Comrade IKS, or Professor Indra Kumar Shukla, passed away on September 17th at 3:00PM PST on a hospital near Long Island, Los Angeles after an innings he started on the 26th of May 1928. A long innings of 80 steeled him as a national compatriot of the Indian proletariat and a true internationalist.
Professor Shukla a scholar of Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Bangla and a professor of English in Allahabad University was a symbol of English writings in protest journalism. He grew younger with every passing year in his life. A never failing activist, a highly erudite intellectual, a compassionate comrade and a life long fighter for the cause of the people and the proletariat, Professor Shukla was an ardent supporter of CPI (ML) and the naxalbari movement. He raised his sole voice of protest against the repression of the peasants in Nandigram and Singur and in all recent repressions in India , Prof. Shukla’s pen never ceased to roar. He was a keen observer of CPI (ML)’s activities and still had his reservations against Stalin and even some of the communist big wigs. He however was very steadfast in supporting Comrade Charu Mazumdar. Prof Shukla followed from abroad very keenly the proceedings of the 8th Party Congress of CPIML-Liberation. He wrote in many left Indian journals and sent his comments against every kind of repression in the ever amazing linguistic style that he always had.
He chose to live among the workers of Long Island near Los Angeles and always shared his life with those inner city dwellings where normal Indian compatriots would never dare. He stuck himself there, raised his family and grand parents and involved them in workers’ struggles. A relentless fighter against every kind of obscurantism, racism, communalism and for rational thought he dedicated his 80 years of struggling life for the cause of Indian and world revolution.
We honor and respect with every fiber of our consciousness the duty and responsibility handed down by Comrade Shukla to us on the international basis! We learnt from him how to make the whole world his country and abode and how to belong to the people of the world! Prof Shukla lives on as he would ever in our works, in our struggles and in our consciousness toward the common objective of all the people of the world – A world for the workers and toilers!