Dr Kishore Kumar Theckedath, a rare and remarkable combination of a Marxist intellectual, organiser, and leader, passed away in Mumbai on the night of December 20, 2025 at the age of 89. He was a former member of the CPI(M) Maharashtra State Secretariat; a pioneer of the militant movement and organisation of college and university teachers in Mumbai and Maharashtra; a detenu for 15 months during the Emergency from 1975-77; and a renowned Marxist thinker, writer, and teacher.
He is survived by his wife Shobha, their younger son Dhananjay (their elder son Devtosh unfortunately passed away in 2017 due to cancer) and other family members.
Kishore Theckedath’s family hailed from Perinjanam village of Thrissur district of Kerala, but he was born and brought up in Mumbai. His father was a textile mill worker in the Dhanraj Mills in Mumbai and his mother was a home maker. Kishore was born on November 8, 1936, did his B.Sc. with Physics and Mathematics, M.Sc. in both Pure and Applied Mathematics, and much later in 1987 he completed his Ph.D. with the subject ‘Dialectical Materialism and Modern Science, with special reference to the Theories of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics’. But despite all his erudition, Kishore was always very proud of his working-class roots.
He first joined state government service as a clerk. After his first M.Sc. in 1958 he taught in various schools and colleges, and then from 1965 in the famous Wilson College in Mumbai for 30 years, until he took voluntary retirement in 1994. He was always a much-loved teacher.
Theckedath was among the founder members of the Bombay University and College Teachers Union (BUCTU) in 1966. He put in tremendous pioneering efforts to build the college teachers’ movement in Mumbai by personally visiting several colleges regularly, meeting teachers, learning about their problems, and organising them to fight against injustice. He was elected without a break to the BUCTU Executive Committee for half a century from 1966 to 2016. He was elected BUCTU General Secretary for over a decade from 1974, and later its President.
In 1975 he was elected the founder General Secretary of the Maharashtra Federation of University and College Teachers Organisations (MFUCTO), and later its President for many years. He was also elected President of the All India Federation of University and College Teachers Organisations (AIFUCTO) in 1987.
Many were the valiant and victorious struggles of teachers that were collectively led during those years against the injustice done by the managements of various universities and colleges, and against the educational policies of the then Congress-led central and state governments (policies which pale in comparison with the disastrous atrocities on education being perpetrated today by the RSS-BJP-led central and state governments). Theckedath was always a staunch and inveterate opponent of the RSS, BJP and the Sangh Parivar. This was evident in all his writings and public speeches, and in his interventions in Party forums.
Thekedath was one of the leading lights of the united teachers’ movement in Mumbai and Maharashtra. He took the lead in bringing together various teachers organisations from KG to PG for united struggles. He was one of the founders of the Coordination Committee of the Teachers of Bombay (CCTOB) in 1977. Under his leadership, the BUCTU and MFUCTO became active participants in the united trade union movement and the employees’ movement.
Theckedath was ideologically attracted to Marxism after studying the work of J B S Haldane, a scientist of international fame, who was a Marxist. He joined the CPI(M) in 1966 after his contact and discussions with senior Party leaders P B Rangnekar and M V Gopalan. The first state secretary of the CPI(M) in Maharashtra, S Y Kolhatkar, was his mentor.
He was also elected to the Party’s Mumbai district committee in 1977, the state committee in 1982, and then to the state secretariat in 2012. He was a special invitee to the state committee till his demise. His contribution to the Party was valuable and multi-faceted. He pioneered the building of the Party among teachers and students in Maharashtra.
Theckedath was a prominent Marxist intellectual with several books and articles to his credit. He was also a Marxist teacher par excellence. Some of his books are: A First Course in Marxist Economic Theory; Dialectics, Relativity and Quantum; and Frederick Engels and Modern Science. His articles have been published in journals like The Marxist and Social Scientist.
Besides, he was the Vice President of the Kerala People’s Education Society (KPES), which has been running the large Adarsh Vidyalaya in Mumbai very well for several decades.
I was fortunate to have had an extremely close political and personal relationship with Kishore for the last 47 years, ever since I joined the Party in 1978. He was in charge of the Mumbai Students’ Party Branch, of which I was first a member and then the Branch Secretary. I feel happy that he was elected to the Party’s state secretariat during my tenure as the Party’s state secretary. Numerous are the fond memories which I have of this wonderful comrade and human being, which, alas, have to be withheld due to constraints of space.
Theckedath’s funeral was held near his home in Borivli, Mumbai on December 21. It was my privilege that I could pay my personal homage to him and try to console his family. The funeral was attended by CPI(M) former state secretariat member and teachers’ union veteran leader Tapati Mukhopadhyay, state secretariat members S K Rege, Shailendra Kamble, and Prachi Hatiwlekar, state control commission chairperson and teachers’ union veteran leader Madhu Paranjape, and several leaders of the Party, the teachers’ movement, and other mass fronts.
The CPI(M) lowers its red flag in memory of its remarkable leader Dr Kishore Theckedath.
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