Obituary

Comrade Rajkumar Ji of Lakhisarai passed away on 19 April at the age of 72 at the residence of his daughter in Rohtak, Haryana. He was one of the founding members of the CPIML in old Munger District. He was also a founding member of the Nav Janvadi Sanskritik Morcha in that District. He was a CPIML member and staunch Party worker till the end. He had been suffering from respiratory problems for the last two or three years.

Comrade Rajkumar will always be remembered by us!

ON January 5, at three o'clock in the afternoon, CPIML’s Dumdum branch member Comrade Nirmal Mukherjee (Panchu), breathed his last at his own home on Dumdum Durgabari Road of the North 24 Parganas district. He was 68. He had been suffering from shortness of breath for several days.

COMRADE Lalu Oraon passed away in the early morning of 17 December 2019. Comrade Lalu lived in the Chapatti crossing at Sachindra Chandra Tea Garden. A former Darjeeling District Committee member of the CPIML, he was one of the organizers of the tea garden workers’ union, the Tarai Sangrami Cha Sharmik Union. As AICCTU’s fighter leader in the Tarai region in the tea workers movement in Darjeeling district, the contribution of Comrade Lalu to the establishment of the newly formed Tea Workers' Union cannot be forgotten.

COMRADE Mathura Paswan’s sudden demise is shocking and unbelievable for comrades in Delhi. He passed away in his sleep in the night of 7-8 January in his village in Paliganj, Bihar, where he had gone a few days ago and was expected to come back before the 8 January All India strike. He had informed of his delay in returning owing to bad health, but no one expected to lose him so soon.

COM. Mujibar Rahman, the centenarian leader of Naxalbari Peasant upsurge passed away on December 29, 2019 evening at his residence in Naxalbari. During ‘Quit India’ movement in 1942 he was put to jail for few months in Dacca, his birth place. His first brief visit to Darjeeling district was made in 1939. He shifted to Siliguri before partition, and started off as a job assistant at Government Saw Mill. Here he came in contact with communist activists like Com. Keshab Sarkar, Com. Anil Saha and became a member of the workmen’s union.

WHEN news of Comrade Mohan Prasad’s death reached Bokaro, his friends and comrades were plunged into grief. He was hit by a scooter while returning to the office on his cycle on 22 May 2019. He was in great pain and could not get up, and the doctor after examining him said that the left hip was broken. He was taken to RIMS Ranchi for treatment. The doctors there decided against an operation, keeping his age in mind. Gradually, Comrade Mohan started walking with the help of a walker.

COMRADE Surendra Prasad Yadav passed away in the afternoon of 11 November 2019. He was suffering from lung and brain cancer and had been undergoing treatment. He was about 77 years old.

SHRI Devnandan Ram passed away on 5 November 2019. He was 90 years old. A resident of Bambhai Panchayat in Bihar, Devnandan Ram was an active member of the CPI from the 60s. His village was in the clutches of feudal oppression and it was a crime for the poor to ask for wages or to sit on their cots at their own doorsteps in the presence of people from dominant sections. They were even forced to vote according to the wishes of the feudal lords.

COMRADE Prem Ram Tamta passed away in the evening of 2 November 2019. Comrade Prem Ram Tamta came to Bindukhatta of Nainital district in the early 80s and from then on remained active in the land struggle led by the CPIML from the late 70s to the 90s. He became a member during the land ‘dakhal’ (possession) movement and remained a lifelong Communist.

COMRADE Mahant Yadav passed away on 29 October 2019 at the age of 80. Comrade Mahant had played important role in the building of the Party in Western Champaran, especially in Chanpatiya Block. In the 70s he was with PCC (CPIML). In 1980-81 he joined CPIML. The Chanpatiya Sugar Mill was working in those days and farmers were in the clutches of landlords and usurers in the name of the farmers’ cooperative society through which sugar cane was supplied to the sugar mill and payments made.