HAR KISHAN SINGH SURJEET(23.03.1916-01.08.2008)

REMEMBERING HAR KISHAN SINGH SURJEET(23.03.1916-01.08.2008):

Comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet was a veteran leader of the CPI(M), an outstanding figure of the Communist movement of the country and prominent national politician. Born on March 23, 1916, Comrade Surjeet died on August 1, 2008. He was 93 years old.

 

A hardcore nationalist who was known in his youth as "London Tod Singh" (one who breaks London, the centre of colonial power), Harkishan Singh Surjeet took to politics in Punjab at a young age as a follower of iconic freedom fighter Bhagat Singh.

For one who joined Bhagat Singh's Naujawan Bharat Sabha in 1930 when he was barely 15, Surjeet embraced Communism as a 20-year-old, joining the Communist Party of India (CPI). Decades later, he was one of the nine who founded the breakaway Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

By the time he came to head the CPI-M as its general secretary in 1992, an influential post he held until 2005 when failing health forced him into virtual retirement, Surjeet had come to know intimately virtually the entire brass of Indian politics.

His congenial attitude - and his ability to share a joke, a rarity among the comrades - helped him in no small measure to make friends with the leading lights of the Indian political establishment. So, when India entered the coalition era, Surjeet became the natural kingmaker.

The seven and a half decades-long political life of Harkishan Singh Surjeet began with his staunch fight against British colonial rule. He played a pioneering role in developing the peasant movement and the Communist Party in Punjab before emerging as a national leader of the Communist Party of India and the All India Kisan Sabha. It culminated with his leading role in the CPI(M) for an eventful four decades.

Surjeet began his revolutionary career influenced by the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh. He hoisted the tricolour in March 1932 at the district court in Hoshiarpur at the age of 16. He was arrested and sent to a reformatory school for juvenile offenders. He came in touch with the early Communist pioneers in Punjab after his release. He joined the Communist Party in 1934 and became a member of the Congress Socialist Party in 1935. He was elected as the secretary of the Punjab State Kisan Sabha in 1938. The same year, he was externed from Punjab and went to Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh where he started a monthly paper, `Chingari’. He went underground after the outbreak of the Second World War and was arrested in 1940. He was imprisoned in the notorious Lahore Red Fort where he was kept for three months in solitary confinement in terrible conditions. Later he was shifted to Deoli detention camp where he remained till 1944. During the partition, he tirelessly worked for communal harmony in violence-torn Punjab.

In common with the pioneering Communist leaders, Surjeet displayed amply the capacity to sacrifice and undergo difficulties. He spent ten years in jail, of which eight were in the pre-independence period; he also spent eight years underground. 

Surjeet was elected to the Central Committee and Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India at the Third Congress of the Party in January 1954. He continued in the leadership of the CPI till the split in 1964. Surjeet was one of the leaders who fought against revisionism and constituted the core of the leadership who went on to form the CPI(M). His deep experience in developing the peasant movement and building the Party led him to shun Left sectarian positions whenever such deviations arose in the Communist movement.

 He had a life-long association with the peasant movement. He led the anti-betterment levy struggle of the farmers in Punjab in 1959. He served as the President and General Secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha for a long period.

 Surjeet was elected to the Central Committee and Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) at the Seventh Congress in 1964 and he continued in these positions till the recently-held Nineteenth Congress of the Party. In these four decades, Harkishan Singh Surjeet made a key contribution to the Party’s programmatic and tactical policies. He was a master tactician who could translate the Party’s political line into practice, implementing it with great skill and innovation.

 He was elected to the Punjab Assembly twice and to the Rajya Sabha for a term.

 His was a life-long fight against communalism. He was one of the first leaders who recognized the threat posed by the rise of the communal forces to the secular principle of the Indian State. He played a crucial role in 1989, 1996 and 2004 in creating the political formations and the setting up of governments which excluded the communal forces.

