People's Democracy

Remembering Baidyanath Majumdar

Haripada Das

AT a time the Left in the country is under severe attack from all internal and international reactionary forces, and the countrymen in general are facing an unprecedented onslaught from the ruling classes in the form of spiralling price rises, when liberalisation and privatisation are shrinking the public sector down, when lakhs of workers are losing their jobs and when agriculture is becoming unviable for lakhs of peasants, we need to assimilate the values that motivated Comrade Baidyanath Majumdar all his life. This is necessary for us to fight the enemy attacks and launch movements with a new vigour on the issues facing various sections of the people. So said Manik Sarkar, member of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau, in a meeting organised in memory of Comrade Baidyanath Majumdar, at Agartala Town Hall on June 9.

The overflowing Town Hall meeting was presided over by CPI(M) state secretariat member Niranjan Debbarma and addressed, apart from Manik Sarkar, by Central Committee member Aghore Debbarma, CPI(M) West Bengal state secretariat member Mridul De, the party’s state secretary Bijan Dhar, Forward Bloc state president Dr Brajagopal Majumdar, RSP state secretary Sudarshan Bhattacharjee, CPI state secretary Prasanta Kapali and late Comrade Baidyanath Majumdar’s nephew Debanshu Majumdar.

Respectfully remembering the qualities that distinguished Comrade Baidyanath Majumdar, who with unshakable conviction directed his whole life for the welfare of impoverished sections of society and for establishing a classless socialist society on the basis of the Marxist ideology, Manik Sarkar said that the life and legacy of Baidyanath Majumdar would act as a guiding force for our future course of action at this critical juncture of the national situation.

Referring to the national situation, Manik Sarkar said till the UPA government was dependent on the Left for its survival, it was restrained from taking any anti-people measures. Rather it was compelled to take some pro-people steps like enacting the NREGA and FRA etc. But as soon as it got rid of its dependence on the Left, it started baring its fangs. As only the Left forces vehemently protest against the UPA’s pro-imperialist and anti-people policies and as West Bengal is the strongest base of the Left, all anti-communist forces, viz the imperialist powers with their CIA and other subversive agencies, the ultra-Left Maoists, chauvinist Kamtapuris, the separatist GMM and the corporate controlled print and electronic media have rallied behind the TMC-Congress alliance and also started orchestrated moves to mislead the people against the Left. The present UPA government is on the one hand trying to push under the carpet the mega scams that involved a misappropriation of lakhs of crores from the government exchequer and on the other hand serves the imperialist interests by opening up the country’s market for multinationals and monopolists in order to enable them to make super profits by fleecing the people no end. Except for the Left, who are there to protest, Manik Sarkar asked, adding that attacks on the common people would further intensify in future. We would have to prepare ourselves to build up popular resistance to these attacks; that would be the true homage to Comrade Baidyanath Majumdar, he said.

Paying homage to the contribution of departed leader, Bijan Dhar said Baidyanath Majumdar was very much careful not to disclose anything about his past political life because, he thought, it was a kind of self-propaganda which he did not like. Being a party member since 1943, and a witness to many a twist and turn that the party has come across since then, Comrade Baidyanath Majumdar was a true guardian of the party in the state of Tripura till his death. His simplicity, sincerity, integrity, polite behaviour and strong conviction to the ideology were great virtues that need be emulated by all of us, Bijan Dhar said.

Paying tribute to the late Comrade Baidyanath Majumdar on behalf of the CPI(M)’s West Bengal state committee and on his own behalf, Central Committee member Mridul De described him as an idol for the whole party. The party, which was an illegal entity at the time of its inception, has got its present status through immense sacrifices made by innumerable leaders and cadres who were imprisoned, who suffered inhuman police repression and who led an underground life for years. Baidyanath Majumdar was one of those leaders. Names of some other leaders of his generation are inscribed on the walls of the Cellular Jail in Andaman. Being inspired by the life of Baidyanath Majumdar, we would resist the present bout of onslaught let loose by the ruling TMC-Congress combine in West Bengal, Mridul De asserted.

Debanshu Majumdar expressed his gratefulness to the CPI(M)’s Tripura state committee for arranging for his uncle the services which the family could not render during his later life. The people of Tripura too had had a deep sense of love and affection for his uncle, he said.  

At the outset, the meeting’s chairman Niranjan Debbarma read out a condolence resolution on Baidyanath Majumdar, following which he, the Left Front leaders, the party’s state secretariat and state committee members, office bearers of other parties and various mass organisations, and eminent persons present in the commemoration meeting paid floral tributes at the portrait of the late comrade. The hall meeting ended with a singing of the Internationale in chorus.