On demise of Naxal leaders

On demise of Naxal leaders

One more Naxal movement leader P.V Rao passed away at 78 due to cancer.He is the third major leader to pass away after Prof. Harbhajan and Kanu Sanyal.While lot of media attention has been paid to demise of Kanu Sanyal and understandably so, partly due to the circumstances,which gave a spice to bourgeois media to damn the movement,partly due to his heroic image at the beginning of movement in 1967.But what mainstream media has missed about is that though Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal and Jungle Santhal were the initial heroes of Naxal movement, but there were others as important as these.The strongest impact of naxalite movement was felt in Andhra Pradesh, where the stalwarts of Communist movement, having background in great Telangana struggle like Trimala Nagi Reddy, D V Rao and C P Reddy,Pyla Vasudev Rao etc. had joined the movement.The struggle between mass line propounded by T.Nagi Reddy and DV Rao and Charu line in Sreekakulam, which is forerunner of today’s Maoist movement took place in Andhra Pradesh only.There were other tall leaders in other states also, like SN Singh in Bihar, Shiv Kumar Mishra in UP,Ram Piara saraf and Krishan Dev Sethi in Jammu&Kashmir, Nagbhushan Patnaik in Orissa,Baba Bujha Singh,80 year old Ghadarite and Prof. Harbhajan Singh in Punjab etc.Many of these stalwarts had Parliamentary background also with them T. Nagi Reddy had been MP, as well as MLA, Saraf and Sethi were MLA’s in J&K.So there were not just one Trimurthi,but were many in different parts of the country. In Andhra among early Maoists, there were Satyamurthi, Panchadi Krishanamurthi,Subba Rao Pannigrahi,Satyam, almost all killed by police in so called encounters. Best literary and cultural activists also came from Andhra Pradesh.Stalwart of Telugu literature Sri Sri joined Naxalite cultural movement, followed by Varvara Rao, Volga,Ghadar like personalities. In Punjab major writers of today are product of Naxal impact-Pash, Waryam sandhu, Gursharn Singh, Ajmer Aulakh, Lal Singh Dil and Sant Ram Udasi and so many others as well.In Bengal, Mahashweta Devi and her son Nabarun Bhattacharya are also aligned to Naxal movement inspired cultural activities.In Hindi Kumar Vikal, Alok Dhanwa and Katyayni etc. have their inspirations in Naxal movement.
Movement which has nothing to do with Naksalbari town, as nothing happened there started from Prasadjot village near Naxalbari, where in revenge of one police officer killed on 24th May 1967 by peasant activists, eleven poor people, including nine women and one six month old child was killed by brutal police action on 25th May 1967 and then the name was given to the movement as ‘Naxalbari movement’ more by media, later accepted by state and movement both.This is also a fact that movement had its seeds of split in the very beginning and by 1968, clear splits had taken place between Charuites and mass line propagators like Nagi Reddy most importantly, others took to mass line in due course were SN Singh, Chandra Pula Reddy and many others, including close comrades of Charu Majumdar like Kanu Sanyal.Jungle Santhal the another hero, killed himself by drinking.Mohan Ram, the earliest chronologist of the movement, gave the title of his book as-Naxalite Movement-Split within Split’.The bitterness among different Naxalite groups was no less than with their collective bitterness with CPI or CPM.Yet all groups together had larger following than perhaps CPI had.Slowly all groups except like PWG led by K Sitaramaiah in Andhra Pradesh returned to traditional mass organizations of peasants, workers, students, youth etc. Only difference from CPI or CPM was that these considered themselves more radical in approach, which perhaps these were,but no unity even among different ML groups mass organizations as well.All had their area of influence and in some areas like in Bihar they fought as violently with each other as with state.After the emergence of CPI(Maoist), clear demarcation has emerged between different ML groups with Maoist stream.
Today almost the first line of Naxalite movement leaders are passing away one by one, partly due to age factor, partly with police repression. Baba Bujha Singh was ,a Ghadarite patriot was killed in encounter during early Badal regime in 70’s at the age of 80.Shiv Kumar Mishra passed away few months ago at 90+,his autobiography-Kakori se Naxalbari Tak published in Hindi.Mishra was inspired by HRA and HSRA of 30’s. T Nagi Reddy, though brother in law of former President Sanjeeva Reddy, died in jungles of Andhra living underground in Emergency.Thousands of people have turned up for his creation, even during Emergency.His book ‘India Mortgaged’ is study of imperialist economic invasion of India.Suniti Ghosh’s books provide very objective study of India as well as of Naxalite movement in general.
Naxalite movement is at crossroads today.Many in Bengal like Ashim Chatterjee, Santosh Rana, Khoken Majumdar, Azizul Haq etc. are more in ideological struggles. Sushital Roy Chaudhary, Soren Bose, Suniti Ghosh etc. also contributed and are contributing in ideological field.Two trends are clear-one acting on mass struggles, almost most of the groups are now following this trend, even if they continue believing in armed struggle in principle. Kanu Sanyal, PV Rao and Prof. Harbhajan represented mass line groups only. However Maoist line, which has roots in Charu Majumdar’s original line of annihilation has developed into strong organization.Perhaps for clarity purpose,Maoist and Naxalite terms should be now differentiated into two different ideological streams. One which believes in armed struggle as long term proposition, but practices mass line for present, should be called as Naxalite stream and the other which practices armed struggle of whatever kind with controversial interpretation of revolution, should be termed as ‘Maoist’.Technically also those groups which use Marxist Leninist or ML in brackets to CPI(ML) like liberation ,new democracy, occri, uccri or so many should be called in general as Naxalite groups and those which use Marxist Leninist Maoist or just Maoist in brackets like CPI(Maoist), they should be called just Maoists and not Naxalites. For Government it suits to mix up the two, as it uses the term to crush even peaceful mass movements being spearheaded by different ML groups like Kalinga adivasi movement against displacement in Orissa, but for democratic movement and even for ML groups it is desirable to differentiate the two terms to fight state repression better.Parliamentary leftist parties like CPI, CPM, Forward Bloc and RSP should at least show this much of honesty to differentiate the two trends, which they themselves know quite clearly.