Who are the Maoists???
The CPI(M)’s justification to post CRPF in and around Nandigram was that the Maoists had entrenched themselves there. This is not different from the positions taken by a Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Madhu Kora in Jharkhand, Raman Singh in Chattisgarh and Y.S.Rajashekar Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. In many ways, this is the same as the argument by the Zionist regime in Israel, in defence of its armed onslaught and manslaughter, in the Palestinian settlements; we all know and some will agree that the Zionist regime’s armed onslaught is to facilitate forced occupation of Palestinian homes by Israelis.
The CPI(M) regime in West Bengal are now guilty of the same crime as the Zionists. The violence by the party’s cadre, aided by the state, against the people of Nandigram and the justification that it was necessary after the Maoists had entrenched themselves in the villages is the same as the Israel’s regime bulldozing Palestinian homes and shooting at children and justifying all that on grounds that the Hamas is now entrenched there.
It is a different matter that the CPI(M) continues to celebrate the Chinese regime (and Mao continues to remain the deity of that regime despite zeal with which it is adopting capitalism) to deny the Tibetans of their right to nationhood.
As is the case of the new generation leaders of the CPC, those in the CPI(M) too seem to have reduced all those books to mere show-pieces than read them and internalize some of the thoughts. And that is, indeed, evident from their attitude towards the Maoists and the fact that it is the same as that of the BJP, the Congress(I) and the amoral Madhu Kora. Be that as it may. It will make some sense, at this stage, to delve into the short history of the Maoists in India.
When the CPI(M) teamed up with the Bangla Congress to join the Ajoy Mukherjee Government on March 2, 1967, it seemed to herald a new era in the political scape of West Bengal. The Bangla Congress leader, Ajoy Mukherjee became the Chief Minister and Jyoti Basu Deputy Chief Minister holding charge of the Home portfolio. Hari Krishna Konar, veteran leader of the peasant movement became Minister for Land and Land Revenue.
And on March 18, just 16 days after the new Government took over, the CPI(M) leaders of the Silliguri sub-division held a conference of the peasants in the region. One of the prominent leaders of that event was Charu Mazumdar and he belonged to the CPI(M) at that time. The conference gave a call for ending monopoly ownership of land by the landlords, redistribution of land through peasants’ committees and arming the peasants to destroy the resistance of landlords to any such mobilization.
In a couple of months after that, Konar, in an interview to Ganashakthi (the CPI-M’s Bengali organ) said: ``The development of peasants’ initiatives and the advance of organized force would pave the way for further progress’’. The veteran Kisan leader’s statement, incidentally, was not very different from the call at the Silliguri conference. Konar had valid reasons to speak in the manner as he did. The Minister pointed out that benami transfers (that the landlords effected to circumvent the laws) and stay orders had scuttled redistribution of 121 thousand acres of land, identified as surplus by the Government. The extent of such land increased to 200 thousand acres by September 1969.
In the 30 months between March 1967 and September 1969, the United Front Government had collapsed once and reconstructed again after another election to the State assembly. And from what appeared to be an innocuous conference (that the Silliguri gathering on March 18, 1967), a movement had taken shape across West Bengal, in the Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh, in Tamil Nadu and in Kerala to realize the demand put forth in Silliguri and on the lines that were formulated at the conference.
Charu Mazumdar’s thoughts that sheer economism, that he accused the CPI(M) of having got stuck with, was not enough to liberate the landless and the small peasant came to be shared by a number of others in the CPI(M). They were, however, in a minority in the party and hence expelled. All this laid the basis for the foundation of a new party and that came to be known as the CPI(ML); even while the committed themselves to Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin (as did the CPI-M), Charu Mazumdar and his comrades insisted that Mao Tse Tung’s thoughts were far too relevant to the Indian condition more than anyone else’s.
They insisted that the feudal vestiges remained strong in the Indian reality and that our industrial houses were unwilling to launch the battle against these vestiges. And they were also of the opinion that the industrial class (the bourgeoisie) was inclined to compromise with foreign monopoly capital than confront it; they came to describe the capitalists class in India as comprador. And committed to the Marxist principles that they were, they identified their task as being anti-feudal and anti-imperialist.
It was in this context that a clash broke out between the police and armed villagers near Silliguri on May 23, 1967; the police was sent there to arrest some of the local leaders and Jyoti Basu was the Home Minister. A constable, Sonam Wangdi was killed in the clashes and on May 25, a huge posse of armed policemen sent to Pradjote in Naxalbari, opened fire on the villagers killing nine including six women and two children. This was just the beginning and the Sidhartha Sankar Ray regime (1972-77) when the regime went about shooting down Naxalites but also members of the CPI(M) across West Bengal.
