All India Kisan Sabha, Maharashtra: Comrade M. K. Pandhe passes away

Friday, August 19, 2011

Comrade M. K. Pandhe passes away

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member and long-time President of CITU, Comrade M.K. Pandhe died at the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital in New Delhi a little after midnight on Friday following a cardiac arrest. He was 86.

Comrade Pandhe was admitted to the hospital around 8 p.m. after he complained of chest pain. His end came at 12.20 a.m. Saturday.

Born July 11, 1925 in Pune, Pandhe joined the undivided Communist Party in 1943 and rose through the ranks to become a secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), a trade union wing, in 1966.

He joined the CPI-M after the division of the Communist Party in 1965 and was elected secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) in 1970.

He was elected to the CPI-M central committee in 1978 and took over as CITU general secretary in 1990.

Pandhe, a PhD from Pune's Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, became a CPI-M politburo member in 1998. A year later he became the CITU president.

A brief life history below:

Born on July 11, 1925 at Pune, Maharashtra

M.A (Pune University), Ph.D from Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune.

Joined the Communist Party in 1943

Secretary Solapur Students Union (1943)

Went Underground during 1948-51 for 27 months

Elected Secretary Solapur City Committee of CPI

Elected Secretary Goa Vimochan Samity, Sholapur Branch in 1955

Joined Central office of AITUC in 1958 and Elected Secretary in 1966

In-charge Parliamentary Party office from 1964 to 1969

Went underground for 14 months during 1965-66

Coopted into the underground CC after arrest of leadership

Elected Secretary CITU in 1970

Elected to the Central Committee in 1978 At the Jalandhar Congress

Elected CITU General Secretary in 1990

Elected to the Polit Bureau in 1998 at the Kolkata Congress

Elected President of CITU in 1999

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About Us

All India Kisan Sabha (अखिल भारतीय किसान सभा; AIKS), is the largest national organisation representing peasants in India, with a membership of 2,25,81,308 (22.58 million). The AIKS, which was formed at its first conference on April 11, 1936 at Lucknow, has a glorious 75-year history. It played a stellar role in arousing the peasantry against British imperialism in the movement for national freedom. It was able to unite various sections of the peasantry in the struggle against feudalism, big traders and monopolists. The AIKS led historic peasant struggles in Telangana in Andhra Pradesh, Tebhaga in West Bengal, Punnapra-Vayalar and North Malabar in Kerala, Surma Valley in Assam and tribal movements in Tripura and Maharashtra.

In the period after independence, it has continued to organise peasants against the anti-peasant policies of the government. These policies have acquired a particularly disastrous nature during the last two decades of neo-liberalism, leading to suicides of over 2.5 lakh debt-ridden peasants in the last 15 years. The strong peasant movement built by the AIKS has contributed to the formation of the Left-led state governments in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura.

The AIKS believes that a powerful agrarian movement has to be built on alternative policies centred on the interests of the poor peasants and agricultural workers, both of whom constitute the overwhelming majority of the Indian peasantry. The AIKS is clear that only a thoroughgoing agrarian revolution can truly solve the deep and growing crisis in Indian agriculture.

Some of the towering peasant leaders of the AIKS have been Swami Sahajanand Saraswati, Muzaffar Ahmad, P Sundarayya, A K Gopalan, E M S Namboodiripad, M Basavapunnaiah, Hare Hrishna Konar, Benoy Krishna Choudhary, Dasharath Deb, M A Rasul, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Godavari Parulekar and Krantisimha Nana Patil.

This blog is managed by the Maharashtra State Committee of the AIKS. The Maharashtra State Committee functions out of Janashakti, P.B.Marg, Worli, Mumbai-400013; Phone: +91-22-24951576.