CPIML remembered and offered tributes to one of the leading anti-colonial warriors Birsa Munda on his 122nd Memorial Day. Floral tributes were offered and Birsa Munda's portrait garlanded at the party state office in Patna on 9 June by leaders including CPIML General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, State Secretary Kunal, AIKM National Secretary Rajaram Singh, AIARLA General Secretary Dhirendra Jha, Kavita Krishnan, Bagodar MLA Vinod Singh, Jharkhand State Secretary Manoj Bhakt, senior leaders Kartik Pal, Ramji Rai, Janardan Prasad, Prabhat Chaudhury, Rubul Sharma, Amar, V Shankar, Arindam Sen and Samkaleen Lokyuddh Editor Santosh Sahar.
Speaking on the occasion General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said that with the revolutionary legacy of Birsa Munda the fight in federal-democratic secular India for adivasi rights and cultural diversity continues against corporate loot and Bulldozer Raj. 75 years of Independence should be an occasion for further empowering the people.
The Munda community in the Chhotanagpur region led by Birsa Munda (1875-1900), the son of a small sharecropper, had organized a strong rebellion against British rule, landlords and contractors. Led by Birsa Munda, the adivasi community organized meetings from village to village and burnt effigies of the British Raj. The battle fought on the Sail Rakab Hill is a historic battle of our freedom struggle in which hundreds were martyred. The rebellion was suppressed in the battle of Sail Rakab and the British caught and threw Birsa Munda into jail in 1900. Birsa Munda died five months later on 9 June 1900. But it was as a result of that historic battle led by Birsa Munda that the British government was forced to conduct the 1902-1910 land survey and 'bandobasti' in Chhotanagpur, and in 1908 the Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act was passed giving legal recognition to 'khuntkatti'. Thus the Munda community, through their own struggle, got their legal rights to land a whole generation before the farmers in the plains of Bihar.
