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| Background of the Lalgarh movement in Adivasi (tribal) belt of Bengal |
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Nov 13, 2008: Background of the movement
By Partho Sarathi Ray
The events that have been happening during the last one week in the adivasi (tribal) belt of West Midnapur district in West Bengal are so unprecedented that the authorities do not know how to respond to them, and the media doesn�t understand their significance.
Even the political parties and civil society are at a loss trying to come to terms with what is happening. What had started off as protests against police brutalities in Lalgarh have turned into a full scale uprising against state oppression and dispossession. Nothing like this has been witnessed in West Bengal in living memory.
The entire chain of events started after the 2nd November land mine explosion targeting the convoy of West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and union steel and mines minister Ram Vilas Paswan as they were returning from the inauguration of the Jindal Steel Works special economic zone (SEZ) in Salboni in West Midnapore district.
Around 5000 acres of land have been acquired for this project, of which 4500 acres have been handed over by the government and 500 acres have been purchased directly by Jindal from landowners. Reportedly, a large portion of this land was vested with the government for distribution amongst landless tribals as part of the land reforms program and also included tracts of forests. Moreover, although the land was originally acquired for a �usual� steel plant, last September Jindal got SEZ status for the project, with active help from the state government, which dispensed with the requirement for following most regulations for building and running the plant, including crucial requirements such as doing an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The government was, and is, not bothered about the setting up of an SEZ having a polluting steel plant in the middle of a forested area, dispossessing tribals from their land and endangering their means of survival. Understandably, there were major grievances amongst the tribals against this, although the mainstream media had constantly portrayed a very rosy picture of the entire project.
The land mine explosion was blamed as usual on the Maoist insurgents allegedly active for a long time in Salboni and the adjacent Lalgarh area. According to press reports, the Maoist movement is active in twelve police station areas in the three adjoining districts of West Midnapur, Bankura and Purulia. Three junior-level policemen were suspended and show-cause notices were served on a few senior officers for negligence of duty.
Usually, the police harass and arrest tribal villagers after every Maoist attack; this time in order to hide their own failure in providing security to its political masters, and to save their skin from the wrath of the government, the police went on a rampage in the tribal villages. Having no clue about the real perpetrators of the land mine explosion, they started beating up and arresting people indiscriminately. Among the first to be arrested were three teenage students, Aben Murmu, Gautam Patra and Buddhadeb Patra, who were returning from a village festival during the night. They were charged with sundry charges including waging war against the state, conspiracy, attempt to murder, using dangerous weapons and obstructing justice. Then during the day on 4th November, an armed police party arrested Dipak Pratihar of Kantapahari village while he was buying medicine from a chemist�s shop in Lalgarh for his pregnant wife Lakshmi. In the process the police brutally beat up Lakshmi and threw her to the ground. She had to be subsequently hospitalized. Ten people were arrested during the police raids and beaten up, including a retired teacher Khsamananda Mahato and a civil contractor Shamsher Alam from Chotopeliya village, who was visiting the area for a day for some construction work. Although these two people were subsequently released, as the police could not formulate any charges against them, the rest were kept in police custody.
The police and CRPF, led by the officer in charge of Lalgarh police station, Sandeep Sinha Roy and the superintendent of police of West Midnapore district, Rajesh Singh, unleashed a reign of terror in 35 villages encompassing the entire tribal belt of Lalgarh. In raids throughout the night of November 6th, women were brutally kicked and beaten up with lathis and butts of guns. Among the injured, Chitamani Murmu, one of whose eyes was hit by a gun butt, and Panamani Hansda, who was kicked on her chest and suffered multiple fractures, had to hospitalized. Chitamani�s lost her eye because of the injury. Eight other women were badly wounded. These police brutalities soon reached a point where the adivasis had no other option but to rise up in revolt.