The CPI(M)’s attitude towards the Naxalites (as Charu Mazumdar and his comrades were identified and this happened because the initial stirrings of the movement happened in Naxalbari village in North Bengal) was one of antagonism and this in turn led them, while in power, to unleash the police against the leaders as well as against the hapless people. The violent reaction by the Buddhadeb regime against those leading the struggle against indiscriminate land alienation in the name of development in Nandigram is just one more instance of this.
The party leadership seems undeterred doing this. They seem unfazed over the prospect of being consigned to the same bin as Madhu Kora, Rama Singh and Nitish Kumar. The difference is that the others do not pretend to celebrate Mao Tse Tung as does the CPI(M).
(P.S. I do possess all the five volumes of Mao Tse Tung Collected Works; and they were gifted to me, several years ago, by Prakash Karat)
The CPI(M)’s justification to post CRPF in and around Nandigram was that the Maoists had entrenched themselves there. This is not different from the positions taken by a Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Madhu Kora in Jharkhand, Raman Singh in Chattisgarh and Y.S.Rajashekar Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. In many ways, this is the same as the argument by the Zionist regime in Israel, in defence of its armed onslaught and manslaughter, in the Palestinian settlements; we all know and some will agree that the Zionist regime’s armed onslaught is to facilitate forced occupation of Palestinian homes by Israelis.
The CPI(M) regime in West Bengal are now guilty of the same crime as the Zionists. The violence by the party’s cadre, aided by the state, against the people of Nandigram and the justification that it was necessary after the Maoists had entrenched themselves in the villages is the same as the Israel’s regime bulldozing Palestinian homes and shooting at children and justifying all that on grounds that the Hamas is now entrenched there.
It is a different matter that the CPI(M) continues to celebrate the Chinese regime (and Mao continues to remain the deity of that regime despite zeal with which it is adopting capitalism) to deny the Tibetans of their right to nationhood.
As is the case of the new generation leaders of the CPC, those in the CPI(M) too seem to have reduced all those books to mere show-pieces than read them and internalize some of the thoughts. And that is, indeed, evident from their attitude towards the Maoists and the fact that it is the same as that of the BJP, the Congress(I) and the amoral Madhu Kora. Be that as it may. It will make some sense, at this stage, to delve into the short history of the Maoists in India.
When the CPI(M) teamed up with the Bangla Congress to join the Ajoy Mukherjee Government on March 2, 1967, it seemed to herald a new era in the political scape of West Bengal. The Bangla Congress leader, Ajoy Mukherjee became the Chief Minister and Jyoti Basu Deputy Chief Minister holding charge of the Home portfolio. Hari Krishna Konar, veteran leader of the peasant movement became Minister for Land and Land Revenue.
And on March 18, just 16 days after the new Government took over, the CPI(M) leaders of the Silliguri sub-division held a conference of the peasants in the region. One of the prominent leaders of that event was Charu Mazumdar and he belonged to the CPI(M) at that time. The conference gave a call for ending monopoly ownership of land by the landlords, redistribution of land through peasants’ committees and arming the peasants to destroy the resistance of landlords to any such mobilization.
In a couple of months after that, Konar, in an interview to Ganashakthi (the CPI-M’s Bengali organ) said: ``The development of peasants’ initiatives and the advance of organized force would pave the way for further progress’’. The veteran Kisan leader’s statement, incidentally, was not very different from the call at the Silliguri conference. Konar had valid reasons to speak in the manner as he did. The Minister pointed out that benami transfers (that the landlords effected to circumvent the laws) and stay orders had scuttled redistribution of 121 thousand acres of land, identified as surplus by the Government. The extent of such land increased to 200 thousand acres by September 1969.
In the 30 months between March 1967 and September 1969, the United Front Government had collapsed once and reconstructed again after another election to the State assembly. And from what appeared to be an innocuous conference (that the Silliguri gathering on March 18, 1967), a movement had taken shape across West Bengal, in the Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh, in Tamil Nadu and in Kerala to realize the demand put forth in Silliguri and on the lines that were formulated at the conference.
