Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams, Chapter 264
Palash Biswas
Seven Naxals gunned down in Dantewada
RAIPUR: Seven Maoists were gunned down
in "retaliatory action" by security forces after Naxals blew up a truck, killing
11 CRPF personnel in
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Eleven CRPF personnel died while 11 others, including the truck's
driver and cleaner, sustained serious injuries when the vehicle which was
bringing them back to Tonagapal, was blown up in a landmine blast at Kokanara
village on Saturday, nearly 375 kms from here, Inspector General of Police,
Bastar Range, T J Langkumer said.
Security personnel, who were
travelling in another truck and jeep ahead of the ill-fated vehicle, retaliated,
gunning down seven Naxals.
All the bodies have been recovered, the
IG said. After police received information that the Naxals had burnt down a
truck involved in road construction work near Kokaner village, a 53-member joint
police-CRPF team reached the area yesterday.
They were returning on
two trucks and a jeep when the convoy was attacked by the naxals, who blew up
one of the trucks and exchanged fire with the personnel, police said
The injured have been admitted to a hospital in Jagdalpur.
Condemning the Naxal attack, Chief Minister Raman Singh said the
government had taken serious note of the "cowardly and inhuman" action of the
extremists.
"No democratically elected government can tolerate such
violence," he said and conveyed his condolences to the bereaved families.
We will spread this fire, says the Maoist from Lalgarh21 Jun 2009, 0848 hrs IST, Sukumar Mahato, TNN |
My name is Manoj. It's not the name my
parents gave me, but all my comrades call me 'Manoj'. My father's name is Dhiren
Murmu. I am his second
Inspired by Mao Zedong, Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal of the CPI (Marxist) develop a "revolutionary opposition" to the party. |
Salboni. I've lived most of my life in this hopeless village.
Our
village falls under the Kansijora gram panchayat. The Left Front has been in
power here for 30 years. Salboni has always been a CPM stronghold. But, in 30
years, neither the state government, nor the panchayat and Zilla Parishad took
any interest at all in developing this area. We might have been living in the
Stone Age.
From Naxalbari
to Lalgarh:
Maoists breed in swamps of hunger and
anger
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No revolution for old
radicals
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Blog: Kolkata's missing millionaires and
Lalgarh
When
it rains here, the dirt tracks turn muddy and we are forced to drag ourselves
and our cattle through the muck. We are not able to ride our bicycles or use
carts. We don't have clean drinking water. People are forced to drink filthy,
yellow water. After sunset, we live in the dark as there is no electricity here.
No jobs either. During the paddy season, we work in the fields and then sit idle
for the rest of the year. Because we are tribals, no one has bothered to do
anything for us.
In 2002, we got tired of being treated like rodents.
So, the villagers got together and demanded development in our area. This
infuriated the local CPM bosses. The police and Marxists slapped false cases on
us, accusing us of working for the People's War Group (PWG). They branded us
Maoists. So we began to think we might as well join the
Maoists.
Things turned nasty quickly. The former police
superintendent of West Midnapore, K C Meena, lodged an FIR against the entire
village. Nearly 90% of the men and teenage boys were charged with being
Naxalite. We knew what was coming. We had to do something to save ourselves.
I was just 18 at the time. I was in class XII at the local school.
But, I too joined in protests against the police. Within days, the police filed
a case against me, my father and brother. They accused all of us of working for
the PWG. We had nothing to do with the PWG. Our family has always supported the
Congress party. In 1998, when Mamata Banerjee formed the Trinamool Congress
(TMC), we switched loyalty to her.
One day, police jeeps rolled into
our village, picked up people from their houses, bundled everyone into their
vehicles and dumped all of us into the Midnapore jail. That was where I first
met Maoist leader Sushil Roy. I found the Maoist ideology very appealing. Roy
asked me to join the Maoists so that I could help the poor. I liked his ideas.
Then I met two PWG leaders in prison. And I realized that neither Congress nor
the TMC can stop the CPM's terror. I also realized that under CPM rule, we had
lost the right to speak up. It was time to take a stand and speak up.
I joined the Maoists. They gave me a new name, a new identity and a
new life. Now, I work for the Lalgarh movement. I joined this great surge of
people last year. On November 5, the police arrived here looking for people who
had blasted landmines at chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's convoy at
Salboni. In Lalgarh, the police rounded up innocent tribal women and began to
molest and torture them. One woman lost an eye. Others were badly injured. After
this incident, we decided to join the Lalgarh movement. It was our party's
decision. The Maoists always stand with the deprived. We joined them at
Nandigram and Singur. Now, we have joined them in Lalgarh.
It's been
easy for us to win the people's support. Most of them have been victims of
torture by police. The people listened to us and joined the Peoples' Committee
against Police Atrocities (PCPA). Opposition party workers have also supported
us. Everybody is rebelling against the CPM cadre and police.
We know
the government forces want to crush us. But, we plan to expand our area of
influence. As soon as we are able to turn Lalgarh and Junglemahal (a forested
area spanning three districts - Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore) into a
Maoist-dominated area, we will apply our ideology here. We will undertake
development work for the poor. We will raise money through public donations. And
nobody will pay tax to the government anymore.
After victory at
Lalgarh, we will expand our fight to the tribal communities of Jharkhand, Bihar,
Orissa and Chattisgarh. Our war has just begun.
Resume of a rebel
Once peaceful forest-dwellers, now they challenge the Indian
state. Here's a profile of that little-known species, the typical Indian
Maoist
Age - 18 to 30 years
Gender - Both male and female
Ethnic stock - Austro-Asiatic (tribal/indigenous people)
Linguistic
group - Austro-Asiatic (tribal) and old Dravidian dialects
Income group -
Below poverty line ( Rs 12 per person per day)
Occupation - Small peasant,
landless labour, jobless, jungle-dweller
Area of operation - UP, MP, W
Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand Chhattisgarh, AP, Maharashtra and
Karnataka
political affiliation - CPI (Maoist)
other names - Naxalite,
Red ultra, terrorist
Maoists by
Numbers
Total number 50,000
Number of armed rebels 20,000
Area under control One-fifth of India's forests
Active in 165 of the
country's 604 districts
From
Naxalbari to Lalgarh: Such a long journey down the road to
revolution
1960s
Inspired
by Mao Zedong, Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal of the CPI (Marxist) develop a
“revolutionary opposition” to the party. They lead a violent Santhal
uprising in West Bengal's Naxalbari village in 1967. Later, they break away from
the CPI(M). Uprisings are organized in several parts of the country. In 1969,
CPI (Marxist-Leninist) takes
birth
1970s
The radical
leftists fragment and the CPI (ML) becomes weaker across the country. This
causes regional groups such as the Maoist Communist Centre, which evolved out of
the Dakshin Desh-group, to strengthen in Bihar and Jharkhand and the People's
War Group to assume leadership of the armed rebels in Andhra Pradesh and
adjoining
states
1980-90s
At least
30 Naxalite groups are thought to be active across the country, with a combined
membership of around 30,000 activists. But their differences over their
perceived “revolutionary”
roles often result in bloody
battles. Many groups, particularly in Bihar and AP, are accused of land-grabbing
and
extortion
2000s
Groups
such as the CPI (ML) give up violence, enter mainstream politics and participate
in elections. In 2004, the MCC and People's War join hands to form a new entity,
the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which is now the biggest armed group ever
to challenge the very existence of the Indian state
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/We-will-spread-this-fire-says-the-Maoist-from-Lalgarh/articleshow/4681986.cms
While
the operation to flush out Maoists continued in Lalgarh and adjoining
areas, West Bengal's leading intellectuals on Sunday visited the
affected region and urged both the police and Maoists to lay down arms
for a peaceful settlement. Meanwhile,the West
Bengal government on Sunday asked Maoists to surrender and help restore
normalcy at Lalgarh and its adjacent areas where a joint operation by
the state police and central paramilitary forces entered its fourth day
on Sunday.
