Obituary
Comrade Budhram Paswan
Comrade Budhram Paswan, an activist of Jagdishpur, Bhojpur passed away on 16 August of cancer. He was 56. His three sons, daughter and wife too are associated with the party. Comrade Budhram was active in the party right since the phase of anti-feudal resistance in the underground period. The all-India Conference organized at the end of the rectification campaign was held at his home. After the party came over ground, he became a wholetimer and played a responsible role in the IPF campaign in the 1990 Bihar Assembly elections. He subsequently led a fierce struggle demanding recall of the renegade MLA at Jagdishpur. He was the party’s block secretary for some time. In the panchayat elections of 2001 he defeated feudal forces to be elected mukhiya.
Polit Bureau members Comrades Swadesh Bhattacharya and Amar and a large number of local comrades joined the condolence meeting in his village and paid homage to the departed comrade.
Red Salute to Comrade Budhram Paswan!
Comrade Subodh Majumdar
Comrade Subodh Majumdar, a long-standing party leader in West Bengal, breathed his last at Gandhi Memorial Hospital at Kalyani after a long bout with heart trouble on 27 August. He is survived by his wife, daughter and son.
Comrade Subodh was born in 1942 at a village in the Nadia district of West Bengal. During his college days in Kolkata he came in contact with left politics, and was swept up in the Naxalbari movement in 1968. He began his professional political life since the 1970s and was arrested and imprisoned from 1974 to 1978.
He was a leading organiser in the Nadia district as well as in Purbasthali and Katwa block in the bordering district of Burdwan. He was for long one of the leading comrades of the district committees of Nadia and Burdwan. During the Nadia peasant movement in the 1980s, he was one of its main organisers and leaders, leading from the front the movement for seizure of vested land and also the resistance struggle against armed attacks by landlords and Congress goons. He played an important role in organising the first Peasant Conference at Bankura.
For a long period he was on the West Bengal State Committee. He had deep affection and care for fellow comrades. He was active in the formation of peasant association and agricultural labourers’ association. He played a significant role in the IPF, and as an IPF candidate he contested from the Purbasthali assembly constituency. He also enjoyed cultural activism and inspired people with his revolutionary songs, helping to form cultural teams from among the peasant activists.
The party and the peasant cadres have much to learn from comrade Subodhda. In setbacks or in defeats, he never felt dispirited and despondency never overtook him. He would always be in search of renewed initiatives in a changed situation.
The party has lost a fighting and energetic leader. The party resolves to fulfil his dream.
Long live Subodh da!
Comrade Dinabandhu Talukdar
Comrade Dinabandhu Talukdar of Namrup, Assam, passed away recently after a 3-year-long battle with prostate cancer. Comrade Dinabandhu joined the party in 1983, when he was a teacher in the high school run by Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation (HFC). Active in the underground period, he was also very active in the IPF phase, both as an IPF activist as well as a working class organiser in Namrup. At the time of Comrade Anil Barua’s assassination in 1998 he was active in organising the protest in Naharkatia, which was by then his home.
He will be warmly remembered and missed by the party and Assam comrades in particular.
Red Salute to Dinabandhu Talukdar!