Fall of the Left and Buddhadeb

During a press briefing in May 2006, CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose made a prophetic comment. While speaking on the role of media which was then projecting chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee as the poster boy of reforms, Bose remarked bluntly: “The media has taken the Brand Buddha line. But it can spell trouble for him.” (Source) The outspoken CPI(M) state secretary was expressing his worry that the same media which is making a superhero out of him, was equally capable of abruptly changing color, chameleon-like, and start smearing the chief minister’s image. Biman Bose’s comment came at a time when the political influence and reputation of Buddhadeb was at its peak. He had just won the 2006 state assembly elections with a colossal majority and was hailed as a new-age leader, a “capitalist communist” who was expected to steer Bengal to glory. The industrial lobby, the neo-liberal media and large sections of the urban middle class was praising him animatedly for his single-point industrialization agenda. He was been credited for bringing back hope to a state marred by “despair”. Neo-liberalism advocate The Economist went gaga to extol him for his “reputation for probity,” for being “modest and engaging” on topics from agri-business to consumerism and Indian poetry. From Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Azim Premji of Wipro, many big-shots were lauding him as India’s best chief minister. Unfortunately for him, it took just a year after the famous victory for the Brand Buddha bubble to burst. Within a couple of years the monolithic edifice of the CPI(M) came tumbling down when the people of Bengal delivered a real kick in the teeth to sweep out the Left Front from thirty-four long years of uninterrupted power.

Who are the Harmads of Bengal?

When a joint forces team raided and arrested two suspected Maoists – Amiya and Asim Mahato from the Municipal Guest House in Midnapore town, Trinamool Congress chieftain and railway minister Mamata Banerjee rushed at the spot with “friendly’’ television units and swung into damage control mode. Banerjee’s quick reaction does not need much explanation. The guest house was run by her party with the Congress as a relief camp to “shelter” party workers who are on the run from CPI(M) cadres “reclaiming” lost ground in various parts of West Midnapore district. According to Midnapore police chief Manoj Verma, the “sheltered Trinamool workers” comprises many hardcore Maoists and PCAPA activists from the Jangalmahal area. His team was keeping a keen watch on the guesthouse for a long time and the raid took place only after they became definite that seven Maoists had been staying there. Eight letters of CPI(Maoist) politbureau member Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji, senior Maoist leader Asim Ghosh alias Akash and Jharkhand Maoist leader Ranjan Munda has been seized from the two arrested suspects. One of Kishenji’s letters was addressed to the boisterous and bleeding-heart Trinamool MP Kabir Suman. The police have also informed that Amiya Mahato was present with Maoist commander Sidhu Soren when the faction encountered with the joint forces and lost eight of their members including Soren. Asim Mahato acted as Kishenji’s courier. The duo was hiding in the guesthouse since September 2010 with other Maoists including Kanchandeb Sinha, who was arrested on November 2010, from Trinamool block president Nepal Singh’s car in Shalboni. They have also participated in the recent Trinamool-PCAPA rally at Lalgarh. The joint forces team faced stiff resistance from local Trinamool men and women who had tried to prevent them from raiding the den for a second time. Six journalists suffered injuries when the police baton charged the mob to control the pandemonium. The police force has failed to nab the other suspected Maoists who have fled the den after breaking a window at the back of the building. (Source)

Maoist’s in Lalgarh: the plot unfolds

Lalgarh continues to burn. Over the last few days, there were continuous news of violence, brutal killings and large-scale arson reported from there. The victims of the atrocity were mostly local tribals who were also known to be activists or supporters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).They were forcefully driven out of their homes and coolly gunned down. Several CPI(M) party offices with houses of local party leaders were selectively targeted, torched and demolished. In front of the CPI(M) party office, the corpse of an agricultural laborer and CPI(M) worker Shalku Soren were seen lying under the sun, draped in a blood spattered sheet, for days. No one from his family has dared to perform his final rites. In the name of ‘people’s resistance’, this unprecedented brutality and vandalism was spearheaded by the Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janashadharaner Committee or People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA). At present, state police force along with central forces are jointly engaged in a fierce gun battle with the PCPA activists. It is out in the open now that the PCPA has been shaped, maintained, controlled and strengthened by the Maoists who are leading the Lalgarh resistance from the front.

Lalgarh is situated in West Midnapore district, just 200 km away from Kolkata. In spite of the fact that within a stone’s throw distance of Lalgarh, the Jindal Group has acquired 4500 acres of near-barren land to build up a steel plant at Salboni, there is no credible complain of ‘forceful land grab’ against the Bengal government here. Like Singur and Nandigram, some ‘concerned’ activist groups had habitually opposed the steel project but were unsuccessful to create enough ruckuses as 4200 acres from the notified land was ‘unfortunately’ owned by the government’s State Animal Welfare Board and the rest was purchased directly by Jindal from local landowners through a three tire compensation policy. The ‘Salboni Package’ was complimented all over the country as the best possible model so far for acquiring farmland for industry in India. In Lalgarh, there are no reports that the CPI(M) party men has unleashed a reign of terror on poor and harmless villagers wearing ‘police uniform but with chappals’. Here, no ‘eyewitness account’ has informed us that villagers are brutally murdered by the CPI(M) goons and then ‘put in gunny bags, loaded in trucks and transported to unknown destinations’. There is also no such report about mass raping of women. No witness has testified before a ‘fact finding committee’ that ‘the legs of a small child were torn apart’.

Then why this brutal outrage is surfacing in and around Lalgarh? Is it possible to explain this ‘people’s rage’ by linking it with the ‘thirty two years of massive state repression’? According to a honorable central minister who also happens to be a Trinamool Congress leader, the violence is a spontaneous ‘outburst’ of the oppressed people against the ‘atrocious’ CPM rule. Furthermore, who can disregard that the CPM has a chronic tendency to tag all popular unrests against their dismal rule with the Maoists? Didn’t they try to circulate the same theory during the great Nandigram uprising? Didn’t they do the same in Singur? “Where are the Maoists?” the honorable central minister candidly asked in a recent television debate. Is it not true that the Maoist presence in Bengal is a myth created by the CPM? The honorable minister in all probability was not aware at that time that Maoist leaders have surfaced before the media to claim their robust authority to the movement. The justifying tone of the minister sounds as if he was actually enjoying the brutal killings of the CPI(M) men! He must be in a calculative mood and expecting that Lalgarh will provide some sort of continuity to the electoral and political gains his party has reaped from the very similar episodes of Nandigram.

There are indeed many similarities between Nandigram and Lalgarh. The politics and modus operandi of the agitation is similar. In both the places, rumor and disinformation were spread among locals to agitate and mobilize them. In both the places, a rainbow organization had sprung up rapidly to lead the agitation. In both the places the agitators took over the state administration to establish a free zone. Roads were dug off, several places were blocked by felled trees to resist any further state incursion. In both the places, indigenous weapons brandishing mob emerged as a symbol of the resistance. Both the so-called ‘popular movements’ were backed up by social activists, NGO’s and city dwelling intelligentsia who came on the street to protest the ‘state repression’ and ‘brutal use of force’. In both the places, there were a significant presence of women and children among the agitators who formed the front rank as ‘human shields’ while armed Maoists have positioned themselves in the back layer to instigate police firing. To deliberately create an anti-people image of the CPI(M) and the state government, a deceitful propaganda model was crafted to establish that the state government has particularly targeted the minority Muslims in Nandigram. The same model is applied at Lalgarh where the long oppressed tribals are shown as the victims of state government’s oppression and dispossession. It is now starkly evident that in both the places, the agitation was and is fuelled by a combined force of the right-wing Trinamool and the ultra-left Maoists. In both the places, the CPI(M) party and its workers were the single target.

The answer to the question why Lalgarh has become a killing field of CPI(M) workers is plain and simple. The CPI(M) is the lone target because it is the only party in that area that has the potential to confront and resist the deadly Maoist insurgents. It is the daring local leaders and workers of the CPI(M) who has created the biggest hurdle for the Maoists. They are the only one spoiling the Maoist’s grand design to systemically extend influence in the entire Jangalmahal region of Bengal. These sincere workers who are rooted deep with the daily struggles of the people are the real strength of the CPI(M). The Maoists have understood this strength and therefore has taken up the horrific task to selectively kill individual leaders and workers of the CPI(M) and detach the people from the party by enforcing a reign of terror against them.

The Janashadharaner Committee which is roaming and clumping all over Lalgarh for the past few months were formed as a protest against ‘rampant police atrocity especially on women and school children’ after the state police had raided Lalgarh and its adjacent villages in November, 2008 and detained some locals for having suspected Maoist links. The police action was carried out after the landmine blast on the convoy route of chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee who was returning from Salboni after laying the Jindal steel plant foundation stone. The wire connecting the landmine was found to be originating from Lalgarh. The mastermind behind the attack on the chief minister is suspected to be Maoist action squad leader Sasadhar Mahato, younger brother of the former Trinamool and present PCPA leader Chatradhar Mahato. Along with Maoist sympathizer groups like the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and Lalgarh Andolon Sanhati Mancha (Solidarity Forum for Lalgarh Movement), the Trinamool Congress had also extended its clandestine support towards the PCPA from its birth and stimulated the ‘unique form of democratic politics’ in Lalgarh against the “government’s long neglect of the tribal people”. Trinamool chieftain Mamata Banerjee was seen several times in the recent past to share the same dais with Chatradhar Mahato. ‘Humanitarian’ NGO groups, social activists and intellectuals with ultra Left undertone were seen to be busy providing moral, intellectual and financial support to the PCPA and ‘steadfastly persevered’ the movement ‘on a path of peaceful show of unity’. The Maoists, who had already set up a strong foothold in the region, were already waiting in the wings. The PCPA incited the tribals for an administration boycott and prevented the police from entering the area. All these developments were happening prior to the Lok Sabha polls. The Left Front government, taken aback by the political consequences of Nandigram were coerced not to take direct action and tried to resolve the crisis through negotiation and talks.