Three days after the West Bengal government finally moved against the Naxalites,
security forces marched into Lalgarh on Saturday and
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station, a symbolic victory in reclaiming a nondescript building from where
state cops had fled to escape the fiery onslaught of Naxal cadres.
It reminds me Old days. Past is never Past as no sound loses for ever and it echoes somewhere in the space. It is related to CHIPKO Movement and the Difference between the Sarvodayee and Gandhian leadership with UTTARAKHAND Sngharsh Vahini and the student leaders.
on 28th November, 1978,Police opned fire in Naintal for the first time in Post Independence India as a group of Chipko Activists were arrested protesting the Auction of forests in Kumaun and we students stromed the streets of Nainital in reaction. Our Students and teachers of DSB college were arrested. Shamsher had come down from almora and had been arrested. Shekhar Pathak and Jaswant singh were also arrested.
Srichand was the Forest Minister in SRIPAT Mishra cabinet in Uttar pradesh and DEFORESTAION got unprecedented momentum in Uttarakhan Hills. We Uttarakhanides are Nature Associated People. The forests and valeyes had been the Natural resource of our life. We could save ourselves from Calamities like landslide, floods and earth Quake only if we could protect GREEN. It was the centarl Theme of Chipko movement and we all used to sing GAURDA`s folk song NEE KAR DEE HUMREE NILAMI led by GIRDA with his indigenous musical instrument HURKA used by untouchables only.
Since it was the DEATH and Life question for the Himalayas and the Himalayan People, the students and masses were agitated.
The District Megistrate was plying Cricket all the day in the Flats while Police Lathicharged, teargased and Fired. It agitated us to the LIMIT. It raged FIRE in the ELITE NAINITAL Club.
Bhagirath Lal was the President of our students` association and he won the election promising peaceful SESSION since we had been agitating for years! Bhagirath was RELUCTANT to join the CHIPKO movement. But while the arrest, lathicharge and firing news spread, Bhagirath led the Students` procession from DSB college.
Our students leaders were arrested including the President and Generalsecretary.
Students all over Uttarakhand stormed on the streets. Police stations were Ransacked and gutted down. Every day we had to witness and face lathicharge and Arrests.
Girl students in Haldwani were lathicharged as well as molested by the Police.
It INFLAMED entire Uttarakhand.
Meanwhile the Sarvoday Supremo Sundar Lal Bahuguna visited nainital and we had a meeting in Nainital samachar office. He pleaded the Gandhian Theory that the means should be RIGHTFUL for the RIGHT cause. The students as well as Uttarakhand Sanghars Vahini should quit the VIOLENT ways of RESISTANCE.
We jointly protested.
Who has given you the right to decide the course of a Mass Resistance. The State Power has got the LICENSE to Kill and our SUSTENANCE in the Himalayas ENDANGERED. The masses lead the MOVEMENT. Only the Masses may decide the ways and means of RESISTANCE, not any Airconditioned INTELLECTUAL, the best Agency of CORPORATES and State Power!
Eminent Critic Rabi Bhushan called me this morning and he asked about the role of the Intellectuals and civil societies.
I had to say that the BHADROLOK Bengali CIVIL Society has a long History to Betray the Mass Movements and INSURRECTIONS. They did not support the first war of Freedom in 1857 and backed EAST INDIA Company. The Renaissance Brigade were against every peasant Insurrection in Bengal including INDIGO Revolt. some of them even owned INDIGO Centres and used the Aboriginal people for INDIGO harvesting and TEA plantation. since then, the Tribal areas have turned into Open markets for Bonded labour as well as women! The Civil society never supported Snthal, Munda, Bheel, KOl revolts. Intellectual Support to naxal bari is a ROMANTIC Myth created by brahmin writers denying the role of SC, ST and OBC as well as Muslim Rural Folk who sacrificed their lives in thousands.
Since the ENACTMENT of Marichjhanpi Genocide, no civil socety or Intelligentsia ever demanded JUSTICE for the ETHNIC CLEANSING of dalit Refugees from Dandakaranya. The Intelligentsia continued to support the Marxist Brahaminical hegemony until recently.
They even did not speak against BIJON SETU Genocide. They Kept mum on Keshpur, Gadhpeta and Nanur Massacres!
In fact, the Global Hegemony and the CORPORATE World have launched ECONOMIC Reforms and whatsoever RESISTANCE must be WIPED out. Thus, the Marxist became the first target as they have been BLOCKING Economic Reforms and DISINVESTMENT, FDI and FII. They withdrew support on the ISSUE of Nuclear Agreement with USA. They also protest fascist HINDUTVA as well as ZIONISM. They opposed Strategic Realliance in US and ISRAEL lead. Thus, for the first time World bank factor to dominate and decide market affairs came in FRONT to OBLIGE the ILLUMININATI which ultimately MANIPULATED the MANDATE for the CONTINUITY of Genocide culture all over India and further has to implement and execute Mass Destruction agenda. TMC Supremo Mamata Bannerjee has MODIFIED her Election menifesto in TMC agenda in accordance with the HUNDRED days` agenda of the Desi ILLUMINATI, India Incs. being most of them BRAHMINS only, they never supported the Dalit Refugees, Resrvation and quota for the SC, ST and OBC and Empowerment of Minorities as well as women.
Hence, the PROACTIVE role played by the INTELLIGENTSIA and CIVIL Society aided by doubtful NGOs with Global Coverage and INFLATED Brahmin resistance Hegemony raise more than any Single question as they support the CONGRESS TMC Alliance and vote for DR Manmohan singh the Head of the LPG Mafia ruling! Why do the INTELLECTUALS and CIVIC society SKIP subaltern studies, issues of aboriginal and Indigenous and minority communities and fail to pin POINT CONG ENTERPRISE of ZIONIST GENOCIDE suported by the FASCIST Hindutva.
Sudden EMERGENCE of Intelligentsia and CIVIL society amidst MONOPOLISTIC Agression and being BRANDED with TMC and CONG, discarding ideology, is not out of doubt.
