Com. Rajnanadan Sharma
Com. Rajnandan Sharma (Master Sahab), passed away on the 4 August 2016 at the age of 82 years in Paras Hospital in Patna. He had become familiar with communist ideology in the decade of 1950s and in 1964 he joined CPI (M) and started working as an activist. In 1969, he came in contact with CPI (ML) and since then he continued to be a determined soldier of the party. During the party’s underground years, his house used to be a safe shelter for party leaders. During the emergency, in 1976, when his police came to know about him, he himself became an underground activist. After the emergency ended in 1978, he again started working as a teacher in a Railway school in Khagaul and his home once again became a trustworthy shelter for party activists. He himself remained involved in the expansion of the party. After his demise, his body was brought to his ancestral village and several hundreds gathered to pay their tributes. Several CPI(ML) leaders including Bihar state secretary Com . Kunal participated in his funeral procession. On 15 August, a memorial meeting was organised in the Mahatma Gandhi library in his village. He is survived by two daughters, two sons and innumerable activists.
Red Salute to Master Sahab!
Comrade Mulkraj
Veteran CPI(ML) activist Comrade Mulkraj passed away in Delhi on 27 August 2016. Comrade Mulkraj was one of the party’s first members in Delhi. His funeral procession from his home in A Block Mongolpuri to the cremation grounds was full of CPI(ML) activists and leaders as well as his family members. CPI(ML) General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya saluted him with flowers and with the party’s flag. Other party leaders who paid him the final tributes included Comrades Prabhat Kumar, Sanjay Sharma, Delhi State Secretary Ravi Rai, AIKM National Secretary Purushottam Sharma, senior Delhi party leaders Amarnath Tiwary, Rooplal, Surendra Panchal, as well as members of the Mongolpuri party committee. Comrade Mulkraj was born in Multan district (now in Pakistan) in the Sansi community – a nomadic tribe that is among the Denotified Tribes (DNTs). DNTs had been profiled by the colonial rulers as ‘criminal tribes’ and subjected to racial and casteist surveillance and oppression – a legacy that continues to this day. Under colonial rule, a member of the DNTs could not travel from one district to another without notifying the police. Growing up under such oppression, Mulkraj developed a strong determination to resist colonial rule and fight for the dignity of his peoples. After independence, these tribes were denotified only in 1952 after a struggle of which the young Mulkraj had been a part.
Comrade Mulkraj’s family came to India during Partition. Staying in various parts of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, they eventually came to Delhi. While working in the Modi Mills in UP, Mulkraj had been sacked for participating in workers’ struggles. In Haryana he had come into contact with CPI and CPI(M) also, but being attracted by news of the Naxalbari movement, he kept seeking contact with the CPI(ML). In Delhi, to support his family, Mulkraj worked as a rickshaw puller. In 1978-79, he came into contact with the CPI(ML) which was then underground.
After the decision taken by the special party conference in 1979 to form mass organisations and build mass struggles, Comrade Mulkraj took up the responsibility of organising Delhi’s working class struggles. In 1980, he had the party’s first trade union General Kamgar Union registered – which is now Delhi’s one of the oldest functional trade unions known today as All India General Kamgar Union. In the same year, he formed a union led by the party in Britannia Industries and in 1981, workers of Britannia waged a long struggle. He helped organise many joint Trade Union struggles in Delhi. He played an important part in the campaigns to free Comrade Nagbhushan Patnaik and Nelson Mandela, and also in building the Indian People’s Front.
Comrade Mulkraj’s whole life was dedicated to the Indian working class struggle and Indian revolution. He had an insatiable hunger for party literature, reading Lokyuddh avidly. Even in his last days, you could find clippings from party publications and party leaders’ writings in his pockets. He would love to read about people’s movements and the communist movement in the country and in the world. He would never allow demoralisation to cast even a shadow on him.
Comrade Mulkraj lived a full and happy life dedicated to people – so his passing away and his funeral were an occasion not so much for mourning as for joy and inspiration for all the younger comrades.
Red Salute to Comrade Mulkraj!
