Assamese cultural production marking a shift from romantic idealism to social realism and articulating counter-hegemonic critique of feudalism, capitalist imperialism, and nationalist orthodoxy. In recovering this unexplored history, the article not only contributes to the larger historiography of the communist movement in India but also reasserts the importance of culture as a socio-political site.