The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) pays homage to the memory of comrade Suniti Kumar Ghosh, one of the founder members of our party and founder editor of our central organ Liberation, who passed away in Asansol, West Bengal, on 11 May. He was 96.
Comrade SKG, as he was better known in the party, joined the Communist movement in mid-1940s. Externed from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1949, he settled in Calcutta. He worked as a lecturer in English in Vidyasagar College, Kolkata. After the formation of the CPI(M), he worked as an important organizer of the party’s lecturers’ cell. Like many other revolutionary intellectuals, he immersed himself completely in revolutionary political activities in the wake of the Naxalbari upsurge.
Comrade Ghosh was a member of the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) – in both cases from the very inception. Liberation started appearing from November 1967 under his able editorship. It became the organ of AICCCR from May 1968 and carried the ideological, political and organizational line of the revolutionary communist party, then in the making, to communists scattered across the country and thus helped unify them on that basis. From April 1969, as the central organ of CPI(ML), it played an exemplary role in revolutionary journalism and party building.
After the setback in the revolutionary communist movement around 1972, comrade SKG devoted most of his energy in writing books and articles with the same revolutionary fervor and theoretical rigor. The books he wrote include The Indian Big Bourgeoisie: Its Genesis, Growth and Character; India and the Raj 1919-1947: Glory, Shame and Bondage (in two volumes); Imperialism’s Tightening Grip on Indian Agriculture; The Indian Constitution and Its Review; Development Planning in India: Lumpen-development and Imperialism; The Himalayan Adventure: India-China War of 1962 — Causes and Consequences. He also edited The Historic Turning Point: A Liberation Anthology (in two volumes), a selection from the writings which appeared in Liberation during 1967-1972. Published in 2009, Naxalbari: Before and After: Reminiscences and Appraisal was his last major work.
Red salute to Comrade Suniti Kumar Ghosh!
–CPI(ML) Liberation Central Committee
