PURULIA REMEMBERS MK PANDHE

HOWRAH REMEMBERES MK PANDHE

ALL INDIA COAL WORKERS' FEDERATION REMEMBERS MK PANDHE

ALL INDIA DEMOCRATIC WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION CONDOLES COMRADE PANDHE’S DEMISE

THE All India Democratic Women’s Association expresses its deep sorrow over the passing away of Comrade M K Pandhe, veteran leader of the working class and of the CITU on August 20, 2011. AIDWA has lost a staunch supporter who was committed to the struggle for gender justice and working women’s rights. Comrade Pandhe played a leading role in ensuring that the CITU organised women workers especially in the unorganised sector. The strong unions of anganwadi workers, ASHA workers etc that have been so prominent in recent working class struggles owe much to the support that they received from Comrade Pandhe. In the organised sector, he always emphasised the importance of taking up women’s issues, and the crucial role he played in the struggle of air hostesses against gender discrimination can never be forgotten.

We offer our heartfelt condolences to his wife, and lifelong partner, Pramila Pandhe, who has been a communist leader for many decades and has contributed greatly to the AIDWA and the women’s movement. We extend our condolence to the bereaved family members.

We pledge to carry on the struggle for worker’s rights and revolutionary social change to which Comrade Pandhe dedicated his entire life.

TRIPURA REMEMBERS COMRADE M K PANDHE

Haripada Das

WHILE organising struggles on the economic demands, for better wages, better working conditions and job security for the working people, we must at the same time enrich them with the basic consciousness – that as long as capitalist system exists, exploitation of millions by a few prevails, the working class would be deprived of basic amenities that a human inherently deserves. Mohd Amin, Polit Bureau member of the CPI (M) made these remarks while reminiscing about late Comrade M K Pandhe at Agartala on August 29, 2011.

The condolence meeting at the overflowed Agartala Town Hall was presided over by Bijan Dhar, secretary, CPI(M), Tripura state Committee and was addressed by Polit Bureau members Mohd Amin and Manik Sarkar, chief minister of the state, state secretariat member and Central Committee member Aghore Debbarma, and state secretariat member and labour minister Manik Dey.

At the outset, both the Polit Bureau members, Central Committee members of the Party, state committee members and office bearers of various mass organisations paid floral tributes at the portrait of Comrade M K Pandhe. Thereafter Bijan Dhar presented a condolence resolution followed by a minute of silence in respect of the memory of the departed leader.

Elaborating the valuable experience of working with Comrade Pandhe for 60 long years, Mohd Amin said, the gap created by his demise is difficult to fill up. He had a vast experience about international situation that reflected in the reports prepared by him. He played a pivotal role in building up all India organisations in various sectors of working class under the banner of the CITU. Among those road transport, steel, coal, port etc are very important. Pandhe played a key role in uniting various trade unions at the national level on certain common issues for the interest of millions of working people of the country. Attributing Comrade M K Pandhe as a great trade union leader, Amin added, that he dedicated his whole life for the cause of organising and uniting the working class of the country. Amin also narrated his experience of the visit to erstwhile USSR and China accompanied with Comrade Pandhe. Conveying his invincible conviction on socialism, Amin said, though some of the socialist countries stepped back to capitalism, it does not mean that capitalist system has got rid of its inherent crisis. Rather, the world situation indicates that it is deepening rapidly. While the span of serfdom is of 10,000 years and feudalism lasted for about 7000 years, the existence of capitalism is only 280 years. Who knows, the 21st century will be the last century of capitalism to be replaced by socialism, Amin anticipated.

Manik Sarkar in his speech attributed Comrade M K Pandhe as a communist in a true sense. The qualities that a communist must have are faith on the dictatorship of the proletariat, internationalism and humanism, all of which were possessed by Comrade Pandhe. He recalled the tumultuous days of the dismantling of East European socialist countries and followed by a rise to ideological dilemma before the world communist movement. At that crucial juncture, Comrade Pandhe took on a great international responsibility of helping in finding out a direction of the communist movement, showing full respect to the supremacy of the working class, and an urge for developing fraternal relations among the trade unions world over. He not only waged an ideological fight against the LPG policies, but also showed the way of how to resist the attack on working class, how to gather allies, how to advance, when to retreat etc.

