Reminiscing about a great Leader Comrade NMS
Reminiscing about a great Leader Comrade NMS
Reminiscing about a great AIIEA who recently departed from us , we are awestruck as to what inspired his zeal for TU work - ideological or something more than that. Com NMS was known for his selflessness, unflinching commitment and tireless enthusiasm for trade union activities. He led AIIEA in the position of All India General Secretary and President since the tumultuous 1990s and into the dawn of 21st century when all sectors in the country were madly thrown open to the private sector in the name of LPG. Endowed with an extraordinary talent and impeccable communication skills, he used all his assets for the cause of Insurance employees movement. Many felt he was far ahead of his contemporaries in other sector TUs. Aiiea is arguably the first trade union in the country and even possibly in the whole world, which started preaching the importance of work ethics for it's workers along with the path of struggle for realization of demands. Honest day's labor was talked about in the seventies itself. Self imposed discipline and incorruptibility are part of persona of sizable number of aiiea's members and leaders at all levels. When the sector was thrown open to private competition in 1999, many started writing obituaries of LIC as it wouldn't be possible for the great organization to survive the onslaught of private players. If even today LIC stands like a colossus among all the Insurance corporations and is numero uno till today, it is only because of people like Comrade NMS' vision and foresightedness which prepared the Insurance employees and through them the organization itself for larger battles well ahead of time.
Some of us at Kumbakonam unit had the privilege to interact with the leader on quite a few occasions when he was on personal visits to the town in recent years. We had spent valuable time with him as he shared some of his experiences, thoughts and also interesting anecdotes. Some of them are recollected here.
Sacrifice
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Whenever we bring the subject of his extraordinary sacrifice at the personal level for the cause of aiiea and left movement in general, he always responded by saying that it was not at all a sacrifice since he was doing all the TU work happily with immense pleasure which brought satisfaction to his mind. He admonished us more than once not to say the word sacrifice again..
Natural monopoly
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He was interviewed along with former RBI Governor R N Malhotra for a debate on Insurance privatization and Comrade NMS used the term Natural Monopoly during the debate. A renowed
economist and former Governor R N Malhotra cockily reminded comrade NMS about the non existent term like Natural monopoly, Com NMS responded by saying, you may not find such terms in your economic books but if you would go and see the plight of poor people,you would then understand the term.And when Malhotra complimented Com NMS for being cool and unprovoked during interview, NMS gave a retort that he knew exactly on whose behalf Malhotra was getting provoked and as he was on the right path, he was sure that common people of this country would get provoked as their cause being espoused by him.
Pension struggle
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Almost all the Insurance employees know the important role played by Comrade NMS in the struggle for pension. He always reminisced about the pension struggle matters with full of brightness in his eyes. Due to the efforts he put in including an additional clause in the notification, LIC employees got a better deal and he also boldly argued for Pension option which his counterparts in the banking industry did not relish and he was openly abused and chided by them for that. But after many years when it was clear that Com NMS stand was vindicated and LIC/GIC employees got a better deal in wage revisions subsequently, far better than PSU banks, he was a little remorseful that the same people who took potshots at him in print earlier did not care to register regret even personally.
On God and religion
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With the ascendancy of religious chauvinism in the country in the recent days, it will be of some interest
to see the views of Com NMS on the religious nature of masses and suffering people who pray and worship God/Gods. In his last few years, Comrade used to accompany his wife for all her temple visits. he used to say candidly that he wanted to make up for the lost time when he was away from home on many occasions to attend to trade union activities. Though he was an atheist at a personal level, he respected the people who believed in God and he used to say that prayers were the only solace for common men and women who suffer day in day out in life. He also said that the faith in god and prayer keep them afloat with a faint hope for future.
Promise to Comrade Sunil Maitra
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In one of his brief sessions, Comrade Nms would tell us about the promise he made to Comrade
Sunil Mitra who was one of the towering leaders of AIIEA at that time. Comrade Sunil wanted Com NMS to give a pledge by placing his hand on his head that he would never go on promotion abandoning the movement. Com Sunil told him that he was taking that extra precaution as South Indians were not to be trusted fully and this promise on his head would probably act as a deterrent. Those were early days. After that there was looking back for Com NMS in Insurance movement. He was the youngest
General secretary of the South Zone which consisted of all southern states those days. As he looked so young many would suggest to him to dye his hair to have a older person look to elicit more respect from the elderly comrades.
His views on work ethics vis a vis proletariat revolution
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. All of us in aiiea know the aiiea leadership's views on the importance of giving a honest day's labor every day in office. But there were some intensely revolutionary comrades who were never convinced by any sort of argument for this view. When Com Nms encountered one such a Comrade (in Bengal unit) who was not for doing any work for the employer as everything was done for the bourgeois society and he considered it would be worth nothing before proletariat revolution. Com Nms tried to make him see reason by saying that before the onset of any kind of revolution, we have to justify the wages we are getting paid by doing our job honestly and only such an attitude will sustain the organization. And without a successful organization, there is no path ahead.
Spiritual zeal
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Let's go to the first line of this write up- what would have made Comrade NMS work for the
movement of Insurance employees throughout his entire journey of life? Many pages have been written on his achievements during his stewardship of the movement like handsome wage revisions, Pension benefit, struggle against privatization, his style of carrying the employees from different regions and backgrounds. When we talk about a selfless person like our Com Nms, we are reminded of Karl Marx's idea that happiest man is the one who has made the greatest number of people happy and in the same essay he also says that religion also advocates the same as ideal living. A man like Comrade NMS's commitment for working for the sake of others would have been largely influenced by this Marxist perspective and I think this Marxist conviction of living for others would have been the driving force throughout his life. As commented by the great leader many a times, he always felt happy and enjoyed whatever he did towards common objectives and said that no one should call it a sacrifice as it would be a misnomer.
Comrade NMS was driven not just by Marxist collectivism ideas alone, he also might have been somewhat influenced by ancient Indian spirituality albeit in a different way. Here,the word spirituality is used only in the sense of rising above oneself without getting distracted by selfish motives.
True tribute to a great man like Comrade NMS would be to emulate his ideals and rise above the narrow mindedness, selfishness and parochialism which the comrade transcended in his life time. That was the
reason why he is loved throughout the length and breadth of this country. May his tribe increase.Long live Comrade NMS' spirit of life.
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