Born on December 14, 1914, he belonged to the generation which became deeply influenced by the upsurge in the freedom movement in early 1930s. Disillusioned with the withdrawal of the movement by the then Congress leadership and increasingly convinced that the problems of the Indian people could be comprehensively resolved only under a socialist system, Comrade MB joined the fledgling Communist Party of India during 1934-35.

Dedicating himself totally to the cause that he embraced, MB first started out as a district level activist in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh and by 1943 was elected to the CPI state committee and its secretariat in Andhra. He was among the outstanding leaders of the glorious Telengana people’s struggle and along with stalwarts like Comrade P. Sundarayya, was deeply involved in the organisation, execution and conduct of the Telengana struggle. It was during this period that MB emerged as one of the top Indian communist leaders. He was elected to the central committee at the Second Congress of the CPI in 1948 and elected to the Polit Bureau in June 1950.

Steeled by the experiences of the Telengana struggle, his years of underground life and repression by the Congress government, Comrade MB was one of the initiators of the inner party discussions in the united CPI on the crucial issue of the strategy and tactics of the Indian revolution, a debate which finally culminated in the formation of the CPI(M) in 1964. He remained a member of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau throughout and was a pillar of strength to the Party, giving it ideological guidance and formulating its tactics in the most complex of circumstances.

Comrade MB’s sterling contribution to the Indian communist movement came in the form of steadfast adherence to the revolutionary tenets of Marxism-Leninism and its liberating influence. A relentless campaigner against all deviations in the Indian as well as international communist movement, he authored many of the crucial drafts that provided the ideological basis for the fight against revisionism in the earlier period and left-adventurism later.

During the intense ideological discussions within the Indian communist movement, Comrade MB was given the responsibility to discuss these issues with world communist leaders. He was in the four-member delegations in discussions with the CPSU leadership. He also represented the Indian Communists at the meeting of the world communist parties in Moscow in 1957.