Referring to the present national situation, Manik Sarkar said, instead of addressing the burning problems of corruption, spiraling price rise, crisis in agriculture, unemployment etc, the UPA-2 government is very much interested to make India a junior partner of the US strategic alliance. The recently exposed various scams prove that the pirates have got a free hand to loot the country, he said. The situation has opened up a broad opportunity to build up nationwide struggles. The communists have to shoulder bigger responsibility in the coming days to lead struggles to save the country from the claws of the imperialism, the onslaughts of the LPG policies, Manik Sarkar said. To prepare for that struggle, we have to enrich ourselves ideologically, politically and organisationally, he advised and added, this is the lesson Comrade Pandhe left for us.

Comrade Manik Dey in his address highlighted Comrade Pandhe’s endeavor for building a broad working class unity. He would say, “Colors of union flags are immaterial for working class unity, because all are the victims of common enemy.”

The artists of Tripura Cultural Coordination Committee performed opening song at the beginning of the condolence meeting which ended with chorus of the International.

Courtesy: People's Democracy

MK PANDHE - LET’S FOLLOW IN HIS FOOTSTEPS

A K Padmanabhan

THE demise of Comrade M K Pandhe, a legendary figure of the Indian trade union movement, one who did not fail to focus on the international responsibilities either, is not a loss to the working class movement alone but to the entire democratic movement in India.

Born in a not so affluent family, his thirst for knowledge from his childhood continued all through his life. Having declared himself as a soldier of the working class, he remained steadfast in his ideological belief. That commitment took him to factories, mines, plantations and various other workplaces in order to reach the needy workers, to extend them a helping hand. The same spirit and enthusiasm took him to many conventions, seminars and conferences where he gathered a thorough knowledge of any subject connected with the life of the working people.

This undoubtedly made him the most travelled trade unionist in the country, as will be vouched by any worker, any employee, and even by many managers who would come forward with the details of his sojourn to their areas of activity. It is doubtful it there is any district in the country, any industrial unit, which he did not visit at least once in his life.

He devoted 65 years of his tireless activities to the trade union front, starting from his initial work in Sholapur, his home town, in the year 1946.

Till the last day of his life he continued his efforts to build the CITU as a powerful and revolutionary trade union organisation, coupled with his efforts to build up the unity of the Indian working class. The leading role he played in widening the joint activities of trade unions, both at the national and at the sectoral level, will always be remembered. From the UCTU in the early 1970s, the NCCRS in the historic railwaymen’s struggle, the CPSTU of the central public undertakings, the National Campaign Committee during 1981-82, the Sponsoring Committee of Trade Unions in the 1990s and the present joint platform of all central trade unions and national federations are testimonies to his leading role in building the joint movement in the country.

These efforts extended to the international arena as well, as proletarian internationalism was the cornerstone of his efforts. While underlining the importance of international solidarity, he did not fail to critically look into the activities of organisations like the WFTU, utilising its platform whenever available. When positive changes were happening in the WFTU after its 15th congress, he welcomed it and also guided the CITU to affiliate itself to the WFTU, so as to meet the present day challenges at international level.

An exemplary aspect of Comrade Pandhe was his inimitable adherence to the working class qualities of modesty and simplicity in life. He upheld these qualities all through his life. As a trade union activist, his life was an example of simple living.

Through thousands of articles and write-ups, through hundreds of pamphlets and many books, he educated the working people to carry forward the struggle against the policies of the ruling classes and for emancipation of the working class as a whole. Let us re-pledge ourselves to follow in his footsteps and carry forward the class oriented trade union activities!

Courtesy: People's Democracy

MK PANDHE - ALL PAKISTAN FEDERATION OF UNITED TRADE UNIONS

I write on behalf of the All Pakistan Federation of United Trade Unions (APFUTU) to offer our deepest and most sincere condolences and profound solidarity at what must be an unthinkably difficult time for the CPI (M) and the CITU.

The All Pakistan Federation of United Trade Unions (APFUTU) stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of India and the Indian labour today. Our thoughts are with you, your Party.

Syed Zia Ullah Azam

Secretary, International Relations of APFUTU

MK PANDHE - COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE USA (CPUSA)

THE Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) joins the Polit Bureau of CPI (M) and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions in this hour of grief at the loss of one of their most senior leaders, Comrade M K Pandhe. His death at 86 takes away one of the most valuable stalwarts that the Indian trade union movement has produced.

It is inspiring that Comrade Pandhe joined the Communist Party of India in 1943 at the young age of 18, in pre-independence days, and received his doctoral degree from the prestigious Gokhle Institute in Maharashtra, India. He volunteered to work on the trade union front in those difficult days of the freedom struggle against foreign rule and was elected secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress in the 1960.

