Friends look forward to more writings, debates

KOLKATA:THE release of top Maoist ideologue Kobad Ghandy, once a classmate of Sanjay Gandhi in the Doon School and reportedly a postgraduate from Harvard University, has brought cheers among his friends and associates.

“He is likely to come to Mumbai after spending a few days in Hyderabad. Ghandy’s release is good news for Indian civil liberties movement. It was long overdue,” said Bernard D’mello, a former associate of Ghandy.

“He is a top Maoist intellectual. He continued his intellectual exercises even when in jail, writing for reputed publications, and now that he is out of bail and will get much better access to books, I hope he will pursue his intellectual activities with greater devotion. I hope to intellectually engage with him once again,” said Varavara Rao, a Maoist ideologue who is also a Telugu poet and an ex-professor.

The 66-year-old was a politburo member of the banned Cpi(maoist) at the time of his arrest from New Delhi in October 2009. He was slapped with as many as 20 cases across India.

“I am elated to hear Ghandy has won bail. We were close friends and worked together on many things. I was worried about his health. If my health permitted, I would have loved to go and meet him,” Purnendu Sekhar Mukherjee, a central committee member of CPI (Maoist) at the time of his arrest from Bihar in 2011, told HT.

At the time of his arrest, Ghandy was heading the Cpi(maoist)’s sub-committee on mass organisations and was in-charge of building urban networks. He also maintained the party’s international relations.

His wife, Anuradha, who taught sociology in a Maharashtra college before going underground, was the second woman member of the central committee. She died of cerebral malaria in 2008.

Ghandy, who hailed from an affluent family and studied at Elphinstone College, Mumbai, joined Naxalite politics in the late 1960s.

During the 1980s, he became one of the leading organisers of the newly formed Cpi(ml)(people’s War) group in Maharashtra.