The villages in Lalgarh block could not cast their votes in the Lok Sabha polls due to constant threats from the Maoists. Soon, the area completely went out of hand from the state administration. Lalgarh virtually became a liberated zone of the Maoists. The mainstream media started its systemic propaganda with illustrated stories of people’s resistance and also about how the Maoists have initiated the alternative developmental work inside Lalgarh in the past seven months through their rural governance programme to ‘built at least 50 km of gravel paths, dug tubewells and tanks, rebuilt irrigation canals and are running health centres, with the help of local villagers in Lalgarh. Sporadic killing of CPI(M) leaders and workers were taking place which was made known as ‘people’s upsurge’ against CPI(M) ‘atrocities’.

Just some time after the Lok Sabha election results were out, the situation of Lalgarh erupted with its real face. Planned butchery of CPI(M) local leaders starts. Exciting images of enthusiastic PCPA activists hammering down the house of a CPI(M) leader brick by brick surrounded by drum beating tribals were beamed by TV channels. On June 15, Maoist leader ‘Bikash’ came out into the open to deliver a chilling interview, “On November 2, our plan was to execute Buddhadeb Babu. If West Bengal wants Buddhadeb hanged, who will hang him. It will be us of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army.” Standing back facing TV cameras with an AK 47 slung on his shoulder, the real leader of Lalgarh ‘movement’ announced to the literally dumbfound looking journalists, “The ground here is already ready and waiting for us. A child is about to be born and we are playing the role of the nurse who will deliver it”. Next day, in his second media interaction, Bikash also told to the Bengali news channel Star Ananda that “Killings, mass rapes, violence are the doings of Buddhadeb babu’s party. What we are doing is counter-violence.” But Bikash tried to indirectly deny any association with the Trinamool by saying, “Trinamool and CPI(M) are the two sides of the same coin.” At once, Trinamool friendly media picked up this information and propagated repeatedly to invalidate the CPI(M) claim that “Trinamool Congress workers are in cohorts with armed Maoist groups”. Bikash’s identity has been revealed by the Bengal Home Secretary. He is none but Sasadhar Mahato; the younger brother of Chatradhar Mahato.

After Bikash, it was the turn of Koteswar Rao alias Kishanji, the head of CPI(Maoist)’s central military commission and a politburo member in charge of Bengal, Jharkhand and Orissa to address the media. Suspected by the administration to be present at Lalgarh to spearhead the insurgency, Kishanji in his interview with the news channel NDTV has demanded an apology from the Centre and the Bengal government for waging a ‘psychological warfare’ against the tribals. Contrary to the remarks of Bikash on the Trinamool-Maoist connection, Kisanji has meanderingly appealed to the Trinamool chieftain ‘to break her silence’ and repay the Maoist’s contribution in Nandigram by assisting them in Lalgarh. In an earlier interview with the Times of India, Kisanji had spelt out how the Trinamool has armed them to fight in Nandigram. Even Chatradhar Mahato, in a careless moment had acknowledged the same fact.

It seems that the Maoist leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to keep the truth of a Trinamool-Maoist nexus concealed anymore. Earlier, in an inter-party letter, the Maoist leaders had already expressed their desire to “amass all anti-CPM forces in Bengal” and have appealed to their members to “involve the ruling class parties in this anti-CPM project to the maximum extent possible”. In the same letter, the Maoist leaders had asked their comrades to “strengthen relation with the leader who is leading the Singur movement from the front”. Fearing that her carefully veiled truth is getting uncovered by the ‘block-head’ Maoists, Trinamool chieftain Mamata Banerjee has promptly distanced herself and her party from the Lalgarh movement. Impatient to ‘portray a statesman-like attitude’, she has worriedly responded on the issue by saying, “I don’t support that (the Lalgarh violence). It is our collective duty to maintain law and order”. She has announced that two years ago her party has ‘expelled’ Chatradhar and made a wild claim that the Maoist’s are in fact a CPM plant to prevent the growing Trinamool influence in Bengal. “Buddhadev himself is the Maoist” was her reply to the CPI(M) allegation! (For a recent update on the Trinamool-Maoists nexus, see Maoist leader names TMC, Mahashweta as allies)

In Lalgarh, the Maoists have again made it clear why they are no different than any terrorist group. But till they were working covertly under the PCPA banner, their linkage with the PCPA could not be believably proved by the administration. It was easy for the Maoist backers to romanticize the Lalgarh movement in every possible way and candidly support the movement through sympathy soaked media coverage and armament-logistic-legal-financial helps. But by coming out in the open to face the media and announcing their leadership role in Nandigram and Lalgarh, the Maoist leaders have placed them on the horns of a dilemma. The avid sympathizers are showing signs of frustration that the consequences of this ‘stupid’ revelation of ‘hegemonic power’ can derail their well crafted plans. Now, when the truth about Maoists presence in Lalgarh cannot be dismissed anymore, a section of the sympathizers are trying their best to project the Lalgarh violence as a result of the growing discordance between the Maoist central leadership and ‘grassroots Maoists’ and harshly criticized the Maoist leadership as a ‘threat to the various democratic mass movements’. (Source) Their prime concern now is to justify that the Lalgarh movement is basically a ‘non-violent struggles of the people against unjust development policies in the state’ that is suddenly hijacked by the ‘self styled warriors against the state’. Can we humbly ask the ‘democratic mass movement’ propagators why they have waited so long to raise their voice to oppose the Maoists role in the Lalgarh resistance? Following the same logic, will they then condemn the so called Nandigram resistance also?

There is another section that is continuing to shield the Maoists by saying, “…the Maoists are rightly concerned about the objective historical necessity of the moment. This has prompted them to boycott elections and more ruinously adopt the exclusive path of protracted war. It is true that Maoists do not necessarily enjoy staying underground, and it is the brutality of the state that initially forced them into the forests.” (Source) Off course, this dogmatic section does not face any dilemma. Through their intellectual jargon and twisted facts, they are keen to establish that the mindless violence in Lalgarh was “…a spontaneous outburst of popular anger which has resulted in the torching of a CPI(M) party office.” (Source) They have condemned sending in paramilitary forces into the area and guaranteed continual support to the ‘historic in form and content’ movement in ‘every possible way’. They are supporters of mindless killings and completely blinded by the concept of armed uprising.

It is just a matter of days before the state and central joint forces will flush out the Maoists from Lalgarh. The real test for the state government will start from here. Instead of banning the Maoists, confronting them through political and administrative means seems to be the right solution. The government has to address the genuine grievances of the extremely poor and underprivileged section of the region with a compassionate determination. They must also remain extremely alert about the evil designs that will continue to proliferate in the coming days.

Image Courtesy: hindu.com, ndtv.com

The End of CPI(M)?

The distressful performance of the CPI(M) in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls has uniformly delighted the Indian corporate bosses, big media, political analysts and a large section of the ‘conditioned’ civil society. Except in the north-eastern state of Tripura, where the party was able to maintain its dominance by winning both the Lok Sabha seats, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s overall performance in the country was terrible. The party suffered a serious setback in the ‘red bastions’ of Bengal and Kerala. To some extent, the Kerala results were expected where internal strife between Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan and the state party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan has greatly affected the party’s electoral prospect. The Kerala electorates also have a tendency to switch their political preference from one election to the next. But the Bengal electorates have delivered the most startling verdict. As a result, an ecstatic mood is visible among sections of the ‘awake and aware’ Left intellectuals who have gone into raptures over the outcome and came out in open with their daggers of intellectual reproach to pounce upon the ‘utterly vindictive’ and ‘arrogant’ leadership of the CPI(M). The General Secretary of the party Mr. Prakash Karat is their primary target. Calling him the ‘Commissar’ who ‘understands nothing of India and even less of politics’, the mocking tone of their criticism is clearly determined by a longstanding contention against Mr. Karat and the party. (Source) Many of these intellectuals who furtively eulogize the Maoists and their tactical line on elections are leaving no stone unturned to bash the Marxists for their electoral debacle. To them it was ‘a resounding slap on the face of the CPM’. Moreover, the ‘joyous news’ has encouraged the celebrated anti-communists and turned them completely berserk to announce that the Left is now history! (Source) Almost immediately after the election results were out, the Anandabazar Patrika group has planted a fictitious story to establish a deep feud between the Bengal CPI(M) and the party’s Central leadership, also aiming at the party’s General Secretary. To take advantage of the situation, the media group also spread a speculative newsroom scoop about Buddhadev Bhattacharyya’s willingness to resign as Chief Minister! This entire disposition is quite comprehensible due to the fact that the Marxists had fostered end number of enemies as a result of the particular brand of politics they have practiced during the last five years.

To find out why the CPI(M) has suffered so badly, in this discussion we will attempt to probe the imperative aspects of the episode, remaining confined only to Bengal. It is just not an election debacle for the CPI(M) but a much deeper and serious crisis for the Left movement in India. The crisis is enormous, complex and multidimensional which is virtually impossible to tackle within the limited space of a blog post.

