Leader of the Oppressed People, Comrade Sheikh Bude!
(36th Death Anniversary of Sheikh Bude on November 4, 2024)
The prominent Marxist-Leninist leader, Comrade Sheikh Bude, passed away at the age of 60 due to a severe heart attack on November 4, 1988. He was affectionately known as Naxalite Bude or Tiger Bude. Comrade Sheikh Bude joined the Communist Party in 1948. After his father Meera Saheb passed away in Sheikh’s childhood, his mother took him and his siblings to her native place in Tenali from Narasaraopet. There, he learned tinkering and trunk-making from his maternal uncle Hasan Ahmed. Many Communist Party leaders used to visit Hasan Ahmed, and through this exposure, Comrade Sheikh Bude became acquainted with prominent communist leaders like Ravi Ammayya, Lavu Balagangadhar Rao, and Vangara Venkatasubbayya, which led him to join the Communist Party. In 1952, he married ImamBi in Guntur through his sister, and transferred his party membership from Tenali to Guntur. While working in the tinkering trade and managing his family life, he became an important Communist Party worker in the city, enhancing his ideological knowledge.
In 1964, during a split in the Communist Party, he became a member of the Guntur Marxist Party city committee. On May 25, 1967, the West Bengal government opened fire on tribal fighters in Naxalbari, leading to the death of 11 people, including two children. The incident caused a nationwide stir, and in Guntur, a committee in support of the Naxalbari struggle,Naxalbar solidarity committee was formed, with Comrade Sheikh Bude actively participating.
When the Srikakulam struggle intensified, revolutionary communists in Andhra Pradesh sought to expand similar struggles across the state. To support this, a party committee was established in Andhra Pradesh to expand class struggle. In 1968, on February 28 to March 2, a meeting in Guttikonda, Guntur District, was organized, which Charu Mazumdar, a leading figure of the Naxalbari struggle, attended. Prominent members like Chaudhary Tejeswar Rao, Panchadi Krishnamurthy, Y. Koteswar Rao,his wife Mani,Tippani venkatarao ,Aruna,C.k.narayanareddy,Dama chenchaiah,k.G.satyamurthy,kondapalli chandrasekhar, and Sheikh Bude and others were present. At the meeting, it was decided that Comrade Sheikh Bude, along with Mulpuru Venkataratnam, would oversee operations in the Visakhapatnam area. He was arrested by the police while working in the Chintapalli area of Visakhapatnam District. Despite severe torture at Chintapalli and Narsipatnam police stations, he steadfastly refused to disclose any party secrets.
He was implicated in the globally renowned Parvathipuram conspiracy case and endured five years in prison in Visakhapatnam alongside other comrades like Kolla Venkayya, Kanu Sanyal, and Nagabhushan Patnaik Bhuvan mohan patnaik.On October 8, 1969, he escaped from Visakhapatnam Central Jail along with 11 other revolutionaries. After his escape, he continued his work secretly among the rural poor and farmers. In early 1971, he was arrested by the police at an orchard near Chintalapudi-Vallabha Puram in Ponnuru Taluka based on information from an informant. Despite facing severe torture in police stations in Vinukonda, Narasaraopet, and Guntur for 40 days, he held firm, refusing to disclose any party secrets. Public protests erupted across the state, and CPI member Comrade Kanaparthi Nagayya questioned the Home Minister in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly about whether Comrade Bude was alive or had been encountered. The government had to acknowledge his arrest.
During the Emergency period, he was detained as a political prisoner. After his release, he played a crucial role in organizing peasant associations and protests for land reforms and against the Nallamada submergence project. He was actively involved in various workers’ movements, including city bus workers, jute mill workers, and B.A.T. workers. Until his passing on November 4, 1988, Comrade Sheikh Bude was dedicated to the. principled unification of revolutionary communists for establishing a socialist society in India.
With Revolutionary greetings,
Mannava Hari prasad,
26-10-2024
