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On the thirty first
year of the CPI(ML)’s formation, the Indian Democratic Revolution lost a senior
comrade, Com. Bhaskar, former secretary of the CPI (ML) (Central Team), after a
six-year attack from cancer.
Com. Bhaskar (Mohan
Chandra Pandey), was born in a poor family, in 1949 at Andoli village, near
Jagesar, in Almora district, UP. Economic conditions forced him to discontinue
his college studies in the first year itself, and to take up a job. He worked in
a printing press in Delhi in 1969, for some months. During that period
revolutionary activities was on the rise, and he came in touch with a
revolutionary youth and student organisation. In 1972 he took a job as a primary
school teacher, and married two years later. He continued this stint till 1990,
and while in the job graduated in B.A. from the Kumaon University.
While at school in
Badhecina, a Marxist teachers’ group introduced him to revolutionary politics.
His personal diary recounts : "One day I went and asked for some literature.
One teacher gave me Maxim Gorky’s Mother. That book brought a revolutionary
transformation in my life." Once he turned to Marxism, he never changed his
goal in life. Coupled with Marxism, his childhood qualities of courage and
militancy drove him to the revolutionary fold in the 1960s.
Even before the death
of Com. CM, S.N. Singh began his splittist activities. Though the UP provincial
committee first went with S.N.Singh, after one year they realised his right
opportunist line and did a self-criticism. In 1978, various groups of the CPI
(ML) and a section of the UP provincial committee formed the CPI(ML) (Central
Team).
Com. Bhaskar worked
under the leadership of the CT. In 1989 he became an Area Committee member, and
in 1990 left his job to become a professional revolutionary. During the 1980s
and 1990s he mainly worked in Almora district. When he first joined the party,
he worked amongst teachers. He became one of the important leaders of the
teachers’ organisation in Almora district. In the mid-1980s, he organised
peasants and workers around the Dhanladevi block of Almora district.
Under his leadership,
‘lisa’ workers (‘lisa’ is a resin extracted from pine trees, used
in making turpentine) of Almora district got organised under the Parvatiya
Lisa Shramik Sangathan fighting for the abolition of the contract system and
against the exceedingly low wages for ‘lisa’ collection. The movement was
strong for 3-4 years in the mid 1980s. In 1988, immediately after the Lisa
movement, he launched a peasant organisation. Most of the advanced sections of
the Lisa mazdoors (mainly poor peasants) actively participated in this peasant
body. During the same period he led many peasants on a number of popular issues
— like against corruption of revenue officials, against price rise, for subsidy
on potato seeds, etc. He also organised political demonstrations for the boycott
of elections.
He and other comrades
also fought the forest department, against the eviction of pastoral Gujjars.
During the agitation, though warrants were issued for his arrest, the masses
prevented it. Under the pretext of being, ‘invited’ for negotiations, he was
whisked away by the police. The people demonstrated against his arrest. Though
Com. Bhaskar evolved as an agitator and organiser of the mass movements, due to
the dogmatic and sectarian line of the then CT line, the movements could not
advance.
By the early 1990s
internal opinion was building up towards unity with revolutionaries,
specifically with those waging armed struggle. Com. Bhaskar and others raised
the question as to why they were unable to build armed struggle even in a single
area. They questioned the wrong political line of the leadership on the
questions of separate Uttarakhand region, the caste question and the nationality
question, as also the sincerity of the leadership towards the unity talks.
Eventually in 1996, when there was no further scope for internal struggle, the
entire Border Regional Committee (Committee of the hill districts of the
Uttarakhand region) leadership and ranks, united with another faction of the CT
CPI(ML) in 1997. Com. Bhaskar became one of the leading members of the Central
Team. The unity of revolutionary groups became a theme song of Com. Bhaskar. He
and his comrades wholeheartedly welcomed the unity between the PU and PW and
extended their hand for unity.
But internal fights
and fight against his illness began around the same time in 1994. Part of the
leadership, especially from Maharashtra, which did not want unity with the PW,
did not attend the extended plenum meeting and the IIIrd All-India Conference.
They separated from it and Com. Bhaskar became the secretary of the CT. But just
two months after the Conference, cancer struck for the third time. Com. Bhaskar
promptly sent a letter requesting to be relieved from his responsibility as
secretary of the CPI(ML)(CT) and all other positions.
A year later, with
unity between revolutionaries unfinished, with the task of armed struggle in the
Himalayan hills yet to begin, with the dream of revolution unfulfilled, Com.
Bhaskar left us all, bequeathing a legacy of unrelenting fight and revolutionary
spirit.
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