IN the demise of Comrade Lahanu Kom on May 28, 2025, the CPI(M) and AIKS have lost one of their popular and versatile adivasi mass leaders. For several decades, Lahanu Kom was a state committee member and later state secretariat member of the CPI(M), and also state vice president of the AIKS. He remained loyal to the Red Flag all his Party life of 66 years. The 86-year-old leader leaves behind his wife Hemlata (a Party and AIDWA leader in her own right), a son, a daughter, and three grandchildren. 

FROM BHOODAN TO

COMMUNIST PARTY

Lahanu Kom was born on November 10, 1938 in an adivasi poor peasant family of Aagwan village in Dahanu tehsil in Palghar district. He completed his matriculation in Pune. Very few adivasis at the time were educated, and this stood him in good stead. He wanted to join college, but plunged into the massive Samyukta Maharashtra movement which was then raging through Maharashtra. He was briefly arrested in that struggle and that was the end of his higher education. He worked for two years as a primary school teacher in his Dahanu tehsil.

Lahanu Kom had a deep sympathy for the poor and landless, and this initially attracted him to the Bhoodan movement. He moved around with top Bhoodan leaders like Vinoba Bhave and Acharya Bhise, but soon became disillusioned. At that time, the Communist Party had considerable influence in the Dahanu, Talasari and adjoining tehsils, an influence which it retains even today. Thus Lahanu Kom joined the undivided CPI in 1959 at the young age of 20, soon became a wholetimer, and worked successively in the Dahanu, Jawhar and Talasari tehsils for over six decades. He grew up in the Party under the guidance of the legendary leaders Comrades Shamrao Parulekar and Godavari Parulekar.

Lahanu Kom gradually became a part of the collective leadership of the Party and AIKS at the district and state level, and of numerous intense class and mass struggles. He spent around five years in detention, first during the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, then from 1962-66 during the India-China conflict, and again during the Emergency from 1975-77.

Lahanu Kom was first elected to the Thane Zilla Parishad (ZP) in 1962 and was re-elected in 1967 and 1972. He was elected a Member of the Lok Sabha from the Dahanu (ST) seat in Thane district in the historic 1977 post-Emergency Parliamentary elections. Two more CPI(M) stalwarts from Maharashtra – Ahilya Rangnekar and Gangadhar Appa Burande - were elected to Parliament in 1977 from constituencies in Mumbai and Beed respectively. After that Lahanu Kom was elected thrice to the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha from the then Jawhar (ST) seat in the 1980, 1985, and 1990 elections, and remained an MLA till 1995. Both as MP and MLA, he was a member of the SC/ST/NT committee and for a time its chairperson. He consistently raised several peoples' issues and tribal issues effectively in both legislative forums.

PIONEER OF TRIBAL

EDUCATION  

Way back in 1962, Shamrao and Godavari Parulekar set up the Adivasi Pragati Mandal, the founder members of which were renowned progressive names in Maharashtra, like Acharya Prahlad Keshav Atre, Prabodhankar Keshav Sitaram Thakare (grandfather of Uddhav Thackeray), and renowned actor Balraj Sahni, who remained a staunch Communist till the end. Lahanu Kom was elected President of this body, and he remained so till his demise. With his initiative, the Mandal has built several schools, hostels, junior colleges and a senior college of Arts, Science and Commerce which is named after Comrade Godavari Shamrao Parulekar.

Bombay University initially refused permission to this college, but the then chief minister Sharad Pawar, recognising the importance of the spread of education in tribal areas, gave it permission in 1994. It was only after this that the university was forced to give it recognition. All these quality institutions in Talasari and Dahanu tehsils have a total strength of over 8,000 students, most of them poor Adivasi girls and boys. Lakhs of students have got good education here. Lahanu Kom was not only the pioneer of these institutions, but he also used to take the initiative to build the SFI in them.

PERSONAL

MEMORIES 

Many are the fond memories that I have of Lahanu Kom over the last 45-odd years. I first met him in the early 1980s when he was an MLA. In 1981 I was elected state secretary of the SFI in Maharashtra, and so he invited me to Talasari for a students’ meeting. I had heard and read about the famed Warli Adivasi Revolt and was excited about visiting that area. Then and later, in many SFI programmes in that area, I was struck by the sharp organisational acumen of Lahanu Kom, who was then in his forties. There was much to learn from him.    

Later, when working in the DYFI in the early 1990s, I had a similar experience. To attract adivasi youth, Lahanu Kom had started implementing a new idea. On October 1 each year, to mark the Chinese Revolution Day, he used to take the initiative in organising a large districtwide public meeting of thousands at Talasari. In that we used to explain the meaning of socialism, along with the current political challenges. After the public meeting and enrolment of DYFI membership, thousands of Adivasi boys and girls who had gathered used to begin their famous and traditional tarpa dance. That went on the whole night, and till dawn the next day! It was a lesson on how an organisation can be built up through cultural programmes! Successful youth struggles on concrete issues of employment were then conducted.   

In 1993, I joined the AIKS and shall always remember with pride that I was elected as an AIKS Thane district council member in the district conference held at Ashagad in Dahanu tehsil, in the presence of one of my idols Godavari Parulekar. It was the last AIKS conference that she ever attended. I then began working closely with the senior AIKS leaders of the district and the state – Krishna Khopkar, Lahanu Kom, and Laxman Dhangar (who is still quite fit at 96)! Many are the struggles that we all took up on behalf of the AIKS, against both the earlier Congress governments, and in recent years against the much more dangerous BJP regime.

Lahanu Kom was also a good Party organiser. Four bitter struggles had to be waged in Thane-Palghar district in 1975-77, 1997-98, 2006-09, and 2014-15. It will always be recorded that Godavari Parulekar (in the first struggle), and Lahanu Kom, Laxman Dhangar, Krishna Khopkar, Barkya Mangat, Ratan Budhar and several other comrades played a sterling role in protecting and strengthening the Party in all those struggles. That is precisely why the CPI(M) has won the Dahanu (ST) Vidhan Sabha seat in 10 out of 11 assembly elections held since 1978. Comrades here have tried to imbibe the Party’s principle, stressed many times by Godavari Parulekar, that however big a leader may be, the Party is still much bigger than him or her. Lahanu Kom was among those who always upheld that principle throughout his life.

Lahanu Kom’s wife Hemlata Kom has played a vital role in his life and work, and also as a comrade in her own right. She was earlier a member of the CPI(M) state committee, and was the founder President of the AIDWA in Thane-Palghar districts. She was elected as the Chairperson of the Talasari Tehsil Panchayat Samiti, and also as a member of the Thane Zilla Parishad. She has had a major contribution in the educational activities carried out by the Adivasi Pragati Mandal. Both of them led a simple life style, and they had an open house where activists were always welcome. Naturally, Hemlata has been worst affected by this great loss.

Our last respectful red salute to veteran leader Comrade Lahanu Kom!