While the CIVIL Society and Intelligentsia , failed to stand with the ABORIGINAL Indiegenous Black untouchables` FIGHT for their right as Indian citizen to ensure EQUALITY and JUSTICE, HOW COULD they dare to dictate the means and ways of a Mass RESISTNCE, specilly the Manusmriti ZIONIST Hegemony virtually have not to face whatsoevr RESISTANCE from any social or productive forces.
Why do we dare to deprive the Suffering, straving People to LODGE a STRONG and UNITED Protest? We know that Shaheede aazam bhatasingh and his companions were branded as TERRORISTS. Netaji was called TRAITER.
The MEDIA flashed LALGARH in MAOIST Control from few days back before the OPERATION. The STATE Power has got every right for BLOOD BATH and VIOLENCE with ULTIMATE STRIKE POWER and License to KILL.
Democracy fail to INCLUDE the starving tribals into Main stream. They feel that LAW and ORDER is a machinery for REPRESSION. The lose home, land, forest, water, livelihod and life. NO HEARING whatsoever! If they have chosen the TRADITIONAL option of INSURRECTION as an attemopt to live afresh, what right have we to disassude?
Have all the TRIBAL people all over the TWO thousand odd vilages joined maoist Party?
If it is true , then DEMOCRACY, Intelligentsia , civil society and Governace have no RELEVANCE in LALGARH!
How many MAOISTS do reside in Lalgarh, let the people know!
If the TRIBAL population is EN BLOCK in no means MAOIST, why the STATE Power has DECIDED to KILL them in CROSS FIRE?
Why no INTERACTION Is possible?
The Governments Pleads TALKS and the MAOIST also want TALKS? Who BLOCKS the MEETING?
A day after reclaiming the Lalgarh block headquarters, security
forces started combing the surrounding villages in this
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Sunday to search for hiding Maoist rebels, weapons and leaders of a tribal group
that have declared the zone "liberated".Meanwhile, the
visiting intellectuals has complained that women and children were being
tortured.
On the fourth day of the operation launched by the state
government to flush out Maoists from this troubled zone in West Midnapore
district, senior officials were holding a high level meeting in Kolkata to take
stock of the progress made by the joint forces of the centre and the state and
chart out a roadmap for the future.
The situation in West
Bengal's Lalgarh area, where security forces are fighting to clear a Maoist
siege, is "sensitive" and "tense",
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while asking political leaders to avoid going to the conflict zones. Meanwhile,Left parties on Sunday sought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's
intervention to ensure that anti-Maoist operations in Lalgarh were not
"adversely complicated" by statements and actions of some union
ministers belonging to Trinamool Congress.
Without naming Mamata Banerjee-led party, 16 Left MPs wrote to the
Prime Minister maintaining that some members of the Union Council of
Ministers were reportedly proceeding to the affected areas and making
public comments "which are adversely complicating the operations
against the Maoists".
The letter by the MPs belonging to CPI (M), CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc
came following some reported statements on by certain ministers and TC
leaders against joint operations by state police and central
paramilitary forces.
The Left MPs said Singh had he described Maoist activities as one of
the gravest threats to internal security and dispatched central
security forces following the state government's request to launch
joint operations.
"In this situation, we seek your personal intervention to ensure
that the joint operations against the Maoists are not adversely
complicated by utterances and actions of some members of the Union
Council of Ministers as reported by the media," they said.
The signatories to the letter include Sitaram Yechury, Brinda Karat,
Basudeb Acharia, Shyamal Chakraborty and Mohd Amin (all CPI-M), D Raja
(CPI), Abani Roy (RSP), Barun Mukherjee (AIFB).
"The
situation in Lalgarh is sensitive and continues to be tense," Chidambaram said while also
making a reference to a call for a two-day bandh from Monday given by the
CPI-Maoist in five naxal-affected states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand,
Orissa and West Bengal..
"I appeal to all citizens especially
political leaders, NGOs and others not to go to the conflict areas," he said in
a statement here.
The home minister said the security forces must
carry out their work without "distraction".
The security forces,
which have reclaimed control of key Lalgarh police station area, were on Sunday
pushing deeper into the region to break the Maoist siege of 17 villages
considered to be strongholds of the ultras and tribals backed by them.
Meanwhile, in view of the two-day bandh call given by the
CPI-Maoist, the Centre has asked five Naxal-hit states to remain alert against
possible "demonstrative acts of violence" by left-wing extremists.
The alert was issued by the Union Home Ministry on the basis of
intelligence inputs.
After reclaiming control of key
Lalgarh police station area, security forces on Sunday pushed deeper to
break the Maoist siege of 17 villages considered strongholds of the
ultras and tribals backed by them.
Security sources
said the troops consisting of CRPF, BSF and West Bengal police started
moving from Lalgarh to Ramgarh in an operation aimed at sanitising the
main road and other connecting routes and wresting control of the 17
villages. But the 19-km journey from Lalgarh, which the troops
reclaimed on Saturday, is likely to be one of the toughest as the road
has been mined and the area heavily forested.
The strategy of
the forces will focus on wresting control of Barapelia, Chotopelia and
Dalilpurchak in West Midnapore district where top Maoist leaders were
reportedly holed up, senior police officers engaged in the operation
said. Barapelia is the home of Maoist-backed People's Committee against
Police Atrocity (PCPA) convener Chatradhar Mahato and the PCPA
headquarters.
The West Bengal government will give “serious
thought” to imposing a ban on the Maoists, chief minister Mr Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee said yesterday.
The chief minister, who met the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and
the home minister, Mr P Chidambaram, told reporters here that 18 of the
state’s 241 blocks were affected by Maoist violence. He said the home
minister had asked the state government to ban the Maoists and, “we
will have to give it a serious thought”. Mr Bhattacharjee said he had
informed the Central leaders about the police operation against the
Maoists in the Lalgarh area. The joint operation, he said, would take
some time to rid the area of the Maoists.
On the Maoists’ political links, Mr Bhattacharjee said he knew the
Trinamul Congress had “strong links” with the Police
Santras Birodhi Public Committee, that is supported by Leftist ultras,
and its leader Chatradhara Mahato was part of the Trinamul Congress. Mr
Bhattacharjee however gave a clean chit to the Congress party.
On the other hand, Softening
their stand, People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) chief
Chatradhar Mahato, who met the intellectuals, today appealed to the
government and the Maoists alike to come to the negotiation table and
resolve the Lalgarh conflict.
"We are caught in the crossfire
between the two sides. We have no association with the Maoists but our
villagers are leaving their homes in fear of police atrocities and
bullets," Mahato said.
"The Maoists have no right to kill
people, terrorise them and burn their homes creating a reign of terror
in the entire area," State Chief Secretary Asok Mohan Chakraborty said
here.
Mr. Chakraborty warned that anyone committing punishable offence under IPC would have to face consequences.
