People's Democracy

COMRADE Bhavani Mukherjee, member of the CPI(M)’s Hooghly district committee, brave fighter against the French colonial rule in Chandernagore, former minister in the Left Front government and former mayor of Chandernagore, died early on May 2 morning at the SSKM hospital in Kolkata. He was 84.

State CPI(M) secretary Anil Biswas, Left Front chairman Sailen Dasgupta and chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya expressed their grief at the passing away of Comrade Mukherjee, describing his death as a great loss to the Left movement.

Comrade Bhavani was born in a poverty-ridden family in Ariadaha in what was then the undivided 24 Parganas district. The only bread-earner in the family was Narendranath (Comrade Bhavani’s father) who was a lowly paid chatkal mazdoor, that is a jute mill worker. During his school days, Comrade Bhavani came into contact with revolutionary Durgadas Seth in Chandernagore, and that changed the young boy forever.

As a student of the lower class in school, Comrade Bhavani joined the boycott movement of 1931-32 and still managed to get a first division at his school-leaving examination. He was introduced to the tenets of Marxism by another revolutionary freedom fighter, Kalicharan Ghosh. By the time Comrade Bhavani took his graduate degree, he had already begun to get familiar with the underground life of a communist revolutionary.

A member of the Communist Party in 1937, he was instrumental in building up a solid mass base for the anti-fascist National Democratic Front which carried out a glorious struggle against the French rulers of Chandernagore. When Chandernagore was freed in 1951, such was Comrade Bhavani’s popularity that he won his seat in the city assembly with comparative ease.

Later he won the Chandernagore constituency in the Bengal assembly in 1967, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1977 and 1982. He served two consecutive terms as a minister in the Left Front government between 1977 and 1987. Comrade Bhavani was also deeply involved in the trade union movement as the Hooghly district president of the CITU.

His last remains were handed over to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital as he had pledged long back to donate his body for medical research.