Comrade Satyendra More

  COMRADE Satyendra More, a former member of the CPI(M) Maharashtra state committee and ex-MLA, passed away in Mumbai on March 18, of a heart attack. He was 74 and is survived by his wife Devyani, who is also a Party member of long standing, and by their four sons.

  Satyendra in his childhood was deeply influenced by his father and at the age of eight, joined the ‘Bal Sangh’ that was formed by the Communist Party. As a child, he used to tour with, and participate in, the programmes of the legendary ‘Red Flag Cultural Troupe’ led by Shahir Annabhau Sathe and Shahir Amar Sheikh. He then joined the AISF and participated in several student struggles.

 This was the time of the historic Telangana armed struggle. Satyendra participated in all activities that were organised in Mumbai in support of this struggle. For this, he was imprisoned by the Congress government for eight months in 1949, and was also tortured to force him to reveal the whereabouts of his father who was then underground.

 As the financial condition of the family was precarious, Satyendra began to work in the central government concern called ‘Overseas Communication Services’ (OCS), which is now the VSNL. He took the lead in forming a union of OCS employees and participated in the strike struggle of 1960. In 1965, he helped his father in starting Jeevanmarg, which became the weekly organ of the CPI(M) Maharashtra state committee. For his political activities, he was suspended from his job and imprisoned in 1968.

 After release from jail, More began in 1970 a journal called Varga Yuddha (Class Struggle), which became the journal of the CITU Maharashtra state committee. In 1972-75, he was general secretary of the ‘Bombay Press Employees Union’ and ‘Lal Bavta Hotel and Bakery Union.’ During Emergency in 1975-77, he was underground for a while and started the Kisan Sabha in his home district of Raigad.

 As an MLA from Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi (SC) in Mumbai, he led several successful struggles of the slum and hutment dwellers. A murderous attack was also made on More, but he escaped. He was the founder-president of the ‘Mumbai Rahiwasi Sangh’ which took up the problems of slum and hutment dwellers. In the early seventies, More used to keep up regular contact with the Dalit Panthers movement and he and the party participated in the important social struggle for the renaming of the Marathwada University after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.

 From 1980 to 1988, More immersed himself in the writing and editorial work of the party’s state weekly Jeevanmarg. He was a prolific writer and several of his articles were published in leading Marathi dailies. His books like The Housing Problem, The Student Ambedkar and The Dalit and Communist Movement are quite popular.

 A large number of leaders and activists of the CPI(M), CPI, several RPI groups, JD(S), INC and NCP, journalists, writers and cultural figures participated in More’s funeral procession and paid respectful homage to his memory.