Harpal Brar

Harpal Brar
Harpal Brar speaks to young communists in Birmingham, on the 70th anniversary of the victory over fascism.
Born	(1939-10-05) 5 October 1939 (age 77) Muktsar, Punjab, British India
Occupation	Chairman of the CPGB-ML
Political party	Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)

Harpal Brar (born 5 October 1939) is an Indian-born communist politician, writer and businessman, based in Britain. He is the founder and current Chairman of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist).

Born in Muktsar, Punjab, British India, Brar has lived and worked in Britain since 1962, first as a student, then as a lecturer in law at Harrow College of Higher Education (later merged into the renamed University of Westminster), and later in the textile business. Brar owns buildings in West London which he uses for CPGB-ML party activity, and he part-owns an internet shop called "Madeleine Trehearne and Harpal Brar" which sells shawls.

Brar is the editor of a far left political newspaper called Lalkar, which was a paper belonging to the Indian Workers' Association before Brar inherited it. Brar has written multiple books on subjects such as Communism, Indian republicanism, imperialism, anti-Zionism, anti-Colonialism, and the British General Strike. He is also a co-founder of the Hands off China Campaign.

Brar joined the Maoist Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist League but soon left to become a founder member of a small group of anti-revisionists, the Association of Communist Workers, as well as being a member of the Association of Indian Communists.

He and his comrades officially dissolved the ACW in 1997 in order to join Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party, a breakaway from the Labour Party after its abandonment of the original version of Clause IV. Brar and his comrades worked to bring what they described as an Anti-Revisionist Marxist-Leninist programme to the SLP, but were eventually expelled seven years later.