NEW DELHI: Born on March 23, 1916 at Ropowal village in Punjab’s Jalandhar district, and beginning his political career in the freedom struggle during 1932 as an intrepid schoolboy, Mr. Surjeet joined the Communist Party in 1934 — 14 years after its founding. He was elected to the Polit Bureau of the undivided Communist Party in 1954 and was one of the founders of the CPI(M) in October-November 1964.
Among his generation of top Communist leaders who formed the CPI(M)’s first Polit Bureau, Mr. Surjeet is survived by Jyoti Basu, his 93-year-old comrade. The seven other founder leaders were P. Sundarayya, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, M. Basavapunniah, A.K. Gopalan, B.T. Ranadive, P. Ramamurti, and Pramode Dasgupta. The 19th party Congress, held in Coimbatore in April 2008, witnessed a full generational shift in the top leadership. The ailing Mr Surjeet was made a special invitee to the CPI(M) Central Committee while Mr. Basu, still quite fit and active, was elected (despite his reluctance) to the Central Committee and also made a special invitee to the Polit Bureau.
Between January 1992 and April 2005, Mr. Surjeet served as general secretary of the Central Committee of the CPI(M) before ill health made it impossible for him to continue and Prakash Karat succeeded him as general secretary. An expert on the agrarian question, a diligent and dedicated organiser, a studious man who wrote on a variety of subjects over many decades, and an implacable foe of communalism of all hues, the veteran was a congenial personality who talked to all sections of the political community. Respected and liked, he was generally addressed, across the political spectrum, as ‘Comrade Surjeet.’
Widely travelled, he formed a network of international contacts over decades and initiated many international solidarity campaigns, including a broad-based movement for solidarity with Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Surjeet’s legislative experience spanned more than a decade: he was a member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly during 1953-57 and 1967-69; and a member of the Rajya Sabha between 1978 and 1984. The leader of the 1959 ‘anti-betterment levy’ movement in Punjab, he was one of the builders of the All India Kisan Sabha, which he served as president and general secretary, and the Agricultural Workers Union.
Mr. Surjeet was instrumental in the formation of a series of non-Congress, non-BJP third front experiments — and in the coming into being, in May 2004, of a minority United Progressive Alliance government supported from outside by the Left parties.
A revolutionary who spent a full decade in jail — eight years under the British imperialist Raj and two years under Congress rule — and another eight years underground (including four years in independent India), he proved adept at building broad political coalitions in the era of hung Parliaments. Over the past decade-and-a-half, he acquired the reputation, in the media and in the political arena, of being a ‘kingmaker’ whose opposition to the BJP was implacable.
– Photo and story The Hindu (Aug 2, 2008)
