C OMRADE MANJU, member of Jahanabad District Committee of the Party in Bihar and President of the district AIPWA unit was killed in a cruel and dastardly attack by the Ranvir Sena in the afternoon of November 10, 2003. Along with other comrades, she was on her way to attend a meeting of the Khet Majdoor Sabha, when three Ranvir Sena goons came on a motor bike and sprayed bullets on her and accompanying comrades. Another comrade Awadhesh, a district party cadre, also received bullets in the attack and got seriously injured. Badly injured, Manju srtuggled to escape, but was caught and shot at point-blank range resulting in her instant death.
The incident sent shock waves through the state and thousands of people from nearby villages collected at the spot, demanding immediate arrest of the killers. The Jehanabad Bandh called the next day was a total success. People allowed the DM of Arwal to lift the corpse only after his proclamation to arrest the culprits within a week. However, the SP reaching the spot did not take trouble to arrest Ranvir Sena men, who stayed on in the village. This shows the level of complicity of the administration and the patronage of the Bihar Government.
The funeral procession was taken out on 12 November, in which Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya also took part.
Comrade Manju – A brief sketch of her life and struggles
Comrade Manju was born in an agricultural worker family at Lodipur Kharsa village of Kaler block in the present Arwal district of Bihar on 14 April 1970. The tola has been under Party influence from the early days, and her parents were also Party sympathisers. She was the first child to her parents.
At the age of 18 when she was a student of 7th class, she took an active part in searching for the body of martyr Comrade Chittranjan Mishra in the upper caste feudal houses of the village. This was the beginning of her political life and in no time she began participating full-time in Party activities. Inthose days she worked in Janwadi Mahila Samiti, then the women’s wing of the Party in Bihar. In 1989, when Comrade Ram Pravesh Das, now a member of the district council in Arwal, was held by feudal goons, she played a leading role in rescuing him through stubborn resistance. Later she entered into an inter-caste marriage with a Party whole timer working in Karpi block of Arwal.
Comarde Manju was elected member to Party’s Jehanabad District Committee in the district conference held in 2000. She played a leading role in organising a protest on 18 June 2000 against the killing of students by the police at Imamganj. In the Panchayat elections held in Bihar in 2001, she contested for the post of member of District Council from Vanshi-Sonebhadra-Surajpur constituency in the then undivided Jehanabad district. She defeated her rival, a candidate supported by Ranvir Sena, by a comfortable margin.
During her tenure as a member of District Council, she led a movement against a rape attempt in Karpi Bazar in 2002. This year, she led a number of protest movements against killings by Ranvir Sena particularly in Karpi block, including the killing of a pregnant woman and another poor villager in Azad Nagar, and the killings of poor peasants belonging to Gareri and Ravidas in Puraan village. And in the case of the murder of a peasant in Murari village, she led a protest which compelled the magistrate to give a written assurance of action. Piqued at this, the district administration had clamped a false case against her.
After the division of Jehanabad into two districts, Jehanabad and Arwal, fresh elections were held in 2003 for the new district panchayats. Comrade Manju contested again for the membership of Arwal district panchayat, and although she polled well, she lost because of booth-capturing by her political enemies.
In an interview to Aadhi Zameen after her victory in 2001, Comrade Manju had asserted that her primary agenda was to wipe out the Ranvir Sena which was enjoying the patronage of BJP, Samata party, Congress and even the ruling RJD. She had expressed her determination to resist the police-feudal nexus which had been instrumental in oppressing and humiliating the poor women.
CPI (ML)-AIPWA organised a protest marches in Bihar as well as in several states including Delhi to condemn the complicity of the Bihar Government. Hundreds of members of the CPI (ML) and AIPWA as well as other mass organisations of CPI(ML) marched to Parliament Street, in New Delhi. Manju’s killing invoked shock and solidarity from all over the world. Veteran left thinker James Petras sent a message saying “Comrades, I send my solidarity and support to you in your struggle to bring the killers of Comrade Manju to justice. May her murder spur you on to a socialist society, free of class injustice and impunity”. Comrade Farooq Tariq, General Secretary of Labour Party of Pakistan, said in a message that he was “shocked to hear the news. LPP will be sending the protest letter to Bihar CM. Alain Krivine and Roseline Vachetta, members of European Parliament from France also sent protest letters. South Asia Solidarity Group sent a protest letter to Bihar chief Minister saying that “The level of complicity of your administration and the patronage of the Bihar Government is demonstrated by the assassination of Manju in broad daylight” and demanded that the killers of Com. Manju be immediately arrested and tried for murder. The protest letter was signed by Sarbjit Johal of SASG, Savita Vij of Asian Women Unite!, Sherry Chopra of Southall Black Sisters, Dr. Pritam Singh of Oxford South Asia Forum, Hardave Singh Kharbanda, M.D., Wolfson College, Oxford, Nadia Siddiqui South Manchester Law Centre, Manchester, M. Najeeb Mubarki, Leela Sami and Purvi Mehta of SOAS, University of London, S.Anitha of University of Lancashire, Preston, Kiran Patel of Luton, Surinder Guru of Birmingham, Nirmala Rajasingham of London, Mike Marqusee, Author, London, Joe Hill, School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Mohini Howard, Birmingham, Janet McDermott, Sheffield Women’s Counselling Service, Sheffield, Haki Kapasi of INSPIRE, Smethwick, Meera Betab of London, Rippon Gupta of London, Amrit Wilson, and Kalpana Wilson, London.
Comrade RAM NAYAN UPADHYAYA, veteran Party leader and freedom fighter breathed his last at PGI Hospital, Lucknow on 18 November 2003. He was 83.
Comrade Ram Nayan started his political journey joining independence struggle in 1938, at the age of 18, when he joined Hindustan Socialist Republican Army established by Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and others. In 1940 he joined RSP. In August 1942 he took active part in Quit India movement. After three years of underground life he was arrested by the British police and was released in 1946.
In 1952 he joined CPI and with the division in 1964, sided with CPI(M). Following Naxalbari he came out of CPI(M) and was a delegate from U.P. to the first Party Congress held in Calcutta in 1970. He played a leading role in organising the first state conference of CPI(ML) in U.P. at Muzaffarnagar, which was attended by the then General Secretary Comrade Charu Mazumdar.
Comrade Ram Nayan led a workers’ strike in a multinational cigarette company in Saharanpur in 1973, after which he was arrested and kept behind the bars under the charge of instigating armed rebellion against the government. After 6 months he was released in want of proof. He was closely attached to the trade union in Mansurpur Sugar Factory. Following the disintegration in the movement in the 70s, Comrade Ram Nayan joined CPI and visited Soviet Union and China. In 1997, he came back to CPI(ML) and attended as a delegate the 7th and 8th Party Congresses held at Varanasi and Patna respectively. He was president of the U.P. unit of AICCTU. Very recently, on 16 October, he presided over the state level Jan Adhikar Rally held at Lucknow.
DR. BD PRASAD,a senior physician of Patna and human right activist breathed his last on 14 November in a nursing home. Dr. BD Prasad was a close sympathiser of Party for the past 15 years and contributed in all the major Party programmes and took active interest in the formation of Inquilabi Muslim Conference. His house was a centre of democratic and left intellectual circle in Patna and he himself was active in PUCL. With his demise Party has lost a friend and well wisher.
Veteran left leader of CPI Comrade RANEN SEN passed away on the 13 November in Kolkata. He was 94. He was president of the AITUC and also an MP. Comrade Ranen Sen was a veteran communist freedom fighter and an ardent protagonist of communist unity. His demise is a great loss to entire left & democratic people throughout the country.