Sarwahara

29th Dec 2024, West Bengal

[हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिए यहां क्लिक करें]

On the 15th martyrdom anniversary of revolutionary working-class leader Comrade Sunil Pal, PRC CPI (ML) and IFTU (Sarwahara) jointly organized a shaheed rally and mass meeting on 29th December at Haripur in Paschim Bardhaman district of West Bengal i.e. the place where Comrade Pal was assassinated, in memory of all revolutionary martyrs who gave their lives in the struggle for emancipation of the working class.

The Rally, starting from Kenda Police Post Ground, was attended by hundreds of people from various states including workers, students, children and revolutionary activists. It culminated into a mass meeting at Haripur which was initiated by holding a minute of silence in the memory of all revolutionary martyrs, and paying floral tribute at the martyrs’ altar amidst reverberating slogans.

Conducted by Comrade Kanhai Baranwal, the mass meeting was addressed by the following speakers: Ajay Sinha (GS, PRC CPI ML), Sanjeet Adhikari (PRC Bengal), Radhe (PRC Bihar), Siddhant (PRC Delhi), along with fraternal delegates viz. Comrades Mukesh Aseem (Proletarian People’s Front), Shyambir (Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra), Avash Munshi (Mazdoor Kranti Parishad), Ashok Baitha (CPI ML), Shankar (CPI ML Red Star), Bholanath Sit (CPI ML Mass Line), Kirtan Katal (CPI ML New Democracy), Soumendu Ganguly (Lal Jhanda Mazdoor Union SS), RP Singh (Manthan Patrika), Sagar (CCSS), Bharat (Mazdoor Sahayata Samiti), Arun Mukherjee (CPI ML). Comrades from PCC CPI ML, ECL Theka Shramik Adhikar Union, Khan Mazdoor Karmchari Union, and NTUI were also present in the meeting. Revolutionary songs in Bangla and Hindi – “Lal Lal Jhanda Hai” & “Emon Deshe Jonmo Moder” – were presented by ‘Arunoday’ cultural team of West Bengal.

All the speakers paid revolutionary tribute to Comrade Sunil Pal and recalled the heroic workers’ struggles led by him in the entire ECL Coalfields region which ultimately caused his assassination in the Union office at the hands of hired goons of the then-CPM state govt serving the ruling class interests. They highlighted the rising capitalist onslaught on the broad masses and the growing divisive and venomous fascist movement in the country and also in Bengal following the capture and takeover of state power and institutions by fascist forces since the past decade, the inability of bourgeois opposition parties to ultimately defeat fascism, and the need for a broad people’s movement and a revolutionary proletarian vanguard to ultimately defeat the forces of capital as well as fascism.

Comrades of PRC and IFTUS highlighted the immediate need for the working class and its forces to gear up themselves to take a leading role in the decisive fight against fascism which will be ultimately fought on the streets to the Parliament by the broad masses of people, and to win the decisive battle of democracy to form a revolutionary government that would be independent from the influence of big capital in order to decisively defeat fascism, and to move forward towards realization of the historical mission of the working class i.e. socialism-communism. All the speakers highlighted that there would be no better way to remember a fearless and unyielding working-class leader like Sunil Pal than to continue working with even more fervour for realisation of our shared dream of building a new world devoid of exploitation and classes.

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About Comrade Sunil Pal (1958-2009)

Sunil Pal, who worked in the Bardhaman-Asansol-Shilpanchal coal and industrial belt of West Bengal, had joined the revolutionary movement in 1977 and was actively involved in building a militant and revolutionary labour movement right from his college days. Soon he emerged as a popular militant trade union leader of Bengal. He came from a poor lower-middle peasant family, and was fourth among his five brothers and three sisters. He had lived his childhood days in his village at Kendra which was once considered a stronghold of the Naxalbadi movement. In the initial years of his college life in Raniganj (Paschim Bardhaman district), he had already decided to become a professional revolutionary. It was towards the end of seventies and beginning of eighties when he plunged himself in the revolutionary movement. He never looked back since then.

In those times, white terror of the CPM-led Left Front government was all pervasive in Bengal. Communist revolutionaries were often their target. Comrade Pal too, faced near-fatal attacks several times under this regime while organising coal and other workers. Our comrades and Union offices have also been repeatedly attacked with arms and explosives and this has resulted in the martyrdom of many of our frontline working-class activists (like Baleshwar Bhuiyan, Gour Gadi, Mahadev Aankudia and others). Only some years before Comrade Pal’s martyrdom, his elder brother Ganesh Pal, also a revolutionary activist and leader, was killed by CPM goons.

Ultimately, the conspiracy to eliminate Comrade Pal also turned out to be successful on 29th December 2009. Fifteen years ago, on that day, half a dozen hired goons who had to be called from outside Bengal, barged into the newly built IFTU Central Office in Haripur in the twilight of evening armed with automatic sten guns, while the electricity in that entire area had been cut in a premeditated manner. Dozens of bullets were ruthlessly fired into his body causing his immediate death. Comrade Pal was 51 years old at the time. CPM’s top as well as prime local leaders were involved in this conspiracy. Undoubtedly, their intention was to destroy our organization but, as everyone is aware, in the very next election, the Left Front itself was voted out of power by the people of Bengal while our organization remains admired and active and continues to thrive in the hearts of people.
Today under the TMC’s rule, it is now the TMC government and goons which not only executes onslaught on the rights of working class but also pressurizes our individual party leaders and cadres to abandon the Party. It also unabashedly continues such conspiratorial attacks. Although even then, in the most dire conditions where the entire political space of Bengal has been seized and is divided between the semi-fascist TMC and the fascist BJP, we continue to maintain and carry forward the tradition of revolutionary struggle.

With revolutionary regards,
Proletarian Reorganizing Committee, CPI ML
Indian Federation of Trade Unions (Sarwahara)