A. K. Roy

Some Lesser Known Facts About A. K. Roy

• A. K. Roy belonged to an anti-British activist family in then East Bengal (now Sapura, Rajshahi District, Bangladesh).

• After completing his formal education at the Calcutta University, Roy began working as a chemical engineer at the industrial house of Kolkata.

• He worked there for 3 years before becoming a Research Engineer at Projects and Development India Limited in Sindri, Dhanbad, Jharkhand.

• While working as a research engineer, he worked under an Indian scientist Dr Kshitish Ranjan Chakraborty.

• In 1966, he was imprisoned for participating in Bihar Bandh in protest against police firing on agitating students.

• In 1966, A.K. Roy took part in a protest against the coal industry for exploiting the Coal and Mine workers which led to him losing his job.

• Later, he joined the trade union, managed the Bihar Colliery Kamgar Union (BCKU), and began a movement against private Coal mine owners.

• After he lost his job, A. K. Roy joined the Communist Party of India (Marxism).

• In 1967, he contested and won the Sindri Assembly seat of Bihar as a Communist Party of India (Marxism) candidate.

• In 1971, he was expelled from the Communist Party of India (Marxism). Later, he formed his own party, Janwadi Kisan Sangram Samiti.

• In the early 1970s, he converted the Janwadi Kisan Sangram Samiti to the Marxist Coordination Committee (MCC).

  

• In 1973, Roy formed the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, a regional political party in Jharkhand, along with Binod Bihari Mahato and Shibu Soren.

  

• A. K. Roy is often described as a Marxist with Gandhian values.

• A. K. Roy built a one-room office for the Marxist Coordination Committee with an old table and two wooden chairs and consisting of old books and reading material.

• In 1971, along with Shibu Soren, Roy began demanding a separate state from Bihar, which came into existence on 15 November 2000 as Jharkhand.

• In 1975, A. K. Roy was one of the founders of the JP movement of Bihar and was the first to resign from his membership of the Bihar Assembly.

• A. K. Roy contested and won the Lok Sabha Elections thrice from the Dhanbad constituency in undivided Bihar in 1977, 1980, and 1989.

• He was also a 3-time winner of the Bihar Legislative Assembly Elections from the Sindri Constituency in 1967, 1969, and 1972.

• In 1989, he opposed the increase in pension and perks for the MP’s in-country; however, his proposal was defeated.

• During his political life, Roy was arrested and imprisoned four times. In 1980, he was arrested under the National Security Act.

• A.K. Roy donated all his pensions as a former Member of the Parliament to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.

• A. K. Roy published many articles including Azadi ki Ladai ab Majdoor varg ko hi Ladni hai (‘Now the working class must engage in the war for freedom’), Manmohan Singh Ke Bharat me Bhagat Singh ki Khoj (‘In Search of Bhagat Singh in Manmohan Singh’s India’), and Ampradayikata, Kshetriyata, Algavvad ki samasya par ek Marxvadi Vivechan (‘A Marxist analysis of problems of communalism, regionalism, and separatism’).

• During the last years of his life, he lived at a fellow party worker’s house, which was 17 km away from Dhanbad.

  

• On 21 July 2019, A. K. Roy passed away due to old-age-related illness and multi-organ failure at a local hospital in Dhanbad, Jharkhand.