Neither the CPI(M) nor the opposition Trinamool Congress (TMC) or the Indian National Congress (INC) had ever predicted such a fantastic outcome during the poll process. However, it was almost certain that the TMC-INC combine, forged just before the elections to prevent the anti-Left vote to split, was going to perform well. This was predicted after the experience of last year’s Panchayat polls where the Left Front and the CPI(M) has lost several of their grass root strongholds. According to the inner party predictions and pre-poll surveys conducted by various media groups, the combine was expected to win near to eighteen seats. But no one could foresee the final tally where the CPI(M) was left with only 9 seats and was wiped out in ten districts out of nineteen in the state. There is no doubt that it will take quite some time for the awestruck CPI(M) state and central leadership to restore the conditions in their favor after such a magnitude of thrashing. The overall repercussions that will automatically follow will also be rather difficult to deal with in the coming days. For the honest and sincere party workers and sympathizers, it is tough to keep faith on the maxim – tomorrow is another day.

What went wrong? Why did the loyal supporters and sympathisers of 32 long years increasingly distanced them from the CPI(M)? Did the party leadership put too much weight on the 2006 assembly poll slogan ‘agriculture is our base, industrialization our future’ and closed their eyes about the discontents that was emerging from the Buddhadev Bhattacharyya government's land acquisition policy? Did the party ignore the core areas of its strength – the poor and underprivileged rural populace and failed to convince them about the seemingly pro-capital stance of the Left Front government? Is it because of the arrogant attitude of the grassroot party functionaries who have turned into present day landlords in the eyes of the people? Is it because of the corruption and nepotism practiced by a good section of the party leaders which has led to their detachment from the people? Has the CPI(M), which is generally perceived as a cohesive, dedicated, closely controlled and regimented party has actually been metamorphosed into an inefficient, dishonest and sick organization? Is it because even after identifying the rot within its different layers, the leadership was unable to take proper action from the fear of losing the image, mass character and dominance of the party? Any of these or a combination of these rudimentary causes could be the reason why this time the people have decided not to trust the party which was reelected just three years ago in 2006 by a mammoth people’s mandate. The fall of communist character within the CPI(M) is highlighted by many pundits as the core reason behind the election debacle. There are plenty of ready facts to support this argument but did these detrimental features suddenly develop within the party over the last three years? If not, then how does it explain the party’s triumphant victory in the 2006 assembly polls?

According to the initial findings, there are three major interlinked reasons behind the disaster in Bengal. The first of the reasons is the startling pro-Congress wave in the country for a stable government at the center that has entirely rejected the Left Front and the CPI(M)’s call for a third alternative. Riding on the wave, the TMC has gained considerably in south Bengal to rout the Marxists. At the all India level, the vote share of the INC has increased by 2 per cent while CPI(M)’s vote share in Bengal has decreased by 6 per cent. This statistics is a clear indication that the pro-Congress wave was not the central reason behind the poor show of the party. Secondly, as the biggest constituent of the Left Front government, the CPI(M) has failed to appropriately explain to the agricultural poor, small farmers and labourers why the government got involved in acquiring fertile land for industry. Instead of gaining their confidence, the party was caught up in direct confrontation with them. The party leaders cannot coherently explain why the industrialization drive in Bengal was different from the capitalist model of market economy. The twin episodes of Singur and Nandigram were the epicenter of the land-industry controversy. Particularly, the fateful events of Nandigram had ripped open a can of worms, of various shapes, sizes and colors, which had ultimately turned lethal against the party. The party tried hard to control the all-out attack but failed to counter it. The TMC successfully manipulated this failure to build-up grave discontent within the masses with the active assistance of various comprador agencies and their peers including some prominent intellectuals. The cunning tactics adopted by the ‘magnetic’ Trinamool chieftain to extend her sweet lap towards all anti-CPI(M) forces including the Maoists for an all-out attack was one of the key reasons behind the reinforcement of public opinion against the CPI(M). Sensing that the state government is on back foot, the Trinamool chieftain almost ran a parallel government in the state, dictating terms and conditions to every government policies and programs. During the election campaign, the party had tried to relate the opposition’s violent anti-CPI(M) agitation with the semi-fascist terror atmosphere perpetrated by the Bengal Congress against them in the seventies. But 32 years is too long a time for people to even forget the face of their real enemies. The land acquisition controversy has gravely affected the party and was directly responsible for the erosion of a traditionally loyal and sizable Muslim support base of the Left, particularly in the rural centers of Bengal. The abrupt upshot of the Rizwanur Rehman case (Source) and TMC’s bitter and aggressive campaigning following the half-truth findings of the Sachar Committee Report concerning the backwardness of the Muslims in Bengal was the other contributory factors behind the loyalty shift of the Muslims to the opposition. The third potential reason was the accumulated ‘sins’ from three decades of uninterrupted power and the disdainful behavior and fraudulent activities of a section of arrogant and overconfident party leaders who had completely lost touch with the people to feel there pulse. All the three reasons clubbed together will make clear why large number of people has lost their trust on the party and its leaders – at least for now.

Few months before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Left parties withdrew their support from the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government over the issue of the Indo-US Nuclear deal. The CPI(M) under Mr. Karat undertook a pivotal role to strongly opposed the deal from an ideological standpoint. There were reasonable arguments to oppose the various tricky aspects of the nuclear deal which the party leaders had credibly raised at that time. But all these remarkable efforts looked like a grave tactical blunder when the party leadership failed poorly to convey the logic behind their opposition, the subservient attitude of the Prime Minister and the American lobby within the UPA, the Congress government’s disgraceful surrender before US imperialism and the evil designs behind the deal to the general public. The whole nuclear deal debate was reduced into an intellectual squabble between pro-deal and anti-deal argumentative groups and could not accurately expose the hidden threat – the threat of a close strategic and military tie up with the US that will drastically overturn India’s independent foreign policy.

CPI(M) leaders might have anticipated that opposing the deal from an anti-imperialist ideological standpoint will largely elevate the party’s image. But nothing of that sort happened. Instead, when the INC confederates smoothly roped in the Samajwadi Party in support of the government, the Left and the CPI(M) at one shot lost its significance in national politics. They were unsuccessful to convincingly establish the point that supporting the Congress led UPA government was only a strategic compromise, keeping in mind the horrendous deeds of the former BJP led NDA government and its fascist associates. The support was not given as a blank-cheque to the Congress Party to rule the country according to their wish. It was based on a Common Minimum Program (CMP) from which the UPA was gradually but deliberately shifting away. Halfheartedly conducted propaganda by the party mass organizations was too feeble to counter the overwhelming publicity from the neo-liberal bourgeois media in support of the deal and the party lost its credibility in this extensive media war. The CPI(M) and its leaders turned into a villain in the minds of the people for destabilizing the government and ‘betraying the nation’. Moreover, the Left in general and the CPI(M) in particular had surprisingly ignored the opportunity to convert the nuclear deal debate into a major election issue. The party did not even try to explore the inherent possibilities of the topic for which it has taken such an extreme step and risked its political future. This gave chance to people like the expelled leader Mr. Somnath Chatterjee to describe the party’s central leadership as ‘narcissistic’. They had similarly failed to reap benefits from the impressive role they had played to stall the anti-people policies of the UPA government. The Congress on the contrary, had successfully twisted the Left’s positive contribution to the UPA government into their favor.

The CPI(M) has also paid a heavy price for its unrealistic overdrive to forge alliance with dubious political parties in a deviant urge to build up a non-Congress, non-BJP alternative third force. To occupy the non-Congress, non-BJP space, the party leadership had browsed for ‘progressive’ bourgeois allies and embraced almost every political party who was free floating in the uncertain pre-election political milieu. The hobnobbing of party leaders with political groups of unconvincing background, most of them former allies of the ultra-rightist BJP, has not gone down well with the masses. The leadership was unable to even convince a large section of their dedicated party workers to carry the idea of the third alternative among the electorates. The election outcomes have again proved that an opportunistic alliance based on simple electoral gains and devoid of specific programme oriented political struggles is neither creditable nor viable. CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury has rightly described it as a ‘cut-paste job’ done on the eve of the elections. But how did leaders of the stature of Mr. Karat or Mr. Yechury and the entire CPI(M) central committee got carried away by such an enthusiastic gamble? This question still remained unanswered. What was the rationale behind allying with political buccaneers like Deve Gowda and Mayawati, who within three days after the results were declared, jumped in the UPA bandwagon to offer their unconditional support? The party leaders cannot evade this pertinent question by simply stating the terrible step of tactlessness as a mistake.

Today, many of the Left Front partners are putting the entire blame for their poor show on the ‘big brother’ CPI(M) and trying to wash themselves clean in front of the public. Central leaders are blamed for ‘blindly toeing the line of Prakash Karat’ and ‘following the agenda set by CPI(M)’. During the Nandigram incident, several Left Front partners and their upstart leaders had embraced the short-cut way to fame by openly and consistently criticizing the CPI(M) leadership in harsh and offensive language and tried hard to prove how pure Leftist they are. But unknowingly or intentionally they became a pawn in the cunning game of the anti-left forces and their valued representative – the Trinamool chieftain. The Left Front as a whole lost its trustworthiness and appeared to be deeply stained during that time. Though just before the Lok Sabha elections, the dissent Left Front leaders tried to showoff their unity with the CPI(M). But how much this showoff has been conveyed and accepted in the grass root level after all the previous acts of dissent is doubtful. Even if we consider that the unity was nearly total, the wise electorates, frustrated by the attitude of the left leaders were definitely not convinced. And they were absolutely right to do so. After the election results were out, the anti-CPI(M) rhetoric erupted again from several Left Front partners. This proves that a lot of things are not hale and hearty in the Left Front. A void has developed after the demise of the pragmatic old guards and the bigheaded new generations leaders seem to be more engaged to destroy than build.