The adivasis of India are one of the most oppressed and downtrodden groups of people in the country. Police oppression is nothing new to the Santhal adivasis of the Bankura-Purulia-Midnapore area. But the unprecedented atrocities inflicted by the police in the past week, especially the wanton attack on women, wore out their patience. On the night of 6th November they assembled near the Lalgarh police station and surrounded it, effectively cutting it off, and the policemen inside, who had been rampaging in villages the previous night but had now locked themselves inside the police station, did not dare to venture out. Electricity to the police station was disconnected and all the lights were broken.
What began as rumblings of protest took the shape of a spontaneous mass uprising the next day. On 7th November, when the ruling CPI(Marxist) was �observing� the anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution throughout West Bengal, ten thousand Santhal men and women, armed with traditional weapons, came out and obstructed the roads leading to Lalgarh, disconnecting it from Midnapur and Bankura. Roads were dug up and tree trunks were placed on the road to obstruct the entry of police vehicles, in the same way as it had been done in Nandigram.
The police jeep and the CPI(M) motorcycle have long been symbols of oppression and terror for villagers throughout West Bengal, so this digging up of roads, besides actually inhibiting the movements of these agents of oppression, have become a symbol of defiance and liberation. Towards the night of 7th November, the people also disconnected telephone and electricity lines, virtually converting a vast area into a liberated zone. The apex social organization of the Santhals, the Bharat Jakat Majhi Madwa Juan Gaonta took up the leadership of the struggle, although the leader of the organization, the �Disham Majhi� Nityananda Hembram has himself admitted that the organization has no control over the movement; rather the movement is controlling the organization.
Smaller organizations of the tribals, such as the Kherwal Jumit Gaonta, that have been playing active roles in the struggle have openly called for armed resistance, stating that there is no other way for the survival of the adivasis.
The demands of the adivasis were so �earthy� and original that the administration did not know how to respond. The demands were that the superintendent of police Rajesh Singh should publicly apologize by holding his ears and doing sit-ups, a traditional way of punishing errant youngsters, the guilty policemen should crawl on the streets of the villages where they had tortured people, rubbing their noses on the ground, again another traditional way of humiliating wrongdoers, and Rs 200,000 compensation for the injured and assaulted. The demands were marked by the total reliance of the adivasis on their traditional systems of dispensing justice, and not looking up to the formal judicial process which they have realized is by nature weighted against the poor and marginalized. Although these demands have since been modified to an unconditional oral apology from the police superintendent and punishment for the policemen involved in the raids, the administration has arrogantly refused to accept these demands, although they have said that the demand of compensation can be considered.
However, the adivasis have been in no mood to accept this �offer� and the upsurge has spread over an even wider area encompassing Dahijuri, Binpur, Jhargram and Bandowan.
The administration has virtually disappeared from these areas. On 10th November, adivasis led by the tribal social organizations set up new roadblocks in the Dahijuri area. When the police lathicharged the assembled people and arrested some of the leaders of the Gaontas, the situation turned explosive. The tribals surrounded the police officials present and a crowd of few thousand adivasis, armed with bows and arrows, axes and daggers, and led by women wielding broomsticks, chased the police for four kilometers along the road leading to Jhargram. The police were forced to retreat from the area and release all the leaders of the social organizations they had arrested.
The movement has been continually intensifying during the past week and spreading over a larger area. The slogans emanating from the movement have also been changing and now the adivasis are demanding that the dispossession of tribals from their land, forests and water in the name of development and industrialization has to stop. The struggle against state oppression is turning into a bigger struggle against dispossession and marginalization.
The state has been helpless in front of this upsurge and has been trying to �negotiate� with the tribals. But what has been frustrating their efforts is the essentially democratic nature of this upsurge. Although the administration has been holding multiple all-party meetings with the dominant political parties, CPI(M), Trinamool Congress, Congress and the Jharkhand Party, the leaders of these parties have openly admitted to their inability to exert any influence on the adivasis.
The adivasis are not letting any political leaders access to the movement, including tribal leaders like Chunibala Hansda, the Jharkhand Party (Naren faction) MLA from Binpur. They are demanding that any negotiations be carried out in the open rather than behind closed doors. Even traditional leaders like the �Disham Majhi� Nityananda Hembram and other �majhis� are having to talk directly with the adivasis before talking to the administration. Villagers of the ten villages in Lalgarh have formed ten village committees with one coordinating committee to negotiate with the administration. This democratic nature of the upsurge have frustrated all attempts by the administration to �control� the movement till now, and have forced the political parties like the local Trinamool Congress to come out in support, although the state leadership of the party is strangely silent about it.
