Khokon Majumdar, the last Naxalite alive who had met Mao Zedong in China, breathed his last late evening on Monday.
Majumder was 84 and left behind nothing, but a handful of memories of struggle and courage. He died in the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in West Bengal's Siliguri where he was admitted a week ago. Majumdar died at the same hospital where he worked as a boy.
Majumdar was in his hospital bed on May 25 when delegations from around the world visited Naxalbari to mark respect to the first revolution in free India.
He did not have any house to live in and used to stay at the CPI (ML) Liberation party office at Naxalbari. He suffered a stroke ten years ago that crippled his activities. He could not move freely but walked with a walker donated by the party.
Born in Bangladesh, Majumdar came to Kolkata after the Partition and joined the communist movement at the age of 16 when the party was banned India. He worked as an attendant in Calcutta hospital.
After working for a few years in Calcutta, Majumdar was transferred to the North Bengal Hospital. He continued to work as a secret agent of the Communist Party of India. He joined the Te-bhaga movement of farmers in nineteen fifties and sixties.
In a twist of fate, Majumdar met Charu Majumdar, the man behind the Naxal movement in India, at a theatre hall in Siliguri. Charu was impressed with him, while Majumdar was attracted to the former's ideology.
In 1967, when the Naxal movement broke, Charu sent Majumdar to Naxalbari. Majumdar became the key man and coordinated with Kanu Sanyal and Jungle Santhal to create the massive movement that rocked the world in late nineteen sixties.
On Charu's instruction, Majumdar and others were sent to China in 1970 and was given arms training there. Majumdar became the chief of military wing of CPI (ML) when it was formed in 1971.
Later, Majumdar, Sanyal, Sourin Bose and Deepak Biswas, yet again on Charu's orders, went to China and met chairman of Chinese Communist party Mao Zedong.
The meeting made way for China's support for Indian naxal movement.
Majumdar got arrested in 1974, soon after Sanyal's arrest and Charu's death. He was kept in prisons across India and tortured.
"He was a selfless person who always thought of the poor. We lost the last hero of the first Naxal movement. Though a couple of people are still alive from that batch, Khokon da was the last among the greats," said Abhijit Majumdar, son of Charu Majumdar.