Accepting the verdict, the CPI(M) politburo in a recent statement has stated that “Both national and state specific factors are responsible for the poor performance”. The politburo has also affirmed that the party will now “seriously examine the reasons for these reverses…conduct a self-critical review to form the basis for corrective steps” and will make “all out efforts to regain the support and confidence of the people”. To what extend this ‘self-critical review’ is conducted and ‘corrective steps’ is taken will determine how the party confronts the populist politics of Mamata Banerjee and her coterie of despotic, deceitful, vicious and repulsive leaders to ‘regain the support and confidence of the people’. Instead of acting as the crisis managers of the bourgeois parties, the party leaders should concentrate on streamlining the mass fronts. For quite some time, the mass fronts have grown droopy about prolonged mass struggles and has almost drifted away from the ideology of a Marxist-Leninist party. If the CPI(M) honestly introspects, corrects their mistaken policies and tactics and effectively turn the election debacle into a watershed, it will be the ideal homage to the countless party workers who had selflessly dedicated their entire life for the party and the Left movement in the country. The task is easier said than done.

In spite of their failure to act in response to the needs of the poor, in spite of the neo-liberal, anti-people policies of economic reforms it has pursued during the last five years of their governance, the centrist Congress Party has nevertheless received a comfortable mandate to rule the country for the next five years. Due to the enormous error of political judgment committed by them, the CPI(M) and the Left could not gain a bit from the prevailing discontent among the masses. This is the biggest irony of the 2009 general elections.

Indian Democracy and its ‘revolutionary’ Maoists

“A peal of spring thunder has crashed over the land of India”. This is how the July 5, 1967 editorial of Communist Party of China (CPC) mouthpiece People’s Daily had described the peasant upsurge in a tiny Bengal village – Naxalbari. People’s Daily was endorsing the incidence where share croppers and landless laborers rose in revolt with ‘land to the tiller’ slogan against the local landlords. The editorial also went on to predict that “…a great storm of revolutionary armed struggle will eventually sweep across the length and breadth of India”. Named after its birthplace, the Naxalbari movement soon evolved into an armed uprising in Bengal and spread like wildfire in several Indian states, including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala. The movement reached its peak between May 1969 and June 1971 after the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) was founded on April 22, 1969. But the stormy days didn’t last for long. From 1972, the movement started losing its impetus. Between 1973 and 1975, the central and the state governments, both under the Congress Party rule, jointly crushed the movement by ruthless army and police operations. Most of the prominent Naxal leaders were captured and jailed or dead in ‘police encounter’ including the principle ideologue Charu Majumdar, who had died in police custody in July 1972. After the first non-Congress Janata government came to power in 1977, the jailed Naxalites were released along with other political prisoners imprisoned under Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. By then, many of them were deeply frustrated over the failure of their movement and turned impassive about active radical politics. After 1977, the Naxalites were fragmented into numerous small groups under different leaders, organizations and ideological positions and were conflicting with each other over ideological-tactical debates with elements of personal egotism but could not generate any significant impact in the socio-political milieu of India. Evading from direct political linkage, many of the former Naxals started putting up non-governmental organizations to stay entrenched with social, economic, cultural, environmental, legal, human rights and gender related issues. The present day Indian Maoists trace their lineage back to this iconic ultra left-wing rebellion.

*****

The Naxalite movement inflamed again after the resurgence of two potent Naxalite groups in the 1980s. In Andhra Pradesh, the pro-Charu Majumdar People’s War Group (PWG) was set up in 1982 under the leadership of Kondapally Seetaramaiah. The other group was the Kanai Chatterjee, Amulya Sen and Chandrasekhar Das led anti-Charu Majumdar Maoist Communist Centre (MCC). After been restructured in the mid-1980s, MCC had extended its considerable influence in parts of central Bihar. Confined within their respective territory, the PWG and MCC had dominated the insurgency scene for some time and were also frequently engaged in violent fights against each other over territorial disputes resulting in the death of hundreds of cadres and sympathizers of both sides. But by 1992, counter-insurgency operations by the government in Andhra Pradesh have largely tamed the activities of the PWG. The outfit was banned and its erosion continued when large numbers of PWG cadres were either arrested or has surrendered before the security forces. In Bihar, violence related with caste prejudices and regular clashes with the upper castes private armies like the Ranvir Sena started showing signs of desperation among the MCC cadres. These alarming ground realities forced the two once-rival groups to come together on September 21, 2004 to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist) to act as “a consolidated political vanguard of the Indian Proletariat”. After ‘great debate and controversy’, the term ‘Maoism’ was adopted upholding Mao Zedong’s thought as the ‘third and higher stage in the qualitative development of Marxism’. Following the unification, the cadre strength and gun power of the alliance increased substantially and the group became the most considerable Naxalite formation in the country to secure its influence and control over a large geographical spread – the ‘Red Corridor’.

From Andhra Pradesh’s Telangana region to the Tarai region of Nepal, the ‘Red Corridor’ stretches about 92,000 sq. km linking parts of Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Maharashtra, the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, Western Orissa, Jharkhand, Central and North Bihar, the far-eastern region of Uttar Pradesh and the Bihar-Jharkhand border areas of Bengal. This vast stretch covers concentrated tribal pockets and comprises some of the poorest, underdeveloped and oppressed regions of the country. While the region is rich with mineral resources like coal and iron ore deposits, natural gases and forests, the Indian state has badly failed to deliver minimum social-economic amenities and to considerately attend the largely unseen suffering of the local people, particularly the tribals. This is the key reason why the Maoist movement has fairly succeeded to penetrate in this region. Displacement due to large scale projects, inability to avail the benefits from natural resources, failure of law and order and regular exploitation by local landowners, traders, police and corrupt government officials has added to set the ideal condition for the Maoists to exploit the people.

In remote and rural areas where socio-economic deprivation and exploitation are common, the Maoist approach to address long existing grievances through the barrel of the gun deeply influences the people to strike a sympathetic chord among them. It is therefore relatively easy to stir up the anger and resentment of the underprivileged, particularly the women and youth to join the guerrilla army and fight the ‘class repression, class exploitation and class rule’ of the Indian State. In their own way, the Maoists have also dealt with a core grievance of the rural poor – their lack of land rights. By forcefully acquiring land from the oppressive landlords at gunpoint and redistributing them to the landless peasants has significantly helped the growth of their support base among the poor rural peasantry.

*****

After the massive counter-insurgency operations in Andhra Pradesh, the Maoists had suffered considerable losses and have gradually shifted their focus to Dandakaranya (a 35,600 square miles spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh), Bihar and Jharkhand. However, in the Bastar and Dantewada districts of Chhattisgarh, the Maoists were harshly confronted by a unique form of resistance from the local tribals – the Salwa Judum. Steered by Mahendra Karma, a local tribal leader belonging to the Congress party, the movement came up in the year 2005 as “a spontaneous reaction by the tribals to defend themselves against the reign of terror unleashed by the Naxalites”. (National Human Rights Commission report to the Supreme Court of India) The Salwa Judum recruited its members from the villages, built-up local vigilante groups and was supported by the Chhattisgarh government as a counter insurgency force. Its members, mostly tribal youths were recruited as Special Police Officers (SPOs) by the Chhattisgarh state Police and trained in using arms.

The secretive and illegal activities of the Maoists have kept their political outlook and motives mostly distant from the larger Indian population living outside their sphere of influence. Though there are instances which illustrate that the Maoists are trying to spread their influence outside their customary stronghold, in reality, their influences are still concentrated in the poorest regions inhabited mostly by the tribal population. For obvious reasons, the invisible Maoist leaders have kept their focus confined on the relatively inaccessible rural belts. The reasons are not only tactical as stated in their party documents. It is also due to the fact that for conducting their acts of individual violence and terror these places are good as safe shelters from the counter-insurgence forces. Except among the habitual woolgathering intellectuals, so called human-right groups and sections of the middle-class student population in the cities, the Maoists have minimal influence among the urban petty bourgeoisie and the industrial working class. After the unceasing rise of Dalit politics and the ominous growth of Hindutva-communal forces, chances for the Maoists to make a greater impact on the general course of Indian political sphere has become marginal and the prospect of expanding into unexplored zones is steadily shrinking.

Killing a handful of ‘class enemies’, clashing with the mining and steel companies, attacking police posts and jails, damaging vital infrastructures like roads, bridges, and railroads, blasting landmines to ‘wipe out the armed forces of the counter-revolutionary Indian state’ or establishing parallel governments of Janathana Sarkar in the ‘liberated zones’ of remote tribal pockets to encircle cities while being isolated from the majority of the people are the fantastic Maoist tactics to establish the People’s Democratic State. In the extremely complicated composition of a multi-national, multi-religious, and caste-divided Indian society, the Maoist proposition to shape the revolution by ‘seizure of political power through protracted People’s War’ sounds thrilling and romantic but is far away from the prevailing reality of contemporary India.

