Ambarish Rai dead

Comrade Ambarish Rai, a political and labour class activist, died of COVID 19 in Delhi today. According to his associates, he was among the victims of shortage of oxygen in the national capital.

Rai was associated with Indian People's Front, All India Central Council of Trade Union (AICCTU) and Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist [CPI(ML)] in the 1990s and later with All India People's Forum.

As a student and youth, Rai was with the All India Students’ Front (AISF) and Communist Party of India (CPI) in UP. He later joined the CPI(ML) and worked as a member of the party's UP State Committee for several years. In the last phase of his life, he gave up active political work and turned to social activism, focusing on land rights and the right to education.

According to his party colleague, Vidya Bhushan Rawat, “His death is an example of callousness and complete chaos in our health care system which is killing people. Ambarisji was active and was admitted yesterday where the hospital said that he is a COVID Suspect. His oxygen level was low and his friends and family took him to a hospital in Malviya Nagar, where the hospital suggested that he be taken to COVID special hospital. He was then brought to Ambedkar Hospital where the doctors wanted his COVID test report, before putting him on oxygen.”

“Ambarisji's death also reflect how helpless we all have become in the cities where we participate in all the social movements and speak about national issues. Big cities never really embrace people from outside. As long as you are 'alive' you are accepted, otherwise it does not care,” said a pained Rawat.

Rai on hunger and malnutrition issues in late 1990s and for the past one and half decade, he was associated with Right to Education Campaign. His colleagues remember him as a man of conviction, with pragmatic political understanding.