People's Democracy

South Asians in UK Condole Demise

A WELL-ATTENDED meeting of the South Asian Peoples Forum, United Kingdom, was held in Bradford on January 19 to condole the demise of Comrade Jyoti Basu, a veteran leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Those who attended included Professor Nazir Tabassum, Pervez Fateh, Sarwan Singh, Khalid Saeed Qureshi and Lala Mohammed Younis. The meeting expressed deep sorrow over the death of Comrade Basu who has been an iconic figure in the Indian politics. He was at the helms of affairs in the Left movement in India and brought all the Left parties of the country together on a single platform, giving an impetus to this movement. The meeting eulogised his 23 years stint as the chief  minister of West Bengal, thus giving stability to this state that had been in a tumultuous state in the 1960s and early 1970s. He will always be remembered for his remarkable land reforms by means of which the landless peasants in the state came to own an amount of land and live in dignity.

Comrade Basu steadfastly opposed the exploitation of multinationals and did not let them plunder the poor of his state in the name of foreign investment. He strengthened the trade unions in the cities of West Bengal, and is thus revered by the poor of the urban as well as rural areas in West Bengal.