Misinterpreting Mao’s annihilation theory and embracing the people’s war theory of Lin Biao which the Chinese Communist Party has discredited long ago, the Maoists turn into a real nuisance when they start forcing their erroneous doctrinarism on the masses to bear the brunt of their ‘revolutionary’ actions. Democratic struggle and mass-political programs have no place in their credo. Instead, they are obsessed with armed activities and military programs that include sabotage and annihilation of enemies through individual assassination. Maoist leaders also have a typical tendency to justify their actions of individual terror by parroting quotations of Mao like ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’ out of context. Most of the victims of their so called ‘revolutionary tactics’ of crushing the heart of the enemy’s state machinery is always the poor and the ordinary. Their annihilation theory has also been extended toward rival Naxalite groups and members or supporters of mainstream Left parties. To fund their revolutionary operations, the Maoists extract levy from the landlords, the village rich and government contractors, get involve in racketeering of forest resources, force farmers to cultivate poppy crops to harvest opium that fetches lucrative price and also helps the ‘class enemy’ bourgeois parties to win elections in exchange for a substantial amount of money.

A classic example of this strange ultra-left adventurism is evident from the role they played in the so called ‘liberated zone’ of Nandigram. Here, the outfit took the initiative on behalf of the Trinamool Congress to build-up an armed resistance against the ‘conspiracies and treacherous policies’ of the Left Front government of Bengal. As claimed by Koteswar Rao, CPI (Maoist) politburo member in charge of Bengal, Jharkhand and Orissa, the Maoists were armed by the Trinamool to spearhead the movement. (Source) According to the CPI (Maoist) General Secretary Ganapathy, Maoist cadres were in the forefront to “lead the movement in the correct direction” and stall the alleged ‘land grab’ of the state government which was acting at the behest of the ‘comprador’ Salim Group. Eleven months of their stupendous effort has immensely helped the Trinamool Congress to seize political grip in the area. Soon after their victory in the Panchayat polls, the Trinamool Congress has completely disregarded them and pushed them out from Nandigram. Thereafter, no news of any Maoist activity has been reported from there. Since the ‘revolution’ in Nandigram is over, the Maoists have thus shifted their focus on Lalgarh in West Midnapore leaving behind Nandigram in the safe hands of Trinamool!

On November 2, 2008 a landmine was detonated on the convoy route of Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee and Union Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan who were returning from Salboni after the foundation stone ceremony of Jindal steel plant. The landmine wire was found to be originating from Lalgarh. As a result, the Police entered the adjacent villages and picked up some local tribals as suspects. A protest movement sparked off in Lalgarh over allegations of police high handedness during the raids and almost immediately, the Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janashadharaner Committee (People’s Committee against Police Atrocities) was floated. Led by a 45 year old local tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato with obvious Maoist links, Lalgarh is brewing for a remarkably similar Nandigram style ‘movement’. To recreate another ‘liberated zone’, the local tribals are mobilized with arms; roads are dug and blocked at several places by felled trees to resist the ‘oppressive and autocratic’ state incursion. Maoist sympathizer organizations like the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and Lalgarh Andolon Sanhati Mancha (Solidarity Forum for Lalgarh Movement) are fueling this ‘unique form of democratic politics’ from their backyard at Kolkata. While media report (The Times of India, 22 April 2009) has suggested that sophisticated and indigenous firearms have been sneaked inside Lalgarh, local tribals are seen brandishing traditional weapons in front of television cameras to put up the impression of a genuine tribal revolt.

Bengal is a difficult terrain for the Maoist to bloom. When the central and other state governments believe that the Maoist problem is largely a law and order issue, the Left Front government has carefully comprehended the socio-economic aspect of the problem and tried to tackle it through ideological and political means. In other states, the Maoists have capitalized from the existing grievance among the rural poor concerning land rights. But in Bengal, land reform and redistribution has been a remarkable success. This achievement has mostly isolated the Maoists from the larger section of the rural populace. In other states where 4 per cent of families owned 60 per cent of lands, in Bengal 40 per cent of the families own 80 per cent of the land. Not been able to win over the people, the vengeful Maoists have thus targeted the CPI (M) workers. The recent Maoist incursions are mostly visible in some regions of Purulia, Bankura and Midnapore districts where lack of development remains to be a relevant aspect even after the successful implementation of land reforms. Bengal still has poor, landless and marginalized people who exist without any access to agriculture and depends on the forests for their livelihood. The Maoists are been able to penetrate and influence this section through the gap created by inadequate development and lack of basic amenities.

*****

Six days before the polling for 2009 Lok Sabha elections began, the Maoists had attacked NALCO’s bauxite mines in Orissa and killed at least 8 Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) jawans and injuring scores of others. On 16 April, during the first phase of the month long election schedule, at least 17 people were killed by them in a string of attacks across the ‘Red Corridor’. To enforce their poll boycott strategy and disrupt the election procedures through violence, armed Maoist ‘people’s militia’ attacked on polling booths and vehicles carrying the election officials. Five members of a polling team were killed by a landmine blast in Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh. A bus carrying Border Security Force (BSF) personnel for election duty was blown off by another landmine explosion in Jharkhand’s Latehar district; bullets were sprayed at the bus killing seven BSF personnel, the bus driver and his assistant. In Bihar’s Gaya district, the Maoists open fired at a polling station in Bankebazaar killing a policeman and a Home Guard on duty and looted the electronic voting machines (EVM) and four rifles. Though termed as a ‘spectacular’ success by sections of the media, actually, the Maoists were successful to attack just 71 of the 76,000 vulnerable polling booths. In the second and third phase of the elections, the intensity of Maoist attacks has dropped substantially.

When the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) was formed by the Naxalites in May 1968, one of the first resolutions passed by the body was not to participate in elections. While the CPI (Maoist) is still carrying this legacy, Naxalite factions like the CPI (M-L) Liberation has “corrected the mistake of completely rejecting parliamentary politics” in 1982. Kanu Sanyal, one of the founding leaders of the Naxalite movement has “accepted parliamentary practice as one form of revolutionary activity”. Even their counterpart in Nepal, the CPN (Maoist) which had once pledged to fight jointly with them have joined the mainstream political system and participated in elections.

Cocksure about their ‘creative’ application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the CPI (Maoist) refuses to recognize any necessity of participating in a bourgeois-democratic parliament. They are ideologically motivated in their belief that in a country where bourgeois democratic revolution has not yet been completed “the rule of the masses cannot be achieved through normal political methods” and so it is absolutely necessity to propagate “extensively and concretely to boycott the parliamentary elections”. Based on a personalized, narrow and distracted perception about the ‘objective conditions’ of India, the group believes that parliamentary institutions and systems are “discredited to a large extent in the eyes of the people” and there is no ‘objective basis’ for them to participate in this system just for “exposing the parliamentary system from within”. Participation in election “neither helps in developing revolutionary class struggle, nor in enhancing democratic consciousness among the people.” Instead, it only fosters ‘constitutional illusions’ and distract from “intensifying revolutionary class struggle and armed struggle against the state.” According to them, “promoting alternative institutions of people’s power” is the only way to “enhance people’s consciousness and to wipe out their illusions” about the present parliamentary system. Answering to the question on why the CPI (Maoist) declines to fight elections and refuses to participate in the democratic process, the Maoist leader Ganapathy’s has remarked, “You think raising issues in the parliament is the democratic way whereas we believe that people are raising their issues in a democratic way through organized protests”. (Source) Marxist-Leninist parties and groups who participate in elections are accused for diverting ‘revolutionary armed struggle into legal and peaceful channels’. Terming parliamentary politics as a ‘dog-eat-dog world’ and the Parliament as a ‘talking shop’, a recent Maoist released squarely blames all the mainstream Left parties like CPI (M), CPI and even the Naxalite CPI (M-L) Liberation, for playing the ‘most dubious role in legitimizing the farce of parliamentary process’. The Maoists are particularly antagonized with the CPI (M) and have termed the largest communist party of India as ‘social fascists’.

The political theory of the Maoists seems to be more inclined towards anarchism than Marxism. The Maoist viewpoint on shunning elections as a matter of strategy is surprisingly similar with the anarchist perspective. Anarchists believe that, “Utilizing the state, standing in elections, only prepares people for following leaders – it does not encourage the self-activity, self-organization, direct action and mass struggle required for a social revolution.” Likewise, the Indian Maoists also believe that “participation in parliament does not help in developing the subjective forces. Rather it will only drive them into legalism and divert them from … intensifying revolutionary class struggle”. Anarchists argue for the need of “creating alternative, libertarian, forms of social organization which can become a force to resist the state, win reforms and, ultimately, become the framework of a free society.” The Indian Maoists believe in “promoting alternative institutions of people’s power” as the only way to enhance people’s consciousness. Anarchists reject the Leninist idea that standing for elections immensely helps to carry the agitation of the proletarian party among the masses. The Indian Maoists reflect the same thought when it says that “participation in election will only sabotage the revolutionary movement”.

Will the Maoists also echo the anarchist wisdom that all Marxists are not Leninists? While mechanically theorizing their election boycott stand, the Maoists has carefully kept aside the indispensable polemics of Lenin. Long ago, in one of his most important writing ‘Left-wing’ Communism, an Infantile Disorder, Lenin has categorically pointed out that participating in a bourgeois-democratic parliament actually helps the revolutionary party to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments ‘deserve to be done away with’. Lenin had argued that far from causing harm, the parliamentary forum provides opportunities to expose the system of capitalism and facilitates the successful dissolution of the institution. Taking part in the election campaigning draws the masses into the election struggle to “take the bourgeoisie at its word and utilize the machinery it has set up”. To extend his argument Lenin had pointed out that “Communists should constantly, unremittingly and unswervingly utilize parliamentary elections …and all other fields, spheres and aspects of public life, and work in all of them in a new way, in a communist way”. Communists must learn to “create a new, uncustomary, non-opportunist and non-careerist parliamentarianism”. Lenin though did not forget to ring his warning about the pseudo-revolutionaries – those who are incapable of taking into account the rapid change of forms, become “hypnotized by a definite form” and are “afraid to see the break-up which objective conditions made inevitable”.

