The Hindu : National : Veteran Communists honoured

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Thursday, Apr 07, 2005

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National

Veteran Communists honoured

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 6. The 18th party congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) today witnessed the release of the first volume of the ``History of Communist Movement in India'' prepared by the party's history commission.

Tracing the communist movement in the country since 1920, the first volume tells the story of its early years. It takes a look at the spread of communist activities, the Kanpur communist conference, the workers and peasants' parties, the sixth conference of the Communist International (Comintern) and the Meerut Conspiracy Trial.

The book says that communists played a principal role in transforming the demand for independence from the vaguely enunciated idea of swaraj to a pro-people concept of freedom not just from the colonial regime but also from social and economic exploitation and sectarian strife. Despite its organisational limitations, the CPI, guided by the Communist International, forced attention on the class exploitation of workers and peasants, a release issued by the publishers said.

The History Commission, set up by the party's Central Committee, consists of Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Jyoti Basu, P. Ramachandran, Kortala Satyanarayana and Anil Biswas. E.K. Nayanar, who was on the commission is no more.

Mr. Surjeet and Mr. Basu presented the first copy to Subodh Roy (89), who was among the 12 veterans felicitated at the congress for their contribution to the movement.

The others guests of honour were, Capt. Lakshmi Sehgal (90), M.P. Narayanan Nambiar (90), K.V. Thangappan (82), Sandhya Chatterjee (80), Vidya Deb Burman (89), K. Krishnamurthy (81), Parasa Satyanarayana (79), K.R. Sundaram (84), M. Pandian (77) and Kitty Menon (82). P.V. Rangnekar (93) could not be present due to indifferent health.

Recalling the contribution of these veterans during the freedom struggle, the Polit Bureau member, Prakash Karat, took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is celebrating its silver jubilee anniversary today.

He said the BJP did not have a leader who could remotely match the record of service of the leaders the CPI (M) felicitated.

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