The state and the CPI(M) have not dared to respond with overt violence yet, although there are news that a motorbike-borne militia is being assembled nearby by Sushanta Ghosh, the notorious CPI(M) minister and Dipak Sarkar, the CPI(M) district secretary. The state has been forced to accede to the bail of the three teenage students arrested by the police and have also send Sandeep Sinha Roy, the notorious O.C of Lalgarh police station, on extended leave. There are also reports that, being unable to quell the resistance, the state government has requested the central government to send paramilitary forces to help in their efforts.
What we are witnessing in the tribal belt of West Bengal is of historical moment. A long oppressed people have risen up and are daring to confront their oppressors and question the logic of �development� that destroys their lives and livelihoods. It is interesting to observe that the nature of confrontation with the state, exceptional in scale and intensity, seems to be inspired by the popular resistance at Nandigram - thereby, providing some sort of continuity to the possibilty of an emerging people�s struggles against state repression.
The West Bengal government has been alleging that the movement is being organized and led by the Maoists, and that the Lalgarh area has become a �liberated zone� for them. These are common ploys used by the CPI(M), the government and its sympathisers to brand and delegitimize popular movements. The mainstream media, a faithful ally of the state in such matters, has been repeating the same allegations and lamenting that such acts, which are being dubbed anarchic in nature, has resulted in the breakdown of civil authority. In this manner, attempts are being made to dissociate the urban civil society and intelligentsia from the movement, who have not yet been able to formulate a response to the upsurge. Moreover, using such rhetoric, the state is perhaps also trying to legitimize whatever steps it wishes to adopt in overcoming the resistance.
It is quite expected that radical political forces would have been active among the adivasis as the latter have been the most downtrodden people in India and it is their land and resources which is being handed over for corporate plunder. However the presence and participation of the Maoists or similar forces in no way delegitimizes this seemingly spontaneous, and democratic, expression of people�s anger. This is amply expressed by what Arati Murmu, a woman who had been assaulted by the police, and who had gone to block the Lalgarh police station had to say:
�Whenever there is a Maoist attack the police raid our villages and torture our women and children. For how long will we suffer this oppression by the police? All of us are Maoists, let the police arrest us. Today we have come out.�
CPI(M) vs CPI(M): A discussion on Maoist tactical failings
June 22. By Pothik Ghosh, The Hindustan Times
In politics, the truth is almost always counter-intuitive. In this realm � where the art of the possible intersects in unexpected ways with the science of the impossible � ominous portents of anarchy often conceal messianic promises of deliverance. Lalgarh, today, is perhaps the starkest symbol of this confounding cocktail, which has come to characterise the polity of Left Front-ruled West Bengal.
What distinguishes the Lalgarh uprising from other violent incidents that have scarred Bengal in recent years is that the cynical calculus of competitive electoral politics has had absolutely no bearing on the movement. The insurgency of the Lalgarh population has been shaped by its experience of a state that has registered its presence in the area through the brutal effectiveness of its repressive apparatuses but has been absent as a purveyor of emancipatory social development.
That is precisely why Lalgarh should not be classified as a tribal identity movement. The majority population of Lalgarh is tribal, but the anti-competitive orientation of their struggle, thanks to the objective politico-economic conditions that have shaped them, serves to invert the logic of identitarian movements, which always articulate their politics in supremacist terms of ethno-cultural domination.
The People�s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA)-led revolt, which was sparked seven months ago by a repressive combing operation launched by the state police in Lalgarh and surrounding areas in response to a Maoist mine attack on the chief minister�s cavalcade, has steadily become a two-pronged movement of resistance and social reconstruction through participatory management of rudimentary public services such as healthcare developed by the local community.