*****

Sudeep Chakravarti, the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country has said in an interview that, “India’s Maoists don’t really need to win; they just need to be there, to show us where we have gone wrong”. (Source) Chakravarti’s admiration towards the Maoists for their role as conscience keepers of the Indian society is simplistic and soaked with romanticism. This flabby estimation might please the middle-class conscience of the Maoist sympathizers of India but will definitely not help the Maoist movement to advance any further from their present situate. Unless the Maoists learn to shed their flawed obsession with armed activities, remove the dogmatic faith from their minds that guerilla warfare is the only path to liberation, realize the necessity of democratic struggle and mass-political programs, arrive on a common platform with other Left parties and develop tactical alliances with them to settle on issues pertinent to the people, the movement will continue to remain isolated and confined within the remote corners of the country and subsequently become marginalized. If the Maoist leaders cannot give up their old adventurist line and comprehend the major contradictions of Indian society, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to make progress towards occupying the center-stage of Indian politics. By moving away from their commitment to violent insurrection and joining the democratic process, the CPN (Maoist) in Nepal has already shown a way to their Indian counterpart. Whether the Indian Maoist leaders can go for a major theoretical breakthrough and ‘take into account the rapid changes of forms’ and respond to the ‘break-up which objective conditions made inevitable’, whether they can develop the subjective forces in a true Marxist way or remain blinded by misreading of the objective conditions will determine their future significance in the Indian political sphere.

Map courtesy: wikipedia.org

Internet References:
1. Maoist Document: Strategy & Tactics of the Indian Revolution
2. CLSA Special Report: India’s Naxalities
3. Anil Biswas ‘Maoism’: An Exercise in Anarchism
4. Tilak D. Gupta: Recent Developments in the Naxalite Movement
5. Venkitesh Ramakrishnan: The road from Naxalbari
6. Ajai Sahni: The riot of Red flags

Tweedledum and Tweedledee: tale of two manifestos

ABP group’s English daily The Telegraph has done a ‘psychological analysis’ between Mamata Banerjee and Buddhadeb Bhattacharya based on their recent appearance in two separate Bengali television channels. (Source) According to the newspaper, the ‘down to earth’ Mamata Banerjee was looking energetic, domineering and aggressive compared to the ‘teacher-like’ Buddhadeb Bhattacharya who looked tired. It also stated that “…there was no denying one thing – the Mamata show brought alive her old image as the girl next door.” This familiar bazaar style of analysis is nothing new before any election in Bengal. But this time, Mamata Banerjee has put ABP group think-tanks into a dilemma because according to them she has ‘inclined towards left’ to become ‘Comrade Mamata’. The ABP group is particularly upset with Mamata Banerjee because her bombastic political language in showing many similarities with the distinctive Leftist language that ABP group greatly dislikes. The group therefore has crafted an apparently ambiguous policy to keep a fine balance between criticizing Mamata Banerjee and simultaneously allocating full-time marathon publicity to her. Keeping in mind the immediate consequences of the general elections, ABP group is more worried about the rising role of the Left particularly the CPI(M) in central politics.

There should be no doubt about Mamata Banerjee’s tenacious anti-CPI(M) stance. This is her one and only eternal agenda that has elevated her as the chief opposition voice in Bengal. Her inceptive attempt to wrestle the mighty Marxists of Bengal as a Congress (INC) leader had failed to bloom due to the party’s chronic and acute factionalism. To protest the INC’s ‘secret deals with the Marxists’ she had even gone to the extent to stage a suicide drama by wrapping a shawl around her neck in full public view. For her fanatical rebellion against friends and foes alike she had earned the media nickname ‘rebel without a pause’. (Source)

Alleging the INC as CPI(M)’s B-team, in 1997 she finally split the party and formed Trinamool Congress (TMC). Without any delay, TMC allied with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and paved the way for the Hindu communalists to spread its root in Bengal. Though in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections TMC unexpectedly won 8 seats but the party could not sustain this euphoric success as well as their bonhomie with the BJP for long. Mamata Banerjee’s habitual autocratic style of functioning and her intention to directly deal with the BJP central leadership while ignoring the State leaders has largely irked the State BJP unit. Within a short period of time Mamata Banerjee also started getting feedbacks about the benefits her party was actually reaping from hobnobbing with the BJP compelled her to worry about her political future. As a consequence of this anxiety, TMC allied with the INC in 2001 assembly polls and after facing electoral thrashing from the Left Front, raised good tantrum against the State Congress leadership and returned back into the BJP fold. From this time onwards Mamata Banerjee’s political graph displayed a steady decline. In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls she was the only winning TMC candidate and in the 2006 assembly polls her party faced another devastating electoral defeat and lost more than half of its sitting legislators.

Mamata Banerjee’s fascistic mindset and her obstinate anti-CPI(M) agenda has made her the darling of the reactionary elements active in Bengal society from the early days of her political career. The chronicle of her ascending and descending political career is populated with many predictable and unpredictable bedfellows. She has embraced almost all the opportunist possibilities aimed to trounce the Marxists and attain supreme political power in Bengal but has miserably failed to succeed till date. Thanks to their inept handling of the twin issues of Singur & Nandigram, the Left Front government and the CPI(M) has tremendously helped her to stumble upon a wonderful option previously unexplored by her trial and error method of politics – the option to take cover under a red cloak, impersonating the bona fide Leftists.

Her fictitious Leftist stance became evident when she levitated the two conferred gifts of Singur & Nandigram. She announced that her fight is not against Left politics but particularly against the Communist Party of India (Marxist). To become more Leftist in the eyes of the Bengali populace, Mamata swiftly befriended the ultra-left groups including the Maoists and extended her lap towards expelled, renegade and ‘disillusioned’ political leaders and workers of the CPI(M) and other Left Front constituents. But her unexpected support came from a prominent section of the Bengali intelligentsia and cultural activists. Though most of the agitators were seemingly upset with the ‘pro-rightist, neo-liberal’ bend of the Marxist government and resentful about the ‘Stalinist arrogance’ of the CPI(M), there are sufficient and credible proofs to believe that a specific acrimonious group among the dissenting intelligentsia had other iniquitous motives in their heart. The two sides rapidly came closer with a ‘common cause’. From the early days of her anti-industrialization agitation, Mamata Banerjee drew maximum support from this section and successfully proliferated banal anti-CPI(M) hatred. During that period, a supportive media carefully triggered off anti-CPI(M) public opinion through disinformation and cosmetic allegations of atrocity which had helped to set the TMC euphoria against the absolute monolithic presence of CPI(M) in every nook and corner of the State. Tasting blood, heinous domestic and global quarters pounced into action and acted catalyst to this extraordinary alliance. These quarters felt enthralled to share the credit with Mamata Banerjee about TMC’s ‘considerable’ success in shaking the CPI(M) in Bengal.

To efficiently unnerve the ‘atrocious’ Left Front government, this particular intelligentsia group came out with a unique concept. With the help of ultra-left sympathizers, they brought the Maoists at Mamata Banerjee’s doorstep ‘to support her anti-CPI(M) crusade’. The Maoists became brother-in-arms of the TMC goon’s in Nandigram, Lalgarh and elsewhere in the State. In the last couple of months, the TMC-Maoist combine has killed at least 15 CPI(M) leaders and workers in different districts of Bengal and even targeted the convoy of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya in West Midnapur. Significantly, no other political party members of Bengal were targeted by the Maoists other than the CPI(M). Not a single one from the intellectual allies of Mamata Banerjee who habitually shed gallons of crocodile tears for the ‘poor people’ of Nandigram has ever condemned any attack on the ‘poor people’ of the CPI(M) and preferred to turn stone-deaf on this issue. Why count the dead who belongs to the CPI(M)? Reporting on the recent political killings in Bengal, The Indian Express though agreed that “CPI(M) workers (are) at the receiving end in most places”, but at the same time did not fail to declare that the killings reveal the “change in political alignment that is sweeping large parts of Bengal” and how “the Trinamool Congress is denting the rural base of the red brigade”. Change, in whatever form it might be is always welcome!

With meticulous and eclectic scheming, her new found friends renovated Mamata Banerjee as a ‘true Leftist’ icon. To generate a Leftist milieu around every TMC gathering, popular IPTA songs of communist mass movements of the past were replicated and performed regularly. Celebrity NGO friends Medha Patkar and Anuradha Talwar helped her to reach national and international ‘bleeding heart’ forums. Within days, the 'matured' Mamata Banerjee became a champion of the farmers cause, started chanting Leftist topics like disinvestment, privatization, foreign direct investment; globalization and big capital – all at one go. Now she certainly needs to light candles in memory of slain Palestinians in Gaza Strip and voice against Israeli aggression. Her friends are also working overtime to titivate her as the guardian of Bengali culture. Delighted by their terrific effort, Mamata Banerjee started bestowing gratuity – Kabir Suman was granted with a TMC ticket from Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat and Suvaprasanna received a huge amount of money from her MP fund to construct a Bangla Bhasa (Bengali Language) memorial in Kolkata.

