Martyr for Maharashtra

On Maharashtra Day, May 1, 2010, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) honored the families of 106 martyrs who laid down their lives during the Samyukta Maharashtra movement in the 1950s. Not all these martyrs were Marathi-speaking; as many as 23 belonged to other communities, the party’s president Narendra Verma informed The Times of India (TOI) on April 29, 2010. One of them was a Parsi, Hormusji Cursetji.

On the afternoon of April 28 members of Cursetji’s family visited the Bombay unit office of the NCP in response to an advertisement placed by Verma in the Jam-e-Jamshed, requesting them to contact him. They, along with the families of many others who died in the movement for the creation of a separate Maharashtra state, were to be honored by the party as part of the state’s golden jubilee celebrations, mentioned TOI.

Bombay’s "cosmopolitanism is reflected in the martyrdom of those who were shot dead for demanding a Samyukta Maharashtra,” Verma informed TOI. "Our party will emphasize this cosmopolitanism during our year-long celebration.” Among the martyrs were "four Uttar Bharatiyas, three South Indians, three Christians, three Muslims, three Marwaris and one person each from the Sindhi, Punjabi, Parsi and Jewish communities,” the NCP politician elaborated.