Sunil Mukherjee (16 November 1914 - 30 March 1992)[1] was an Indian politician and leader of Communist Party of India. He was the founder secretary of Communist Party of India Bihar unit.
He was born on 16 November 1914 in the town of Bhagalpur, Bihar and Orissa Province at his maternal uncle's house. His childhood was spent in Munger. His father Nirapada Mukherjee was a pleader, later settled down in Munger, becoming a workers’ andCongress leader. Sunil got admitted in 4th class in 1921-22.
Sunil's uncle Tarapada Mukherjee,who worked in post office and was a firm nationalist and anti-British, deeply influenced him. Tarapada resigned from his post and began towork in workers’ union. After his death Sunil's father Nirapada changed completely and joined the Congress after resigning his post. He decided to give everything to Congress and for freedom. He wasarrested in 1930. Later he became parliamentary secretary and a minister in Congress governments and fought many elections, winning all.
Sunil's mother came from the family of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, who was her uncle.[1]
Yugantar Party ofBengal had a group inMunger also, andlocated Sunil. Shyama Prasad Majumdar ofYugantar used to meetSunil. It consisted of suchpeople as Binod BehariMukherjee, Anil Moitra,Gyan Vikash Moitra, Jwala Singh etc. Most ofthem were to becomefounders of CPI in Bihar.At the time they used togather arms andammunitions. Theythrew bomb on Mungerpolice station; Sunil waswith them. Majumdarsupplied books andliterature and they readabout Russian and Irishrevolutions. Sunilbecame a firmrevolutionary and amember of YugantarParty in 1929, when hewas a student of Matricin Munger Zila School.
At the same time Suniljoined the Congress toescape arrest. He didseveral undergroundassignments for theCongress between 1930and 1932. Illegalhandbills and pamphletswere brought out from the underground pressacross the Ganges innorth Munger fromGogri village. They usedto run an Ashram also.In 1930 mother shiftedto a small house afterNirapada Mukherjee wasarrested. Yugantarassigned Sunil to acquirearms. There was a gunfactory in Munger, whereattempts were made toacquire some pistols,revolvers etc, to be sentto Calcutta.
Sunil Mukherjee attended the Congress session held in Delhi in1932, in semi-legal conditions. Delegates and workers began to bearrested soon after arrival.
Sunil took 11 delegates to Delhi, with himself as delegate.They were instructed toreach Chandni Chowk at9 am and begin readingthe document.Thousands reachedthere and began to readthe document. They wereattacked with lathis andbayonets. A largenumber were injured.They were taken to CampJail outside the city andwere kept interned therefor two months.
After release Sunil reached Calcutta and took admission in Rippon School in Matriculation. His hostelroom became the centreof revolutionaryactivities. He wasarrested in the‘Cornwallis StreetShooting Case’ in theearly 30s. DineshMajumdar was hangedin the case. But Sunil gotbenefit of doubt and wasreleased.
Anderson was theBengal governor andCharles Tegart the policecommissioner, a terror.Sunil was arrested fromhis uncle's house. He wasbadly beaten for daystogether, was put on iceslabs, nails were driveninto his fingers and manyother forms of tortureswere applied on him. Hewas then shifted toPresidency jail and detained in a solitary cell.
There he met many prominent personsincluding the famous Gopal Haldar. They got engaged in political andideological rethinking. They tried to understand Russian revolution,Bolshevik Party and Lenin. Abdul Halim and Muzaffar Ahmed contacted them.
Sunil was kept in thesame room as Bhupesh Gupta, the future CPIleader. They remainedtogether for full fouryears, which was toprove decisive forSunil's life. They studiedMarx's Capital, Lenin'sState and Revolution andother literature. Thiswent on till mid-1934.
Sunil joined the ‘Communist Consolidation’ formedin the jail. Sunil becameregular in Marxiststudies. In 1937, he wassent to ‘villageinternment’ to a villagein Phulwaria policestation in Mymensingh(now in Bangladesh). Hepassed his Matric thereat the special examcentre. He passed his IAin first class.
After release Suniltook admission in PatnaUniversity in Patna. Hestayed at the residence ofBihar chief minister Shri Krishna Sinha. Congresshad formed the ministryafter 1937 elections.Sunil's father was hisfriend. At first he wasdenied admission butthe chief minister gotangry and pressed for it.
He got admission in the department of Economics. His head Dr Gyanchand admitted him soon after learning about his revolutionary exploits!
In Patna Sunil came in contact with Ali Ashraf, the AISF leader, Jagannath Sarkar and others.
A Peasant-Worker-Student League wasestablished in Munger in 1938, headed by Ratan Roy, one of the founders of party in Bihar.
At first SunilMukherjee wanted to goto Calcutta, but wasinstructed not to. Hestarted an agency for thecentral organ theNational Front. P. C. Joshiasked Sunil to come toGaya to kisan conferencein 1939 and asked him tobegin preparations forparty formation in Bihar.
Sunil was soon calledto Bombay for 3-monthtraining in Marxismmeant for partysecretaries. A widerange of subjects weretaught. Besides P. C. Joshi,lectures were deliveredby Gangadhar Adhikari, Ajoy Ghosh and R. D. Bhardwaj. The famous historian R. C. Majumdar was present. P. Krishna Pillai from Kerala and Chandrasekharan from Andhra were also present.
On return in July, Sunilbegan preparations forfoundation of CPI. Withthe outbreak of SecondWorld War in September 1939, the relationsbetween CSP and CPIreached a breaking pointdue to differences ininterpretation.
