People's Democracy

Comrade Hirendranath Mukherjee Remembered 

B Prasant 

IN the memorial meeting of the late Communist leader, Hirendranath Mukherjee, held at Mahajati Sadan on August 11, veteran leader of the CPI(M), Jyoti Basu called upon the Congress-led UPA government to go in for self-criticism and to coordinate efforts with the Left as it moved ahead.  Chairman, Bengal Left Front, Biman Basu presided over the meeting. 

Jyoti Basu said that the union government remained dependent on the Left, and the Left in the present situation needs the Congress to see the communal BJP does not come back to office in any manner. The Congress must indulge in self-criticism for it had compromised with the forces of communalism. It has also acceded to the pressures exerted by such institutions as the World Bank and the IMF, and has caused ruination to the nation’s economy.

Jyoti Basu noted that the CPI(M) and the Left parties had waged a long and arduous struggle against the Congress and yet, it was with Left support that the Congress could form a government.  This was all because a new situation has arisen in which such a thing has become possible.  It is good that there exists a coordination committee between the four Left parties, the UPA and the UPA government, operated to synchronise efforts with the Congress. But the government must take proper cognisance of this committee and have things of importance discussed here.  They must especially discuss with the Left such issues as the protection of secularism and the economic question.

The Left must exert some patience.  There could be as of now some differences of opinion with the UPA union government.  The Left will be critical but shall never allow the barbaric and uncivilised BJP to make a return to office for the latter are determined to take the nation along the fascist way.

Come what may, declared Jyoti Basu, “we shall proceed towards socialism and communism and this was the firm belief that the late Hirendranath Mukherjee cherished in his heart to the end.”  “We have to take his unfinished task to its logical conclusion and must work towards it till we breathe our last,” was how Jyoti Basu put it.

Recalling his hearty relationship with Mukherjee, Basu recalled how Mukherjee got his bar-at-law degree from England and came back to India four years earlier than he did.  They had a series of fruitful sessions of regular discussions in the residence of the Communist leader, Snehangsukanta Acharya.  It was Mukherjee who led the Friends of the Soviet Union, the Pragati Lekhak Shilpi Sangha, and other organisations that were set up at 46 Dharamtolla Street.  It was Mukherjee who had sent Basu to Santiniketan to evince the support of the poet Tagore once the Nazis attacked the USSR during the Second World War. 

With Mukherjee a member of the Communist Party, a plethora of intellectuals became attracted to the Party.  One of the highest point of Mukherjee’s career came, when he was a member of the parliament, recalled Basu.  Mukherjee could speak and write excellent English and Bengali.  Nehru would come in to listen to Mukherjee addressing the parliament.  Speaking with an Oxonian accent, Mukherjee would enrich both the content and the form of his addresses.  Even the opposition would listen to Mukherjee in silence.

After the Communist Party split, Mukherjee chose to join the CPI, but “there was no bitterness between us and him,” said Jyoti Basu.  Biman Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee kept in regular contact with Mukherjee.  Basu recalled how, when he had visited the ailing Mukherjee in a City hospital, the Communist leader had said that he was enduring a great pain but that his brain continued to function as before.

General secretary of the CPI, A B Bardhan said that Hirendranath Mukherjee was elected five times to the Lok Sabha.  Mukherjee formed part of the great team that included A K Gopalan, Jyotirmoy Basu, and Bhupesh Gupta.  Mukherjee took debates to new heights and this was an ideal that should be arduously followed. 

Bardhan said that smitten with grief by the split in the Communist Party, Mukherjee wanted a re-unity.  One must recall his words and work for the further strengthening of the Left unity in the days to come.  The communal situation that was fostered by the BJP and its cohorts did indeed need the whiplashes of speeches by Hiren Mukherjee, said Bardhan.

Raising the condolence resolution at the meeting, Biman Basu said that the passing away of Mukherjee meant the loss of dedicated comrade and educator in the struggle for socialism.  Biman Basu said that Mukherjee received a shock when the Communist Party had split back in 1964.  He was also wounded at the debacle of the USSR.  But he never was a supporter of either glasnost or perestroika.  He was unwilling to accept the devalued estimates of Stalin and was always vocal against them. 

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said that one really had lost a guardian in difficult times.  Bhattacharjee recalled his close relationship with Mukherjee for the past 12 years and said that the departed Communist leader was a larger-than-life figure.  He was a guardian to those who wanted to take a stand when the imperialist camp was celebrating the debacle of the Soviet Union. 

Mukherjee, said Bhattacharjee, “sharpened our consciousness” and he did not hesitate to wield his powerful pen even when of unsound health against the military hegemony of the US in Iraq as against the communal spree in Gujarat.  Indeed Mukherjee could put together both the events in the backdrop of the overall crisis enveloping nations across the globe.  Bhattacharjee also read out selected portions of Mukherjee’s most recent essay.

Others addressing the meeting were Debabrata Bandyopadhyay of the RSP and Jayanta Roy of the Forward Bloc.  At the end of the programme, the film, Living Legend, a film on the busy life that Mukherjee led was projected.