The decade of the 1960s witnessed a paradigm shift in the left politics of India. The “Great Debate” between the revisionist theory of “peaceful transition” and the revolutionary theory of “protracted peoples’ war” was at its peak. Its impact, along with the Indo-China war of 1962 and the debate centering the character of the Indian State influenced a rift within the Communist Party of India (CPI). In 1964, thirty-two National Council members walked out from CPI and gave birth to a new party – Communist Party of India (Marxist) – CPM hereinafter. Apparently, CPM represented itself as the ‘revolutionary’ faction; however, the true revolutionary forces within CPM were well-aware of the revisionist tendencies of their leadership. In this backdrop, visionary leader Charu Mazumdar, following the line of Mao Tse-tung-led Chinese new democratic revolution, formulated the theoretical foundations of armed peasant revolution in Indian soil in his famous “historic eight documents” written between January 1965 to April 1967, and practised the same with other revolutionary comrades during the Naxalbari peasant uprising.
In March 1967, a coalition government came into power in West Bengal (WB), in which prominent leaders of CPM became ministers and then simply forgot their revolutionary promises. However, the rebel communist leaders of Naxalbari, Kharibari, and Phansidewa region of North Bengal were organizing militant peasant struggles with specific calls like
1) land to the tillers, i.e., capturing agricultural lands from the landowning class, and redistributing those among the actual tillers
2) fighting against the reactionary resistance of landlord class using traditional weapons
3) establishing the authority of peasant committees on crucial matters of villages
4) burning of land records, cancellation of debts, passing death sentences on oppressive landlords in peoples’ courts, looting of their guns etc.
The prevailing semi-feudal setup faced a huge blow from such revolutionary activities of armed peasants under the leadership of Kanu Sanyal, Khokan Mazumdar, Jangal Santhal, Kadam Mullick, Babulal Biswakarma, and others. When the scared ruling class sent a police team there to arrest the leaders, the team was confronted by the peasants, and police inspector Sonam Wangdi was hit by arrows and succumbed to death. Two days later, on 25 May 1967, the vengeful coalition government sent a huge police force, which opened indiscriminate firing upon a group of mostly women and children in Prasadjote, killing eleven of them-seven women, two men and two infants. This incident exposed the reactionary nature of CPM beyond any doubt. The revisionist CPM leadership then not only threw out the local rebel leaders including Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal, but also expelled other prominent leaders like Saroj Dutta and Sushital Roy Chowdhury (who was even a member of WB State Committee of CPM), as well as hundreds of other party members who stood in support of the Naxalbari uprising.
To express solidarity with the Naxalbari movement and to condemn the police firing there, ‘Naxalbari O Krishak Sangram Sahayak Samiti’ was formed in Kolkata in June 1967. Eventually, with the support from communist revolutionaries of different states such as Uttar Pradesh (UP), Kashmir, Bihar, Kerala, an ‘All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries’ was established. The dream of emancipation of the oppressed peasant and workers found resonance in the slogan “Ek hi rasta, ek hi rasta, Naxalbari ek hi rasta”. Deeply moved by such developments, a significant portion of middle class and student youth left their comfort zones and went to remote villages to take part in the ongoing peasant struggles. Realizing the need of a new revolutionary party, the leaders finally formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) or CPI(ML) on 22nd April 1969. Charu Mazumdar was elected as the Party Secretary. The “spark” of Naxalbari uprising quickly resulted into a “prairie fire” throughout the country, starting from Debra-Gopiballavpur in WB to Musahari in Bihar, Lakhimpur Kheri in UP, Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh (AP). In Srikakulam the movement reached a new height, where the formation of guerilla forces and village protection teams under the leadership of revolutionary peasants emerged as an alternate state power. In Bihar’s Bhojpur, the dalit landless labourers, who was living their lives without an iota of basic human dignity under the tyranny of the upper-caste landlords, realized that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” and organized armed resistance against the private armies of the landlord class such as Ranveer Sena, Sunlight Sena etc. Unlike the pre-Naxalbari phase, poor and landless peasants came forward as leaders of the movements after the Naxalbari uprising.
The revolutionary development simultaneously attracted tremendous state repression. A 12,000-strong armed contingent of CRPF were deployed to curb the movement in Srikakulam. Young communist guerilla Panchadri Krishnamurty and people’s guerilla-poet Subbarao Panigrahi were encountered in cold-blood in May and December 1969, respectively. In WB, mass encounter killings of Naxalite youths by police were reported from several places such as Kashipore-Baranagar, Beleghata, Konnagar, Howrah etc. Thousands of comrades were detained and brutally tortured in jails. In August 1971, Saroj Dutta was arrested and murdered by the police; although, he is still “missing” in police records. Within one year Charu Majumdar was arrested and was martyred in police custody on 28 July, 1972. After his death, the movement faced a temporary setback and the CPI(ML) party split into numerous factions. However, as writer Manoranjan Mohanty correctly noted, that “… the Naxalbari revolt became a turning point in the history of Independent India by challenging the political system as a whole and the prevailing orientation of the Indian Communist movement in particular.” No one can deny that even after five decades since then, the ideology and politics of Naxalbari movement are still relevant and the spectre of Naxalbari still haunts the ruling class.
