Comrade Vijay Singh, a devoted communist and an outstanding teacher of History at Satyavati College in Delhi University passed away on 17th April 2026. Comrade Vijay was born in England in 1946 where his father was serving as a senior official, and in the late 1960’s after completing his higher education chose to come to India with his determination to engage in revolutionary politics and people’s movements.

Given his education he chose academic space as the place for instilling progressive ideas and thinking. He along with his life-long partner Comrade Tripta Wahi, who also returned with him from England and who was also a History teacher, chose to be part of an independent Left Teachers’ group in Delhi University. 

Comrade Vijay Singh along with a few other teachers in the History teaching circle of Delhi University made it his mission to bring high standards in the teaching of the course as well as in the appointments of the teachers, opposing favouritism in appointments. In the 1980’s he was part of the 15-teachers group in Delhi University who redesigned the History undergraduate course that was being taught and got the course successfully passed. This added several important aspects of Indian history and social structure to the course that was just not part of the teaching prior to that. Notable among this is the effort to instil the understanding of Indian social history cutting across the periodisations while studying specialisations like ancient, medieval or modern. He was also among the prominent teachers at the forefront of struggles against sexual harassment and for gender justice.

In the history of Delhi University teachers’ movement, another fact worth remembering is that he was among a very few teachers who stood for justice for a fellow teacher, S.A.R. Geelani, who was falsely implicated in the Parliament Attack Case of 2002.

He was of the belief that classrooms are also an arena of class struggle where you combat against the dominant and hegemonic ideas that a hierarchy based society automatically imparts to the youth of that society.

Among the things that he is most well known for is the publishing of the journal Revolutionary Democracy, which is continued to the very last, except a brief pause in between. He also spent a long time in Russia studying the Soviet Archives for his Doctoral Thesis and later he made important contributions in the study and understanding of the period of Soviet Union under Comrade Stalin.

Heartfelt Tributes and Red Salute to Comrade Vijay Singh!