Sunday, April 29, 2012
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
Apr
6
Com Pramod Gogoi is No More
The Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of India announces with profound grief and sorrow the death of veteran CPI leader, former Assam minister and President of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) at Guwahati this morning. (on April 6. at 9.35 a.m)
Comrade Pramode Gogoi who joined politics at an early age during the freedom struggle was one of the tallest leader of the Left movement in the entire North Eastern region. He championed the cause of working people and played an important role in organizing the trade unions of different segments of workers including oil employees. He was president of AITUC.
Comrade Gogoi was elected to the Assam Legislative Assembly more than half a dozen time and was minister of the cabinet rank twice in the coalition government.
Comrade Gogoi who attended the 21st Party Congress at Patna and was elected to the National Executive and had been Secretary of the National Council in the past returned to Assam capital day before. After some complain of shivering he was admitted to hospital where brain hammerage proved fatal.
The National Secretariat of the Party sends heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family and leadership and rank and file of the Assam unit and dip the Red Flag in memory of the veteran dear leader Comrade Pramode Gogoi.
6
Com Pramod Gogoi is No More
The Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of India announces with profound grief and sorrow the death of veteran CPI leader, former Assam minister and President of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) at Guwahati this morning. (on April 6. at 9.35 a.m)
Comrade Pramode Gogoi who joined politics at an early age during the freedom struggle was one of the tallest leader of the Left movement in the entire North Eastern region. He championed the cause of working people and played an important role in organizing the trade unions of different segments of workers including oil employees. He was president of AITUC.
Comrade Gogoi was elected to the Assam Legislative Assembly more than half a dozen time and was minister of the cabinet rank twice in the coalition government.
Comrade Gogoi who attended the 21st Party Congress at Patna and was elected to the National Executive and had been Secretary of the National Council in the past returned to Assam capital day before. After some complain of shivering he was admitted to hospital where brain hammerage proved fatal.
The National Secretariat of the Party sends heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family and leadership and rank and file of the Assam unit and dip the Red Flag in memory of the veteran dear leader Comrade Pramode Gogoi.
Condolence
Mar
22
Com. C.K. Chandrappan is no more
The National Council of the Communist Party of India, with profound grief and sorrow announces the death of Com. C K Chandrappan, secretary, national council, as well as Kerala state council of the CPI at a Thiruvananthapuram hospital this forenoon.
Com. C. K. Chandrappan, son of a valiant fighter of the Punnapra-Vayalar mass revolt C. K. Kumara Panickar emerged as a stormy petrel of the youth movement in early fifties. He led the All India Youth Federation (AIYF) as its general secretary in its formative days. He was elected to the Lok Sabha thrice, in 1971, 1977 and 2004. He was also member of the Kerala legislative assembly for a term.
During his third term in Lok Sabha, Com. Chandrappan played a pioneering role in drafting the Forest Act, granting rights to forest dwellers on forest produce.
After graduating from the youth movement, he plunged into farmers’ struggle and led the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) as its president. Comrade Chandrappan was the
youngest to be elected to the Central Executive of the CPI at its Kochi conference in 1971.
Com. C K Chandrappan was re-elected secretary of the Kerala state council at its recent state conference.
In the death of Comrade Chandrappan, CPI has lost a very dynamic and energetic leader. It will create a great void in Kerala itself.
The National Council of the CPI sends heartfelt condolences to Com. Bulu Roy Choudhary, his wife, and other members of the bereaved family as well as to the leadership and rank and file of the Party in Kerala.
22
Com. C.K. Chandrappan is no more
The National Council of the Communist Party of India, with profound grief and sorrow announces the death of Com. C K Chandrappan, secretary, national council, as well as Kerala state council of the CPI at a Thiruvananthapuram hospital this forenoon.
Com. C. K. Chandrappan, son of a valiant fighter of the Punnapra-Vayalar mass revolt C. K. Kumara Panickar emerged as a stormy petrel of the youth movement in early fifties. He led the All India Youth Federation (AIYF) as its general secretary in its formative days. He was elected to the Lok Sabha thrice, in 1971, 1977 and 2004. He was also member of the Kerala legislative assembly for a term.
