Press Release: August 25, 2007
Communist Party of India (Maoist)Central Committee
Hail the Martyrdom of central committee member of CPI(Maoist)
and beloved leader of the Indian people comrade Ajayda!
COMRADE Ajayda, the beloved and respected senior leader of CPI(Maoist), passed away suddenly on 15th August 2007 due to severe attack of cerebral malaria. Comrade Ajayda was attacked by malaria in the first week of August after his return from one of the Guerrilla Zones where he had gone to attend an important meeting. It was suspected to be viral fever first but since it was malaria his condition worsened and even the best efforts of doctors could not save his life. In fact, due to the existing unjust social system and the pro-imperialist policies of the reactionary Indian ruling classes diseases like malaria devour millions upon millions of people every year and comrade Ajayda has also become one of such victims.
With the martyrdom of Comrade Ajayda CPI(Maoist) has lost one of its elderly leaders who played a significant role in three decades of Indian revolution and in the formation of the new Party. CC, CPI(Maoist), on behalf of the entire Party, Central Military Commission(CMC) and the entire PLGA, all the organs of revolutionary people’s democratic power, all the revolutionary and democratic mass organisations, and all the revolutionary sympathisers and revolutionary masses of our country bows its head humbly and pays its red homage to our beloved leader comrade Ajayda. It shares its grief with heavy heart with the rank and file of the Party, the West Bengal State Committee in particular, the entire revolutionary camp, and his family members and friends and expresses its deep, heart-felt revolutionary condolences to all of them.
Comrade Ajayda was a veteran leader of our Party with almost four decades of revolutionary life. He was inspired by communist politics during his student days in 1960s in West Bengal. He was one among the thousands of young pioneers of the new generation who originated from the ideological and political struggle in the international arena by the CPC under the leadership of Mao against the modern revisionism of CPSU and the great Cultural Revolution that shook the entire world. He was a product of the bitter ideological-political struggle against the revisionist and neo-revisionist leadership of CPI and CPI(Marxist). When working as a government employee he was inspired very much by the great Naxalbari revolutionary armed uprising and the leadership of comrade Charu Mazumdar and joined the CPI(ML) in the end of 1960s. He was arrested in 1972 and spent over five years in different prisons of Kolkata in inhuman conditions during the fascist President Rule and black days of the ‘Emergency’ period.
He was one of founding members of CPI(ML)-Party Unity and one of the first State Committee members of the CPI(ML). He was also one of the leaders of heroic peasant armed struggles of Nadia district of West Bengal. As a CCM and a senior leader of CPI(ML)-PU, he played a significant role in achieving the unity between the PU and PW and latter on unity between MCCI and PW. He was a founding CCM of Unified CPI(ML)[PW] formed in August 1998 and also the CPI(Maoist).
Since the beginning of the revolutionary movement of West Bengal in the late sixties, he stood firmly and steadfastly at the time of barbarous repression, in the midst of heavy losses, and in the period of long setback of the revolutionary movement in the entire country. He firmly upheld the Party line in the long period of setback, splits and hardships. He boldly faced the cruel enemy. Comrade Ajayda firmly upheld the red bright banner of MLM and bitterly opposed revisionism of all hues that reared its ugly head in the international arena and in the communist movement of our country. Throughout his long revolutionary life he never compromised on principles, and fought spiritedly not only against the reactionary Indian ruling classes and the monster of imperialism, but also against revisionism in all its varied forms.
Neither his lean physique, ill health nor growing age [63] ever dampened his spirits or made him shirk from his revolutionary responsibilities. He boldly fought against deviations from the Party line during the internal crisis in PU in 1987 and on other occasions. He served as the head of Party’s education department—SCOPE—for about two years after the 2001 Party Congress of erstwhile CPI(ML)[PW]. He played a notable role in studying agrarian relations in the countryside and could mingle easily with the cadres and masses. Comrade Ajayda served in the publication department for a long time and contributed to the Party magazines both in erstwhile PU, unified PW and the new Party. He wrote proficiently both in English and Bengali. He had great ideological-political depth rooted in long period of diligent study of theory of MLM combined with practical experience.
Throughout his revolutionary life comrade Ajayda upheld communist values and ideals. He was known for his simplicity, commitment and gentle nature. He remained a bachelor all his life driven by the idealistic notion prevalent in the early period of the revolutionary upsurge that marriage would come in the way of revolutionary activity.
The martyrdom of comrade Ajayda is a great loss to the Indian revolution. The CC calls upon the entire Party cadre, PLGA fighters and the revolutionary masses to face this situation boldly and carry forward the cause for which comrade Ajayda had laid down his life with unflinching determination. The CC vows to persist in the great task of building PLA and establishing base areas and intensifying and expanding the people’s war throughout the country to complete the liberation of our country from the clutches of imperialism, CBB and feudalism and establish a new classless society.
Ganapathy
General Secretary,
CPI(Maoist)
[From People’s March, Vol. 8, No. 10, October 2007.]