Intellectuals of Bengal, under the umbrella of
Swajan, visited Lalgarh and spoke to the villagers and Peoples'
Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) members as police operation
entered its fourth day today.
"We request both the government
and the Maoists to put down arms. The innocent villagers are suffering
as they are caught in the crossfire between the two sides," said
filmmaker Aparna Sen in Lalgarh.
The team includes noted playwrights Saoli
Mitra and Kaushik Sen among others. "We came across women who were
stripped and beaten up and villagers said their drinking water sources
were dirtied with human excreta and urine by the forces," Sen said.
Sen and her colleagues urged Mahato not to resort to armed movement so that they could dissociate them from the Maoists.
Briefing reporters after a high-level
review meeting convened by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at
the state secretariat, Mr. Chakraborty said the situation at Lalgarh
was still very critical and the joint forces hardly made any move from
Saturday's position.
"Central paramilitary forces, who have
already reached Lalgarh, Pirakata, Bhimpur and Sarenga, are trying to
sanitise the entire area and instill confidence among villagers," he
said.
He said the Central forces were attacked at one of these villages by the Maoists, but the attack was repulsed.
Mr. Chakraborty said statements by
Maoist leaders and those of the People's Committee against Police
Atrocity (PCPA) show that "they have a close nexus".
No decision had yet been taken on banning the CPI-Maoist in the state, Mr. Chakraborty said.
Earlier, state Home Secretary Ardhendu
Sen said the ban on the Maoists was a political decision.
He claimed that the villagers were now helping the security forces and they even arranged for bath of women police personnel.
He said two policemen were injured when
Maoists hurled bombs and fired a few rounds yesterday at Kadasol,
adding a CRPF jawan had died in heat stroke.
Mr. Chakraborty appealed to
intellectuals, Union and State Ministers, VVIPs and journalists to
refrain from visiting Lalgarh. He referred to a delegation of
intellectuals from Kolkata, including film personality Aparna Sen,
which visited the area on Sunday morning.
Adequate security cover to VVIPs and journalists might not be possible at this point, he said.
He pleaded ignorance about top Maoist
leader Kishenji's present whereabouts, saying he did not know whether
any top Maoist leaders have left the place or are still camping there.
He also said the state government has
taken adequate steps to tackle the situation in the wake of the 48-hour
bandh called by the CPI-Maoists from Monday.
Responding to allegations of police atrocities
on villagers of Lalgarh and adjoining areas, West Bengal Chief
Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty said the government would ensure that
the villagers did not suffer in police operation.
He urged the
Maoists and the PCAPA to give up armed protests. "We urge them to lay
down arms. Police is in our control but those resorting to politics of
violence are not in our control. It is not safe for anyone - either the
intellectuals, NGOs or the mediapersons- to venture in that area."
Police and paramilitary forces on Saturday entered Lalgarh town and regained its control.
The
forces marched for miles behind an anti-landmine vehicle and
negotiated forested terrains to take back the town of Lalgarh, about
170 km from Kolkata.
The area was overrun by Maoists who killed at least 10 ruling CPI-M members in the past weeks.
Led by CRPF crack jawans
and backed by anti-insurgency commandos, Bengal police officers reached the
once-besieged town around noon, crossing the 6 km stretch of Jhitka forest - the
prime site of several IED explosions and Maoist strikes. There was no battle
casualty but a CRPF jawan died because of the excessive heat that the forces had
to endure in a march that lasted nine hours -- from 3am to
noon.
Another contingent,
approaching Lalgarh from Goaltore, diagonally opposite to the Jhitka route,
suffered a setback when Maoists trigerred an IED explosion injuring five
policemen while forces were crossing the Pingbani forests. The security forces
had planned a pincer movement to establish control on Lalgarh and clear the
roads in the area before fanning out into the Maoist-dominated villages of
Lalgarh in the next phase of the
operation.
"Reaching Lalgarh
was crucial for us. But this is only the only the beginning. More surprises are
awaiting the Maoists," DIG (Midnapore Range) Praveen Kumar said. However, the
IED explosion near Pirakata Police Camp on Friday, was a cause for concern. "We
will now try to revive our old police camps, set up new ones within a gap of two
kilometres to improve our surveillance on roads leading to Lalgarh for better
force deployment," Kumar
said.
State home secretary
Ardhendu Sen went to the Kalikunda air base on Saturday in Midnapore from where
he made an aerial reccee of the trouble-torn villages in the Lalgarh block and
adjoining areas. Director General (Operations) Bhupinder Singh accompanied the
home secretary.
Preparations to
enter Lalgarh along the Jhitka route began before dawn. Central forces fanned
out to the Jhitka village within one kilometre radius from the forest cover at
around 3 am and cordoned off the village. CRPF jawans detained six local youths
and tried to get information about the Maoist gameplan from within the forest.
They suspected the Maoists might trigger blasts and lay ambushes. A little
later, two units of COBRA spread into the forests from Bhimpur in a diamond
shape only to meet in the backyard of the Lalgarh Police Station.
As many as 90 COBRA jawans
maintained surveillance in the forest, as the force started moving from 7am.
Senior police officers namely DIG (Midnapore Range) Praveen Kumar, SP West
Midnapore Manoj Verma, CRPF commanding officer Dipak Tushar Banerjee led the
force with anti-mine
vehicles.
There has been little
resistance from the Naxalites and few battle casualties, thanks mostly to the
slow and methodical pace of the march. The security forces took a total 45 hours
to travel the distance from Midnapore to Lalgarh which is otherwise a
two-and-a-half hour drive.
Security reinforcements
comprising several companies of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and
Border Security Force (BSF), as also state armed police started off from
district headquarters Midnapore for the Bhimpur camp, about five km from this
town.
Small teams of the security forces have started scouring nearby
villages for Maoist rebels, as also leaders of the People's Committee Against
Police Atrocities (PCAPA) tribal body that launched a seven-month-long agitation
that made the area a virtual free zone.
The forces were searching
cars at Pirakulli village, where the Maoists had engaged the security personnel
in heavy firing Friday.
Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata
Banerjee has instructed two union ministers of state Mukul Roy and Sisir
Adhikari to proced to Midnapore town and stay put there for the next few days,
party sources said.
A section of intellectuals who arrived here
Saturday comprise those who have of late been bitter critics of the state's Left
Front government. "We have visited some interior villages and spoken to the
people. We also spoke to Chhatradhar Mahato. People are living in danger. They
are very afraid that police may beat them up," claimed theatre personality
Saonli Mitra.
She said some of the villages were empty, while
children and women were being beaten up. "We have been told that women are being
molested, and water has been contaminated in some villages. People are living
without food and water," she alleged.
She however said the
intellectuals were opposed to the violent politics of killing indulged in by the
Maoists, and appealed to both the rebels and the administration not to use
arms.
Filmmaker Aparna Sen said: "We are seeing police everywhere. I
have never seen so many police in one area."
