People's Democracy

Party Centre Pays Homage to Comrade Samar

COMRADE Samar Mukherjee was a leading figure of the party not in West Bengal alone but in the entire country. This was how Prakash Karat, general secretary of the CPI(M), described the late leader while underlining his role in the communist movement in India. He was addressing a condolence meeting organised in the memory of the departed leader, in the party headquarters, AKG Bhavan, on July 22.

Recalling the role of the late Comrade Samar Mukherjee as a member of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau, as a leader of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and as a leading parliamentarian, Karat recalled how the late comrade devoted a large part of his life for the cause of the party. After coming to the parliament in 1971, he led the CPI(M) group in parliament for almost 27 years. While leading the CITU from the front, he also devoted his time to supervising the work of the party and mass organisations in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Andaman-Nicobar Islands. In this connection, he used to go to all parts of the country, and emerged as a popular parliamentarian of the CPI(M) after late Comrade A K Gopalan. 

Prakash Karat recalled that born in 1913, Comrade Samar jumped into the national movement while he was still a student and, via the Indian National Congress, reached the Communist Party in 1940. In fact, he was a participant in all the major movements in the 20th century. During the 1960s, on the eve of the split in the united party, Comrade Samar played a leading role in creating the underground structure of the party. Similarly, soon after he entered the parliament, he played a seminal role in our resistance against the semi-fascist terror in West Bengal, and also in the historic rail strike in 1974. Stressing his exceptionally simple life, Karat said Comrade Samar, a bachelor throughout, spent his life in the party commune. He was a solid pillar of the party structure who made an inimitable contribution in leading the party --- contribution that would always be a source of inspiration and strength for all the succeeding generations.

Earlier, stressing the simple but eventful life of Comrade Samar Mukherjee, Sitaram Yechury, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and party’s group leader in Rajya Sabha, said the late leader’s life and work made it clear that there is a direct relationship between Marxism and humanism. One has to be a noble human being before becoming a good communist, and Comrade Samar was the epitome of an imitable moral life in a period of all-round socio-cultural degeneration. Referring to his four decades long association with the late leader, Yechury recalled some shared experiences of work, especially in Bihar. He also narrated a telling episode. While Comrade Samar was leader of the CPI(M) group in parliament, it somehow happened that about Rs 80,000 gradually accumulated in his account in a bank in parliament, even though he has been regularly paying his levy and other dues all through. When Comrade Samar came to know about it, he decided to donate Rs 30,000 to the party centre and Rs 50,000 to the BTR Bhavan Fund for which the CITU was then running a collection drive. He also asked Yechury whether this distribution of the money was okay.

Yechury also recalled the exemplary role which the late leader played for the rehabilitation and the rights of refugees coming from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1946-47 --- a role which directly contributed to the growth of the party in West Bengal. Comrade Samar was one of the generation whose feelings never accepted the truth of the partition.  

Polit Bureau member and CITU president, A K Padmanabhan, referred to the late leader’s dedication to the working class movement. He had been in the central bodies of the CITU from its very inception. He served as the CITU treasurer or secretary, and then as its general secretary for eight years. It was during this period before 1991 when important initiatives were taken to unify the working class of our country. Especially referring to Comrade Samar’s role in the 1974 rail strike, Padmanabhan also stressed that, for several years following this strike, he fought against the victimisation of rail workers, for their reinstatement and their rights, used his position as a parliamentarian for this purpose, and went on fighting till the victimisation was ended.

Polit Bureau member S Ramachandran Pillai presided over the condolence meeting that concluded with observance of silence in homage to the departed leader.