Bishnu Chattopadhyay

Bishnu Chattopadhyay alias Bistu Thakur (April, 1910 – April 11, 1971) was a Bangladeshi politician who was killed in the Bangladesh Liberation war. He was an Indian independence activist and leader of the peasant movement. He provided leadership to the Tebhaga movement that developed in the 1940s in undivided Bengal.

On 11 April 1971, he was brutally murdered by the Rajakar and Muslim League agents at the time of Bangladesh Liberation War.

Chattopadhyay was a man of versatile talents. He made night school for the peasants and adult education center, Lokshikkha Sansad under Visva-Bharati University. He had experience with agricultural science and veterinary treatments. In 1969 he also published a collection of his articles named Mehanati Manush.

Chattopadhyay constructed the Shovana dam over the Shakhabahi river and Nabeki dam organising thousands of farmers in front of the goons of landlords and police forces. In 1940 in his leadership 21 thousand acres land were distributed to the landless people. Chattopadhyay became a heroic figure of the peasant uprising in Dumuria, Batiaghata area and Khulna District. His name itself became myth to the common people. He was popularly known as Bishtu Thakur. He organised peasants conference in 1939 and 1944 covering two districts. In Maubhag area a regional peasant conference was also organised by him in 1946. After and before partition of Bengal (1947) he remained under preventive detention and tortured for 24 years of his life. In Khulna jail, one of his fellow inmates was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the future President of Bangladesh.

While working in Khalispur Swaraj Ashram, Chattopadhyay was first arrested in 1929 in connection with a case of political dacoity. But released without having evidences. He participated in Civil disobedience movement and detained in Bengal Criminal Case Act on 2 May 1930. In next three years of imprisonment he became influenced in Marxism by the communist leaders like Bhabani Sen, Pramatha Bhaumik and Abdur Rezzak Khan. Soon after the release he became a member of Communist Party of India and started work as a peasant organiser.