Pannalal Surana, one of the last pillars of Maharashtra’s socialist movement and Ex. President Of Rashtra Seva Dal is no more today, the movement has suffered a great loss.As a child, I had seen Pannalal Bhau at the branches and camps of the Rashtra Seva Dal. But my real introduction to him began in 1969, shortly after I arrived in Amravati for college. Within a few days, a postcard arrived from Pannalal Surana, Secretary of the Maharashtra Samyukta Socialist Party, saying, “If you have time, come to the Amravati bus stand at such-and-such time.” I went as requested, and found him already seated on a bench reading a book. After I arrived, he opened the briefcase on his lap, took out a packet of cigarettes, drew one for himself, then extended the packet toward me and offered me one as well. I said, “I don’t smoke.” He replied, “Don’t be shy; I also take one only once in a while.” I said that I do not like cigarettes, so I don’t smoke, though many of my college friends do. In this way began, in the truest sense, my meetings with a senior socialist who was more than 20 years older than me—meetings that continued for more than fifty-five years.During the Emergency we were underground together at several places, and also traveled some.
He used to move about then in very fashionable clothes and goggles. I even teased him that he was indulging his taste for clothes during the Emergency. He would just give a brief smile and remain silent. Because of censorship, as today, news criticizing the government was barred from publication in newspapers. So we prepared bulletins on cyclostyle machines and distributed them, and, much like in 1942, during the 1975–76 Emergency we also carried out some acts of sabotage that later came to be known as the Baroda Dynamite case. From secret meetings in Mumbai and Vidarbha to joining the movement for displaced laborers in the Manikgad area on the Maharashtra–Andhra border—people uprooted by the severe drought that struck Marathwada in the 1970s—to the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and from the short-lived experiment of the Janata Party back to the Rashtra Seva Dal, he was among my senior colleagues. Bhau, Pannalal Surana, was the only socialist leader who frequently came to Vidarbha to strengthen the party’s work, and he would often request that I accompany him to some places.At that time, seeing some books I had that were critiques of communist ideology, he told me, “First read Marxism, and only then read its criticism.” Because of that, at a meeting in Mumbai at Professor Pushpa Bhave’s house—organized to prepare for the Baroda Dynamite action and that went on for more than 15 hours during the Emergency—I stated that, despite my staunch opposition to the Emergency, in India it would be strategically wrong, from the perspective of warfare, to undertake any armed activities against governments like those seen in Vietnam or Chile–Cuba. With Pannalal ji’s support, I succeeded in holding my ground on this issue till the very end.
When Pannalal Bhau was President of the Rashtra Seva Dal in the 1990s, he stayed for a week at our home in Calcutta with Bhai Vaidya ji. Both kept urging me that since he wished to step down from the presidency of the Rashtra Seva Dal, he wanted to entrust that responsibility to me. I said that due to my work after the Bhagalpur riots, I could not take on any additional responsibility. For this, he even went to the trouble of having Vinatai Surana call our landline from Barshi to urge me. Although I did not accept the post then, more than twenty-five years later, with George Jacob’s health failing, I accepted the presidency in 2017. During that tenure, the greatest satisfaction came from making the orphanage “Aapal Ghar” in Naldurg, Osmanabad district—started by the Rashtra Seva Dal for children who lost their parents in the 1993 Latur–Killari earthquake—financially self-reliant. Through Pannalal Bhau’s tireless efforts, more than one crore rupees were raised, placed in a bank as fixed deposits, and the institution now runs on the interest. It was at this very place that Pannalal Bhau breathed his last. Heartfelt tributes to Pannalal Bhau.
Dr. Suresh Khairnar, 3 December 2025, Nagpur.
