Girija was the daughter of a late trade Union leader of Hind Mazdoor Sabha, with decades of experience. She lived in Vile Parle, Mumbai, but due to her terminal illness, high diabetes, weak functioning heart, she moved to her sister, Manisha Gupte’s house in Pune, where she breathed her last. Gupte began her organisational work with the Indian Federation of Trade Unions, in the late 1980’s However by the mid 1990’s she made a departure from those organisations, and joined the ranks of the Workers Consciousness Front. A democratic workers front, the Jagrut Kamgar Manch, formed in 1997, also engaged her participation with its focus on consientising the working peoples and building of solidarities. Through this front she made efforts along with others to organise garment workers, hospital workers, transport workers, workers in the Tata Power Project by also organising solidarity programmes. Girija is also remembered for the role played as an activist of the Airport Employees Union from the 1990’s onwards to wage a struggle against the onset of de-formalisation of work and the “contract labour raj.” Her efforts in the early 200s, after the suicide (s) of Tata Power Projector workers in 2003 have been recalled and remembered. Being an academic by profession, she conducted workshops amongst students and youth as well. She was also a committed woman right’s activist.

A voice not confined to trade union protests alone. Girija Gupte engaged in nationwide campaigns opposing the 1998 Ramabainagar Dalit massacre and the Pokhran missile testing in 1998, the communal violence in Bombay (1992-1993), the post Godhra carnage of 2002, Operation Green hunt thereafter, 2006 Khairlanj Dalit killings, the Kalahandi Adivasi massacre in 2009 and the campaign against the imprisonment of Dr Vinayak Sen in 2010.

(This has been written on the basis of several tributes from associates and friends on social media)

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