Homage to
Comrade Rambali Pandey
Comrade Rambali Pandey, veteran communist leader, breathed his last on 10 June at his home town of Gorakhpur. He had just returned from Lakhimpur Kheri where he had hoisted the Party flag on the eve of the Uttar Pradesh state conference. Despite old age and suffering from serious ailments, he made it to the conference. Hoisting the flag, he raised the slogans in his feeble voice: Long live CPI (ML)! Long Live Indian Revolution! Earlier in the day, with tears in his eyes, he told Comrade Vinod Mishra, "Comrade, I don’t want to live any more. From Singapore onwards when I as a young boy and joined the party (undivided CPI), I have never remained idle even for a single day. What’s the use of this life when I can’t do anything for the party!". Comrade Mishra consoled him by saying, "You are a great living inspiration for us and you can always guide the young comrades with your advice."
Comrade Pandey was born in a poor peasant family in a remote village of Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. He left for Singapore at the tender age of fif-teen years to earn a living for his family. His elder brother was already employed there. In Singapore he came into contact with communists. He married a girl who was associated with the Burmese revolutionary movement. His wife, however, became a martyr just after a year or two of the mar-riage. After the Second World War he came back to India. Here he married again but his wife died at the time of delivery. The child too died after a few months. Since then he adopted the party as his big family.
In India he resumed communist activities. He went to Calcutta and start-ed trade union work among Jute workers. After a few years he came back to his native place and began organising the peasantry.
He had joined the united CPI but left it to join CPI (M) after the split in 1964. The dynamic revolutionary, however, did not lose a second to denounce the neo-revisionist leadership of CPI (M) after Naxalbari and became one of the foremost founders of the CPI (ML) movement in Uttar Pradesh. He was, however, not an armchair revolutionary. Besides organising peasants in his native district, he went over to Lakhimpur Kheri and took an active part in the movement there in the late 60s.
He did not have much of a formal education but he was an avid reader of party literature. He participated in the Party’s Third Congress held in underground conditions and took active part in the debate over participa-tion in elections. He could not make it to the other Party congresses on account of illness. Comrade Pandey was an epitome of simple living and hard working. He always took a great care of comrades in distress and a large portion of his freedom fighter’s pension was spent in looking after the needs of other comrades.
He spent altogether 28 years in jails but nothing could dampen his spirit.
The central committee pays homage to the memory of this great communist and calls upon comrades to learn from his unflinching devotion to the great cause of communism.