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It was the night of
May 25, 2002. Two sections of a platoon had come to receive Com. Dadichi Rai,
popularly known as Patelji, from near the railway station. Through the night
they walked and reached a village at 5 in the morning. They spoke to the
villagers till 8 am. Soon they got information that two empty police vans were
stationed in the vicinity. The platoon then retreated up a small hill to a
hutment where Patelji had called a journalist. The hill was full of stones and
did not have even a single tree. Unknown to the PGA, a police party was watching
all their moves. But they were yet unwilling to attack as they feared the PGA.
They were waiting for re-enforcements. Their fear was expected, as around this
same place there had been 12 earlier encounters and not a single loss of the
people’s forces.
Com. Dadichi
But, then came the
re-enforcements, and immediately there was a virtual avalanche of bullets. The
bullets showered in on them from all four sides. One section sought to take
Patelji to a safe cover, but he was hit in the first rain of bullets. When two
comrades went to lift him they too were hit by bullets. One comrade, Ramesh, was
injured. The police caught him, and while subjecting him to intensive
interrogation, he was beaten to death. In all, four comrades were martyred,
including State Committee member (of Bihar-Jarkhand) com. Dadichi Rai.
In this joint police
action police forces from Vishrampur, Chhatarpur, Japla, Harhirganj, etc., were
involved. Dadichi Rai had for long been a special target of the notorious SP,
Anil Palta. But the SP’s happiness did not last long.
On the afternoon of
May 26, as the news of the martyrdom of their beloved leader spread, thousands
thronged to the morgue at Daltonganj, where his body had been brought. The
notorious SP would not even allow the people to view the body and refused to
hand over the body to the family. The police hastily got it cremated.
Com. Dadichi Rai was
born in 1953 into a middle peasant Rajput family in Navanagar of Bhojpur
district. He passed his metric from Amirpur and his BA from Vikramganj. In
1976/77 he got a job in the irrigation department in the Rohtas district, now in
Jarkhand. His major political life was in this region.
He was originally
employed as a daily-wage worker. In 1977 he became a leading trade-union
activist and his popularity spread to the entire district. In 1979, while
working in nearby Deheri-on-Son, he established a new Union, called the ‘Irrigation
Worker’s Union’. This spread to various parts of Rohtas district. From the
beginning to the end he was general secretary of this Union. The Union took up a
large number of demands, including making permanent 1,200 employees, ending the
contract system, giving compensation and employment to displaced persons, etc.
While working in the
Union the young Patelji also began organising peasants. In the course of his
Union activity he came in touch with the then CPI(ML)(PU). In the process he
joined the MKSS (Mazdoor Kisan Sangram Samiti), and formed the Rohtas branch of
this organization.
In 1987, when the
president of the MKSS betrayed revolutionary politics and drifted to electoral
politics, Dadichi Rai stood firm on the path of armed struggle. After the Arwal
massacre in the same year, in the State Conference held underground, Patelji was
elected to the State Committee of the MKSS. Due to heavy repression and the
banning of the MKSS it began functioning under various other names. In 1988, in
Rohtas, it was called ‘Jan Sangram Samiti’ of which Patelji was elected
secretary. At the all-Bihar level another mass organization was formed and
Patelji became the convener for the entire region of Palamu, Aurangabad and
Rohtas.
From 1990 he became a
popular mass leader and even began a number of unions in coal-mines and other
places. In this way he emerged as a popular leader of the entire Koel-Kaimur
region. In 1988 itself he was elected to the Party Area Committee and in 1990 to
the Koel-Kaimur regional committee. As repression intensified under operation ‘Agnidoot’,
Patelji was arrested; and in 1995 he went underground.
For a popular mass
leader it is not an easy process to adjust to an underground existence. But, not
only did Patelji take the bold step, he creatively combined underground life
with his deep mass contacts. In the 1990s after the martyrdom of many of the top
leaders of the Party, it was Patelji who re-organised the scattered forces of
the region. In the crucial 1997 Conference of the Party he played an active
role. In 2001 he was elected as secretary of the Party’s Palamu-Gadwa Border
Area Committee.
Patelji had a very
warm nature towards comrades and was ever jovial. He created an atmosphere of
warmth around him wherever he went. He was a good team leader and built positive
relations amongst comrades, acting as a unifying factor. He remained a dedicated
fighter of the Party till the very end.
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