We appreciate his work as one of the founding leaders of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, building it up to become one of the premier trade union organisations of Indian working class today. That is a classic success of Comrade Pandhe, in capacity of being its general secretary for 12 years since 1991, and its president there after till 2010, until his demise.

In spite of his intellectual achievements, his Ph D degree and his mastery of complicated economic questions, he had a deep understanding of trade union organisations and their struggles. His simplicity of lifestyle and easy way of communicating with the masses were the proud personal attributes that Comrade Pandhe had acquired, and set an example of the ideal communist character for other comrades.

The CPUSA's two delegates, Teresa and Rama Kant, met Comrade Pandhe for the first time at your Party Congress in March 2008, and had a chance to discuss with him his impending visit to USA, in the first week of June 2008 on invitation of the Service Employees’ International Union, one of the largest labor organisations in the United States. The visit became an important occasion for leaders of the CPUSA to receive him in our party centers in Chicago and in New York City.

He met our vice chair Scott Marshall, chair of our trade union commission, and Teresa Albano, editor of our party weekly, the People’s World, in Chicago, and held important discussions for building up mutual friendships of the trade union movements across the globe.

He was accompanied on his visit by his wife, Pramila, who also is a party and women’s leader in her capacity as a vice president of the All India Democratic Women’s Association.

The following week, he visited our New York Party center, and had discussions with comrades, including CPUSA vice chair Libero dellaPiana, and union activists Bill Davis and Gary Bono. He and his wife also met the leadership of the Transit Workers Union at their New York headquarters.

In Chicago, Comrade Pandhe and Pramila said they very much wanted to pay their respects to the Haymarket Martyrs. They received two tours led by experts from the Illinois Labor Historical Society; one to the Martyrs’ graves and the other to the Haymarket site. One tour was led by the late author Bill Adelman. Comrade Pandhe was so impressed by Adelman’s knowledge of the subject that he arranged for the translation into Hindi of his book on the history of May Day. The Illinois Labor History Society expressed great pride in the translation.

We in the Communist Party of the USA considered Comrade Pandhe to be a friend as well as a comrade. We express our sincere sympathies to his wife Pramila and their Son in Delhi, as well as to his whole family and the membership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

MK PANDHE - COMMUNIST PARTY OF NEPAL (UNITED MARXIST

THE Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist) is stunned to hear the very sad news of the demise of Comrade M K Pandhe, veteran Indian trade union leader and an outstanding communist, very sincerely dedicated to the working people. He was also a trusted friend of Nepalese people and their leaders. Our party with a profound grief and sorrow, pays homage with high respects to Comrade M K Pandhe and expresses deep condolences to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and through it, the bereaved family of late Comrade Pandhe.

L N Subedi

President

Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist)

MK PANDHE - COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREECE

IT is with great grief that we learnt the sad news of the demise of Comrade M K Pandhe. His death is a big loss to the labour and communist movement of India and to the WFTU.

Please convey our sincere condolences and solidarity to the Central Committee of the CPI (M), to his family and relatives, as well as to his comrades in CITU.

With fraternal greetings

International Relations Section

Central Committee of KKE

MK PANDHE - COMMUNIST PARTY OF VIETNAM

IT is with profound grief and shock that we learnt the passing away of Comrade M K Pandhe, Polit Bureau member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

On behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, I would like to convey to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the family of Comrade M K Pandhe the deepest condolences.

Hoang Binh Quan

Member of the Central Committee

Chairman of the Foreign Relations Commission Communist Party of Vietnam

BANGA SANSKRITI BHAVAN, DELHI - MK PANDHE REMEMBERED

ON August 29, the CPI (M) organised a condolence meeting in memory of Comrade M K Pandhe, in Muktadhara auditorium of Bang Sanskriti Bhawan in Gole Market area. As we know, Comrade Pandhe breathed his last on August 20.

A large number of trade union and party workers attended the condolence meeting. These included youth and students, women, cultural activists and the departed leader’s kith and kin.

S Ramachandran Pillai presided over. On the dais were seated the CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, CPI general secretary A B Bardhan, CPI(M) Polit Bureau members Sitaram Yechury and Brinda Karat as well as Central Committee members Sukomal Sen, Hari Singh Kang, Nurul Huda, Basudeb Acharia, Tapan Sen and Sudha Sundararaman. Comrade Pandhe’s wife and women’s movement leader, Pramila Pandhe, too was seated on the dais.