 Surjeet played a remarkable role in the defence of national unity and in formulating policies to counter the threat from the divisive forces. His firm stance and leadership in fighting against Khalistani terrorism in Punjab and the sacrifice made by over 200 Communists in fighting extremism constitutes a glorious chapter. From the late fifties, Surjeet was involved in tackling the problems of Jammu & Kashmir. He played a role in the evolution of the Assam Accord in the eighties. Imbued with deep anti-imperialism and the values of the nationalist movement, Surjeet looked at all issues of national unity from a democratic and secular standpoint.

 In the CPI(M), Surjeet headed the international department for three decades. He developed relations with all the communist and progressive parties around the world. Under his leadership, the CPI(M) expressed firm solidarity with anti-imperialist struggles and national liberation movements. He made a notable contribution to the solidarity activities during the Vietnam liberation struggle, the Palestinian movement and the Cuba solidarity campaign.

 Surjeet played an important role in making the CPI(M) the largest contingent of the Left movement in the country. Surjeet absorbed Marxism-Leninism by sheer dent of self-study and learning from experience. He always stressed the fundamental importance of critically examining the Party’s ideological and political positions on the basis of Marxism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the nineteen nineties, he guided the Party in arriving at correct positions learning from the experience of the past.

He authored the books Land Reforms in India, Happenings in Punjab and the Outline History of the Communist Party. He wrote innumerable pamphlets on current political issues.

As General Secretary of the CPI(M), he became the most authoritative spokesman for the Left and democratic forces in the country. He worked tirelessly for the defence of democratic and secular values and to see that India maintained its non-aligned and independent foreign policy. His views were sought and his advice heard with respect in political circles.

Today being the death anniversary of the great revolutionary leader remembering his contribution.

RED SALUTE

C Sunish.

01.08.2020

 

William Shakespeare (23 April 1564– 23 April 1616)

William Shakespeare (23 April 1564– 23 April 1616)

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon. The son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, he was probably educated at the King Edward VI Grammar School in Stratford, where he learned Latin and a little Greek and read the Roman dramatists. At eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman seven or eight years his senior. Together they raised two daughters: Susanna, who was born in 1583, and Judith (whose twin brother died in boyhood), born in 1585.

Little is known about Shakespeare's activities between 1585 and 1592. Robert Greene's A Groatsworth of Wit alludes to him as an actor and playwright. Shakespeare may have taught at school during this period, but it seems more probable that shortly after 1585 he went to London to begin his apprenticeship as an actor. Due to the plague, the London theaters were often closed between June 1592 and April 1594. During that period, Shakespeare probably had some income from his patron, Henry Wriothesley, earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first two poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). The former was a long narrative poem depicting the rejection of Venus by Adonis, his death, and the consequent disappearance of beauty from the world. Despite conservative objections to the poem's glorification of sensuality, it was immensely popular and was reprinted six times during the nine years following its publication.

In 1594, Shakespeare joined the Lord Chamberlain's company of actors, the most popular of the companies acting at Court. In 1599 Shakespeare joined a group of Chamberlain's Men that would form a syndicate to build and operate a new playhouse: the Globe, which became the most famous theater of its time. With his share of the income from the Globe, Shakespeare was able to purchase New Place, his home in Stratford.

While Shakespeare was regarded as the foremost dramatist of his time, evidence indicates that both he and his contemporaries looked to poetry, not playwriting, for enduring fame. Shakespeare's sonnets were composed between 1593 and 1601, though not published until 1609. That edition, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, consists of 154 sonnets, all written in the form of three quatrains and a couplet that is now recognized as Shakespearean. The sonnets fall into two groups: sonnets 1-126, addressed to a beloved friend, a handsome and noble young man, and sonnets 127-152, to a malignant but fascinating "Dark Lady," who the poet loves in spite of himself. Nearly all of Shakespeare's sonnets examine the inevitable decay of time, and the immortalization of beauty and love in poetry.

