Jagmohan Singh, a veteran communist revolutionary from Punjab left us on January 5 after a prolonged fight against cancer in the hospital. Hundreds of readers and supporters of revolutionary magazine Surkh leeh, the communist revolutionary publication he served to the last, congregated n Bathinda for his last rites. He was saluted with raised fists by all the present and his body garlanded and wrapped in red flag which was carried to the cremation ground which reverberated with revolutionary slogans. Prominent figures from Communist revolutionary camp, revolutionary mass movement and democratic rights’ movement expressed their feeling of solitude and reverence3 for the departed revolutionary.
I can never forget my meetings with Jagmohan, who I first met on my first visit to Punjab in January, 2012. Simplicity, humility and down to earthedness marked his character.
I express untold admiration for his unflinching spirit in times of setback, to withstand the wrath of ruling classes, and abided by Marxist and revolutionary positions, not withering away from revolutionary practice. He was a living example to the youth of abiding with or functioning within the framework of revolutionary discipline.
During the revolutionary life of decades, Jagmohan served the Communist revolutionary movement in different pockets and spheres of its activity in Punjab. A congregation is going to be organised in mid-January to commemorate the memory Jagmohan and to highlight his everlasting contribution to serve the peoples’ cause.
Baptism in Communist Movement
Jagmohan Singh established link with CR movement during student life while pursuing his MBBS degree in Rajindra College Patiala. Communist revolutionaries like Jagjit Singh Sohal, Daya Singh, Thana Singh and Mukhtiar Singh Poohla moulded the revolutionary path of his life in early seventies. Through protracted process of discussions with CRs, he was soon able to identify what he diagnosed as the correct stream of communist revolutionaries practising the revolutionary mass line. He played an integral role in the historic students’ mass movement in 1972, popularly known as “great Moga struggle”.
Contribution to Health
After a very short tenure in job as an MBBS doctor, he took recourse to professional revolutionary life. He applied his knowledge of medical science to enhance or fuel the revolutionary movement. He adhered to the requirements of fellow CR activists, activists of mass organisations and their family members with respect to health care and attention. He was always ready to accompany fellow comrades to hospitals for treatment, and also adopted responsibilities for their nursing.
Achievements of socialism in sphere of health care impressed Jagmohan as a model of it’s superior human essence. Jagmohan took pains to study and apply health methods devised from former Socialist states like Soviet Russia, China or Cuba. As a revolutionary journalist he translated and wrote a number of writings for the special column “Human health and Socialism” in “Surkh leeh”. The co-relation of human health and social systems remained his specialised subject for the columns of “Zafarnama”, “Jantak leeh” and “Surkh leeh” as well. Most lucidly his writings established he co-relation of the rise of globalisation and privatisation with the demeaning of basic health.
Defence of Marxism-Leninism -Mao Thought
At significant junctures of ebb and flow in Communist movement, Jagmohan Singh always strived to locate and stand by in the ranks of correct trends. At the time of international debates regarding the infamous “Three World Theory”, he supported the Harbhajan Sohi document “In Defence of Mao-Tse-Tung Thought”. He invested every ounce of his energy in administering the printing and distribution of literature of Surkh Leeh publication literature to propagate revolutionary democratic among democratic circles.
Most diligently, Jagmohan assimilated the path of Mao Thought, to apply it to the day to day burning issues of the masses of Punjab, and wedge the link between the landed jat peasantry and the landless dalit peasantry. He meticulously worked on articles defending the backbone of Marxist-Leninist ideology and exposing feudalism, capitalism and imperialism at it’s hardest point. He firmly abided by the path of late Harbhajan Sohi, which had it’s genesis in the line of Tarimela Nagi Reddy. Jagmohan worked assiduously to fulfil the task of compiling the writings of late Harbhajan Sohi, an architect of the Communist Revolutionary movement in Punjab. He repeated the same in publications upholding the contribution of late Thane Singh. Finally, during the farmers protest in 2020-21, with unflinching resilience he defended the bastion of revolutionary democracy against the neo-fascist nature of farmers bills introduced by BJP.
Role in journal ‘Surkh Leeh’
I was first handed witness to his dedication at peasant, agricultural and mass revolutionary rallies in managing the sales of the Communist revolutionary journal,’Surkh Leeh’, which earlier functioned in the name of ‘Surkh Rekha.’ With an iron fist he would wave the flag of revolutionary democracy and banner of Marxist ideology. His tenacity or consistency played an integral role in ‘Surkh ‘leeh’ being published so regularly and ever consistently giving credibility to revolutionary democratic Movements and ideology of Marxism Leninism-Mao Thought. For over 4 decades the paper has relentlessly been a weapon to pose challenge to the autocratic social order of Punjab, nefarious religious fundamentalist politics, monopoly of exploiter classes, and played role of a prop to the revolutionary peasant movement. Jagmohan was instrumental in steering it’s course from the dark days of Khalistan movement of 1980’s, to current era of globalisation. Very had to visualise how ’Surkh Leeh’ would have survived without the support of Jagmohan.
Harsh Thakor is a freelance journalist
