Baldev Singh Mann

Baldev Mann was a left-wing activist of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) New Democracy. He was a state level leader of Kirti Kisan Union and the editor of Hirawal Dasta a revolutionary journal of the Naxalites. On 26 September 1990 he was killed by terrorists while on his way to his village, Bagga Kalan, in Amritsar district of Punjab. Sonia Mann, daughter of martyred comrade Baldev Singh Mann.

Baldev Mann was born on 9 July 1952. He was the son of Inder Singh. He lived in the village Bagga Kalan Tehsil Ajnala, Amritsar. He completed his primary education at the village school he matriculated from government high school at Raja Sansi.He then went to Khalsa College, Amritsar, where he had to face detention from the college during the time of 'the Emergency', and graduated in 1983.

While at Day College, he came in contact with the Communist Party of India (CPIML-ND). He organized young people in his village under the banner of 'Naujawan Bharat Sabha', a left-wing Indian association that sought to instigate revolution against the British Raj by gathering together workers and peasant youths. He turned it into a district-wide youth moment in Amritsar.

While at Amritsar he was held and tortured at Amritsar's interrogation center, but released in 1975.

Approximately two years before his death, Mann married Paramjit Kaur, with whom he had a daughter. She was one week old when he was murdered while on his way to his village, Chinna Bagga, in Amritsar.

He became actively involved in organizing the youth in his village under the banner of Naujawan Bharat Sabha and grew it to a district wide youth moment that spread all across the city of the Golden Temple.

Baldev Singh Mann led the drama troupe and waged a constant battle against the reactionary ideologies and cultural . The state was subjected too. He never shied away from confronting the brutality of the police head on, and voiced his dissent over the framing of innocent youths.

Following his interrogation in Amritsar he was released in 1975 and cleared of all accusations, but he then plunged into the struggle for justice led by CPIML with great passion.

Baldev Singh Mann was killed while visiting his family. He had written her an emotional letter expressing his joy at becoming a proud parent and acknowledging the difficulties she would face in the social system into which she had been born. His letter expressed the duty he felt he had to perform in following his political and social beliefs. 'I am struggling for the birth of a social order in which the shackles that enslave human beings are broken to bits, where the oppressed can heave a sigh of relief.', he wrote.

He was prescient in foretelling of his own death during his struggle to help his people. He ended his letter as follows: "My darling daughter, these few words are my message to you in this moment of your birth. I hope you will accept them and try to act according to them. These few words are the foundation of your life, to build your dreams on. Your father."