Statue of Legendary Communist Heroine Godavari Parulekar installed in Talasari College
Prachi Hatiwlekar
ON the 118th birth anniversary of the legendary Communist and Kisan heroine Godavari Parulekar, her statue was installed in the senior college at Talasari in the Palghar district of Maharashtra. The name of the college is Comrade Godavari Shamrao Parulekar College of Arts, Science and Commerce. The college was started 31 years ago in 1994. It is run by the Adivasi Pragati Mandal, which was founded way back in 1961, and which now also runs other junior colleges, schools and hostels in Talasari and Dahanu tehsils, with a combined student strength of over 8,000, most of them poor adivasi girls and boys.
Godavari Parulekar was, along with Shamrao Parulekar, one of the top leaders of the historic Warli Adivasi Revolt against landlordism from 1945-47 and one of the founders of the AIKS in Maharashtra at its first conference at Titwala in Thane district on January 7, 1945. She was a freedom fighter, the first woman law graduate in the state, a member of the CPI(M) Central Committee for 25 years, the first and only woman national president of the AIKS in its 90-year-old glorious history, and the first secretary of the Adivasi Pragati Mandal.
Her statue was jointly unveiled by veteran 97-year old CPI(M) and AIKS leader L B Dhangar, and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and AIKS national president Ashok Dhawale. A permanent exhibition of various cultural and artistic objects made by adivasis was also inaugurated.
Hundreds of students, teachers, Party members and other dignitaries attended this special function, which was well organised by the Adivasi Pragati Mandal.
The original idea of making and installing this statue was that of another veteran CPI(M)-AIKS leader Lahanu Kom, ex-MP and ex-MLA, who was also the first president of the Adivasi Pragati Mandal from 1961 till his demise at the age of 87 on May 28, 2025. He was fondly remembered on this occasion.
A large meeting on the occasion was held where the remarkable life and work of Godavari Parulekar was lauded, and a call was given to take forward her struggle against all forms of injustice, in defence of sovereignty, democracy, secularism, and for the ideal of socialism.
