Comrade Tapan Roy Chowdhury, Member, Central Committee, SUCI(Communist) breathed his last on 4th August at 1.55 pm at Calcutta Heart Clinic and Hospital where he was admitted for treatment of lung cancer and Covid 19 infection. He was 78.
Comrade Roy Chowdhury got associated with AIDSO way back in 1956 when he was a student. After playing an important role in students’ movement, he joined the SUCI(C). He was at the forefront of all the education-related mass movements including historic language movement as well as teachers’ movements that surged forth in West Bengal since the 1960s. He ably and commendably discharged his responsibility of organizing secondary teachers’ movement, first as General Secretary and then as President of ‘Secondary Employees and Teachers Association’ (STEA).
Later he played a very effective role as a leading organizer of the famous Singur-Nandigram movement. He was one of the principal founders of the ‘Forum of Artistes, Cultural Activists and Intellectuals’ which grew centring on the Singur-Nandigram movement. In all the mass struggles which developed in West Bengal during the rules of the Congress, CPI (M) and TMC, he played the role of a leading organizer. As member of West Bengal State Secretariat, he also discharged an important role in developing Party organization in the state. In the third Party Congress of the Party held in 2018, he was elected a member of the Central Committee. His wife is also connected with the Party and has been a leader of the Women’s Front of the Party. Other members of his family are also supporters of the Party. Before falling seriously ill, he stayed at the Party centre for a long time.
At his sad demise, the democratic movement of the toiling masses particularly education movement and teachers’ movement have lost a very competent leader.