Charu Mazumdar’s thoughts that sheer economism, that he accused the CPI(M) of having got stuck with, was not enough to liberate the landless and the small peasant came to be shared by a number of others in the CPI(M). They were, however, in a minority in the party and hence expelled. All this laid the basis for the foundation of a new party and that came to be known as the CPI(ML); even while the committed themselves to Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin (as did the CPI-M), Charu Mazumdar and his comrades insisted that Mao Tse Tung’s thoughts were far too relevant to the Indian condition more than anyone else’s.
They insisted that the feudal vestiges remained strong in the Indian reality and that our industrial houses were unwilling to launch the battle against these vestiges. And they were also of the opinion that the industrial class (the bourgeoisie) was inclined to compromise with foreign monopoly capital than confront it; they came to describe the capitalists class in India as comprador. And committed to the Marxist principles that they were, they identified their task as being anti-feudal and anti-imperialist.
It was in this context that a clash broke out between the police and armed villagers near Silliguri on May 23, 1967; the police was sent there to arrest some of the local leaders and Jyoti Basu was the Home Minister. A constable, Sonam Wangdi was killed in the clashes and on May 25, a huge posse of armed policemen sent to Pradjote in Naxalbari, opened fire on the villagers killing nine including six women and two children. This was just the beginning and the Sidhartha Sankar Ray regime (1972-77) when the regime went about shooting down Naxalites but also members of the CPI(M) across West Bengal.
The CPI(M)’s attitude towards the Naxalites (as Charu Mazumdar and his comrades were identified and this happened because the initial stirrings of the movement happened in Naxalbari village in North Bengal) was one of antagonism and this in turn led them, while in power, to unleash the police against the leaders as well as against the hapless people. The violent reaction by the Buddhadeb regime against those leading the struggle against indiscriminate land alienation in the name of development in Nandigram is just one more instance of this.
The party leadership seems undeterred doing this. They seem unfazed over the prospect of being consigned to the same bin as Madhu Kora, Rama Singh and Nitish Kumar. The difference is that the others do not pretend to celebrate Mao Tse Tung as does the CPI(M).
(P.S. I do possess all the five volumes of Mao Tse Tung Collected Works; and they were gifted to me, several years ago, by Prakash Karat)
posted by Krishna Ananth at
3:29 AM
4 Comments:
great, timely post, as usual. was keen to get the background. happy that i got it now. keep posting, sir!
Sir, we must do something so that no one ever forgets Nandigram.
Nandigram is not just a place, anymore, it is an event which marks the beginning of the corporate colonisation of India.
Where the state is comprador.
Where people no more have the right to live off the land on which they were born.
Where the right to choose has disappeared.
Leading down a dark path where corporations and their rules are the only way of life.
Sometime ago, the CPI(M) wrote an editorial, quoting Stalin, "deviation is more dangerous against which one does not put up an
effective fight" -- it did not matter whether it was right-revisionism or left-adventurism. The party preaches well. Then supports the deviation that takes it into the company of fascists.
Nandigram is the culmination of the arrogance of a party that has been entrenched in power for so long and which has scant respect for liberties. All opposition is termed as 'Maoist' -- a habit that the party seems to caught on with -- or bookish ( witness Buddha's slur on Prabhat Patnaik) or, as Karat, drunk with arrogance, called Sumit Sarkar, 'opposed to the party'. Opposition to the party has, it seems, become a crime, which is morally unjustified!
The pigs are no longer distinguisable from the men.
The core concern of Marxism, for me, is the idea that democracy and liberty is possible only when the shackles of economics are broken. It is an expansion of personal freedoms that is Marxism's goal -- the withering of the state -- not the subsumation of the induvidual into the mass, the mass into the party, and the party into the state.
Engels clearly says the party in power, even while understanding the hoplessness of continuing small holdings in the face of capitalism, must be on the side of the small peasant.
"Under the developed capitalist mode of production, nobody can tell where honesty ends and cheating begins. But always it will make a considerable difference whether public authority is on the side of the cheater or the cheated. We, of course, are decidedly on the side of the small peasant; we shall do everything at all permissible to make his lot more bearable, to facilitate his transition to the co-operative should he decide to do so, and even to make it possible for him to remain on his small holding for a protracted length of time to think the matter over, should he still be unable to bring himself to this decision." (The Peasant Question in France and Germany)
If one reads Engles' work, and the delibrations and the agrarian theses of the Second Congress, the Marxist position is clear: land is to be appropriated for the purpose of forming collectives, as part of the battle against capital. It is not to be appropriated so that it may be handed on a platter to the looters and plunderers.
How has the party betrayed its founders!
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