Alison Dellit
On January 16, the day after he filed his nomination to recontest his parliamentary seat, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist-Liberation) (CPI-ML) leader Mahendra Singh was gunned down during an election meeting in Jharkhand.
Singh, the CPI-ML's only parliamentarian in Jharkhand, had won his seat in the poor constituency of Bagodar three times, and was expected to comfortably win a fourth term. Because Indian law only delays elections when a candidate from an electorally registered political party dies, the election will go ahead. Singh's son Vinod, a CPI-ML activist, filed his nomination for the seat on January 17, the last day of nominations.
Singh, a deeply respected long-time political leader, had proved an effective campaigner for the poor, and particularly adept at exposing parliamentarians' corruption. According to the January 24 edition of the CPI-ML's magazine Liberation, he was often termed the "real leader of the opposition" by the local corporate print media.
Singh had presented an 80-page dossier to parliament documenting the government's misdeeds. In particular, it attacked the region's police superintendent, Deepak Verma, who had been recently transferred into the area by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
Singh claimed Verma had been brought in to suppress political dissent. He presented evidence of Verma's involvement in at least two contract killings. Singh had demanded Verma's removal from the police superintendent role, and had told parliament he believed his life was threatened by Verma. Singh had further told CPI-ML activists that Verma was openly claiming he would ensure Singh was not re-elected "by whatever means".
The CPI-ML has rejected police claims that Maoist Naxalite extremists were behind the killing, and has demanded that Verma be arrested in relation to the killings, a demand supported by Singh's wife. The party has also demanded an inquiry into BJP involvement in the killing; that the electoral commission demand Verma's resignation and send observers to oversee the election; and that the National Human Rights Commission send a team to investigate the human rights abuses identified by Singh.
In Bagodar, thousands gathered at the police station to mourn Singh within hours of the killing. On January 17, in a spontaneous show of respect, all businesses, from the banks to the street vendors, shut down. Thousands of people filed through the hall where Singh's body was being held, some having walked for up to 20 kilometres to pay their respects.
The outpouring of anger and grief is not surprising, given 50-year-old Singh's heroic record of struggle. Elected as national secretary of the Indian People's Front in 1982, Singh was involved in almost every social struggle in Jharkhand in the 1980s. A constant threat to the authorities, he was convicted on a trumped-up murder charge in 1985 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Three years later a successful appeal saw him walk free, after a High Court judge ruled that Singh "fights against the repression of the weaker sections of the people, therefore has been falsely implicated in the case".
CPI-ML general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya addressed a mammoth funeral meeting for Singh on January 18 in Bagodar. According to Liberation, he, "called on the people to turn their grief into strength to avenge the killing by wiping out the criminal-mafia-police-bureaucrat-politician nexus which has snatched away their leader."
From Green Left Weekly, January 26, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.