The Centre of Indian Trade Unions expresses profound grief at the sudden demise of Com Sukomal Sen, a veteran as well as a stalwart in the country’s working class movement, today at 10 am after prolonged illness. He was 83.
Com Sukomal Sen is one of those veterans in the working class and employees’ movement in the country who contributed immensely both ideologically and organizationally in building broadest unity of the working people and also channelizing the movement in the track of class orientation consistently exposing the successive policy regimes under the capitalist order through its various phases. He was one of the frontline organizers of the state govt employees movement not only in West Bengal but in other states of the country and he was one of the founder leaders of the All India State Govt Employees Federation (AISGEF) since its birth in 1960 and led the Federation as its General Secretary From 1982 to 2008. He was Senior Vice Chairman of AISGEF till his demise.
Along with discharging his leading role in Govt employees’ movement, Comrade Sen was also active in organizing, leading and guiding the trade unions in other sectors as well. He had been the national working committee member of CITU for decades and was elected Vice President of CITU from its national conference at Chandigarh in 2010 and served in that position since 2016 and was elected permanent invitee to CITU national secretariat from its 15th Conference held in Puri in November 2016.
Comrade Sen had been a popular personality in international trade union movement as well. His debut in the international trade union sphere had been with his active contribution in the Directive Committee of the Trade Union International of Public and Allied Employees in 1982 at Prague. In 1996 he was elected General Secretary of TUI Public & Allied Service and played frontline role in leading and coordinating the movement and activities of Govt and public sector employees till he relinquished that position in 2009.
He also played a leading role in championing the cause of working people as Parliamentarian during his 12 years stint as a Member of Rajya Sabha during 1982 to 1994.
Besides playing a frontline role as organizer and leader of the movement of the working class in the field, he also made signal contribution intellectually in the sphere of enriching ideological content of the working class movement. He was a scholarly writer and was the author of ‘Working Class In India-History of Emergence of Movement (1830-2000)”(translated in various Indian languages), “May Day and Eight Hours Struggle in India”, “Communist Manifesto and the Theory of Revolution- a 150th Anniversary Tribute”, “The History of All India State Govt Employees Federation”, “International Working Class Movement-Dynamics of Class Struggle Vs Class Collaboration” outlining the history of World Federation of Trade Unions since its foundation congress in 1945 to World Congress 2011. He also authored books on numerous other subjects viz., on Question of Culture and Social Revolution in Indian Society, Caste Religion and Indian Society, Fascism etc and had been a regular contributor to various journals on political-ideological issues published both in India and abroad. He had been the Editor of the “Employees Forum” the Organ of the All India State Govt Employees Federation since its birth in 1979 for over three decades. And his latest contribution is the two volume book on the subject of October Revolution and its aftermath published recently.
Comrade Sukomal Sen, throughout his active life had been a Communist and displayed his commitment the ideology of revolution in all his activities in all fronts. He had been Central Committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for decades till his demise as ex-officio.
With Comrade Sukomal Sen’s demise, the country lost a stalwart leader of the Working Class movement as well as a Scholar Visionary and a great teacher. At present juncture of the working class movement facing tremendous physical as well as ideological offensives, Comrade Sen’s absence is an irreparable loss.
CITU dips its flag in respect to the memory of the departed leader and conveys heartfelt condolence to all the comrades and his bereaved family members.
Tapan Sen
On behalf of the CITU Secretariat
