Legacy of Guha Niyogi Lives On

Bharat Dogra

Decades after his cruel and tragic assassination by those who had been clearly hired by very powerful persons, the legacy of Shahid (Martyr) Shankar Guha Niyogi lives on, inspiring more and more people. People across the country continue to be inspired by Niyogiji and the various efforts and institutions initiated by him like the Shaheed Hospital of Dalli Rajhara. This hospital that has helped to save tens of thousands of human lives was actually built by the voluntary work of iron ore miners and related workers (men and women) who raised all its walls. They contributed from their savings to buy equipment for hospital. If workers got a bonus, the hospital was sure to get enough share of it to buy much needed new equipment. When this writer was visiting the ‘hospital’ to report on this in those early days, it was operating from the union office but such great doctors like Dr Saibal Jana and Dr BinayakSen were already contributing to this effort. Subsequently they and so many others created this great institution. Very recently in a very remote village of Rajasthan Dr Vidit Panchal serving people with the same spirit. Earlier he had served in the Shaheed Hospital and such was the impact on him that at the end of his name he still writes ‘forever of the Shaheed Hospital family’.

While those inspired by Niyogiji more recently as well as his former close associates remember him with deep respect and affection on his martyrdom day (September 28), there is a need also to think more about his deep commitment to making his life an ever-continuing combination of struggles and constructive work. He was forever striving to apply ideas of justice in the specific context of the problems he found around him. While sometimes this took the form of a more familiar struggle of the trade union movement for rise in wages, at other times he and his co-activists were grappling with the more complex issues of saving jobs of miners and other workers from the relentless march of mechanisation. Here the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi were helpful for him and he also added further to them in the context of evolving an intermediate technology that saved the jobs of miners to a considerable extent while meeting some requirements of the management too.

Again, when additional wages of the workers were being squandered on liquor he led one of the most successful efforts of thousands of miners giving up liquor together on a single day. Niyogiji was on an indefinite fast for many days to achieve this.

Responding to the needs of protecting environment, Niyogiji was involved with protesting against pollution and with protection of forests.

He was involved also with improvement of education and vocational education. As the leader of a very successful trade union of miners, he became increasingly involved in many-sided struggles against injustice in surrounding areas and a branch of the emerging movement was also involved in perhaps the biggest and highly creative effort for the rehabilitation of bonded workers, facilitated by the decisions of the Supreme Court of India. 

Niyogiji could achieve so much in the middle of so many adversities within a few years because of his complete honesty, sincerity and commitment to the cause of justice and secondly, because of his ability to understand the location and time specific needs of people and to act in accordance with these needs. (News & pic courtesy : The Frontier)