During his third term in Lok Sabha, Com. Chandrappan played a pioneering role in drafting the Forest Act, granting rights to forest dwellers on forest produce.
After graduating from the youth movement, he plunged into farmers’ struggle and led the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) as its president. Comrade Chandrappan was the
youngest to be elected to the Central Executive of the CPI at its Kochi conference in 1971.
Com. C K Chandrappan was re-elected secretary of the Kerala state council at its recent state conference.
In the death of Comrade Chandrappan, CPI has lost a very dynamic and energetic leader. It will create a great void in Kerala itself.
The National Council of the CPI sends heartfelt condolences to Com. Bulu Roy Choudhary, his wife, and other members of the bereaved family as well as to the leadership and rank and file of the Party in Kerala.
Monday, April 2, 2012
He Marched to Death
Mainstream, VOL L, No 14, March 24, 2012
He Marched to Death
Bejoy Kumar Sinha
The eightyfirst anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh falls on March 23 this year. On that day in 1931 he was executed alongwith his comrades, Rajguru and Sukhdev. Bhagat Singh’s birth centenary was befittingly observed on September 28, 2007. We are paying homage to the abiding memory of that indomitable revolutionary by presenting the following piece. The writer was a close associate of Bhagat Singh and sentenced to transportation for life as his casemate. In this article he narrates how the great revolutionary patriot literally marched to death, defying the might of British rule. This was published in Mainstream (March 21, 1964) from where it is being reproduced. —Editor
On the twenty-third of March, 1931, Sardar Bhagat Singh and his comrades, Rajguru and Sukhdev, were hanged in Lahore Central Jail. Sentencing him to death the trying judges observed: “Having regard to the deliberate and cowardly murder in which he took part and to his position as a leading member of the Conspiracy, he is sentenced to be hanged by the neck till he be dead.”
The Tribunal that delivered the judgment was constituted under the Lahore Conspiracy Case Ordinance promulgated by the Viceroy in 1930. There were two British judges and a loyal Indian judge. They had to give verdict to suit their masters, the alien rulers, against whom the revolutionaries had been waging a grim, sustained struggle.
Nation’s Hero
BUT their judgment was treated by the nation with the contempt it deserved. In the course of the trial Bhagat Singh had become the nation’s hero. Special coverage of daily papers carried detailed reports of his utterances and activities to the eager public.
He had killed Saunders, the Police Officer who had the audacity to shower lathi blows on Lala Lajpat Rai that finally proved fatal. Next he threw a bomb in the Central Assembly in protest against the government bill that was aimed at checking the growing radical labour movement in the country.
In the Delhi Bomb case trial he made the historic statement openly admitting the government charges and declaring that a veritable storm was about to break that would sweep away the imperialist regime and in its place establish an order of society that would end exploitation of man by man.
In the history of political trials in this country such a defiant and clear revolutionary statement was made for the first time. It carried the message of revolution to the remotest corner of the country. The statement got wide publicity even in foreign countries particularly in Ireland and Russia.
The Sardar was, then, taken to Lahore for his second trial as an accused in the Lahore Conspiracy Case of 1929. Here, along with his other comrades, he raised in the court the slogan of ‘Long Live Revolution’ which as Inquilab Zindabad became the battle city of the nation substituting Vande Mataram of the Bengal Partition days.
The government banned the raising of the slogan in public. But the people’s temper had been roused. All over Punjab, thousands of men and women came out on streets, faced government repression but rent the air with shouts of Inquilab Zindabad. Within a few days the government hastily beat a retreat.
Epic Hunger Strike
BY this time the epic Hunger Strike of Bhagat Singh and his comrades had already started, deman-ding civilised and humane treatment for Indian political prisoners, and protesting against the liberal rules and facilities for European criminals merely on racial grounds. Such hunger strike was again without a precedent in India’s freedom struggle. After 66 days Jatin Dar, one of the strikers, attained martyrdom. There was great agitation in the Central Assembly as also throughout the country and the authorities had to ultimately bow before the pressure.
