Rich tributes paid to trade union leader Kedar Das on 42nd death anniversary

Jamshedpur: Trade union leaders and members paid rich tributes to late trade union leader Kedar Das on his 42nd death anniversary Sunday in Sakchi, Jamshedpur.

Today was the 42nd death anniversary of Comrade Kedar Das, a renowned labour leader of Jamshedpur and erstwhile Bihar.

To honour his memory, a tribute meeting was held at Jamshedpur’s Sakchi roundabout, attended by members of various labour organisations affiliated with different trade unions who paid their respects and pledged to uphold his ideals.

Comrade Kedar Das was a pivotal figure in the labour movement in Jamshedpur, and his name evokes a sense of trade union movement and leftist ideology of the erstwhile years.

He was born on January 4, 1913, in the village of Gurmaha in the Darbhanga district of Bihar, and died on February 19, 1961, in Jamshedpur.

He relocated to Jamshedpur for work and started working at Tinplate after staying with his elder brother, who was also employed by the company.

It was there that he met revolutionary Warin Dey and joined the agricultural labour movement alongside Professor Abdul Bari.

As the movement progressed, he leaned more towards peasant movement and when the AITUC was split, he handed over the union office key to Professor Abdul Bari.

Workers initiated protests under the leadership of the AITUC, and Kedar Das led a strike at TISCO in 1958.

Ali Amjad, Warin Dey, Nipen Banerjee, Satyanarayan Singh, Gurbaksh Singh, and Ramvtar Singh were among his notable comrades.

Following the movement, Kedar Das was also proclaimed wanted for arrest, dead or alive, and he managed to flee to the Bihar Assembly, where he was finally apprehended.