Prakash Karat

MY earliest memories of Shailendra Shaily go back to 1973. I had gone to Gwalior to inaugurate the SFI district conference. Shaily was one of the delegates to the conference. Thus I have known Shaily for the past 27 years.

Gwalior was the first place in Madhya Pradesh where the SFI was able to establish an active and influential unit. It was primarily due to the efforts of Shaily. He was not only a militant organiser of students, but a brilliant student. As far as I can recall, he won a gold medal for his BSc or MSc. The Students Federation of India was precisely looking for such student leaders who do well in their studies and also display a wider concern for society and the determination to change it.

Gwalior being near, Shaily used to come to Delhi to discuss matters concerning the student movement and the general politics of the country. It was during this period that I got to know Shaily better. He was always modest and eager to learn about new things. Given his abilities, he developed very quickly into an outstanding leader of the student movement. During the Emergency, Shaily was targetted by the authoritarian regime. He was arrested and kept in jail for the entire period of the Emergency.

The first conference of the Madhya Pradesh state unit of the SFI was held in Gwalior in 1978. I attended that conference too. Shaily was in jail at that time for leading a local student agitation. He was elected secretary of the state unit at that conference, in his absence. Under his leadership, the SFI made steady progress in the state.

Unlike many student leaders, who join politics only to acquire some status such as an MLA or minister, Shaily was determined to devote his life for the revolutionary movement and for achieving socialism. He became a wholetimer of the CPI(M) and began work on the trade union front. His remarkable abilities soon made him one of the key organisers of the party in Madhya Pradesh. When he became the secretary of the state unit and was later elected to the Central Committee, it was a recognition of his capabilities and potential.

As secretary of the Madhya Pradesh state committee, he made a mark as an able organiser, effective propagator of the CPI(M)'s policies and elucidator of Marxist principles. Before he died, he had written a major part of a book on Marxist political economy.

Many are asking: why a comrade of such abilities, who could have contributed so much to Madhya Pradesh and the Hindi-speaking region, should have reached the point where death seemed the only way out?

The question has to be answered and there is a lesson in it for all. We ascertained the circumstances which led this young comrade to end his life. From our enquiries it emerged that he had been in a state of deep depression for quite some time inspite of the fact that he was making an active and useful contribution to the party. His mental state was not known to any of his comrades, as he chose not to reveal it. Since he was able to discharge all his party responsibilities with his usual meticulous attention to detail till the end, none of his close comrades suspected anything amiss. If only he had discussed the problem with his comrades or the leadership, his problem could have been treated.

The lesson is not to hesitate or feel ashamed to seek professional help when there are psychiatric problems. These are illnesses which can be treated on a scientific basis. But in Shaily's case, this was not to be.

What we are left with, in the end, is a deep appreciation of his short brilliant career and abiding regret over the waste of a life of such remarkable potential.