Hajee Mohammad Danesh

Hajee Mohammad Danesh (born 1900 Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India; died 28 June 1986, Dhaka, Bangladesh) was a peasant leader and politician.

Danesh obtained his M.A. in History from Aligarh Muslim University in 1931. In the 1930s, Danesh became active in the communist organizations of West Bengal, especially the Bengal provincial organisation of the Communist Party of India. He was arrested twice in 1938 by the government of West Bengal for his participation in the Tebhaga movement, an agitation in north Bengal against zamindars (landlords for landless peasants) by sharecroppers who sought a greater share of their crop yield. Most of their output was surrendered to the zamindars.

Danesh was one of the few Muslim communist leaders of the struggle, and worked to mobilise the Muslim peasantry in favour of the movement. In 1945, he joined the All India Muslim League, but was later expelled for his participation in the continuing Tebagha movement, and was re-arrested by the Bengal government in 1946. After the partition of India and Bengal in 1947, Danesh remained in his home district of Dinajpur, which was located in Muslim-majority East Bengal, and became part of the new Pakistan.