In his poems and plays, Shakespeare invented thousands of words, often combining or contorting Latin, French, and native roots. His impressive expansion of the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, includes such words as: arch-villain, birthplace, bloodsucking, courtship, dewdrop, downstairs, fanged, heartsore, hunchbacked, leapfrog, misquote, pageantry, radiance, schoolboy, stillborn, watchdog, and zany.

Shakespeare wrote more than thirty plays. These are usually divided into four categories: histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. His earliest plays were primarily comedies and histories such as Henry VI and The Comedy of Errors, but in 1596, Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, his second tragedy, and over the next dozen years he would return to the form, writing the plays for which he is now best known: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. In his final years, Shakespeare turned to the romantic with Cymbeline, A Winter's Tale, and The Tempest.

Only eighteen of Shakespeare's plays were published separately in quarto editions during his lifetime; a complete collection of his works did not appear until the publication of the First Folio in 1623, several years after his death. Nonetheless, his contemporaries recognized Shakespeare's achievements. Francis Meres cited "honey-tongued" Shakespeare for his plays and poems in 1598, and the Chamberlain's Men rose to become the leading dramatic company in London, installed as members of the royal household in 1603.

Sometime after 1612, Shakespeare retired from the stage and returned to his home in Stratford. He drew up his will in January of 1616, which included his famous bequest to his wife of his "second best bed." He died on April 23, 1616, and was buried two days later at Stratford Church.

AYYANKALI.

AYYANKALI (28 August 1863-18 June 1941) 

Ayyankali, the Dalit Legend Who Brought Social Justice to Travancore 

Ayyankali is considered to be one amongst the first tide of social reformers from the erstwhile state of Travancore in British India, who paved the way for many radical changes towards elevating the social wellbeing of lower caste communities in the region and improving access to education. 

Over the years, Kerala has established itself as one of the most progressive states in the country. 

From breaking free off the archaic caste system to lending a voice to the transgender community, the state has showcased immense courage treading into testing waters of realms that continue to remain overlooked by rest of the country. 

This hadn’t always been the case in Kerala. Rewind 200 years back, the region heralded some of the most supremacist practices that would classify as a clear violation of human rights on varying degrees in today’s date and time. 

From barring lower caste communities from the usage of basic amenities like public roads and bullock carts to preventing lower caste women from covering their torsos, the list of atrocities committed by upper caste communities now only remains charted in the pages of history. 

The reason why such practices are no longer in place is that one young man from the Pulayar community in the late 19th century chose to question the strongholds of a rigid system that treated lower caste communities as untouchables and with scorn and contempt. 

Ayyankali is considered to be one amongst the first tide of social reformers from the erstwhile state of Travancore in British India, who paved the way for many radical changes towards elevating the social wellbeing of lower caste communities in the region and improving access to education. 

Born on 28 August 1863 in Perumkattuvila, Thiruvananthapuram, he grew up in a time where uprisings against the upper castes were seldom heard of and a Dalit was slain for even having the audacity of glancing at an upper caste individual. 

Compared to his fellow brethren of the Pulayar community, Ayyankali was born into a slightly privileged family, which had been bestowed with five acres of land by a kind landlord. But privilege didn’t let the man close his eyes to the atrocities that were mercilessly being plied upon the lower castes. 

Being illiterate like rest of the Dalit community, Ayyankali realised that only education had the power to shake the foundations of the bigoted system and lead way for a better world, where all were considered equal without any underlying prejudices. 

However, the extent of discrimination imposed upon the people, which included being derided as ‘unseeables’ and ‘unapproachables’ apart from being tagged untouchables, infuriated Ayyankali as much as to set him on a revolutionary path of defying every known norm of an inhumane social structure. 

He was also enraged by the open sexual abuse that Dalit women were subjected to. 

From seeking sexual favours from married women to penalising them for wearing clothes in public, the families remained quiet on the harassment by upper strata, for fear of being punished or even killed. 