The Bengal government was extremely cagey until a few weeks ago to launch a crackdown. That was largely due to the movement�s mass insurrectionary character. In Lalgarh, violence has been a collective expression of disaffection against the oppressive socio-economic order the state defends. Even the guerrilla operations carried out by Maoists in the area have become a seamless extension of this insurrection, which enjoys wide-ranging legitimacy. It is this legitimacy, which derives from an assertion of popular sovereignty, that had compelled the West Bengal regime to keep its Stalinist proclivities � seen in Nandigram � in check for so long.
A modern State formation also acts in the name of popular sovereignty. But in an insurrectionary situation, as in Lalgarh, the government comes to be seen as an external threat to the sovereignty of the people. That renders the legal-illegal dichotomy problematic and makes it difficult for the state to monopolise violence to crush popular movements in the name of curbing anti-sovereign insurgency. The CPI(M)-led Left Front could ill-afford such a risk after the electoral drubbing.
Alas, Lalgarh has squandered that advantage, thanks to a tactical blunder by the Maoists. The recent claims by various Maoist leaders that the PCAPA was a front of their underground party has given the repressive arms of both the Bengal government and, to a lesser extent, the Centre, the alibi they had been waiting for. They know the police operation in Lalgarh will now be widely perceived as a legitimate measure to protect popular sovereignty from Maoist depredations.
The Maoists, thanks to their doctrinaire commitment to agrarian revolution and the tactical emphasis on guerrilla struggles exclusively in rural areas of the country, have failed to mobilise the working class in the urban areas. Their time-worn approach of encirclement of cities by a people�s army raised from the countryside has militarised their politics; their roving guerrilla squads carry out dramatic raids on behalf of a rural population they have barely organised. It has thus been easy for the Indian ruling classes to delegitimise it as an �outside� threat to �internal security�.
The Maoists may have a significant numerical and ideological presence within the Lalgarh movement. But the PCAPA, diverse in its composition, is not a Maoist front. The situation was an opportunity for the Maoists to quietly provide the PCAPA logistical support and ideological orientation to expand the movement politically through the aggregation of other disenfranchised sections of Bengal�s society into one movement, which would articulate a polyphonous critique of a larger political-economic logic constitutive of their various miseries. That would, among other things, transform Maoism into an ideological current, which is always internal to an ever-expanding constellation of popular movements.
Under such conditions, the character of political violence, even when guerrilla tactics are deployed, would always be insurrectionary. The State would then be hard put to delegitimise such violence, or the movements that generate them, as anti-sovereign. It would also reclaim Maoism from its current sectarian militarism that has, often enough, ended up replicating the same repressive forms of state power.
Clearly, the Maoists� conception of the party as an a priori state-form, which seeks to subordinate various registers of struggle to its doctrinaire conception of politics, is their Achilles� heel. This predisposes their organisation to the same kind of social-democratic and Stalinist degeneration that has afflicted the CPI(M)-led Left Front�s strain of working-class politics in Bengal. In social democracy, there is no place for transformative politics because it treats the State, which actually is constitutive of an exploitative system, as a neutral instrument that merely needs to be controlled to enforce equity. The absurd Stalinist split the CPI(M) has managed to create between development and democracy is a symptom of this social-democratic malaise.
The Maoists, who too call their party the CPI(M) � Communist Party of India (Maoist) � should make sure their uncanny resemblance with the original CPI(M) stop right there. And that can probably begin with their redefinition of the organisation as a movement-form, where Maoism is envisioned as a dynamic organisational impulse and the party is always in a state of formation through a process of perpetual politicisation at the grassroots.
Condemn Suppression of Lalgarh Movement Through State Terror
Lalgarh movement led by the People�s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) broke out as a result of the neglect of the region inhabited by large number of adivasi people by the CPI(M)-led Left Front government for decades, the alienation of CPI(M) and the state government due to the anti-people attitude of the bureaucratic and corrupt cadres and of the police and local administration. The police atrocities following the isolated Maoist attack on the chief minister convoy in last November aggravated it.