The intellectuals
arrived here a day after top Maoist leader K Koteshwar Rao alias Kishanjee
appealed to them to come to Lalgarh and take the initiative for finding a
solution to the problems of the tribal people through a dialogue between the
rebels and the administration.
On Saturday, the security forces
claimed to have gunned down four Maoists. The forces marched through a forest to
establish their control over Lalgarh Saturday. However, the rebels hit back,
injuring six policemen in a landmine blast.
Two policemen were
injured in a landmine blast on Friday.
A paramilitary trooper,
participating in the operation, died of heat stroke Saturday, Inspector General
of state police (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia told IANS in
Kolkata.
This is the first death among security forces after they
started the march.
Lalgarh has been on the boil since last November
when a landmine exploded on the route of the convoy of Chief Minister
Bhattacharjee and then central ministers Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitin
Prasada.
Complaining of police atrocities after the blast, angry
tribals launched an agitation virtually cutting off the area from the rest of
the district.
During the last few days, the agitators have torched
CPI-M offices, driven away the ruling party's supporters and forced the police
to leave, thereby establishing a virtual free zone.
Maoists are
active in three western districts of the state - West Midnapore, Bankura and
Purulia. They also backed the Trinamool Congress-sponsored movement against the
state government's bid to establish a chemical hub at Nandigram in East
Midnapore district.
Even as the state government
struggles with Maoists in Lalgarh, CPI parliamentarian Gurudas Dasgupta
blamed the CPM-led government for the crisis, saying that lack of
development is the root cause of the tribal discontentment.
“The situation
could have been defused by taking economic and administrative measures
to keep the tribals from going over to the Maoists. Action should also
have been taken to stop the Maoists from building up strength,”
Dasgupta said.
He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the 24th state committee meeting of All India Trade Union Congress on Saturday.
“Why was nothing
done to resolve the Lalgarh situation in all these months? Why did they
allow matters to reach this stage?” Dasgupta said.
He shot down the
contention that the government delayed in taking steps to control the
crisis as it was haunted by the Nandigram fiasco.
“Fearing a repeat of
Nandigram is no excuse. Lalgarh cannot be compared to Nandigram as that
issue was less significant compared with what is going on in Lalgarh,”
he added.
Mamata fumes over Centre's cold shoulder on Lalgarh21 Jun 2009, 0411 hrs IST, TNN |
KOLKATA:
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee is cut up with the Centre for not
consulting her party, a UPA partner, before kickstarting the
| |
"We will tell the Centre about the real nature of the problem in Lalgarh if we
are asked. We won't speak on our own and will hold our heads high," she said in
Kolkata on Saturday.
According to Mamata, the Lalgarh operation was
stage-managed by chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee following the defeat of
CPM in the Lok Sabha election. According to her, CPM had an understanding with
the Maoists. To support her claim, she pointed to CPM's victories in the
panchayat and Assembly elections in the Maoist-dominated areas. It was for the
same reason that People's Committee against Police Atrocities had called a poll
boycott that helped CPM win the Jhargram Lok Sabha seat, she said. She also
raised the question of the state government failing to ban CPI (Maoist) in
Bengal.
Accusing some prominent CPM leaders, including a minister,
of remote-controlling the Lalgarh operation, she said they had helped the
Maoists escape right at the beginning of the operation. The ransacking of the
house of a prominent CPM leader in the Lalgarh area was also a "drama", she
said, alleging that it was staged not by Maoists, but by a group of dissident
CPM supporters in the presence of select mediamen to give the incident wide
publicity.
"CPM had taken the help of the same Maoists to capture
Keshpur, Garbeta and Khanakul." According to her, the Maoists in Andhra Pradesh
and those in West Bengal were not the same. "Here, they are creations of CPM."
Even Maoist leader Kishanji could be a creation of CPM, she said.
She
said that if the districts of Midnapore West, Purulia and Bankura were really
affected by Maoist activity, they should be declared disturbed and
anti-insurgency operations handed over to the Centre. The current operation was
being conducted by the state government, which has asked for the Centre's help.
She demanded a similar operation in Keshpur and Garbeta to seize illegal
arms.
Denying any link between Trinamool and Maoists, Mamata said she
had no objection to Maoists being arrested. But, if the police harassed and
tortured common people, Trinamool would protest. These people were not Maoists,
but were being used as shields, she felt. "Chhatradhar Mahato was a Trinamool
member two years ago but when we learnt that he had Maoist links we expelled him
from the party," Mamata said. She claimed that CPM was trying to capture lost
territory, using the operation as a screen.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Kolkata-/Mamata-fumes-over-Centres-cold-shoulder-on-Lalgarh/articleshow/4681905.cms
CPM central committee backs govt’s Lalgarh steps
NEW
DELHI, 20 JUNE: The CPI-M central committee today backed the West
Bengal government’s efforts to use “both political and administrative
measures” to free Lalgarh from Maoist gangs, and to ensure the rule of
law.
On the first day of its two-day meeting, the central committee took
note of the Maoist violence in the state and said in Lalgarh, Maoist
gangs with the direct and indirect backing of the Trinamul Congress had
“created a zone of terror against all CPI-M members and supporters.”
The Maoist leaders in the area had spoken about their contacts and help
to the Trinamul Congress led alliance in all the developments in
Nandigram, it said. The committee said that since March this year 53
party cadres were “mercilessly butchered.” In Lalgarh of West
Midnapore district eight CPI-M members and workers were killed.
“Utilising the electoral setback of the CPI-M, armed gangs led, in the
main, by the Trinamul Congress have burnt and vandalised houses of
party comrades and party offices and like in Khejuri and other parts of
East Midnapore, forcibly driven out hundreds of sympathisers and
members,” the central committee said.
The party said this attack against the CPI-M and its workers and
sympathisers is a part of a wider game plan by powerful vested
interests. The West Bengal Left Front chairman, Mr Biman Bose, told
reporters that the proposal to ban the Maoists in the state would be
discussed in the state Left Front.
Party studies poll reverses
The CPI-M’s central committee today began examining the party
governments’ “mistakes” in West Bengal and Kerala, that caused reverses
in the Lok Sabha poll, but the party is unlikely to give up the goal of
a “third alternative”. The committee is considering a report submitted
by the general secretary, Mr Prakash Karat, on the poll performance
that admits that the party could not “read” the voters’ mind to decide
a proper strategy. sns
40 minutes of living on the edge...
sabyasachi roy
KOLKATA 20 JUNE: For 40 minutes, I stared death in the face. There was
no shadow of fear when I had started from Lalgarh. But when I reached
Kulidaha at 4.30 p.m. after travelling through Jhitka jungle, Bhimpur
and Koima, the sight of three gun-toting youths with their faces
covered greeted me at a distance of 50 feet. I asked my driver to pull
over. Six rounds of bullets fired in the air stopped me in my tracks.
When the youths found me standing rooted to the spot even after two
minutes, they fired again. We were sent on our way back to Lalgarh.
