The Communist Party of India was founded in October 1920 by a group of Indian revolutionaries in exile at:

The Communist Party of India was founded on 17 October 1920 at Tashkent (then in Soviet Turkestan, now the capital of Uzbekistan), by a group of Indian revolutionaries in exile.

The founding at Tashkent:

The founders included M. P. T. Acharya, Abani Mukherji, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Shafiq and others, along with their wives.

Mohammad Shafiq was elected the secretary.

Many of the members were "muhajirs", Indian Muslims who had left India during the Khilafat Movement and travelled to Afghanistan and Soviet Central Asia.

The party was affiliated with the Communist International (Comintern).

Communist activities in India:

In the early 1920s, communist groups were formed in various cities of India, such as Bombay (S. A. Dange), Calcutta (Muzaffar Ahmad), Madras (M. Singaravelu) and Lahore (Ghulam Hussain).

The British government saw communism as a serious threat, and arrested many communists in a series of conspiracy cases.

The formation in India:

A conference of communists was later held in India; there has been a debate about which date should be considered the founding of the party, and the CPI(M) considers 1920 as its founding year.

Later:

• The Meerut Conspiracy Case (1929-1933) was brought against communist and trade union leaders.
• The CPI supported the British war effort after the Soviet Union joined the war in 1941, and opposed the Quit India Movement.
• In 1964, the CPI split, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was formed.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Moscow and Berlin were other centres of Indian revolutionaries abroad.
• ✗Lahore was a centre of communist groups in India.