The end of an era

The death of Indian communist leader Comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet has saddened a great number of Indo-Canadians across the Lower Mainland. Known as the "grand old man" of the country’s left, Comrade Surjeet died redently of a heart attack at 92 years old.

I was traveling in Kerala, India when the news of his death came. Kerala state is ruled by a coalition government led by his party, the Communist Party of India (CPI). The communists took out a silent procession in his memory across the province. Every communist I met in Kerala that day said that Surjeet, who worked as the CPI’s General Secretary for over a decade, will always be missed.

The CPI had recently withdrawn support from the Congress-led central government after it refused to back off on the controversial Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. Surjeet was unwell and had earlier slipped into a coma when the crisis started to brew. Many believe that Surjeet would have dealt with the crisis differently if he were still leading the party.

Those who have settled in B.C. will miss him as well. He had frequently visited Vancouver until he fell ill. His group in Vancouver, the Indo-Canadian Workers’ Association, had not only encountered frequent confrontations with the Sikh fundamentalists, but had also helped the moderates in their fight against extremism and their bid for control over the Sikh temples. The Association leader, Kulwant Dhesi traveled to Kerala to attend Surjeet’s funeral this past Sunday.

Born on March 23, 1916, Surjeet hailed from the Jallandhar district of Punjab province and as a youth joined the Naujawan Sabha, a group formed by one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement, Bhagat Singh. Incidentally, Surjeet was born on the martyrdom day of Bhagat Singh.

On the anniversary of Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom, Surjeet hoisted the Indian flag at the Hoshiarpur courts and was shot twice by the British Police. During his trial in court, he called himself London Tod Singh, or the ‘one who breaks London.’

Surjeet remained a tireless freedom fighter until India gained its independence in 1947. He opposed the partition of India that created a Muslim Pakistan at the cost of thousands of lives during the subsequent Hindu-Muslim riots. In his later years, he vehemently opposed Hindu chauvinism and also the Sikh separatist movement in Punjab.