After travelling some 500m, we were stopped by some 300
PSBPC supporters near Koima. The teenage guerrillas, 30 brandishing
guns and the rest bows and arrows and axes felled trees and blocked our
way. With inscrutable faces they watched me try to contact police in
vain. Staring down the barrel of a gun, I requested directions to
Midnapore only to be waved towards Kulidaha. But not before I had
satisfied the group's queries about the strength of security forces
deployed in Lalgarh.
5.10. p.m. I was back in Kulidaha and facing another road block. "I
just want to go to Midnapore," I told the gun-toting youth after
telling them that their Koima cadres had left it to them to lead me
out. A face softened. I was asked to take the rutted lane that would
eventually take me to the main road at Neemtala. Suddenly brave, I
sought an escort. Darkness was descending when the PSBC activists
brought us there.
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=2&theme=&usrsess=1&id=258551
“CPI(M) using ‘Lalgarh formula’ to wrest control”
Special Correspondent
Mamata Banerjee
KOLKATA: The CPI(M)-led West Bengal government is keeping Central
forces in the forefront to perpetrate atrocities on the people of
Lalgarh with an eye on establishing its control over the area,
Trinamool Congress chief and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged
here on Saturday.
If the CPI(M) did not withdraw within 48 hours its allegation that
the Trinamool had links with the Maoists, her party would take to the
streets and launch an agitation demanding that the State government be
sacked.
Ms. Banerjee criticised what she described as the CPI(M)’s attempts
at “capturing” different places employing “the Lalgarh formula.” On the
Lalgarh offensive, she wondered why the government had not taken “this
step all these days.”
“They [the CPI-M] are torturing innocent people in the name of
action against Maoists. This we condemn. We are against terrorism; we
want peace,” Ms. Banerjee said, demanding that the Centre declare the
districts of Bankura, Purulia and West Medinipur disturbed under the
Disturbed Area Act.
Reacting strongly to Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s
comment in New Delhi earlier in the day that Chhatradhar Mahato,
convener of the Maoist-backed Police Santrash Birodhi Janashadharaner
Committee, was a member of the Trinamool, Ms. Banerjee said: “We have
driven out Chhatradhar [from the party] a long time ago.”
The Chief Minister “should withdraw” his remark “or be sacked,” she demanded.
Asked about Maoist leader Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji’s remark to a
local television channel questioning Ms. Banerjee’s silence on Lalagrh
developments when it was the Maoists who supported her party during the
agitation in Nandigram, Ms Banerjee said: “There were no Maoists in
Singur, Nandigram. It is the CPI(M) workers who are the Maoists.”
As regards the Maoist leader’s utterances, she said, “I do not know who these people are. … It is their [CPI-M] drama”.
On reports from New Delhi quoting the Chief Minister as saying that
his government would consider banning the Maoists, she said:
“Impression, expression, confusion and contradiction are all related in
such a package. What is the net result? We want net results.”
Related stories:
http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/21/stories/2009062160470800.htm
After ambush, rattled cops insist on Central 'protection'21 Jun 2009, 0525 hrs IST, Jayanta Gupta & Falguni Banerjee, TNN |
when paramilitary forces leave Lalgarh? TOI had a glimpse of this on Saturday
when a police contingent —
| |
central forces — was ambushed at Pingboni, 16 km from Lalgarh. Rattled by
the attack, many constables have reportedly refused to carry out any operation
without Central forces accompanying them.
In the two-hour-long
encounter, police struggled to see the attackers, some 500-700 yards away,
because the 500-strong force did not have a singe binocular. They borrowed the
TOI photographer's camera to use the tele-lens to check on the attackers'
weapons and movements. What's worse, when six of them were hit and lay injured,
police did not have any vehicle to take them to hospital. They borrowed the TOI
car.
The battle spot is located 2km from Goaltore on the way to
Ramgarh via Kantashole. It marks the beginning of the Maoist stronghold in
Bankura and extends to West Midnapore, where the battle for Lalgarh is
underway.
A contingent of state police and Eastern Frontier Rifles
(EFR) jawans - led by Burdwan additional SP Humayun Kabir - stopped at the
nearly deserted Pingboni village at 3.45 pm after spotting movement behind some
embankments on the fields. The same unit had passed by this very spot on Friday.
But instead of setting up base and engaging with villagers, they left after
roughing up some youths and smashing a few shops. The withdrawal gave Maoists
ample time to regroup and take position for Saturday's ambush.
As the
policemen waited, assessing the threat, they saw mobs charging towards them from
either side of the road at 4 pm. Some policemen rushed forward with lathis, only
to scatter as arrows were shot at them. Suddenly, a deafening explosion ripped
through. One of the policemen had apparently tripped a booby trap - an IED
rigged to a tree. That was the signal for the Maoists to open fire. It was 4.15
pm. Dazed from the blast, the policemen now faced a hail of bullets and arrows.
A sub-inspector and three constables lay injured in the blast. The
attack took the force completely by surprise. Policemen scrambled behind trees
and started returning fire with INSAS and AK-47s. TOI was the only media team
present during the encounter.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/After-ambush-rattled-cops-insist-on-Central-protection/articleshow/4682472.cms
Maoists breed in swamps of hunger and anger21 Jun 2009, 0145 hrs IST, Aditya Nigam |
miss out one crucial fact: Till less than a month ago, it was not a Maoist
fortress but a place where a
| |
was being done. Maoists were there but they had to go along with the mood inside
Lalgarh, which was certainly not one of forming 'dalams' or roving guerrilla
squads. In fact, as People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) leader
Chhatradhar Mahato told The Times of India this week, "if the state government
had done even 10% of what we have done, the situation would have been very
different."
From Naxalbari to Lalgarh:
We will spread this fire, says the Maoist from Lalgarh
|
No revolution for old radicals
|
Blog: Kolkata's missing millionaires and Lalgarh
For more than five months, the PCPA, with popular participation,
built reservoirs, dug tube-wells and built roads in the area. The Lalgarh
Sanhati Mancha, based in Kolkata, collected money and helped set up a health
centre. A committee with five men and five women would take decisions. Compare
this with any other place where Maoists are active and the difference is
immediately apparent. The Maoists, known for their impatience with any kind of
developmental work, put up with this.
In fact, Koteswara Rao, a
senior leader in charge of Maoist operations, even told some journalists that
"the CPI(M) government is not implementing any Central government projects". The
reference was clearly to the non-implementation of the National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act (NREGA). It also showed the extent to which Lalgarh's issues are
different from the ones the Maoists usually like to take up.
All this
will be in the past, a few days from now. Already, marauding Maoist gangs have
taken over and emerged in their preferred mode. The model of Chhattisgarh or
Andhra Maoist-dominated areas will be replicated and soon, there will only be
armed Maoist gangs and the armed forces of the state. All the possibilities
offered by democratic politics and developmental activities, including through
the NREGA, will become impossible. One can even wager that the Maoists will
decree the NREGA "unlawful". For, along with the NREGA and development, comes
the state.
