P. Ramamurti

P. Ramamurti (born September 20, 1908 in Veppathur , Thanjavur District , Tamil Nadu , † December 16, 1987 in Madras ) was an Indian freedom fighter, parliamentarian and Marxist theorist. He is considered the doyen of the Indian trade union movement.

Life path

Ramamurti came from a Brahmin family . Due to the death of his father, he became a half-orphan at the age of three. When his brother Mahalingam got a position at the currency board in Madras (today: Chennai ) five years later , the whole family moved to the local district of Triplicane , where he also received his secondary school education.

He was drawn to the Indian liberation movement early on. The speeches of nationalist leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak , Mohandas Gandhi and Subramaniya Bharati on the Marina Beach near his home influenced him, as did the Jallianwalabagh massacre . When Gandhi launched the campaign of non-cooperation and demanded that students only attend national schools, he switched to the institute in Allahabad , which at the time was headed by Jawaharlal Nehru and Purushottam Das Tandon , who later became president of the Congress Party . During his time there, Ramamurti learned to speak Hindi fluently. After two years this school was closed. Following the advice of C. Rajagopalachari - whom he attended in the Sabarmati Ashram of Ahmedabad - he returned to his previous school.

Activist for the Congress Party

He began his higher education at Presidency College (now part of the University of Madras ). After just a few months, he was criticized for his work for a Congress candidate. In order to avoid disciplinary measures, he switched to the Banaras Hindu University , then headed by the freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malaviya . Shortly before completing his two-year training in 1929, he led the protests against the Simon Commission visit . The following year he was sentenced for the first time to a prison term of 6 months for organizing protests against the wearing of foreign cloths.

After his release he returned to Madras, where he worked for the Congress and agitated for equal rights for the untouchables ( Dalits ). He organized the cobblers from Triplicane, all of whom were untouchable, and who were denied access to the Temple of Parthasaray by the Orthodox administration . Ramamurti obtained a court ruling that would allow the Untouchables to vote in elections to the temple's governing body, tremendous progress at the time.

When Jayaprakash Narayan founded the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) within the Congress Party , he joined it. Soon he came into contact with Marxist ideas. He organized rickshaw - coolies and factory workers, which he variously labor courts ( Labor Tribunal represented).

During the 1930s Ramamurti campaigned for the abolition of the exploitative zamindari inam system of land leases, which particularly disadvantaged Dalits, the farm workers. Its final abolition could only be achieved in 1951.

Marxist activist and parliamentarian

Through his contacts with the communist leader J. Sundarayya (1913-85) Ramamurti came closer to the Communist Party (CPI). He worked for them from 1936/37 in the underground and rose steadily within the organization. In several court cases from 1941 onwards he was convicted of “conspiracies” and imprisoned until shortly before India's independence. He was detained again after the Communist Party was banned. He spent a total of nine years of his life in prison.

In the first election to the Madras legislature after independence - 1952, he was still imprisoned, he was elected MP for North Madras. As an opposition leader - although the Popular Front, to which the CPI belonged, had the majority - he succeeded through speeches in Tamil , which he advocated the introduction of the official language. He also campaigned for the rights of farm workers and against police violence, which was repeatedly used, especially against workers on strike. He acted as mediator in the negotiations of the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu on water rights in the 1950s. At the time, Rajagopalachari was Chief Minister for Congress and a vocal opponent of the Communists. However, this did not affect the warm personal relationship between the two.

Ramamurti did not believe in the success of the socialist path taken by Nehru, but was of the opinion that only unity, political training and absolute belief in ideology, combined with militancy, could lead to the goal.

In 1964 ideological differences arose within the CPI, which led to a split from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) ( CPI (M) ). Ramamurti was one of nine founding members of the new Politburo. His main concern was to strengthen the union wing. To this end, he organized nationwide and wrote pamphlets on contemporary problems. When the Indian trade union federation AITUC split in 1970 and the Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) was formed, he was its first general secretary (until 1983).

In 1967 he was elected to the Indian parliament Lok Sabha for the first time at national level . He was a member of the Upper House of Rajya Sabha from 1971-77. He was a member of parliament at the national level for 16 years, mainly dealing with labor law issues. Internationally was active in the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) in the fight against imperialism. His two-hour speech in 1979 prevented an agreement between the state-owned company Bharat Heavy Industries (BHEL) and Siemens . In his view, the treaty would have severely hampered domestic research and development. In principle, he was against cooperation with multinationals.

From 1983 he was released from all activities for the party due to poor health, but he remained active in the background. Ramamurti died in 1987 at the age of 79 in Madras. On the occasion of his 100th birthday, a statue of his was unveiled in Madurai on September 20, 2008.

His daughter, R. Vaigai, is a lawyer in Madras, chair of the All India Lawyers' Union for Chennai and director of the People's Law Center there.

Works

in western languages:

• Surging tide of working class struggles: report of Com. P. Ramamurti to the General Council meeting held at Coimbatore on June 11-14, 1971 . Calcutta 1971? (Center of Indian Trade Unions), 94 pp.
• Stop BHEL's dangerous truck with Siemens: an investigative analysis . New Delhi 1978 (Center of Indian Trade Unions), 136 pp.
• For whom the BHEL tolls? New Delhi 1979. Communist Party of India (Marxist), “Full text of the speech in Rajya Sabha exposing the dangerous machinations to serve the interests of West German multinational firm”
• Real face of the Assam agitation . 2nd Edition. New Delhi 1980 (Communist Party of India (Marxist)), 32 pp.
• The freedom struggle and the Dravidian movement . Madras 1987, ISBN 0-86131-769-6
• The Problems Of Indian Polity . 1986, ISBN 81-212-0042-3

literature

• S. Viswanathan: Fighter all the way and In the cause of workers . In: Frontline , November 7, 2008, pp. 87-90, ISSN  0970-1710 , communiststudycircle.blogspot.com [full text]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ India since independence . New Delhi u. a. 2008, ISBN 978-0-14-310409-4 , pp. 58 f.
2. ↑ Commemorating Comrade P. Ramamurti  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

Web links

• Commemoration event 100th birthday