The government was unnerved. The proceedings of the case, the activities of the accused helped to raise the revolutionary pitch of the country. It, therefore, resorted to the device of promulgating an ordinance to cut short the trial procedure. A tribunal of three judges was appointed. We came in conflict with the judges over their ruling. We defied it. It was all over the right of singing revolutionary songs before the commencement of the trial daily, as had been our practice in the lower courts.
We were brutally assaulted. Sardar and Raj-guru were specially belaboured by the police. We demanded apology from all the judges. It was not given. We refused to go to the court thereafter. A large number of policemen assaulted us and tried to carry us by force.
It all failed. And the farce of a trial then continued and ended without any of us accused being in the dock for months, or any defence lawyer being present to hold our brief. The judges completed their job—their allotted task—sentencing three of us to death and others to long terms of imprisonment, acquitting just two comrades. It was in October 1930.
Idol of the Nation
BY this time Bhagat Singh had become the adored idol of the nation’s youth. He had his mother, father, brother and sister everywhere in this vast country. Frantic efforts were made to save his life; at least to get the death sentence commuted to transportation for life.
There were mass mercy petitions, protest meetings, adjournment motion in the Central Assembly, prayers in temples and mosques, and processions. Gandhiji was trying hard to negotiate with the Viceroy Lord Irwin for commutation and was feeling hopeful.
But little did all these people know that while they wanted the Sardar to live, Bhagat Singh himself was not afraid of death; in fact, he almost yearned to die. And sitting in his condemned cell he was fearing that the people’s agitation might not come in the way of the fulfilment of his one sole desire, so near to his heart. Into this state of his mind I had a peep on the day I got the opportunity to meet him in his condemned cell (the small cage-like room, in which a prisoner under sentence of death is confined).
Last Interview
IT was December 1930. Eight of us, convicted along with him in the Lahore Conspiracy Case and sentenced to transportation for life, were also confined in cells in a yard just adjacent to his in the same jail. It was a bitterly cold winter morning. I was led by the Chief Jailor into the Sardar’s cell.
The permission to ‘interview’ him had been granted—I was told by the jailor on the way—to give us an opportunity to consult and decide about filing an appeal in the Privy Council. With a throbbing heart I followed the jail officer. I recalled how we had bidden farewell to each other on the day the judgment had been pronounced and were now meeting again, perhaps to part for ever.
I was lost in my thoughts when I was almost awakened as if from slumber, by a cheerful voice hailing me, ‘Bejoy, tum a gaye (Bejoy, you have come).’ Bhagat Singh was standing before me with his usual smile on his face.
I did not know what to say. I experienced a queer sensation. I felt that my friend and comrade, with whom I had worked and suffered for years, sharing the same hopes and fears, who stood so near to me at that moment, was a stranger from another world.
I just stood there without saying a word, when he looked at me, with eyes full of understanding, eyes that conveyed that he had sensed the storm that was raging in my heart.
He therefore broached the subject of our appeal in a deliberate matter-of-fact tone. The tension was broken and soon we were engrossed in discussion. Pandit Motilal Nehru, from his sick-bed in Simla, had asked us on behalf of the country to file an appeal in order to gain the necessary time to secure a general amnesty for all political prisoners.
Bhagat Singh’s words I still remember vividly. He said: ‘Bhai aise na ho ki phansi ruk jai (Brother, let it not happen that the hanging is stayed).’
He had no illusions about any amnesty being granted but he feared that as the prosecution evidence was weak and the trial had been conducted ex-parte, the death sentence might be commuted on appeal and he would then be deprived of the opportunity of furthering the cause of the revolution by dying for it. He pointed out to me hat he could serve the cause best by his death at that juncture. I agreed with him and we decided that we should, therefore, give our consent to a general appeal to be filed only on the technical ground that the Lahore Conspiracy Case Ordinance under which we were tried was ultra vires. He knew that such an appeal was bound to be rejected and desired that the period gained should be fully utilised for revolutionary propaganda throughout the country. When we had finished our discussion, the jailor politely asked me to go back to my cell. For a brief but unforgettable moment we closely embraced each other. With considerable difficulty, I held back the tears that welled up from my heart. With heavy steps I walked back to my yard.
