Adieu to Comrade Ibn-ul Hasan Basru!

With a heavy heart, we bid goodbye on 29.09.09 to Comrade Ibn-ul Hasan Basru, Central Committee member of the CPI(ML) and one of the leading lights of our party in Jharkhand. Comrade Basru, recently diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer of the gall bladder, breathed his last at 1 pm on 29 September 09 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

Comrade Basru was born in 1943 in Godda district of Jharkhand (then undivided Bihar). He received his schooling at Mirzaganj in Giridih, in the same school where his father taught Urdu.

In 1960, at the tender age of 17, he joined the Communist Party of India (CPI), soon becoming a leading element in the powerful anti-feudal peasant movement that was then ongoing.

Dissatisfied with the tailist politics of the CPI, he came closer to the CPI(ML), which was rising as a powerful force in Giridih. In 2002, he joined the CPI(ML), and in the 7th Party Congress of the CPI(ML) at Patna in November 2002, he was elected to Central Committee of the CPI(ML).

In the extremely challenging period following the martyrdom of Comrade Mahendra Singh, Comrade Basru shouldered a very crucial part of the responsibility, striving to achieve Comrade Mahendra Singh's goal of achieving the party's growth in Giridih.

A very modest and down-to-earth comrade, he easily integrated himself with the toiling poor. He epitomised the communist lifestyle; even with many economic and health travails faced by his family, he always relied on the people and dedicated himself to the party.

Comrades in Jharkhand know that till the very end, he remained quiet about his illness, playing a leading role in the recent militant struggle against irregularities in implementation of NREGA in Jamua.

Remembering him, a senior journalist from Giridih said that Comrade Basru could educate intellectuals about the character of the economic recession - in words so simple that any common person could easily grasp. In the few weeks he was in Delhi, comrades in Delhi who met him were struck by the involvement with which he could recount the historic development of mining in India, and the struggles of miners of coal and mica in Jharkhand. He took a lively interest in every struggle or initiative being taken in Delhi during the time he was there.

Comrades involved in his care remarked on his fortitude in the face of pain. Even in his last hours, he remained concerned about his family members and comrades, inspiring them with his patience and courage.

Our thoughts are with his bereaved family in their hour of loss. Comrade Basru - your simplicity, your courage, your communist spirit and dedication will continue to inspire comrades!



Red Salute to Comrade Ibn-ul Hasan Basru!