People's Democracy

        Bengal SFI Observes Martyrs’ Day

THE Bengal unit of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) set out to observe Martyrs’ Day all over the state.  The central programme was held at the Martyrs’ Column at Subodh Mullick Square in central Kolkata.  Founder-general secretary of the SFI and presently CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, Biman Basu explained the historic significance of the day before the gathering of student activists in Kolkata.

Biman Basu said that the large procession that was taken out in strident demand for food on August 31, 1959 was brutally cracked down by the repressive state police.  The hunger march had been completely peaceful unlike some of the instances of covert and overt violence that are seen in the so-called martyrs’ day marches organised by the Congress, the Trinamul Congress, and the BJP.  Biman Basu himself, one recalls, had walked the hunger march of 1959 when there had been a brutal and authoritarian Congress-run state government in office in Bengal.

Biman Basu went on to say that the students’ community immediately decided in the aftermath of the repressive act of the police and the state administration to bring out a march on the next day as part of the observance of a Martyrs’ day.  That they did, and in the process of the students marching out from the lawns of the Kolkata University, the police blocked the road near Subodh Mullick Square and proceeded to fire upon the students.  Three students died on the spot.  Many more were grievously wounded.  Ever since then, the students’ Martyrs day has been organised in Bengal. 

Basu and the student leadership placed wreaths and garlands at the Martyrs’ Column.  Among the latter were all-India general secretary Kallol Roy, state secretary, Apurba Chatterjee, and state president Sudip Sengupta.  Other student leaders included Debshankar Chatterjee, Sangram Chatterjee, Arindam Mukherjee, Subhasis Pradhan, and Sumitro Adhikari, among others.  Reports of Martyrs’ Day programmes organised by SFI have come in from all the districts of Bengal at the time of filing this report.