In his introductory address, S R Pillai informed about the comrade’s ailment and sudden demise. Though Comrade Pandhe was suffering from cancer, he remained active till the end of his life, except for a brief period of illness. He scored a victory over his cancer and resumed his activities with full vigour in regard to party and trade union work. Only a day before his demise had he returned from Chandigarh and was to go to Mumbai the next day. During the three weeks preceding his demise, he had been to Kolkata, Mumbai and a host of other cities for the party’s and the CITU’s work. The departure of such a highly active comrade is, Pillai said, a big loss to the party as well as the trade union movement.

Prakash Karat recalled how Comrade Pandhe was engaged in work even on the day he departed. For some time past he was seriously suffering from cancer and we all wanted that his workload needed to be lessened, but he posed it was no problem to him. He used to say that he wanted to discharge the party and CITU responsibilities to the extent he could and that he found satisfaction in it. Recalling his association with Comrade Pandhe, Karat said he came in contact with the latter during the 1970s when he started working as assistant to Comrade A K Gopalan. Comrade Pandhe was then in charge of the party centre and many comrades used to come to him for consultation.

Prakash Karat emphatically said it would be wrong to view Comrade Pandhe as just a trade union leader. He was in fact a leader of the working class. He accepted the revolutionary role of the working class, organised it, inspired it and guided it. From the day he began working in a trade union in Solapur till the last day of his life, organisation and forward movement of the working class remained the aim of his life. As a Marxist, he wished that the working class must be politically educated, and he tried for it, so that this class could be mobilised for a war on all kinds of exploitation. According to Prakash Karat, if the working class is politically conscious today, a good part of the credit goes to Comrade Pandhe. When he joined the Communist Party, he well knew that he would have to face a lot of problems, and he did face severe difficulties. He had had to go underground during 1948 and later. But he remained firm, and never retreated when there was an attack on the party or the trade union movement. The reason was that he was deeply imbued in Marxism-Leninism, and had had firm faith in it.

A sterling quality of Comrade Pandhe was that he always remained in the field. His constant endeavour was to be in the midst of the working class and its struggles. Any ordinary worker could approach him anytime. His simplicity was the simplicity of a true communist. He had had vast knowledge of working class affairs, and all the activists and leaders wanted to have him in the forefront of negotiations. The main reason was that he never reached an agreement with employers at the cost of the working class interests.

Prakash Karat here read out a letter from Billimoria, former chairman of the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), in which he highly appreciated Comrade Pandhe’s vast knowledge, wisdom, patience and perseverance. The letter said negotiating with Comrade Pandhe was always a difficult proposition as it required that the negotiators too must have a matching store of knowledge and vast study. Billimoria said he leant many things from Comrade Pandhe. It was due to his inspiration that Billimoria founded an institute where Comrade Pandhe was invited twice a year to speak on industrial disputes.

Prakash Karat stressed that Comrade Pandhe was an internationalist for the reason that he was a Marxist, and always strove for strengthening the international working class movement. It was a coincidence that he was elected the CITU’s general secretary in 1991, and the same year our ruling classes began to implement the LPG policies in the country. He knew that these policies would lead to an intensification of exploitation of the working people. There have been 13 all-India strikes in the country during the last 20 years, and Comrade Pandhe played a leading role in all of these. He made a seminal contribution to forging the unity of the trade unions. If the trade union organisations have come to a single platform in opposition to these policies, a large art of the credit goes to Comrade Pandhe. We have no substitute for him, and we all have to learn from his life. Conveying his condolences to Mrs Pramila Pandhe, Karat said taking the communist and the Left movement ahead would be the real tribute to Comrade Pandhe.

A B Bardhan grew highly emotional while addressing the condolence meeting. He said Comrade Pandhe was only four months older than him. Though they belonged to two different parties, they had had very intimate relations over a very long period of time. Comrade Pandhe was a source of inspiration for trade unions and the working class. He was a milestone in the trade union movement. Bardhan told how Comrade Pandhe strove hard to unite the trade unions in order to unite the Indian working class. It was because of his endeavour that we see the trade union movement united today. He paid Comrade Pandhe homage on behalf the CPI, AITUC and on his own behalf.

CITU general secretary Tapan Sen too got emotion while speaking. He said Comrade Pandhe had left us in a very difficult period of our movement. He was a leader who never thought anything but about the trade union and party work. He was thinking of the working class issues even when he was fighting for his life in a hospital. Sen recalled several episodes to this effect.

The meeting concluded with singing of the Internationale in chorus and slogans of “Long Live Comrade Pandhe.”

