ILPS salutes Dr. Chin Banerjee

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) salutes Dr. Chin Banerjee, an outstanding internationalist and advocate for social justice and democratic rights in India, who passed on July 29, 2020.

Chin was a founding member of the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD), one of the organizations that founded and became a member of the ILPS in the Netherlands in 2001. Beginning in 1975, Chin became a leader of the Indian People’s Association of North America (IPANA) and his commitment to the struggles of the peoples of South Asia for social and economic justice, and for genuine democracy, was lifelong.

As a stalwart internationalist and anti-imperialist Chin supported many other struggles, including the movement against U.S. war on Cambodia and Vietnam, the organizing of im/migrant farm workers in the 1980s, the climate justice movement, and in solidarity with Indigenous peoples’ struggle for land, sovereignty and self-determination. Even in ill health, Chin attended mobilizations and events supporting Palestine, the national democratic movement in the Philippines, and the Wet’suwet’en struggle to keep pipelines off their territory.

Chin was a teacher and mentor, not only to the students who came through his classes in his 35 year career as a university professor, but also to a generation of organizers and activists who had the opportunity to work with him and learn from him.

ILPS sends our condolences to Chin’s family, comrades and loved ones. We join you in celebrating the life of principle, dignity, commitment, and service that Chin lived.