India - A tribute to our departed comrade Satnam

April 30, 2016

By Buta Singh

People in the jungle don’t know who Nehru was, or what happened in 1947. Nor do they know about the change of rule from the Whites to the Browns. For them, “Dilli” (Delhi) is only a word associated with the government, and to them, the government means greedy contractors, repressive police, displacement and harassment.” These are words of Gurmeet Singh, famously known as Satnam taken from his beautifully observed travelogue of the forests of Bastar, named Jangalnama following which he came to be known as Satnam Jangalnama. Satnam, who hailed from a backward family of Amritsar, was a man of revolution, a creative writer, and a sensitive human being, who spent more than four decades of his life struggling for a better world, for better humans, and a better life. Satnam left his graduation in second year in 1970s under influence of Naxalite movement and dedicated his life for the cause of revolution by becoming a professional revolutionary. He worked as a lathe man, a foreman, and as a daily wage worker among working class to organize them. He also worked among religious minorities, dalits, oppressed nationalities, and played a pivotal role in collaboration of different Muslim democratic organizations after Gujarat genocide 2002. He was also a member of executive committee of People’s Democratic Front of India (PDFI), and Mumbai Resistance 2004. He consistently opposed state’s atrocities on people of Kashmir, and launched a campaign against Operation Green Hunt at all India level. Satnam wrote in Punjabi and English equally beautifully, and wrote under various names in revolutionary magazine ‘People’s March’. He also remained an active member of editorial boards of  magazines like ‘Sulgde Pind’, ‘Lok kafla’, ‘People’s Resistance’, and ‘Jan Pratirodh’, and ‘Jaikara’

Satnam ended his life at his residence on 28th April, 2016 in Patiala, struggling with our society’s complicated relations mainly and also movements’ complexities, and weaknesses of revolutionary movement. He will always be remembered as an innovative writer, a vigilant social scientist, a dedicated worker and at the same time, a critic of weaknesses of revolutionary movement. Satnam was a multitalented person who could argue about society and science, about poverty and stars, about revolution and big bang, about Marx and Einstein, about history and time machine, and about future and black holes equally well.

Friends, we are gathering on 8th May, 2016 at Community Centre (Opposite Radha Krishna mandir, Model Town) Patiala at 11:00 a.m. to pay a tribute to our dear comrade, guide, revolutionary, life scientist, and more than anything, a beautiful human being, Satnam.