True to their style, the Maoist cadres who roamed freely
thus far will come out only under cover of darkness, leaving Lalgarh's hapless
inhabitants to face the brutality of the security forces. This has already
begun. Ordinary people will be arrested and tortured, while the guerrillas move
to safer havens.
The CPI(M) is fond of narcissistically flaunting its
world record of 32 years in power in West Bengal as "proof" of its performance.
But in the past two decades, a new kind of virtually totalitarian power has been
put in place. The local panchayat, MLA, district administration, police and the
ubiquitous 'party' act in tandem. There is no avenue forum for redress, no way
to appeal against corruption, non-implementation of schemes and the absence of
simple developmental activity such as water and electricity. There have been
starvation deaths in neighbouring areas and in the tea gardens in the north but
there is no way of even making the CPI(M) acknowledge this. No other state has
such a closed situation, where power speaks only to
itself.
Classically, in such situations, piecemeal correction is
impossible. Discontent slowly builds into anger, waiting for the opportune
moment to strike. That moment began with Nandigram, which showed the arrogance
of the party bosses in dealing with peasants who had long supported them.
Successive elections since then have shown that the dam has broken. Mass anger
was waiting to burst forth and the Maoists were waiting in the wings, ready to
take over. They have taken over. In Lalgarh, we are in for the long
haul.
But the lesson here is not just for the CPI(M). It is for the
Congress as well and for the UPA and everyone else. The poorest of the poor
cannot be left to fend for themselves while the elites party. The NREGA, RTI and
Forest Act are a good beginning but they need to be followed through and their
implementation monitored.
Aditya Nigam is
a Fellow at Delhi's Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. His new book,
'After Utopia: Modernity and Socialism in the Postcolony', is soon to be
published
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Special-Report/Maoists-breed-in-swamps-of-hunger-and-anger/articleshow/4681983.cms
No revolution for old radicals
Avijit Ghosh
Gautam Sen lived dangerously in the
late 1960s and early 1970s. He was part of a group who took a police
sub-inspector hostage in order to get
lock-up. He occasionally drank tea at a stall in front of a police station even
when he was one of the most wanted men in the area. And like many naxalites of
the '70s, he travelled the West Bengal hinterland by night, trying to build a
guerrilla force to annihilate class enemies. "I was lucky to have failed," he
now says.
From Naxalbari to Lalgarh:
We will spread this fire, says the Maoist from Lalgarh
|
Maoists breed in swamps of hunger and anger
|
Blog: Kolkata's missing millionaires and Lalgarh
Sen, who has given up guerrilla warfare but remains
involved with people's movements, finds it hard to comprehend the Maoists'
strategy in Lalgarh. "After their armed action, the Maoists called it a
'liberated zone'. It was a huge tactical mistake. By saying so, they allowed the
state to claim the moral high ground and proclaim, 'we are going against
militants'. On the contrary, Nandigram became a legitimate people's movement
cutting across party loyalties because it spoke of land and livelihood. As a
consequence, the state tries to earn credibility to suppress the legitimate
resistance of the poor and the oppressed," he says, with the wisdom of a
62-year-old who has seen it all.
His story is fascinating. He belongs
to a middle-class Calcutta home and was radicalized as a student leader in
Durgapur's Regional Engineering College. By the time he was in his fourth year
of college, the Naxalbari movement had begun. Elsewhere in the world, the
Vietnam war and Chinese Cultural Revolution were happening. Student activism was
at its peak. Sen's life-changing moment occurred on June 1, 1969. A minor
traffic accident led students to battle police near campus. The angry young
people ransacked a police station. When a sub-inspector arrived on campus, he
was taken hostage. The next day, 150 policemen stormed the campus. Every one was
beaten up. One student was killed in the firing. "Till then we had a few
naxalites. But the firing converted at least 30 of us who became full-timers. At
least 600-700 students became naxal sympathizers," says Sen.
He went
underground and became an organizer in Burdwan district. By day, he stayed in
the homes of landless labourers; by night, he travelled around trying to raise a
guerrilla army. Often his only meal would be a bit of puffed rice. He was
allegedly on the police 'hit list'. "On one occasion, I was asked to leave a
shelter at 4 am because it was no longer safe for me," he says. By 1973, Sen was
disillusioned. "I could see there was no revolutionary condition as envisaged by
our leaders."
He went back to college to get his electrical
engineering degree, but never took a job. Instead, he formed a Marxist study
circle and wrote extensively about the class character of the Indian bourgeoisie
and state.
He believes the future is bleak for the radical left
movement in West Bengal. "Today one part of the extreme Left has been
Trinamoolized, another has got NGOized. Some have become Maoists and the rest
have formed splinter groups," he says.
But he says there is space
aplenty for those who reject parliamentary politics as well as Maoist-style
guerrilla struggle. "Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh indicate the potential of
people's initiatives from below. Unfortunately, there is no leadership or
control from below."
But the former rebel is enthused that in places
like Argentina and Mexico, people are coming out with innovative ways of
protest. "In Argentina, workers are taking over factories abandoned by the
owners and managing them. In a small town in Mexico, people set up an
alternative form of governance over a town for several months. Even in Lalgarh,
initially the gram committee of the protestors had equal number of men and
women," says Sen. "I am an optimist by nature. The human race will always find
new ways to struggle."
FARC
(Colombia)
Formed in the 1960s, it still has 6,000-10,000 members.
The cadre belongs to indigenous tribes. It claims to be fighting a class war
but its critics say Farc is running the cocaine trade
Zapatista (Mexico)
Led
by the pipe-smoking masked Subcomandante Marcos, the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation have been in a declared war "against the Mexican state" since 1994.
Their social base is mostly
indigenous
Shining Path
(Peru)
Made up of indigenous peasants, the guerrilla group has
influenced rebels across the world. After the 1992 capture of its leader Abimael
Guzmán, the group has been almost inactive
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Special-Report/No-revolution-for-old-radicals/articleshow/4681964.cms
| MJ Akbar |
West Bengal: Next time, the volcano21 Jun 2009, 0047 hrs IST, M J Akbar |
Bengal, but has anyone found it? The Congress lost the plot between 1962 and
1967, and it was a while before
| |
In
1962, the Communists were on the wrong side of nationalism, since they refused
to condemn China as the aggressor in the traumatic October war. The venerable
Jyoti Basu spent a few months in jail along with his comrades. The party
corrected this error internally; the pro-China extremists moved away, developing
their own tactics for revolution. The Naxalites (named after Naxalbari, a small
village in North Bengal) proclaimed Mao Zedong as their chairman, although it
was never made clear whether Mao himself was enthused by the honour.
The Communists had already split formally. The breakaway CPI(M)
found the correct balance. It was sufficiently radical for the first
post-Independence generation that had begun to filter into Kolkata's College
Street, and non-violent enough for the parents who had jobs that the Naxalites
seemed determined to destroy. The classic Indian formula for conflict
resolution, after all, has been to stop on this side of conflict.