But the state government continue to take arrogant attitude refusing to solve grievances of the people. Nandigram was being re-enacted. When the few Maoists entered the scene owning up the movement in their anarchist style, the CPI(M) and the state government got an alibi to launch a massive attack by the central and state forces and commandos. The Maoists will soon flee and the people have to bear the burnt of the attack. Already there are reports of atrocities on the people and the people starving. This serious situation is created by the arrogant bureaucratic attitude of the CPI(M) and the state government. They cannot absolve themselves by merely blaming the anarchist Maoist and opposition Trinamul Congress for it.
It is increasing pauperisation of masses under neo-liberal policies and snatching away of their agricultural land and livelihood in the name of SEZs and �industrialisation� which have led to the emerging of number of people�s movements at all India level. Though the CPI(Maoist) worshipping militarism may be indulging in isolated squad actions to take credit for these, they are only harming the mass movements and are not in the leadership of most of these movements. Still to state �Naxalism is the main danger�, as the prime minister did, and to ban the CPI(Maoist) amounts to reducing a political question to one of police action in the name of eliminating the Maoists. We condemn it, demand the withdrawal of central and state forces from Lalgarh and resolution of people�s grievances there through discussion with the PCAPA. We demand withdrawal of the ban order on CPI(Maoist).
The degeneration of the CPI(M) to ruling class policies and CPI(Maoist) to anarchist path have become obstacles to build a powerful communist party uniting all genuine communist forces. In this situation the five day extended meeting of the Central Committee of the CPI(ML) at Bhopal from 14-18 June has put forward a revolutionary path of social change according to the concrete conditions of India. An All India Special Conference at Bhopal with delegates from 16 states besides international delegations attending it in November shall finalise this document. Based on it the struggle against imperialist globalisation, corporate houses, and MNCs, and land to the tiller based agrarian struggles will be intensified and all India campaigns and struggles for strengthening a people�s alternative ensuring food, housing, education, healthcare and employment for all shall be launched.
Reminding us of the emergency declaration 34 years ago on this day by Indira Gandhi government, when people want food, drinking water and employment as in Lalgarh, the central and state governments are deploying state forces to suppress them raising Maoist bogey. We appeal to all democratic forces to recognise this government game and to struggle against it.
New Delhi KN Ramachandran 25-06-2009 Secretary, Central Committee CPI(ML)
On Lalgarh Development
What is happening in Lalgarh in West Medinapur district of West Bengal shows that the CPI(M) leadership and the CPI(M)-led Left Front government in the state have refused to learn anything from Singur and Nandigram, and from the drubbing they got in the just concluded Lok Sabha elections. What they say still are nothing but a mechanical repetition of their performance during Nandigram.
The �first phase� of the �Lalgarh operation�, that of �flushing out� the handful of Maoists must have been completed by the time this comment reaches the readers. But the large contingents of central forces, �anti-Naxal commandos� like cobras� the armed constabulary of the state government along with the police will be continuing to �discipline� the local people. Since these predominantly tribal people have created a headache to the state and since the prime minister Manmohan Singh repeats that �Naxalism� has become the main danger to the ruling system, the forces will be ordered to make the �disciplining� more thorough. Arrest and tortures of local youth, harassment of all people, assault and raping of women in the name of teaching a lesson to these �rebellious� people may continue for long.
From the time of military operations in Naga areas beginning in 1947, the military operations still continuing in the North East and in Jammu and Kashmir, from the military and police operations against Naxalbari movement from 1969 to 1977 and from what we see nowadays in the �Maoist infested area�, the Indian people are well aware of the state terror unleashed to discipline the rebels and all those who are supposed to support them. Like Nandigram, Lalgarh will not be an exception.
But amidst this �flushing out� followed by the �disciplining of the people� through state terror what will be forgotten are the reasons for this people�s revolt, the role played by the state government in �dealing� it, the role of the various political forces which helped the handful of the �Maoists� to get projected as phantom and the plight of the people in one more area under police-CRPF raj.