Gathering a group of like-minded people, Ayyankali unleashed his first wave of rebellion through folk dance and music laced with dissent at the end of their workday. Voicing out sentiments of the downtrodden, the man soon began to be known as Urpillai and Moothapullai. 

Another rebellious step taken by Ayyankali was to ride a bullock cart that he had bought out of his own money, on the public road reserved for the upper castes. Both the act of purchase and that of travelling on a road were traditionally the strongholds of the upper castes. 

Also, not only were Dalits not allowed to walk on these roads; they were forced to maintain a distance of at least 64 steps from the Nair community and 128 steps from Namboodiris. And with a single act of defiance, Ayyankali succeeded in destabilising the traditional order. 

He also showcased his opposition to the system in interesting ways. From dressing like an upper caste Nair to the market in Nedumangad to establishing a school for Dalit children in Venganoor, the man found great popularity amidst the lower castes. But ended up earning the ire of the upper caste communities and the school was soon burned down. 

This made the man all the more resilient and with relentless advocacy managed to organise what may have been the first strike by agricultural workers in the region. 

Withdrawing their labour from the fields that were owned by the upper castes, the protestors staged marches till the government acceded to a complete removal of restrictions on education. 

He even prompted the Travancore government to issue an order mandating the admission of Dalit children in public schools in 1907. This too found great resistance from upper class officials in the Assembly, but Ayyankali wasn’t one to give up, after coming this far. After a struggle for three long years, the order was finally passed in favour of the general people in 1910. 

After decades and probably centuries of being discriminated, the courage displayed by Ayyankali helped mushroom resolve among other oppressed communities in Travancore, leading to concurrent acts of defiance. 

By then, the Pulayar community had gained the right to use most roads in the state, except for those leading to temples but it was a landmark achievement nevertheless. 

A contemporary of social reformer Sri Narayana Guru, Ayyankali drew a lot of inspiration from the great man, though their philosophies and the means of turning it into reality varied in different levels. 

Another one of the major crises in the region was the rampant religious conversion amidst the lower castes, as an escape to a better and dignified living from years of persecution. 

Ayyankali, on the contrary, believed that this could hardly change anything and implored to the Hindu society to reconsider their outdated customs and be more inclusive. 

He also went on to find Sadhu Jana Paripalana Sangham (Association for the Protection of the Poor), which aimed at uniting members from suppressed communities and campaigned for access to schools along with raising funds to set up Pulayar-operated schools. 

The man also vehemently advocated the inclusion of women into the mainstream and motivated Dalit women to be on par with their male counterparts during the struggle. 

Though Kerala today stands as the land of the red, where workers enjoy better opportunities and privileges, it was Ayyankali who pioneered the movement that asserted the rights of workers long before the formation of any workers union or uprisings were even heard of. 

The man was later instated as a member of the Assembly of Travancore, known as the Sree Moolam Popular Assembly (SMPA) or Praja Sabha. He also played an instrumental role in establishing community courts, whose local offices functioned in every branch of the SJPS. 

Ayyankali passed away on 18 June 1941, leaving behind a better and more inclusive world for lower caste communities in Kerala. As a tribute to the man’s contributions that helped undermine the casteist system in the society, a life-size statue of the legendary reformer stands in the centre of Thiruvananthapuram. 

Today, Ayyankali’s name remains forgotten in the annals of history, without whose acts of defiance, the state would have probably charted a very different course of events, and the Dalit community would have continued to be victims of persecution, just the way they face discrimination elsewhere in the country. 

MRINAL SEN

MRINAL SEN(14 May 1923, 30 December 2018)

Noted Bengali filmmaker Mrinal Sen passed away on Sunday,30, Dec 2018 at 10:30 am. He was 95. Sen was one of the forerunners of parallel cinema in India. Along with his contemporaries Satyajit Ray and Riwik Ghatak, Sen changed the face of Bengali film in a big way.