In the interval between December and March the agitation and propaganda did mount steadily. But Bhagat Singh’s forecast came true. The appeal was rejected in London. Sardar got his chance. He literally marched to death so that his cause—the cause of oppressed people of his country—might triumph.
Kissing the gallows, with the black hold over his face, the last two words that he uttered were harbingers of a new dawn:
‘Inquilab Zindabad.’
(Mainstream, March 21, 1964)
He Marched to Death
Bejoy Kumar Sinha
The eightyfirst anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh falls on March 23 this year. On that day in 1931 he was executed alongwith his comrades, Rajguru and Sukhdev. Bhagat Singh’s birth centenary was befittingly observed on September 28, 2007. We are paying homage to the abiding memory of that indomitable revolutionary by presenting the following piece. The writer was a close associate of Bhagat Singh and sentenced to transportation for life as his casemate. In this article he narrates how the great revolutionary patriot literally marched to death, defying the might of British rule. This was published in Mainstream (March 21, 1964) from where it is being reproduced. —Editor
On the twenty-third of March, 1931, Sardar Bhagat Singh and his comrades, Rajguru and Sukhdev, were hanged in Lahore Central Jail. Sentencing him to death the trying judges observed: “Having regard to the deliberate and cowardly murder in which he took part and to his position as a leading member of the Conspiracy, he is sentenced to be hanged by the neck till he be dead.”
The Tribunal that delivered the judgment was constituted under the Lahore Conspiracy Case Ordinance promulgated by the Viceroy in 1930. There were two British judges and a loyal Indian judge. They had to give verdict to suit their masters, the alien rulers, against whom the revolutionaries had been waging a grim, sustained struggle.
Nation’s Hero
BUT their judgment was treated by the nation with the contempt it deserved. In the course of the trial Bhagat Singh had become the nation’s hero. Special coverage of daily papers carried detailed reports of his utterances and activities to the eager public.
He had killed Saunders, the Police Officer who had the audacity to shower lathi blows on Lala Lajpat Rai that finally proved fatal. Next he threw a bomb in the Central Assembly in protest against the government bill that was aimed at checking the growing radical labour movement in the country.
In the Delhi Bomb case trial he made the historic statement openly admitting the government charges and declaring that a veritable storm was about to break that would sweep away the imperialist regime and in its place establish an order of society that would end exploitation of man by man.
In the history of political trials in this country such a defiant and clear revolutionary statement was made for the first time. It carried the message of revolution to the remotest corner of the country. The statement got wide publicity even in foreign countries particularly in Ireland and Russia.
The Sardar was, then, taken to Lahore for his second trial as an accused in the Lahore Conspiracy Case of 1929. Here, along with his other comrades, he raised in the court the slogan of ‘Long Live Revolution’ which as Inquilab Zindabad became the battle city of the nation substituting Vande Mataram of the Bengal Partition days.
The government banned the raising of the slogan in public. But the people’s temper had been roused. All over Punjab, thousands of men and women came out on streets, faced government repression but rent the air with shouts of Inquilab Zindabad. Within a few days the government hastily beat a retreat.
Epic Hunger Strike
BY this time the epic Hunger Strike of Bhagat Singh and his comrades had already started, deman-ding civilised and humane treatment for Indian political prisoners, and protesting against the liberal rules and facilities for European criminals merely on racial grounds. Such hunger strike was again without a precedent in India’s freedom struggle. After 66 days Jatin Dar, one of the strikers, attained martyrdom. There was great agitation in the Central Assembly as also throughout the country and the authorities had to ultimately bow before the pressure.
The government was unnerved. The proceedings of the case, the activities of the accused helped to raise the revolutionary pitch of the country. It, therefore, resorted to the device of promulgating an ordinance to cut short the trial procedure. A tribunal of three judges was appointed. We came in conflict with the judges over their ruling. We defied it. It was all over the right of singing revolutionary songs before the commencement of the trial daily, as had been our practice in the lower courts.
We were brutally assaulted. Sardar and Raj-guru were specially belaboured by the police. We demanded apology from all the judges. It was not given. We refused to go to the court thereafter. A large number of policemen assaulted us and tried to carry us by force.