Courtesy: People's Democracy

BANKURA - MK PANDHE REMEMBERED

DHANBAD - MK PANDHE REMEMBERED

MK PANDHE REMEMBERED AT NEW DELHI BY TRADE UNIONS

MY ASSOCIATION WITH COMRADE PANDHE - Mohd Amin

I WAS in Kolkata when, hardly a few hours after reaching there, I got the news that Comrade M K Pandhe had expired in the night before. I therefore immediately rushed back to Delhi. The first question in my mind during this travel was whether the void created by his demise would be filled up at all.

My association with Comrade Pandhe spanned over half a century or more --- since the days we were working together in the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) --- and we came still closer after the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) was formed in 1970, at its foundation conference in Kolkata. As its office was then established in Dharamtalla Street in Kolkata and Comrade Pandhe got based there, our meetings became much more frequent; we used to meet almost daily there. Together we took part in numerous meetings, conferences, demonstrations and processions.

GUIDING THE MOVEMENT

The CITU’s founder president, late Comrade B T Ranadive, was also based there at that time and he as well as late Comrade P Ramamurthi, our founder general secretary, used to guide our activities with a lot of intimacy. Yet it is quite safe to say that after these two leading comrades, Comrade Pandhe’s was the biggest role in guiding the CITU and bringing it to the present stage where its membership has crossed the 50 lakh mark.

An important point in this regard is that here was a comrade whose interest was not confined to any one area or two of our economy. In fact, he took a keen interest in promotion of trade unions and their struggles in several sectors, and most notably among the coal, steel, electricity, shipping and road transport workers. As I was looking after our federation among the road transport workers, the frequency and intimacy of our interaction further grew even after the CITU shifted its head office to Delhi. I learnt many things from him in this process.

I was elected the general secretary of the CITU at its conference in 2007, of which he was the president, and then I again came into regular face to face contact with him, after a gap of some three decades. Now, at the CITU secretariat meetings, he, myself and other leading comrades began to meet almost on a daily basis, consult each other and divide work among ourselves. All through this process, I felt that his behaviour not only with me but with all the members of the CITU secretariat was quite intimate. My intimacy with him continued even after we both were relieved of our responsibilities by the 2010 conference of the CITU.

While running from one part of the country to another, Comrade Pandhe also guided the party’s subcommittee on trade unions and all the trade union fractions concerned with various sectors of our economy.

The big thing about Comrade Pandhe was that he did not sit idle for a single day and engaged every moment of his life in taking the trade union movement forward. He in fact remained active till the last evening of his life. Equally significant was the fact that he retained his sharp memory till his demise and the overripe age of 86 could not make a dent into it.

INTERNATIONALIST PAR EXCELLENCE

It was in 1984 that Comrade BTR asked Comrade Pandhe, me and M M Lawrence to go to Moscow. The express purpose of our visit was to meet the Soviet trade union leaders and try to understand as to what was the state of the trade union movement in the Soviet Union and which direction it was then moving in. The data and the statistics given us by the Soviets during our discussions clearly showed us that industrial production was declining in the country. However, the Soviet trade union leaders did not give us any satisfactory reply about why this decline was taking place. Nor did they have any reply as to why Khruschev and others, who had let loose a whole propaganda barrage against Stalin, remained silent during his lifetime. On our return, we conveyed to BTR whatever impressions we had gathered during this visit. Yet, while I had had unhappy kinds of premonitions about the future of the Soviet Union, I had never visualised that the USSR itself would be made to disintegrate within a few years.

However, Comrade Pandhe’s interest in the trade union movement outside India was not confined to the USSR or China alone; he had had a close tab on the status of the movement in other parts of the globe as well. He was a true internationalist who felt that the movement in any of the countries was his own movement; its losses and gains were his own losses and gains. It was not accidental that he played a seminal role in forging the CITU’s ties with the trade union organisations in several countries.

I must also recall here that we were part of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) and during our AITUC days we both had been taking part in its activities, but that our relationship with the WFTU got ruptured after we formed the CITU. However, it was at Comrade Pandhe’s initiative that the CITU got affiliated to the WFTU this very year, after decades of mutual alienation. This was quite natural for a man who, all through his life, strove for forging and continually strengthening the unity of the working class at the national as well as international level. How can we forget that, insofar as India is concerned, his was a leading role in bringing several trade union organisations and industrial federations on one platform?

It is such a comrade whose loss now we have to bear with a heavy heart. On this occasion, I convey my condolences to his wife, son and other kins.

Courtesy: People’s Democracy