The Congress was not immune from turmoil. Pranab Mukherjee should
remember that age well. He was the principal lieutenant of the man who broke the
Bengal Congress, Ajoy Mukherjee, and went on, as head of the Bangla Congress, to
become chief minister of the United Front that was sworn in after the 1967
elections. Jyoti Basu was home minister, and for the first time the street lamps
of Kolkata were covered in red paper to celebrate the rising of a red sun.
The alliance was unsustainable, because ideology was still alive in
the 1960s. The chronic instability of coalition politics brought the Congress
back to power in 1971; Pranab Mukherjee moved, deftly, to the centre when Mrs
Indira Gandhi split the organization in 1969.
The great game-changer
of that decade was the Kolkata riot of 1964, a consequence of violence in East
Pakistan and some wildly inflammatory reporting in the Kolkata media. It is
often forgotten that Bengal is a Partition province. The CPI(M) won the
confidence of Muslims when its cadre mobilized to protect the community in 1964.
Biman Bose, now CPI(M) state secretary, was one of the young men who stood at
the corner of a Moulali street, daring arsonists and killers to cross the
Marxist line. A relationship of over four decades was finally broken when
Muslims deserted the CPI(M) in 2009.
The Left emerged out of the
chaos and violence that fractured Bengal; as it dissipates, will the vacuum be
filled by violence? It is tempting to see the immediate future as a mirror
image, with variations, of the 1960s. The Maoists are back, without Mao graffiti
on the walls or urban terrorism, but better organized. The images of men and
women armed with bows and arrows in Midnapore are eerily reminiscent of the
1960s and early 1970s. They also prove that many parts of our country still live
in the bow-and-arrow era.
The battle for Lalgarh (Red Fortress) is
both literal and metaphorical. Although they never admitted as much, the CPI(M)
and Congress cooperated in the first war against Naxalites, between 1967 and
1973. They are being forced to do so again.
But their political
strategies were different. The Congress used state force against Naxalites and
thought it had done its job; the CPI(M) finessed the Naxalites politically,
through land reform. It is a pity no one remembers Harekrishna Konar and Promode
Dasgupta, its architects. They gave food security to the peasant, while Jyoti
Basu, as home minister and chief minister, ensured life security. Nandigram is a
powerful symbol of departure, because a Left government snatched the peasant's
land and then attacked those who protested.
Nature, and political
nature, abhors a vacuum. The space vacated by the CPI(M) retreat is being
visibly occupied: those who vote are with Mamata Banerjee; those who don't vote
in rural Bengal are gravitating around the Maoists. The first category has
larger numbers, but fluctuations are a matter of opportunity. Courage and
consistency could take Mamata Banerjee to Writers Building, but this alone will
not keep her there.
Radical is as radical does, not just as it says
it will do. The peasantry, once nourished by Konar, wants the next level of
prosperity. This will need phenomenal growth in the agricultural-industrial
economy to meet the extraordinary upsurge in aspirations that accompanies
generational change. Mamata Banerjee has about a year to prepare for a radical
government that will be more than a patchwork of prematurely tired faces. It
would also be unwise to forget the game-changer of the 1960s, the riots.
Violence is an infectious plague, and demographic tensions always have a fuse in
the tail. Bengalis believe that they are not communal. No one is communal,
except in that brief moment of madness when the civilized mind crumbles.
The drama of Bengal is full of actors making powerful speeches. We
need a plot, very quickly.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Special-Report/West-Bengal-Next-time-the-volcano/articleshow/4681879.cms
After PC jibe, Buddha mulls ban on Maoists21 Jun 2009, 0402 hrs IST, TNN |
DELHI: West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Saturday made an
indirect distinction between Trinamool and Congress by stating
Union home minister P Chidambaram (L)meets West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in New Delhi. (PTI Photo) |
strong links with the so-called people's committee in Lalgarh.
"The leader of the group,
Chhatradhar Mahato, is very much a member of Trinamool Congress," he said. But,
he told reporters here that in case of Congress, there is no such evidence.
CPM state secretary Biman Bose
too reiterated Trinamool's relationship with Maoists.
Their remarks were seen as an
attempt to drive a wedge between the Trinamool and Congress as CPM feels that
the alliance between the two parties contributed to the Left defeat in West
Bengal.
Not in a mood to take
too many questions, Bhattacharjee's 10-minute press conference was mostly about
his meeting with the Prime Minister, finance minister and home minister, and
praise them for the help given to the state in dealing with situation in Lalgarh
and cyclone Aila.
Even his
statement about banning Maoist organization came in reply to a question. "Home
minister advised me to ban this organization. We have to give it a serious
thought," he said, adding that the operation in Lalgarh would take some time.
The state police and the other security forces are working in tandem against the
Maoists, he said. "The first column of central paramilitary forces has already
reached there," he said adding that the area police station was never taken over
by the Maoists. "Already, about a column of 100 policemen is stationed there,"
he said.
Later, Biman Bose
said his party would have to consult other Left partners before taking a
decision on banning the outfit.
When Bhattacharjee was asked
if Maoists are running a parallel government in some parts of the state, he
said, "I have no answer on this."
Speaking about his meeting
with Chidambaram, Bhattacharjee said the home minister assured him that if the
state government required more forces, he would be ready to send them. The
government has already deployed about 1,300 personnel of CRPF and 600 BSF men.
Maintaining that out of 241
blocks in the state, 18 were "fully or partially disturbed", Bhattacharjee
accused the Maoists of killing innocent citizens and engaging in extortion and
many other crimes with the locals suffering heavily.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Columnists/MJ-Akbar/The-Siege-Within/West-Bengal-CM-meets-PM-Chidambaram/articleshow/4679905.cms
Our Hindutva is inclusive not narrow: BJP21 Jun 2009, 2042 hrs IST, IANS |
reaffirmed its commitment to Hindutva - but an inclusive one, "not narrowly
confined only to religious practices or
| |
forms".
In a resolution the party unanimously adopted on the second
and concluding day of its national executive meeting here, the BJP said the
Hindutva which it believed in was related to the "culture and ethos" of the
people of the country.
"Hinduism or Hindutva is not to be understood
or construed narrowly confined only to religious practices or expressed in
extreme forms," the resolution said.
"It is, therefore, inclusive
representing the finest imprints of our cultural and civilisational ideas. This
profound concept is the real inspiration for a resurgent India with which the
BJP is proud to be associated," it said.
BBC correspondent ordered to leave Iran21 Jun 2009, 1825 hrs IST, AFP |
that its correspondent in Iran has been asked to leave the country by the
Iranian authorities amid
| |
violence.
"With regret, Jon Leyne, the BBC's permananent
correspondent in Tehran, has been asked to leave by the Iranian authorities. The
BBC office remains open," a statement from the broadcaster said.
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