After mutualconsultations, a meetingof available comradesheld in Munger on20 October 1939attended by 20 (twenty)comrades. Versionsregarding the numbervary but this is the mostaccepted one. It was heldin a small housebelonging to elder sisterof Sunil Mukherjee at thebanks of the river Ganga(the Ganges). It was theday of Dusshera, whichwas a good cover. R. D. Bhradwaj attended onbehalf of CC CPI. Fouramong the twenty weregiven candidatemembership, the rest fullmembership. A five-member ProvincialCommittee (PC) wasformed, consisting of:Sunil Mukherjee(secretary), Ali Ashraf,Rahul Sankrityayana,Gyan Vikas Moitra andBinod Mukherjee.
The meeting included some of the future famous names such as Sunil Mukherjee, Ratan Roy, Shiv Bachan Singh, Rahul Sankrityayana,Vishwanath Mathur etc.
The party in Biharannounced itself on26 January 1940, theIndependence Day. Itdistributed handbillsand pamphletsdescribing its aims offreedom, class struggleand struggle againstimperialism and fascism.A large number ofstrikes took place inDalmianagar, Giridih,Patna, etc. Newspapersnoted that a new, red,star had risen over Bihar.The Statesman ‘warned’against the danger from this new ‘menace’, whichmust be crushed quickly.Sunil Mukherjee, AliAshraf and Rahul werearrested in March 1940. InJune about 50 werearrested. Themembership had risenmore than 50 by this time.Sunil Mukherjee wassent to BhagalpurCentral Jail.
He was sent along with 15 othersfrom Bihar to the infamous Deoli Camp Jail in 1940 along with Ali Ashraf, Rahul, etc. Chandrama Singh, a revolutionary whobecame Communist, alsowas there. Othersincluded Yogendra Shukla, Surya Narayan Singh (Socialist) etc.Sunil Mukherjee was putup in Camp Number II(two). FamousCommunist leaders likeS. A. Dange, Ajoy Ghosh,R. D. Bhardwaj, Soli Batlivala, S. V. Ghate, Dhanwantri and others were there.
Sunil Mukherjee wasalready ill when broughtto Deoli. He was taken toAjmer for appendixoperation under guardby Garhwal Regiment. Dr Young treated him.
He was released in July1942 after treatment inPMCH, Patna.Provincial Party officewas set up in KhazanchiRoad, Patna.Processions of August1942 movement werepassing through thestreets. Partymembership rose to 336by beginning of 1943.People had begunjoining the party. He wasclosely associated withSwami Sahajanand Saraswati, later generalsecretary of AIKS,helping him politicallytrain up cadres of AIKSduring 1942-44.
Karyanand Sharmajoined CPI in 1940.Swami Sahajanand wasangry. He told SunilMukherjee: You aretaking away my cadres!Sunil replied that he wasonly training them forboth party and kisansabha. Swamiji agreed. Alarge number ofoutstandingpersonalities joined theparty during this period,such as Yogendra Sharma, Chaturanan Mishra, Bhogendra Jha, Gangadhar Das, Chandrashekhar Singh and many others. By 1944 the party had grown to 4000.
Party did much work during the Bengal famine of 1943-44 which had also affected Bihar severely.
Sunil Mukherjeeattended the firstcongress of CPI inBombay in May 1943. Healso worked in the TUfield in Jamshedpur,Dalmianagar, Giridihetc, helping build theparty.
At the beginning of1947, the party beganpublishing daily‘Janashakti’. SunilMukherjee marriedShibani Mukherjee, a finalYear medical student andparty member since 1946, inMay 1947.
He was sent to Dhanbad among the coal workers. All India Coal Workers Federation was organized with S. A. Dange as president and Sunil Mukherjee general secretary.
Party put up SunilMukherjee as candidatefor Assembly in 1962elections. He won by 7thousand votes. CPI won12 assembly seats. A LokSabha seat was also wonfrom Jamshedpur. SunilMukherjee was electedleader of CPI assemblygroup. He deliveredeffective speeches.
Split in the party in1964 did not affect itmuch in Bihar.[2]
There were severeriots in Jamshedpur in1964. The Tatas with thehelp of communal forcesorganized them. Theywere among the mosthorrible ones. SunilMukherjee, Kedar Das and others worked veryhard to restore peace.Sunil helped theauthorities to locate thecentres of communalelements wherefrom theyorganized the riots.
Sunil Mukherjee wasvery active during theanti-Congress wave ofthe 1960s. He and RamManohar Lohia werearrested in 1965. Manyleaders were beaten andarrested in Patna GandhiMaidan.
Samyukta Vidhayak Dal government was formed in 1967. Dr Lohiaoffered Sunil Mukherjeethe chief ministership,but the latter declined asthis would createcontroversy: SamyuktaSocialist Party (SSP) wasthe biggest party in thecoalition. Meetings of theSamyukta Vidhayak Dal used to be held atSunil Mukherjee'sresidence. It was he whoconveyed the decision tomake Mahamaya PdSingh the CM: he washappy beyond words!There were proposals tomake Sunil Mukherjeetoo a minister but herefused.
He was the leader ofCPI group in Assemblyin 1962-67 and 1969-77.He was leader ofopposition during 1973-77.
Sunil Mukherjee waselected secretary of BiharCPI after Bhatindacongress (1978), from1978 to 1984. He wasmember of centralexecutive committee(CEC) of CPI from 1978 to1984. Earlier he was alsoCC member in unitedparty.
He died on 30 March 1992, after prolonged illness.