Mrinal Sen made his directorial debut with the 1955 movie Raat Bhore, and went on to helm films like Bhuvan Shome, Chorus, Calcutta 71, Kharij, Mrigaya and Akaler Sandhane among others. Sen had received 18 National Awards.

Mrinal Sen was born on May 14, 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta for studying physics. During his student days, he got involved with the cultural wing of the Communist party. Though he never became a member of the party, his association with the Indian Peoples Theatre Association brought him close to a number of like-minded cultural people.

His interest in films started after he stumbled upon a book on film aesthetics. However his interest remained mostly intellectual, and he was forced to take up a job of a medical representative, which took him away from Calcutta. This did not last very long, and he came back to the city and eventually took a job of an audio technician in a Calcutta film studio, which was the beginning of his film carrier.

Mrinal Sen made his first feature film in 1953, which he soon tried to forget. His next film, Neel Akasher Nichey (Under the Blue Sky), earned him local recognition, while his third film, Baishey Shravan (Wedding Day) was his first film that gave him international exposure.

After making five more films, he made a film with a shoe-string budget provided by the government of India. This film, Bhuvan Shome (Mr. Shome), finally launched him as a major filmmaker, both nationally and internationally. Bhuvan Shome also initiated the “New Cinema” film movement in India.

His next few films were overtly political, and earned him the reputation as a Marxist artist. This was also the time of large-scale political unrest throughout India, particularly in and around Calcutta. This phase was immediately followed by a series of films where he shifted his focus, and instead of looking for enemies outside, he looked for the enemy within his own middle-class society. This was arguably his most creative phase and won him a large number of international awards.

Mrinal Sen never stopped experimenting with his medium. In his later films he tried to move away from the narrative structure and worked with very thin story lines. After a long gap of eight years, at the age of eighty, he made his latest film, Aamar Bhuban, in 2003.

During his career, Mrinal Sen’s film have received awards from almost all major film festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Moscow, Karlovy Vary, Montreal, Chicago, and Cairo. Retrospectives of his films have been shown in almost all major cities of the world.

Apart from his films, he has also received a number of personal honors.  He received the Padma Bhushan, and in 2005 he was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest honor given to an Indian filmmaker, by the Government of India. He was also an honorary Member of the Indian Parliament from 1998 to 2003.

The French government awarded him the Commandeur de l'ordre des Arts et letters (Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters), the highest honor conferred by the country.

In 2001 The Russian government honored him with the Order of Friendship. He has also received a number of honorary Doctorate degrees from various universities.

Mrinal Sen was the president of the International Federation of the Film Societies. He also served as member of International Jury at various film festivals, including Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Moscow, Karlovy vary, Tokyo, Tehran, Mannheim, Nyon, Chicago, Ghent, Tunis, and Oberhausen.

In 2004 Mrinal Sen completed his autobiographical book, Always Being Born. In 2008 Mrinal Sen was awarded Lifetime Achievement awards by Osian's-Cinefan Festival and by the International Film Festival in India. In 2009 the International Film Festival of Kerala awarded their first Lifetime Achievement Award to him. 

Deep Condolences.

VS Naipaul

VS Naipaul (17 August 1932 - 11 August 2018)

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul who passed away at age of 85 on Saturday, 11 August 2018 occupied a rather curious place. Never one to mince words, Naipaul had often been scathing not only against his peers but also against the place he belonged to.

V.S. Naipaul, the Trinidad-born Nobel laureate whose precise and lyrical writing in such novels as A Bend in the River and A House for Mr. Biswas and brittle, misanthropic personality made him one of the world’s most admired and contentious writers
Naipual won the Booker Prize for his novel In a Free State in 1971. In 2001, he won the Nobel Prize Nobel Prize in Literature. In his lifetime, Naipaul also won several other accolades and earned praises even from the most staunch critics.
His notable works are: A House for Mr. Biswas, In a Free State, A Bend in the River, The Enigma of Arrival.
Deep Condolences.

