Comrade Raj Bahadur Gaur passes away

Comrade Raj Bahadur Gaur, first generation Communist leader, veteran trade unionist, stalwart of the Telangana Armed Struggle and a champion of Urdu, passed away here on Friday morning. He was 93. He was rushed to a hospital with high fever and died while undergoing treatment. Doctors said the death was caused by sepsis.

Along with Makhdoom Mohiuddin, ‘shayar-e- inquilab', Dr. Gaur had formed the underground ‘Comrades Association' in 1939 and then the AITUC-affiliated All Hyderabad Trade Union Congress (AHTUC) in 1946, considered a revolutionary step in the pre-Independence princely State of Hyderabad. Mohiuddin was the president and Dr. Gaur, general secretary of AHTUC, that spawned and dominated the trade union movement scene for several decades. 

The two leaders played a key role in the armed rebellion against the Nizam's rule, landlordism and imperialism. Attracted by Communism early in life, Dr. Gaur, hailing from a Kayasth family, left the typical ‘Devdi' lifestyle of the old city of Hyderabad and took the plunge into a seemingly proletariat, land to the tiller, movement. Leftist ideology had such an influence on him that he settled down in a lower middle class colony in Chikkadpally in Hyderabad and named his spartan house, “Ek chameli ka mandva”, drawn from the popular verse penned by Mohiuddin. 

A trade unionist who fought for the rights of the working class, Dr. Gaur was an unrivalled leader of the workers/ employees unions of Singareni, APSRTC, public sector banks, Medical and Health Department and IDPL for a long time. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha member twice, the first time in 1952, when he was in jail.

Progressive rationalist

A die-hard lover and promoter of Urdu, a medium in which he completed his MBBS, he would often say it was his mother tongue, while English his “step-mother tongue”.

Donates pension

He was the president of the Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu and only last month donated Rs. 3 lakh he had received as arrears of pension (for being MP) to the Urdu Taleemi Trust for extending scholarships to needy students. Dr. Gaur has authored several books, including “Glorious Telangana Armed Struggle”, “Mulki Tangle: The Communist approach”, “Working class and Emergency” and “Makhdoom, a memoir”.

A progressive rationalist, Dr. Gaur willed that his body be handed over to Osmania Medical College for research. Several CPI leaders led by Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, deputy general secretary, and CPI (M) State secretary, B. V. Raghavulu, have condoled his death. 

(Courtesy : The Hindu)