Genesis of the Revolt
Unlike what is repeated in the corporate media including the plethora of TV channels who sensationalise everything to sell the news and events, it is not only in Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh people are revolting or waging various struggles against the confiscation of their agricultural land for �industrialisation� and SEZs, against police, CRPF and military atrocities, etc. After the imposition of the neo-liberal policies the number and intensity of these struggles have increased manifold. The difference in West Bengal is that the revolt against the state government soon turn against attacks on the CPI(M) cadres who have become extremely bureaucratic and corrupt and are hated by the people. Though most of the leaders and activists of all the ruling class parties are hated and opposed by the oppressed sections all over India for their lording over the people, corruption and arrogance, after 33 years of continuous rule the CPI(M) cadres have by and large surpassed them in bureaucratisation and corruption, in arrogance as their party degenerated to social democratic positions. This is a micro level repetition of what happened in Soviet Union and China after their degeneration from the socialist path to the capitalist path. The CPI(M) cadres identify themselves with the state unlike those of the bourgeois liberal parties.
As in Nandigram, at Lalgarh also the people were disgusted with the CPI(M) cadres for their amassing of wealth utilising the state funds at the expense of the people, for their bureaucratic attitude which had left West Medinapur, Bankura an Purulia districts with a large number of adivasi people extremely backward. Even after voting for CPI(M) for decades and these areas continuing as Left Front strongholds, their condition did not improved. So the disenchantment with the LF rule and against the CPI(M) cadres was intensifying. Though the Trinamul Congress was trying their level best, they could not penetrate the CPI(M) stronghold and bureaucratic control as it had nothing better to offer except anti-CPI(M)ism. The CPI(ML) forces pursuing mass line could not enter this area in a significant way because of the social fascist attitude of the CPI(M) organisation and because of its weakness to overcome it. It was in this situation the �Maoists� from neighbouring Jharkhand had entered the area and exploded a landmine against the convoy of the chief minister in November 2008.
What followed was similar response as in Nandigram. The CPI(M) leadership and local cadres had not taken any lessons from it. A big police force was deployed to wipe out the �Maoists� dubbing the whole people as Maoists. The atrocities committed are well reported. The resentment of the people reached it peak. The formed a People�s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) and repeated what the people of Nandigram did. They barricaded and dug the roads and threw out the hated police and local administration. CPI(M) cadres were boycotted and attacked.
But a chief minister and his government once again proved that they have not learnt anything from Nandigram. They were once again satisfied with what the corrupt police, administration and CPI(M) committees repeated to them. The PCAPA was dubbed a Maoists who have joined hands with the Trinamul Congress (TMC). Thus the people were alienated further. Why these areas remained so backward even after 33 years of LF rule was not given any attention. No initiative was taken to discuss with the PCAPA and resolve the problem.
It is quite natural that the TMC and its leaders who are bent upon exposing and fighting CPI(M) shall utilise this opportunity. But in spite of their attempts the PCAPA had not degenerated as a TMC tool as the CPI(M) leadership and the state government alleges. The CPI(Maoist) have its own programme and plans to utilise all such possibilities in its dogmatic way into its �base area� as a part of the protracted people�s war it wants to pursue. So it tried its level best to turn the spontaneous uprising of the people to its brand of guerilla struggle.
Lalgarh once again exposes that the CPI(Maoist) has no understanding of Mao�s teachings. Even when the revolutionary struggle in China turned in to a military conflict from 1927 as a big section of the Kuomintang army splitted and joined the CPC, Mao was always insisting on pursuing the mass line including the building of broad democratic mass movements. If they had any understanding of it when they got an entry into Lalgarh they could have given cover, logistic support to the PCAPA and helped it to expand to the vast region of West Medinapur-Bankura-Purulia region. It could have developed into a massive people�s movement. But they are anarchists and sectarian to the core. So in spite of the PCAPA denying it, they stated to claim that it is their movement and were in a hurry to develop this small area in to a guerilla zone or base area or what not. Thus the CPI(Maoist) provided the LF government and the central government the opportune moment to dub it as a �challenge to the country�s sovereignty�, �Naxalism is the main danger�, and send in the large state, central and commando forces to flush out the Maoists. Thus it destroyed the organic vitality and immense possibilities of thee movement.