SAMIR AMIN

SAMIR AMIN(3 September 1931 – 12 August 2018)

World acclaimed Marxist thinker Samir Amin dies

 

World acclaimed Egyptian econimist and thinker, Samir Amin, has died on Sunday in Paris. He was 86.

SAMIR AMIN was one of the world’s greatest radical thinkers. At least for the last five decades, he has been a great source of inspiration for those who dream of an alternative and better world. A Marxist thinker of profound originality and theoretical innovation, Amin continues to intellectually equip us to comprehend, analyse and critique the “obsolete” nature of present-day capitalism, the unequal North-South divide between countries, the continued operation of imperialism, the status quoist ideologies of capitalism, etc.

Amin was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1931. He pursued his higher education at Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (“Sciences Po”), receiving his diploma in 1952. He obtained his PhD on “The origins of underdevelopment—capitalist accumulation on a world scale” in 1957 at the Sorbonne in Paris and a diploma in mathematical statistics from L’institut national de la statistique et des etudes economiques. Amin worked in the planning agency of Egypt from 1957 to 1960, until the Gamal Abdel Nasser regime’s persecution of communists forced him to leave. From 1960 to1963, he was attached to the Ministry of Planning in Mali. After becoming a full professor in France in 1966, Amin chose to teach in Paris-Vincennes and Dakar, Senegal, where he has been based for over 40 years. He has been the director of Third World Forum since 1980 and the Chair of the World Forum for Alternatives since 1997.

As a Marxist based in the South or what is called the “Third World”, Amin began his intellectual explorations by analysing the “development of underdevelopment” in Third World countries under capitalism. He attributes this pattern of development to capitalism. According to Amin, the world economy under capitalism functions in a hierarchical, unequal and exploitative way where the “First World” countries of the North dominate and develop at the cost of the pauperisation of the Third World countries of the South.

For Amin, this pattern of capitalist development always necessitates the countries of the North resorting to the mechanism of imperialist control of the South. “Imperialism is not a stage, not even the highest stage of capitalism. It is inherent in capitalism’s expansion,” argues Amin. He calls contemporary imperialism the “imperialism of the triad” and argues that this imperialism pauperises and victimises the people in the Global South. Through this theoretical proposition, he rejects the argument that imperialism in the world scene is now muted and what we have now is “empire”.

As a pioneer of dependency theory, from the 1970s, Amin has shown with great acumen how resource flow from the countries of the periphery enriches the core countries of the North. He calls the surplus expropriation from the periphery “imperialist rent”. He believes that this imperialist exploitation of the South paved the way for and caused the emergence of liberation struggles in the South in the 20th century, and he hopes for a repeat of the same in the monopoly finance capital of the 21st century also.

This phase of monopoly finance capital of the contemporary era came on to the scene in the 1970s. According to him, this financialisation arises as a counter to the stagnation and accumulation tendency of capitalism. Amin explains that from 1971 the world capitalist system has entered into another long crisis, probably the last as capitalism has reached a dead end. According to him, in its long history, capitalism has had two long crises: first from 1871 to 1945, and the second crisis began in 1971 and we are living in this period. His conclusion and warning to the world is that capitalism has become an “obsolete social system”.

It is this material condition and concrete situation of the obsolete stage in which capitalism reached that demands and keeps alive the necessities of socialism as a choice before humanity. Amin declares that if we are to come out in the end from this “long tunnel’’, it will be into socialism, a society aimed at transcending “the legacy of unequal development inherent to capitalism” by offering to “all human beings on the planet a better mastery of their social development”.

Amin is the author of a number of books on different themes, including political economy, socialism, political Islam, and culture. Eurocentrism, published in 1988, is a path-breaking work by him. “Rejecting the dominant Eurocentric view of world history, which narrowly and incorrectly posits a progression from the Greek and Roman classical world to Christian feudalism and the European capitalist system, Amin presents a sweeping reinterpretation that emphasises the crucial historical role played by the Arab Islamic world.” Eurocentrism remains a classic in critical studies and scholarship. Amin’s other important books include The Liberal Virus (2004), The Implosion of Contemporary Capitalism (2013), The Law of World Wide Value (2010) and Ending the Crisis of Capitalism or Ending Capitalism (2010).