It all failed. And the farce of a trial then continued and ended without any of us accused being in the dock for months, or any defence lawyer being present to hold our brief. The judges completed their job—their allotted task—sentencing three of us to death and others to long terms of imprisonment, acquitting just two comrades. It was in October 1930.
Idol of the Nation
BY this time Bhagat Singh had become the adored idol of the nation’s youth. He had his mother, father, brother and sister everywhere in this vast country. Frantic efforts were made to save his life; at least to get the death sentence commuted to transportation for life.
There were mass mercy petitions, protest meetings, adjournment motion in the Central Assembly, prayers in temples and mosques, and processions. Gandhiji was trying hard to negotiate with the Viceroy Lord Irwin for commutation and was feeling hopeful.
But little did all these people know that while they wanted the Sardar to live, Bhagat Singh himself was not afraid of death; in fact, he almost yearned to die. And sitting in his condemned cell he was fearing that the people’s agitation might not come in the way of the fulfilment of his one sole desire, so near to his heart. Into this state of his mind I had a peep on the day I got the opportunity to meet him in his condemned cell (the small cage-like room, in which a prisoner under sentence of death is confined).
Last Interview
IT was December 1930. Eight of us, convicted along with him in the Lahore Conspiracy Case and sentenced to transportation for life, were also confined in cells in a yard just adjacent to his in the same jail. It was a bitterly cold winter morning. I was led by the Chief Jailor into the Sardar’s cell.
The permission to ‘interview’ him had been granted—I was told by the jailor on the way—to give us an opportunity to consult and decide about filing an appeal in the Privy Council. With a throbbing heart I followed the jail officer. I recalled how we had bidden farewell to each other on the day the judgment had been pronounced and were now meeting again, perhaps to part for ever.
I was lost in my thoughts when I was almost awakened as if from slumber, by a cheerful voice hailing me, ‘Bejoy, tum a gaye (Bejoy, you have come).’ Bhagat Singh was standing before me with his usual smile on his face.
I did not know what to say. I experienced a queer sensation. I felt that my friend and comrade, with whom I had worked and suffered for years, sharing the same hopes and fears, who stood so near to me at that moment, was a stranger from another world.
I just stood there without saying a word, when he looked at me, with eyes full of understanding, eyes that conveyed that he had sensed the storm that was raging in my heart.
He therefore broached the subject of our appeal in a deliberate matter-of-fact tone. The tension was broken and soon we were engrossed in discussion. Pandit Motilal Nehru, from his sick-bed in Simla, had asked us on behalf of the country to file an appeal in order to gain the necessary time to secure a general amnesty for all political prisoners.
Bhagat Singh’s words I still remember vividly. He said: ‘Bhai aise na ho ki phansi ruk jai (Brother, let it not happen that the hanging is stayed).’
He had no illusions about any amnesty being granted but he feared that as the prosecution evidence was weak and the trial had been conducted ex-parte, the death sentence might be commuted on appeal and he would then be deprived of the opportunity of furthering the cause of the revolution by dying for it. He pointed out to me hat he could serve the cause best by his death at that juncture. I agreed with him and we decided that we should, therefore, give our consent to a general appeal to be filed only on the technical ground that the Lahore Conspiracy Case Ordinance under which we were tried was ultra vires. He knew that such an appeal was bound to be rejected and desired that the period gained should be fully utilised for revolutionary propaganda throughout the country. When we had finished our discussion, the jailor politely asked me to go back to my cell. For a brief but unforgettable moment we closely embraced each other. With considerable difficulty, I held back the tears that welled up from my heart. With heavy steps I walked back to my yard.
In the interval between December and March the agitation and propaganda did mount steadily. But Bhagat Singh’s forecast came true. The appeal was rejected in London. Sardar got his chance. He literally marched to death so that his cause—the cause of oppressed people of his country—might triumph.
Kissing the gallows, with the black hold over his face, the last two words that he uttered were harbingers of a new dawn:
‘Inquilab Zindabad.’
(Mainstream, March 21, 1964)
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