From struggles to building institutions: Remembering Shankar Guha Niyogi

By Bharat Dogra 

Decades after his cruel and tragic assassination by those who had been clearly hired by very powerful persons, the legacy of Shankar Guha Niyogi lives on, inspiring more and more people, particularly youth. Wherever I go to remote areas in the course of my writing work, I come across highly committed and very creative people inspired by Niyogi and the various efforts and institutions initiated by him like the Shaheed Hospital of Dalli Rajhara. 

This hospital, which has helped 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 the hospital. If workers got a bonus, the hospital was sure to get enough share of it to buy much-needed new equipment. 

When I was visiting the hospital to report on this in those early days, it was operating from the union office, but such great doctors as Dr. Saibal Jana and Dr. Binayak Sen were already contributing to this effort. Subsequently they, and many others, created this great institution. 

Very recently, in a very remote village of Rajasthan, I found Dr. Vidit Panchal serving people with the same spirit. He told me that 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 Niyogi more recently, as well as his former comrades, remember him with deep respect and affection on his martyrdom day (September 28), there is also a need 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 a rise in wages, at other times he and his comrades were grappling with the more complex issues of saving jobs of miners and other workers from the relentless march of mechanization. Here the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi were helpful for him, and he added further to them in the context of evolving an intermediate technology that saved the jobs of miners to a considerable extent while also meeting some requirements of the management.

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. Niyogi was on an indefinite fast for many days to achieve this, once again coming close to the ideas and methods used by Mahatma Gandhi.

Responding to the needs of protecting the environment, Niyogi was involved in protesting against pollution and in the protection of forests. He was also engaged with improving education and vocational training. 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 most creative effort for the rehabilitation of bonded workers, facilitated by the decisions of the Supreme Court of India.

There are many important learnings from how these highly successful efforts were carried further. While reporting on almost all these initiatives during those days, I learnt much from them and even now, as I carry the message of anti-liquor struggles to almost all the villages I visit, I never forget to mention the great success achieved in this movement, and people still feel inspired by it.

In fact, I feel very blessed and fortunate that I could be a small and humble part of these struggles and achievements as a writer and reporter. I reported extensively on these struggles and constructive work in newspapers and whenever necessary brought out pamphlets and booklets on these issues. In the course of these efforts I received the affection not only of Niyogi but also of his family members and many of his comrades and colleagues, and I still cherish all these memories very deeply. 

I believe that Niyogi 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. Before emerging as a legendary trade union leader, he had spent years living and working with his people to understand them, their needs, and their strengths. This understanding later showed in his work and achievements.

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The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Man over Machine, A Day in 2071, Planet in Peril, and Protecting Earth for Children