People's Democracy

Comrade Daulat Ram

A SENIOR trade union and communist leader in Uttar Pradesh, Comrade Daulat Ram breathed his last at Kanpur on January 1, 2014. He was 67.

Comrade Daulat Ram played a leading role in forging the working class struggles ahead in the state and led the state unit of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) from the front --- as its president or general secretary at various times. He was also a member of the CITU’s national working committee.

Born in the family of an ordinary textile worker of Kanpur, Comrade Daulat Ram was a part of textile workers’ struggle from the very outset. He was founder president of the Uttar Pradesh state unit of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI). He was active over the last 45 years in organising struggles of organised as well as unorganised workers and was a respected figure among the textile, jute, engineering and power workers in particular. The way he organised the over-exploited glass/bangle workers of Ferozabad and the heights to which he took their struggle is simply unforgettable.

Comrade Daulat Ram was a living part of the communist movement in Uttar Pradesh and has been a member of the CPI(M) since the very reorganisation of the party in 1964. He was earlier a member of the CPI(M) state secretariat and later, till his demise, a member of the CPI(M) state committee.

Comrade Daulat Ram’s body was kept in Ram Aasrey Bhavan at Kanpur, from where the funeral procession started on January 2.

The UP state units of the CPI(M) and the CITU have expressed a profound sense of grief over the untimely demise of  Comrade Daulat Ram and conveyed their condolences to the bereaved family members and comrades.