People's Democracy

BIHAR

People Protest Comrade’s Murder, Challenge Feudal Lords

Shah Zafar Imam

THOSE who fight for the rights of the poor toiling masses never die; they attain immortality, and this is what inspires a communist to stake his life for the cause of the common man. This is what the martyrdom of Comrade Surendra Prasad Yadav teaches us, while telling us that we need to sharpen the struggles of the workers and peasants further.

This was what CPI(M) Central Committee member Suneet Chopra said while addressing a huge mass meeting in the R B College ground at the block headquarters of Dalpatsingh Sarai in Samastipur district of Bihar on January 27. The meeting, seething with anger, was organised in protest against the brutal murder of Comrade Surendra Prasad Yadav by goons of the local feudal lords on January 9, 2012. Comrade Yadav was secretary of the CPI(M)’s local committee and a member of its district committee at the time of his martyrdom. (See our January 16-22 issue for details of this murder.)

Describing the murder as a part of the incessant conspiracies of the feudal class against the party in Bihar, Chopra stressed that the complicity of a minister of the state government in the episode was undeniable. He described the assailants as cowards who attack the communist fighters in the dark of the night. However, he said, such attacks have always failed to stem the tide of struggles on the people’s issues; in fact these struggles, giving vent to the people’s anger, would continue unabated till there are oppression, atrocities and inequalities in society. In Bihar too, no minister has a right to talk of a regime of equality, nor can there be a curb on social oppression and atrocities, till lakhs of acres of ceiling surplus land is divided among the rural poor. On this occasion, Chopra demanded that the state government must bring all the culprits to book and organise a speed trial in order to mete them stern punishments.

There were more than 10,000 people from all walks of life in the meeting, whom the CPI(M) leader reminded that they have to fight for their rights not individually but as parts of a collectivity.

Addressing the rally, CPI(M) state secretary Vijaykant Thakur lambasted the NDA government which claims that it has provided benevolent governance to Bihar while the reality is that the government itself is being controlled by the big feudal lords and capitalists. He demanded a high level enquiry into Comrade Yadav’s murder, adequate compensation for the affected family, arrangement for the education of the comrade’s minor children, and other possible assistance.

Veteran CPI(M) leader and former legislator, Ramdev Verma, described Comrade Yadav’s murder as the result of collusion of the police with the feudal lords who want to stem the growing influence of the CPI(M) in the area.

CPI(M) district secretary Ajay Kumar assured the gathering that the party would not rest content till the murderers meet the fate they deserve.

Teachers union leader Vasudev Singh (MLC), Janvadi Sanskritik Morcha’s state secretary Ashoka Kumar Mishra, some members of the CPI(M) state committee, state leaders of several mass organisations, and Kundan Kumar, lone son of Comrade Surendra Yadav, also addressed the protest meeting. CPI(M) local committee secretary Vidhan Chandra preside over the meeting where veteran leader Raj Janak Singh recited his poem dedicated to the martyred comrade.

On the dais, Suneet Chopra presented cheques of Rs 50,000, Rs 1,00,000, Rs 75,000 and Rs 75,000 respectively to the martyred comrade’s mother, two unmarried daughters, and son. This amount of Rs 3,00,000, presented as a token of help to the affected family, was collected by the CPI(M)’s Samastipur district committee from over 1,900 members organised in about 200 branches in the district and from party sympathisers. Apart from it, the district committee also announced that, with help from three district committee members, it would continue to give the family an amount of Rs 1,100 every month. Comrade Chopra too contributed Rs 1,000 on the spot, as a token of his solidarity with the affected family.           

The participants in the rally had come from all parts of the district, shouting angry slogans against the nexus of administration and politicians with feudal lords and mafia groups. Some of these participants had had to tread long distances on foot to reach the meeting’s venue. All this was indicative of the growing influence of the party in the district.

On this occasion, it was also pointed out that the area’s deputy superintendent of police (DSP), Ram Sagar Sharma, is at intimate terms with feudal lords, their goons and other criminals, and that it was under his patronage that Comrade Surendra Singh Yadav was done to death. While the first information report (FIR) regarding the murder named five persons as culprits along with one unknown person, the police arrested only one Santosh Jha and that was the end of their responsibility. Reliable sources also say that the deputy inspector general (DIG) of police has himself instructed his subordinates against the arrest of Deepak Chaudhuri, Samant Chaudhari and Kanhaiya Chaudhari, the main conspirators. It is also a known fact that Bihar’s water resources minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhari, who is closest to the chief minister Nitish Kumar, belongs to the same Kewta village and is a close relative of Deepak Chaudhari. It is clear that the culprits’ closeness to the power-that-are is what has been saving them from arrest and the demands of justice. It is thus that the chief minister’s slogan of “development with justice” is rushing all kinds of benefits to the feudal lords and their henchmen and hired criminals, and not to the poor in the state. As a matter of fact, these feudal lords think participation in power sharing is their ancestral right, and the police and administration too have no courage to act against them.

The cowardly but brutal murder of Comrade Surendra Singh Yadav has raised a number of questions about the level of politics in the state. The feudal forces have rallied together and are sharing power even in the so-called benevolent governance under Nitish Kumar, and this has emerged as a big challenge for the toiling masses and their struggles. However, the CPI(M) has taken up the cudgel and is striving hard to take these struggles forward even though it had to sacrifice 27 of its valuable comrades in this fight against the class enemies. The party is quite confident that the forces of reaction can be and would be defeated through people’s struggles which the cowardly killings, like that of Comrade Surendra Yadav, cannot suppress.