People at the Receiving End
The TV clippings of the first 3-4 days of police action in Lalgarh reveal that the people in the area are treated as extremists or militants or Maoists and subjected to extreme forms of oppression as if they are an enemy people. As the central, state and commando forces continue their operation these atrocities are going to intensify. A people�s struggle for their just demands waged in a democratic way has thus become victim of state terror firstly due to the insensitivity of the state government to discuss the issues with the people�s committee and resolve it, secondly due to its dubbing of the people�s struggle as a Maoist conspiracy, thirdly by slandering it by denouncing it as a tool of the Maoist-TMC alliance, and fourthly by sending a large suppressive force as the CPI(M)-led government did in 1967 at Naxalbari joining hands with the central government to destroy it. Meanwhile on he one hand, the TMC and its leader through their over enthusiasm to utilise the people�s revolt for electoral gains provided a pretext for the state government to launch the brutal suppression in the name of Maoist-TMC tie up. On the other hand, in their hurry to falsely own up a people�s revolt as something led by their front organisation, the CPI(Maoist) provided �legitimacy� to suppress it.
The inter play of all these forces acting in opposite directions has brought havoc over the people. A people�s movement to act against which the state government was afraid for months could be attacked in such brutal manner because of these forces not putting the people�s interest in the forefront.
The Consequences
Within a few days or weeks the Maoist squads and cadres in the area will be compelled to move out the area. They will move to other places to continue their dogmatic pursuit of anarchist actions leaving the people to face the state terror.
The CPI(M)-led state government will go on shouting hoarsely about the Maoist-TMC tie up and allow the state forces a free hand to �discipline� the �rebellious, Maoist influenced people� who dared to act against its cadres and officers. In this way the CPI(M) and the Left Front parties are hoping that through condemnation of the Maoists, attacking the TMC for tieing up with Maoists they can win back the electoral support they lost in the Lok Sabha elections. The utterances and action of the CPI(M) and its partners show that they have not learnt any lessons from Nandigram. By treating the people as the people of an enemy country for the only �crime� of resenting against the government�s failure to meet their just demands, the are going to reap a bitter harvest in coming days.
As far as TMC and its Congress ally are concerned, by firing at the people putting the gun on the shoulder of the CPI(M) they are extremely happy for the rewards they are going to reap in coming Vidhan Sabha elections.
But the people, the people alone are at the receiving end. They are going to face hard times. The Maoists have played their own anarchist role in perpetuating the misery over the people as they did in Kandhamal in Orissa.
It is easy to play the blame game. Ultimately it will be asked by the people: where are the communist revolutionaries, the CPI(ML) forces who are tirelessly talking about the right opportunist CPI(M) and the anarchist CPI(Maoist), why do they fail to strengthen the ranks and provide leaderships to such people�s revolts with the long term perspective of mobilising the masses in a big way for revolutionary social change?
For the Marxist-Leninists it is once again an opportunity for introspection and plunge in the movement with revolutionary vigour.
KN Ramachandran
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01. Jobs Post -> http://jobs.jharkhand.org.in | 02. Resume / Bio-data | CV -> http://resume.jharkhandi.com | 03. Marriage -> http://shaadi.jharkhandi.com | 04. Email A/c-> http://jharkhandi.com/email.aspx | 05. Social Networking -> http://network.jharkhandi.com | 06. Documentary -> http://documentary.jharkhand.us | 07. Petition -> http://petition.jharkhand.org.in | 08. Districts -> http://jharkhandi.com/district.aspx | 09. Funding Appeal -> http://Funding-Appeal.economics.org.in 10. Naxal Terror -> http://naxal.jharkhand.org.uk | 11. Adivasi Alert -> http://adivasi.jharkhand.org.uk | 12. Mines Area Issues -> http://mines.jharkhand.org.uk
Vacancy for Regional Representative role -
Apply online at http://jharkhandi.com/representative.aspx to be representative of The Global Organization of Jharkhandi People (www.jharkhandi.org)
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