Guru Prasad Kundu

Somnath Ghosh

Guru prasad Kundu, one of the unsung foot-soldiers of the naxalite movement passed away in the early hours of 14 December, 2017 after suffering a massive cardiac arrest at the age of 76 in a North Kolkata nursing home. He associated himself with the Naxalbari uprising in its initial days. Later on he joined the CPI(ML) as a wholetimer to organise masses in North and North East Kolkata. At one stage he was deputed to work as courier of Saroj Datta, the editor of party organ Deshabrati.

In order to avoid arrest he went underground and used to live a hard living shifting from one place to another. He was arrested in 1972 and had undergone imprisonment till the fall of the Congress-led government in 1977. He was implicated in the 4th Tribubal Case in which Kanu Sanyal, Sourin Bose and others were the accused.

After release he did not join any ML faction as the CPI(ML) was then divided into many groups. The split within split syndrome became the order of the day. He alongwith some of his politically close friends started a printing press where inter-alia periodicals like Frontier were also printed. Frontier, founded by the Late Samar Sen way back in 1968 is still being printed in the said press—Calcutta Block & Print.

Though not directly associated with any political group in the naxalite camp, he was very frim in the conviction of social revolution through non-parliamentary means. He never dissociated himself from protest demonstrations and street marches of the radical forces.

Till his death he was a strong believer in the ideals of social revolution raised by the historic ‘Spring Thunder’ in 1967.

Frontier
Vol. 50, No.27, Jan 7 - 13, 2017