According to media reports, Suvaprasanna has graciously refused Mamata Banerjee’s offer to contest the elections as he desires to be remembered by posterity ‘only as an artist’. Whether this infamous artist cum art guru will be remembered as an artist or not is debatable but he will definitely be remembered for playing the classy role of Rasputin in Mamata Banerjee’s theatre. Suvaprasanna is valued for his incredible and convincing track record of easily reaching out to ‘significant’ quarters of importance. Another prominent member from this intellectual assembly buzzing around Mamata Banerjee today is the ‘young and innocent’ playwright and actor Bratya Basu. His role is conceivable from an article he wrote for the Trinamool mouthpiece Jago Bangla. In this Bengali article ‘Telling you Comrades’, Bratya Basu wrote, “The renowned painter Suvaprasanna often tells me, ‘Without a change nothing is going to happen to this State’. I believe in these words…everyone knows about the wily ones, those who are earning their good fortune from the direct assistance of the government and CPM party….leaving aside these small number of brokers who are buzzing like flies around the honeycomb of power, there is a great number of people who are honest…I appeal to the genuine CPM. I appeal to you all Comrades that if you really care for your party; if you really want your party’s betterment, then for once remove them from power. … you know that the party is completely rotten now.” Bratya Basu is so accurate! Many of the flies buzzing around Mamata Banerjee’s honeycomb today were convincingly buzzing around the ‘honeycomb of power’ just a few years ago but sadly failed to accumulate honey. His call for ‘Flies of Bengal unite!’ therefore has many followers today. And who else has the sound ability to construct the perfect stage for them except Mamata Banerjee?

To put across a genuine Leftist face, Mamata Banerjee and friends has now attempted to hijack major issues from the CPI(M)’s program book. This move became evident in the recently released TMC election manifesto where Mamata Banerjee allowed her ultra-left friends to bloom. Her loyal supporter media conglomerates were terribly disappointed with the ‘sweet nothings’ of her manifesto and sad because many of the pertinent issues of the manifesto looks as if copied from documents of the CPI(M)’s 17th Party Congress! With striking similarity with the longstanding CPI(M) demand, the TMC manifesto also demands that the States must be allocated 50 per cent of the Central revenue. The manifesto echoed the CPI(M) line when it spoke against the entry of foreign capital in the retail sector, when it opposed disinvestment in the public sector and said that developing local resources and skills are more important than embracing globalization. When it comes to elaborate the industrialization policy of TMC, the manifesto writes: “Agriculture must not be sacrificed at the altar of industry. Both should grow like twins… The Trinamul Congress wants industry but not at the cost of poor farmers”. It also advocated to form a land bank for industrial purpose and declared that SEZs (special economic zones) are bad because it causes environment pollution.

It is doubtful how much Mamata Banerjee really can make out of these bombastic words printed in her party manifesto. Instead, she is more recognizable when she reveals her fantastic future vision concerning Bengal. The TMC chieftain has sung a mesmerizing lullaby for her voters: she will transform the East Midnapore coastal town Digha into Goa, North Bengal into Switzerland and Kolkata into London! Assuring the electorates she also said that “If Trinamool Congress comes to power, we’ll show what is called development”. Clarifying to the bewildered journalists who asked how can the TMC thinks of coming to power in the State when the elections are being held for the Lok Sabha, the ‘girl next door’ politician replied, “I know this is just a Lok Sabha election. But what I want to say is that in future, if Trinamool comes to power in the State we will give shape to this vision.” (Source) How Goa, Switzerland or London fits with her true Leftist scheme is a question that remained unanswered. To appease the Muslim voters, she has affirmed that her party will back a non-BJP government at the center and pronounced that, “… a secular government cannot be one by the Bharatiya Janata Party…I now have made things clear for you”.

Grouped under the pseudonym Swajan (also known as Susheel Samaj), Mamata Banerjee’s intellectual friends now have decided to publish their own ‘manifesto’ in April on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls. (Source) This ‘historic manifesto’ is cogently drafted by Bibhas Chakrabarty, the big name of Bengali theatre with an impressive track record of splitting numerous Kolkata theater groups. Corresponding with the TMC manifesto, the ‘Swajan manifesto’ will also appeal to people to vote for a change. The TMC manifesto is dedicated to the cause of ‘ma, mati, manush’ (mother, soil and people) and speaks ambiguously about industrialization without farmland acquisition. The ‘Swajan manifesto’ similarly is expected to articulate the same line, putting stress on the importance of industrialization in Bengal but not ‘… at the cost of the farmer’s livelihood and by forcibly grabbing land from peasants.’ Both are deceitfully trying to dilute local and national issues, to greatly confuse the people and grab maximum advantage from their pivotal issue of Singur-Nandigram. Though the ‘Swajan manifesto’ will not ask people to vote for or against a particular party, ample hints will be there for the readers to understand which political party this ‘awake and aware’ group is suggesting to vote for or against. It will manifest that ‘a party that has been at the helm of power for more than a decade … is not healthy for democracy’ and will ask the people to be ‘…brave and not get pressurized to vote for a particular political party’. Echoing the sentiment, Bratya Basu wrote in his Jago Bangla article, “… I want that every five year there should be a political change in my State. As a citizen I have a right to demand this change. I really do not think that this change will bring good for everyone or exploitation and oppression will be abolished. All this will continue but in a lesser amount, the common people might live a slight better life.”

But what if the exploited and oppressed, poor and ordinary masses still vote against the TMC? What if the ‘historic manifesto’ turns into a ‘historic blunder’? In spite of the scrupulously crafted anti-Left Front agitation-propaganda for two long years, in a ‘fertile’ terrain where ‘all the Front constituents have lost touch with the common people’, a large section of people has still kept their confidence on the ‘tottering’ Left Front parties in 13 out of 18 district Panchayats. Instead of entirely wiping out the ‘unnerved’ Left Front in the recent Civic polls, they have elected them back with a thumping victory in crucial centers like tribal-dominated Jhargram of West Midnapore and Kolkata’s twin city Howrah.

Elated about their predicted success in the coming Lok Sabha and the subsequent State Assembly polls, Mamata Banerjee and friends are presently not willing to give any credit to cynical thoughts. But in reality, reaching their ultimate goal is a Herculean task. After all, the poor people of Bengal, especially the minorities and the oppressed sections of the society are not entirely trustworthy!

Mamata Banerjee image courtesy: sify.com
Protest rally image courtesy: internationalpost.blogspot.com
Suvaprasanna image courtesy: indiatimes.com
Bratya Basu image courtesy: hindu.com

Street fighters of Bengal and the Vietnam experience

The unyielding campaigners against land acquisition say that opposing land acquisition is not necessarily an anti industry mind-set. See how our leader Mamata Banerjee always pronounces that she wants to see the cheery face of both the industrialists and farmers. Is it not possible to industrialize without acquiring farmland? Theoretically even the most intangible ideas can be proved as possible. So, industrialization without acquiring farmland is also possible. But a practical problem cannot be argued or concluded upon with theory alone. In Bengal, 24% of its total land constitutes the urban-industrial sectors, 13% of it is forestland. Farmland constitutes 62%, while the fallow land is only 1%. From where will the required additional land for new industries come? Is it the first time that land is acquired for industry and development projects in Bengal? Back in time, when Bengal was a leading industrial state in India, huge tracts of land had been acquired for mammoth projects like Durgapur Steel Plant, Alloy Steel Plant, expansion of IISCO, DVC projects, Farrakka hydroelectric project and so on. These acquisitions were easy as it was acquired from absentee landlords who owned large amount of surplus land but were not the actual cultivator themselves. In 1978, the newly elected Left Front government launched Operation Barga and undertook land reform measures. For the first time, poor peasants were given cultivation rights to the land they toil. Land reform directly benefited the sharecroppers - the poorer sections of peasantry, specifically marginal and small farmers. Consequently the agriculture achieved a remarkable progress and growth which changed the rural scene of Bengal. Also rural poverty sharply declined as wages were increased significantly.

After thirty years, the rural economy has started to show signs of stagnation. Farmlands are constantly been fragmented due to division of property among generation next in the rural families. The cost of farming has also drastically increased. Thus, farming is generating lesser remunerative price. Day by day, the numbers of landless people are increasing among the farming families, those who have no option other than venturing into trades or employing themselves elsewhere. Depending only on farmland is therefore not a sensible idea even among the farmers who are found to regularly migrate in big cities for temporary jobs during off seasons. Saying so, the fact cannot be ignored that farmers have a deep sentimental attachment with their lands. Losing their dear land is not a minor matter for them. The campaigners against land acquisition have cleverly used this sentiment to score their narrow political points.

Keeping this scenario in mind where Bengal badly needs industries and development for new employment and income earning opportunities, voicing against any form of land acquisition - be it for industry, power project or roads is in other words, a direct impediment to the prospects of the future generation of the state.

For almost two and a half years, the anti land acquisition groups has spearheaded protests and a strong propaganda war to malign the industrialization initiative of the Buddhadev Bhattacharjee led LF government in the most obnoxious manner with the active support of a large section of prominent media groups. It had started in May 2008 at Singur, climbed to its peak at Nandigram, turned again towards Singur now and waiting to explode in the near future at Katwa, a district town of Bengal where land acquisition process will start soon for a 1,320-MW power plant. The principal force in all the protests is the Trinamul Congress lead rainbow coalition - the People’s Secular Democratic Front and intellectuals christened by the self-proclaimed godfather of Bengali culture, Anandabazar Patrika (ABP) as ‘Sushil Samaj’, a rather puny Bengali rendition of ‘Civil Society’. They are hence highlighted as the ‘good guys’ of the society resisting land grab policy of the WB government, precisely the neo liberal ‘Stalinist’ CPIM - the ‘bad guys’.

Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky in their book Manufacturing Consent have elaborately discussed how a systemic propaganda system can ‘manage’ public opinion. In their path breaking study of the American media, Herman and Chomsky have shown how the American media undertook the sacred task of manufacturing public consent to support and legitimize the American establishment’s fictitious ‘fight for democracy’ crusade in truculent countries.

Similar in Bengal, the propaganda system is following a basic model of dividing the two participants of the conflict in black and white. The government and its main political party CPIM is ‘bad’ and the protesters are ‘good’. Therefore, when the government sends police to maintain law and order of an area it is stated as the ‘bad guys’ instigating ‘state terror’. When the protesters or the ‘good guys’ engage themselves in rampant carnage, forcefully evicting helpless villagers who are not supportive to them, it is called ‘spontaneous mass fury’. When a CPIM activist (an unworthy victim according to the propaganda model) is murdered, it’s called ‘CPM goon is killed by the oppressed and angry villagers’. When an activist from the rainbow coalition (a worthy victim according to the propaganda model) is murdered, it is called ‘a poor peasant is killed by CPM goons’. The former will therefore not generate sustained coverage; the later will elicit a propaganda outburst. When a CPIM leader speaks for a ‘political battle’, it is inflated as an atrocious war cry to persecute the democratic rights of common people. When a singer named Kabir Suman tempts people to kill three CPM everyday in public, it is taken as an emotional response to the ‘CPM atrocities’ by a socially conscious artist fighting for democratic rights.

The same activists were seen raising a slogan Amar naam tomar naam, Nandigram Nandigram (My name your name Nandigram Nandigram) in the streets of Kolkata on the days of the Nandigram hullabaloo. Medha Patkar became so glad hearing it that in her several media bites she referred to this slogan as a highly emotional expression by the concerned people of Bengal in solidarity with the ‘worthy victims’ of Nandigram. The ‘concerned’ people she was taking about had by that time marched in huge numbers by the call of the so called Sushil Samaj in a ‘historic’ rally at Kolkata. It was the same rally which had a starry frontal section, with a number of famous and ‘responsible’ Bengal intellectuals who were but totally disconnected from the rear end of the rally which was infiltrated by lumpen Trinamul supporters with vulgar placards and slogans. This slogan was a poor copy of the original Amar naam tomar naam, Vietnam Vietnam (My name your name Vietnam Vietnam), a truly historic slogan originated in the streets of seventies Calcutta in solidarity with the Vietnamese people, fighting against the brutal American troops. It could be concocted by one of the ‘Swajan’ intellectuals or radical Naxalites full of zip in Nandigram to reheat their sodden revolutionary spirits. Vietnam’s fight is highly regarded as a great symbol of determined resistance against imperialism. No one can deny this fact. The name of Vietnam arouses high emotion within the hearts of the rice fed middle class Bengalis. Thus, by imitating the slogan the protesters thought to come close to the virtual reality of the Vietnamese heroic struggle.

A French colony from 1893, Vietnam was combined into a single territory with Cambodia and Laos by the French colonialists and together recognized as Indochina. In 1925, Ho Chi Minh founded the Indochinese Communist Party, spearheading movements against the colonial power. During the Second World War, when Vietnam came under Japanese possession, Ho Chi Minh established a communist-nationalist alliance known as the Viet Minh which supported the allied forces. In August 1945 after the Japanese defeat, Viet Minh took power in Vietnam and declared independence from French colonial control, naming the country Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Vietnam was the first country in Asia to achieve independence from colonial domination, even earlier than India. After the war, the French tried to force in with their colonial power and a new colonial war broke out. From the initial stage, the French war was sponsored by American government through a secret fund earmarked for Indochina. After the Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 the French were forced to move out after splitting Vietnam into two parts. North Vietnam became a communist state under Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam turned into a French-backed republic. The American objective in Vietnam, as usual, was to prevent a Communist regime from consolidating its power in a country of strategic interests to them. In the pretext of restraining communism in South-East Asia the American military escalated its intervention against a legally constituted and legitimate government. In 1965, American army began bombing North Vietnam, and sending troops to assist the South. Under the communist leadership, the Vietnamese people fought a heroic battle against the gruesome and brutal American troops and by 1973 were victorious in driving out the already despondent Americans. After South Vietnam fell to the Viet Minh in 1975, North and South Vietnam officially reunited under the communist party leadership In June 1976 and was renamed Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

From 1975 to 1986 the new socialist government of Vietnam established a centrally planned economy and collectivized land ownership by a collective agriculture policy. Private business was not encouraged. From farmland to industries the state owned everything on behalf of its people. But in the mid-1980s, the farm collectivization policy failed badly which turned into an economic disaster for Vietnam. The state run enterprises were at a loss, food was rationed and the country was on the brink of a famine. 1.5 million tons of rice was imported as the country could not grow enough rice to feed their own people. Another reason of this deep crisis was the collapse of the Soviet Union; Vietnam’s chief patron and aid donor. The doctrinaire approach to socialism was showing signs of a total collapse.

At this juncture, in 1986 the Vietnamese Communist Party in a historic shift announced a departure from its policy of central planning and collective agriculture and implemented a program of market socialism called Doi Moi (economic restructuring). The policy of Doi Moi consists of three interconnected fundamental points: a shift from a bureaucratically centrally planned economy to a multi-sector economy working under a market mechanism with state management and a socialist orientation; democratizing social life and building a legal state; implementing an open-door policy and promoting relations between Vietnam and all other countries in the world. One of the key reasons to this change was instigated by the baby boom in Vietnam after 1975 which has created an incredibly young population with an average age of just around 25. The need for the government and the party was to provide a secure future for these postwar baby-boomers when they come up into their prime.

Doi Moi took its time to show up the effects, but over the past few years economic liberalization has endorsed rapid, poverty-reducing growth for Vietnam. Over the past decade the country’s annual growth has averaged 7.5 per cent. As remarked by The Economist, Vietnam has become the darling of foreign investors and multinationals. New SEZs, industrial parks, software parks are coming up in huge numbers there. Obviously, these are not being built on sky but on acquired agricultural land. The Economist also says that, “The success of Vietnam's economic transformation is often measured by the falling share of agriculture in the country's gross domestic product. Industry and services are indeed growing even faster than farming and absorbing its surplus labour. Agriculture, forestry and fisheries now provide barely half of all jobs in Vietnam, compared with over two-thirds only ten years ago. Even so, over 70% of the population still live in the countryside, so a successful rural economy will remain the key to maintaining Vietnam's impressive progress on cutting poverty.” (Emphasis added)

Did the Vietnam government under the leadership of the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) ignore agriculture after adopting the liberalization policy? Absolutely not. Compared with the mid-1980s when the country was on the brink of famine today it has achieved an agricultural miracle and surpassed India to become the world's second-largest exporter of rice after Thailand. Vietnam is also one of the world's main providers of farm produce today. “Vietnam's farmers have become important competitors in all sorts of agricultural produce, from nuts to peppers to rubber. They are even selling tea to the Indians. Its fishermen and foresters are also doing well by feeding the world's growing demand for seafood and timber (though not always sustainably). Vietnam's exports of farm, forest and fisheries produce rose by 21% last year, to $12.5 billion, and further growth is expected.” (Emphasis added) Vietnam’s economic progress contributed significant development projects in rural Vietnam. A vast electrification program has brought power supplies to more than 90% of Vietnamese homes. Nearly all children now go to lower secondary school and almost two-thirds of them continue to upper secondary level.

Bengal has many similarities with Vietnam. The land area of Vietnam and its population is almost the similar to Bengal. Also like Bengal, most of the population of Vietnam is occupied in agriculture. In both places the principal crop is rice. As Vietnam is self sufficient in food crops, Bengal has also emerged as the leading agricultural state of India in the production of rice, potatoes, fruits and vegetables.

There are also noticeable differences. First of course that Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a one-party state and Bengal is part of a multiparty Indian democracy. It can be argued that due to the authoritarian character Vietnam government can easily oppress the voice of the protesters while here in Bengal the protesters can stir up considerable resistance against the policies of the government and even stall them. There are other significant differences also. The Vietnamese people are practical and hardworking - ‘like a nation of bees buzzing inside a bottle, thrumming with repressed energy’. They are more concerned about their present and the future of their children but have not disregarded their past. In the contrary, Bengalis in Bengal are an indolent and emotional lot, happy to live in their romantic day dreams. They are stubborn lions in their homes but could amazingly amend themselves into a loyal, submissive and compromising kind outside their own milieu. Vietnam’s heroic struggle evokes nostalgia in their minds because they have a romantic approach to the word ‘struggle’. They are delighted to walk blindfolded towards their disastrous future, guided by the stagnant dogmatic minds of their homebred theorists and activists, those who are still living in the Tebhaga peasant movement days. Professor Amartya Sen described it as “supplemented intellectually by the old physiocratic illusion of prosperity grounded only on agriculture”. They have even hired stagnant minded advisers from outside the state to authenticate their hypothetical fears about the conflict between agriculture and industry as if their own set of contemptuous leaders was not sufficiently enough. In a classic case of paradox, they cherish the Vietnam experience of the seventies but ignore to look towards the Vietnam experience of today.