People's DemocracyTHE first anniversary of the demise of the revolutionary leader of the working class movement, former general secretary of CITU, Chittabrata Mazumdar was observed all over the country by CITU committees on February 20, 2008.
Apart from leaders and staff at the CITU centre, workers from all over Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida and Faridabad gathered at CITU headquarters, BTR Bhawan, New Delhi to remember their dear leader ‘Chittada', in a memorial meeting.
Kanai Bannerjee, secretary CITU presided over the meeting. Basudev Acharia MP, leader of CPI(M) in Lok Sabha and vice president CITU, while paying tribute to Chittada said that we must strengthen the democratic stream within the trade union movement, as guided by Chittada and other leaders. He said that the concluding speech by Chittada in the 12th conference of CITU will guide us in our future struggles. He underlined that the actual tribute to him would be by striving to mobilise the entire workforce in the trade union movement in the fight against imperialist globalisation.
Swades Dev Roye, secretary, CITU said that Chittabrata Majumdar was a thinker. In this era of de-ideologisation, we need strong ideological base and guidance as we used to receive from Chittada. He remembered how, in spite of ill health, Chittada used to guide the CITU centre, politically and ideologically. Chittada used to explain the nature of the trade union struggles in this era as very long drawn out, since the struggles are now to change the policies, Dev Roye said. He remembered the role played by Chittada in organising the all India strikes against these policies and how his strong political positions compelled other TUs to join the struggles.
N K Shukla, joint secretary, All India Kisan Sabha while paying tribute to Chittada, reiterated the importance of joint struggles by the workers and peasants and said that the Kisan Sabha gets inspiration from the struggles led by the CITU.
Mohanlal, general secretary, Delhi state committee of CITU, said that even if in the faulty verification process by the government, the CITU has gone to fifth position, nobody can deny that it is in first position in case of struggles. He said that as taught by Chittada, we have to take the working class ideology to the grass root level.
S K Dhar, general secretary, All India Railway Loco Running Staff Association, remembered that Chittada had deep knowledge in Marxism Leninism.Naveen Chand from NZIEA said that we must strengthen our struggles against the policies of globalisation.
Dipankar Mukherjee, secretary CITU said that Chittada was the leader who equally emphasised on ideology and organisation. He said that as a true tribute to Chittada we must fight against any sort of dilution of our ideology.
Kanai Bannerjee said that we need hundreds of leaders like Chittabrata Majumdar to be successful in organising the entire unorganised working class in the fight to change the neo-liberal policies. He said that Chittada was a leader with the mind of an intellectual and the heart of a worker, who has given his life to the working class. He concluded the meeting by calling upon the workers to become leaders of the working class.
