People's Democracy

Remembering Comrade Sudhangsu Dasgupta

MEMORIAL meetings for departed communists do not form part of any ritualism. Such meetings are organised to recall the ideals the departed had stood for, and to learn from the wide and intense struggles they had waged towards the making of a better, a more habitable society for mankind. Thus, in expressing condolences for those who have passed away, communists prepare themselves further for the task of changing the society. This was how CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Biman Basu summed up the meeting organised to condole the demise of Comrade Sudhangsu Dasgupta. Held on May 16 at the Promode Dasgupta Bhavan, the crowded meeting was presided over by Biman Basu himself.

Earlier, addressing the gathering, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Jyoti Basu described Comrade Sudhangsu Dasgupta as an ideologue who inculcated Marxism-Leninism in generations of communists --- in Bengal and outside.  Comrade Dasgupta, said Basu, led the life befitting a communist, “spartan and free from the accoutrements of luxury.” Coming from the ranks of revolutionary terrorism, recalled Basu, Comrade Dasgupta was soon inducted into the Communist Party where he proceeded to join the communist press, as a reporter and subsequently as an editor of wide repute.

Jyoti Basu recalled his five-decades-long acquaintance with Comrade Sudhangsu Dasgupta and described how under Comrade Dasgupta’s stewardship, the Bengali weekly organ of the CPI(M), Deshahitaishee served not only to strengthen the communist movement but also to impart Marxist-Leninist education to the workers of the party and mass organisation. Jyoti Basu concluded by extolling Comrade Dasgupta’s communist virtues and said how the latter was always able to interact with people in a very easy-going and friendly manner, both inside the party and outside.

CPI(M) state secretary Anil Biswas, who had worked with Comrade Sudhangsu Dasgupta in the party press for more than three decades, described him as a leader who would love to be immersed in Marxist-Leninist theory. Comrade Dasgupta’s long periods of underground activities, pointed out the speaker, had equipped him with a disciplined lifestyle and he was able to write prodigiously throughout his life, even when he was ailing.

Comrade Dasgupta, said Biswas, fought against both revisionism and sectarianism and was able to come up with articles and essays in the pages of the Deshahitaishee, that were important and immensely relevant. Biswas recalled that writing under a number of pen names (as was the practice with communist journalists of yore), Comrade Dasgupta dealt with a wide variety of subjects, ideological and political. 

Biswas said the weekly series that Comrade Dasgupta assigned another senior journalist of the Deshahitaishee to write on the role of the Vietnamese women in the struggle against US imperialism, proved extremely popular. Comrade Dasgupta himself expounded on the theory of ‘unity of action’ in relation to the role of the international communist movement vis-à-vis the Vietnam’s struggle against the US aggressors.

Comrade Dasgupta, recalled Biswas, produced several explanatory essays in the Deshahitaishee at the height of the ideological debate going in the party with the comrades of Andhra Pradesh. That proved relevant and important. 

Comrade Sudhangsu Dasgupta, noted Biswas, was a party educator, and yet he would not think twice about attending party classes himself. He was also keen to write on various aspects of the party programme even as he busied himself producing several texts on the classics of Marxism-Leninism. Biswas concluded by saying that Comrade Dasgupta made it a point to update his knowledge base, something that every communist must try to emulate.

Veteran AIDWA leader Kanak Mukherjee remembered her long acquaintance with the departed leader, and called for the editing and publication of the late comrade’s writings which, she said, would serve to create an important source material for the present and future generations of readers. (BP)