বাংলা 
English 
Comrade Jasim Uddin Mondal (born 1922, died 2 October 2017) - a revolutionary of the fiery age, a lifelong struggling workers' leader, a member of the advisory council of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, a son of Daulatpur, Kushtia and a resident of the Mukti Mor area of Tengri, Ishwardi: the tireless orator and leader of the exploited, oppressed and deprived labouring people, Comrade Jasim Uddin Mondal.
Helal Uddin, general secretary of CPB Kushtia District, says: this foremost figure of the people's liberation movement was a member of the central Politburo of the Communist Party of Bangladesh and one of the organizers of the Liberation War. From head to toe he was a wise politician. A good orator, he fought all his life for working people, stood on the streets and served prison terms.
Comrade Jasim Uddin Mondal was born in 1922 at his maternal grandfather's home in Khalidaspur village of Daulatpur Thana of Nadia District (present-day Kushtia). His father was the late Haus Uddin Mondal and his mother the late Juhura Khatun. He began politics in Kolkata. He had an active role in the British-expulsion movement, the peasants' movement and the Tebhaga movement. During the great Language Movement, though he was in jail, his heart remained on the processions of the streets. In the Six Point movement of 1966, the mass uprising of 1969 and the great Liberation War of 1971, he was a devoted organizer. After independence, in the movement against the autocrat Ershad too, he played an active role in organizing working people. He served nearly 23 years in jail. He cherished in his heart, all his life, the political philosophy he held for realizing the demands of working people.
His father Haus Uddin Mondal worked for the railway. Through his father's job he lived in Sirajganj, Ranaghat, Parbatipur, Ishwardi and Kolkata. While living with his father in the Narkeldanga railway colony in Kolkata, at the age of only 13-14 he joined a procession and became involved in politics.
Around the middle of 1940 he joined the railway service at Sealdah on a monthly wage of 15 taka. Alongside his job he gradually became known as an activist of the red flag.
In 1940 he obtained membership of the Communist Party of India (CPI).
In 1941-42 Jasim Mondal received a promotion and became a second fireman.
In the railway workers' movement he was a colleague of Jyoti Basu. In the election of 1946 he took an active part in Jyoti Basu's election campaign for the railway seat.
After the Partition of the country in 1947, Jasim Mondal was transferred to Parbatipur and his father to Ishwardi. In 1949, when wheat was supplied instead of rice in the railway ration, warrants were issued against six leaders including Jasim Uddin Mondal for the crime of the railway workers' union's wheat strike. At one point the police arrested him and the railway authorities dismissed him from his job. In 1954 he was released. Some days after his release he was again arrested under the Security Act and sent to jail. At that time, after some days in Rajshahi jail, he was transferred to Dhaka Central Jail. In 1956 he was released. Around 1962 he was arrested again and released in 1964. During the Liberation War he went to Kolkata. There he played a pioneering role in the liberation of Bangladesh. In independent Bangladesh too he had to serve jail terms for the struggle for the all-round liberation of peasants, workers and labouring people.
In the great Liberation War of 1971, at the age of 51, Jasim Mondal played a wide-ranging role as an organizer and source of inspiration.
In 1973 he travelled to the Soviet Union.
In 1993 he was elected a member of the Presidium of the CPB.
In 2012 he was appointed an adviser of the CPB. He held this responsibility until his death.
Comrade Jasim Mondal was vice-president of the Bangladesh Railway Workers' Union and the Bangladesh Trade Union Centre. He was an adviser of the Bangladesh Garment Workers' Trade Union Centre.
Comrade Jasim Uddin Mondal was united in marriage with Jahanara Khatun Mariam in 1942. Comrade Mariam encouraged his political activities all her life. The Jasim-Jahanara couple were the parents of five daughters and one son.
The tireless orator Comrade Jasim Uddin Mondal breathed his last today, 2 October 2017, at the Health and Hope Hospital in Dhaka.
With humble respect and a red salute at the passing of Comrade Jasim Uddin Mondal - one of the foremost figures of the communist movement of the country and the leader of the railway protection movement - the leaders of the various political, social and cultural organizations of Kushtia, irrespective of party and faction, expressed deep grief. Expressing grief were the leaders of various organizations of the district including the CPB, BASAD, JASAD, Bangladesh Awami League, BNP, Bangladesh Chhatra Union, Jubo Union, Socialist Students' Front, Udichi Shilpi Goshthi and the Charan cultural centre.
Even a few days ago, Comrade Jasim Uddin Mondal, still aflame with the ardour of his youth at 91 years of age, had called for a sustained movement with the demand to protect and develop the railways as an environment-friendly, fuel-saving, safe and low-cost means of communication. At 11 a.m. on Saturday, 11 February 2012, he called a press conference in the Progati conference room of Mukti Bhaban on 2 Comrade Moni Singh Sarak.
The demands for protecting and developing the railway are given below:-
- Give the railway priority as an economical and environment-friendly mass communication system.
- Purchase and build new railway engines, bogies and wagons in large numbers, extend the railway lines, introduce electric railways.
- Improve the time-management and service of trains, fill the vacant posts, arrange improved training.
- Modernize the workshops and bring them fully into operation.
- Recover and maintain the railway's land, stop all kinds of corruption.
- Reduce distances by installing direct lines, introduce double lines everywhere.
- Introduce shuttle trains every half hour in the large cities and sub-cities.
- Repeal the 'downsizing policy' for the railway made on the advice of the World Bank and of local and foreign plunderers.
- Expand and improve the railway's links with the ports for the transport of goods.
- Ministers, MPs and officials should travel by rail, bus and launch instead of cars.
