Like all first-generation Communist leaders, Surjeet also had to go underground several times to evade arrest, mainly during the Second World War and later between 1948 and 1952 when the party was banned by the first Congress government. He was arrested on several occasions during the period.
Surjeet also worked for maintaining communal harmony during the painful Indo-Pak partition days, when which he was the secretary of CPI's Punjab unit.
His foray into the world of party politics began in 1934 when he joined the banned Communist Party. He became a member of the Congress Socialist Party in 1935 and also started working for the Kisan Sabha, which he went on to head in the early 1950s.
A voracious reader, he edited many papers and party organs including Dukhi Duniya and Lok Lehar weekly besides
penning socially and politically relevant books like Land Reforms in India, Future of Kashmir, Happenings in Punjab
and Outline History of the Communist Party.
He started a monthly Chingari in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh in 1938 when he was externed from Punjab for anti-British activities.
The veteran Marxist's friends remember that he always wanted to become a poet and took to writing under the pen-name "Surjeet".
Although his pen-name remained, he did not become a poet.
An ailing Surjeet was removed from the party politburo at the CPI-M's annual congress in Coimbatore at his request after
being a member for decades.
A pragmatic politician with a sharp mind, Surjeet's death brings the curtains down on an era in the country's Communist history and his party will surely miss his analytical skills and political acumen in the days to come.
Image: Surjeet with CPI-M leader Jyoti Basu in Kolkata in 2005.
Photograph: Deshakalyan Chowdhury/AFP/Getty Images
Also see: Surjeet doubts Gujral's integrity
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