RED SALUTE.

SOMNATH CHATTERJEE

SOMNATH CHATTERJEE (25 July 1929, 13 August 2018)

Sri Somnath Chatterjee was admitted at Belle Vue Clinic, Kolkata last Tuesday following a kidney related ailment. On Sunday, he suffered a heart attack and was put on ventilator support. “He passed away at 8.15 am on today due to multi-organ failure,” said Pradip Tandon, CEO of Belle Vue Clinic. The 89-year-old was earlier admitted to the nursing home on June 25 after suffering a haemorrhagic stroke.

Somnath Chatterjee born in Tezpur, Assam State, but he grew up in Kolkata. His father, Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee, was a lawyer, jurist, and parliamentarian who was a prominent member of the Hindu Mahasabha. The younger Chatterjee attended the University of Calcutta, after which he continued his schooling in England, earning a Master’s Degree    at the University of Cambridge and a law degree from Middle Temple (one of the Inns of Court) in London. Returning to India, he pursued a legal career that included work as a barrister at the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court of India.

Chatterjee joined the CPI (M) in 1968. He first ran for office in 1971, winning the seat in a Lok Sabha Constituency in West Bengal. He continued to be reelected  from Burdwan, Jadavpur and Bolpur. Although he lost in the 1984 contest to Mamata Banerjee of the Congress, he won a by-election for a different seat the following year. He became a widely respected member of parliament, known for his many eloquent speeches, and was honoured with the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award in 1996. After he was unanimously elected as the speaker of the Lok Sabha in June 2004, Chatterjee attempted to streamline the functioning of the house and improve the conduct of its members. He soon inaugurated limited live telecasts of the chamber’s proceedings, which increased to 24-hour television coverage in July 2006.

A ten-time Lok Sabha member from 1971 to 2009, Chatterjee,  has been on ventilator support in a city-based private hospital since August 10 and is also on dialysis.

The long-time Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader was the speaker of 14^th Lok Sabha (2004-2009) when the Manmohan Singh-led UPA-I was in power. However, he was expelled from the party in 2008 when he refused to resign as speaker after CPI (M) and other left parties withdrew support to the government over the Indo-US nuclear deal.

His son Pratap Chatterjee is a high-profile lawyer in the Calcutta High Court. He also has two daughters, Anuradha and Anushila, the latter being a renowned dance professional.

 AILRSA  and Somnath Chatterjee:

After  1981 strike of Loco Running Staff around 950 workers were removed from service by imposing 14/2 and article 311, ie. Without enquiry, 500 were compulsory retired, around 1000 reverted, break in service was imposed on 7000 Loco men. This strike was failed due to poor preparation and leg pulling by a section of leadership. For every victory hundred number of claiming will be there but for defeat no one will take responsibility. Some of the leaders blamed Com. SK. Dhar for the failure of strike.

        Some revisionist leaders left the organization blaming Dhar and it was com. Dhar’s responsibility to bring back the removed employees back to service. He left with empty cash balance, abandoned trade union and fearing work force. He then approached Com. Somnath Chatterjee, CPI (M) leader. With Somnath’s letter he met leading Supreme Court Advocate KK Venugopal. At that time his consulting fee was Rs.35000/-. But Sri.Venugopal told “my consulting fee is Sri. Somnath’s letter”. His case fee was 105000/- . But Dhar was only able to collect 47000/- in many installments. Even then Adv. Venugopal fought the case and succeeded. The Railway authorities not utilized the 14/2 and article 311 after that incident. This was a unique achievement.

        If such a strong support was not extended by Com Somnath Chatterjee, it was very difficult to came out of the crisis.

RED SALUTE .