OBITUARY

CPI(ML) Pays Homage to Comrade M K Pandhe
CPI(ML) extends deepest condolences on the demise of veteran communist and Trade Union leader, and CPI(M) Politburo member Comrade M K Pandhe.
Comrade Pandhe’s loss will be deeply felt by India’s working class struggles and the country’s Left movement. The workers of India will always remember him for his leading role in building a resolute resistance to the anti-labour, anti-people policies of liberalization. He always adhered to the best communist traditions of simple lifestyle, and his activism right till the last days of his life will always inspire communists everywhere.     
CPI(ML) pays homage to Comrade Pandhe’s legacy, and stands with his family and comrades in this time of loss.  

Adieu to Historian Prof. R S Sharma
One of India’s foremost historians and public intellectuals, Prof. R S Sharma, passed away on 20 August at the age of 92.
His work as an authority on ancient India was always deeply engaged with contemporary social realities. He established and defended the relationship between technological development and social changes in ancient India. A Marxist historian to the core, Prof. Sharma’s path-breaking thesis on Indian feudalism ruffled many feathers. He interacted with the peasant leader Swami Sahajanand Saraswati.      
Ancient India became a bitterly disputed site of political contention with the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign. Debunking myth and defending scholarship, facts and secular values, he along with other leading historians authored a report that authoritatively established that there was no temple beneath the mosque. He moved the Indian History Congress (IHC) to adopt resolutions against the Emergency; and later, demanding protection for the Babri Masjid.
He did pioneering research on the condition of the oppressed castes in ancient India. He also battled censorship for his refusal to mould historical facts to suit conservative political opinion. After the Emergency, the Janata Party Government unsuccessfully tried to ban his Std XI-XII textbooks on ancient India because they referred to beef-eating in ancient India. Later the NDA-BJP Government withdrew this seminal textbook during a saffronisation drive.
CPI(ML) bids farewell to this original scholar who took academics from the ivory tower to the study of the lives of peasants and oppressed castes, an unrepentant Marxist, a defender of academic independence, and a bold fighter for secularism and democracy.    

Red Salute to Comrade Shankar

Comrade Shanku (Shankar Mukherjee) a party organiser in the Hoogly district of West Bengal left us on 26 July at the age of 55. According to his wish his body was donated to the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. He joined the CPI (ML) at the age of 17 and worked on several fronts. Lately he had been suffering from a crippling nerve disease but remained closely associated with party work. Liberation pays homage to the death-defying spirit of comrade Shanku.