Michael Carritt

Michael John Carritt (3 January 1906 – 1990) was a British communist revolutionary, spy, university lecturer, and a supporter of Indian independence. After graduating from Oxford University, Carritt joined the British Empire's Indian Civil Service. While working for the Civil Service, Carritt became a communist after witnessing the brutality of the British colonial occupation of India. Carritt became a double-agent for the Communist Party of India (CPI), secretly supplying them with information to help them resist British colonialism. After returning from India, he helped the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) develop their policies concerning Indian independence. Over the course of his career he worked as an educator for the Workers Education Association in Brighton, Oxford University, and the University of Sussex.

Early life, family and education Michael Carritt was born on 3 January 1906. His mother Winifred Carritt was a communist activist, and his father Edgar Carritt was an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at University College of Oxford University. Michael Carritt was 1 of 5 brothers, all of whom became socialist revolutionaries. As an adult he studied at Queen's College, of Oxford University, graduating with a degree in Classics. One of the driving forces behind his transformation into a communist revolutionary was witnessing the exploitation of Indians under British rule. While working in India he made contact with the Indian Communist Party and began secretly supporting the communists, and the larger pro-independence movement to which they belonged. Michael Carritt used this position to warn anti-colonial activists when their cover had been blown or if any information about themselves had been compromised.

One of Michael Carritt's main political contacts within the Indian communist movement was PC Joshi, the leader of the Indian Communist Party. Indian Political Intelligence files of the India Office Collection, contain the following: Carritt's pension was withdrawn in 1940 after his retirement for his political conviction termed as 'grave misconduct'. In 1940, some documents were found in a trunk at Berkshire, buried in the garden of his father Professor E. F. Carritt, MA, Fellow of University College, Oxford. According to British intelligence officials the contents obviously belonged to Michael Carritt and were linked to his time in the ICS. Some of the captured documents apparently revealed he was working with Central Committee members of the CPI from 1936. Articles written from a communist viewpoint while still serving as an ICS officer in Bengal were interpreted as suitably incriminating. He was not arrested even though this was seriously considered for a while. The ensuing controversy and public face loss would have been too much for the British establishment while it was negotiating an exit out of India.