Biography

Born to Akshay Chowdhury and Nalinibala Devi, Arun was the third child. Akshay Chowdhury was a sub-inspector in Kolkata Police. Despite not being attached to the freedom struggle directly, Akshay Chowdhury was fired from his job for letting go of freedom fighter Shanti Sen.

Moving to Faridpur of East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh), their place of origin, Akshay and Nalinibala went about their lives bringing up their progeny with the limited means available. In this context, Arun Chowdhury grew up.

Nalinibala was the anchor of the family, immensely creative and interactive, crafting the strategy for coping and steering the large family in midst of significant economic duress.

An adolescent and a young Arun was her pivot to keep the sail on. These early exposure and experiences of growing up in upper-caste society while experiencing economic hardship, taught young Mr. Chowdhury the myriad dialectics of Bengali socio-economic realities.

The Bengal Famine of 1942, the Second World War and its aftermath, role of communism in ensuring the defeat of the Nazis left deep impressions on Mr. Chowdhury’s psyche early on.

The treatment meted to the Namashudras of Bengal, East Bengal specifically, taught him the necessity of standing up for the rights of those who have less or none in society.

By 18, he chalked out his path, his company and course; relentlessly pursuing the same for the rest of his life.

Ghaghor, Kotalipara and Gopalganj in East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) were the breeding grounds of his early thought and action. The boat races in Ghaghor river that he would take part in as an adolescent, taught him resilience and the importance of impetus.

Growing up in a caste-divided East Bengal, young Mr. Chowdhury was imbued with Marxist influence from an early age. Cultivating himself around the emerging Communist movement in Bengal, Mr. Chowdhury’s early life was spent around Communist leaders such as Nagen Chowdhury, who was a close friend.

The Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 provided another fillip in Mr. Chowdhury’s Marxist education. The Communist Party of India (CPI) took up the initiative to organise efforts to provide relief and help settle refugees from East Bengal in West Bengal, India.

Being a student at Sreerampur College in Mahesh, Hooghly; young Mr. Chowdhury threw himself to the vibrant refugee rights movements that used to colour West Bengal and its environs in that period.

Being a refugee himself, Mr. Chowdhury experienced the necessity of social support, empathy and a need to stand up for collective rights. He became a member of the CPI in 1947. His activist skills and commitment sharpened during the period when CPI was banned by the Government of Independent India.

The PC Joshi-Ranadive period of the Indian Communist movement found him getting deeper into broader issues concerning peoples’ rights; including but not exclusively, the labour movement of cotton mills in Sreerampore, Hooghly. He became highly influenced by Communist leaders like Mahitosh Nandy, Paritosh Chattopadhay, Bijay Modak, Manoranjan Hazra of Hooghly.

By the early 1950s he was a full-blown Communist activist, seeking interactions with leaders like Saroj Mukherjee, Abdul Halim and above all, Muzaffar Ahmed; one of the founders of the CPI. Ready to be an activist and organiser, Mr. Chowdhury had to take a realistic call of looking for a job, as his family was dependent on him.

In a bid to find employment, Mr. Chowdhury took up the post of Headmaster of Nagari High School, in Nagari village, Birbhum, West Bengal in 1953. Joining as the headmaster, he was one of the founding personnel the school had and devoted himself to building the institution, from grounds up, brick by brick.

The school was built to provide education to children of families in and around the village, primarily from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Class backgrounds. Mr. Chowdhury pushed extensively for the right to education of these marginalised groups all through his teaching life.

In Birbhum, he now found the soil he would toil the rest of his life – as a political worker, teacher and tireless advocate of rights of tribals and the underprivileged.

The Land Reforms Act of India (1955) and its subsequent amendments stated that all sharecroppers (bargadars) would have permanent use rights on land that they had leased and that such rights would be inheritable. Such incumbency rights could be claimed as long as sharecroppers paid the legal share of the crop to their landlords or did not leave the land uncultivated or unless the landlords wished to take back the land for personal cultivation. Landlords routinely used the personal cultivation clause to evict tenants.

Additionally, a tenant would have to formally register his/her status (as a tenant) with the government. But few tenants registered, as they faced potential intimidation from landlords, the removal of other forms of support such as consumption credit, and the prospect of a long and arduous legal battle if anyone wanted to dispute an eviction.

Given this imbalance, landlords regularly exploited their tenants, either evicting them just before harvest season, or giving them a lower share of produce than they were entitled to. In addition, they often refused to give loans or charged extremely high rates of interest on loans taken for agricultural investments by the bargadar. In such a context, 1967-68 saw massive movements in West Bengal for rights of tenancy of the bargadars.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], the main Communist party in India after 1965, as well as the Party Mr. Chowdhury aligned with, became the primary conduit of the movement.

The Land Rights movement reached Birbhum in 1975. Nagari village, the centre of Communist activity in the district, saw the murder of Bibhuti Bagdi, a bargadar, by forces of the local feudal family. Mr. Chowdhury led the resistance of the peasants under the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), the peasant wing of the CPI(M).

The success of the land reforms following the Left Front government formation in 1977, and its consequent impact on improving labour relations and agricultural productivity in Birbhum, was largely thanks to the efforts of the CPI(M) and Mr. Chowdhury in it.

The Naxal movement of 1970-71 brought the additional challenge of protecting schools, especially in villages. The Naxals targeted schools in rural areas, given a large section of the CPI-CPI(M) workers had helped in building them. Mr. Chowdhury led the way in defending not just Nagari High School but also schools in the neighborhood often leading protective vigils outside schools through the nights.

Mr. Chowdhury assumed the responsibilities of the Birbhum District Secretary of CPI(M) in 1985. He held the position till 1987.

He also took over as the President of the All Bengal Teachers Association (ABTA) in 1985, staying in the post till 1993.

Mr. Chowdhury was also the President of the Birbhum School Board from 1978 to 1989. During his tenure, he tirelessly engaged himself in building new schools for the marginalised people in the district.

Arun Chowdhury devoted most of his life to the service of the Communist movement in Bengal and in helping the socially oppressed. Building schools, writing histories, kindling lamps in houses with none; Mr. Chowdhury was a soldier dedicated.

In addition to his party political activities, Arun Chowdhury was a scholar of regional history and folk culture. He was also an ardent proponent of tribal rights, history and culture. He pushed for recognition and integration of tribal languages, scripts and history within Government affiliated curriculum in West Bengal.

In 2008, Mr. Chowdhury retired from the State Committee of CPI(M) West Bengal, due to age related illness. Devoting his time to writing, documenting and reading thereon, Mr. Chowdhury breathed his last on 18 th June 2015.

The Arun Chowdhury Memorial Trust, built after his death, is devoted to the cause of enabling economically and socially marginalised people, through education and other socially productive endeavours. It organises annually a lecture on issues of social and political relevance.