It seems as if Charu Mazumdar has come out of the grave, and is leading the armed movement against the State with a vengeance. The history may perhaps repeat, though with a difference. The armed struggle of Naxalbari headed by Mazumdar in late 60s is still very much in the memory of Indian diaspora when thousands of students had left home to pick up guns against the government machinery. The middle class people of West Bengal were shattered at the prospect of their children. At the time of emergency, the Congress Government became ruthless and managed to bottle up Mazumdar, who finally succumbed to illness and torture inside the jail. The movement received a heavy jolt by this incident and dissipated slowly to the wilderness.

In those days, Mazumdar’s words were believed to be the gospel’s words for the vibrant youth of Calcutta University and other Universities of West Bengal. Some of them are “The rebellion must begin from the villages and conclude in the city by snatching the power from the bourgeois”, “Go back to the villages, and enlighten the rural masses”, “teach the peasants to take up the arms”. The comrades indeed left for rural India, and took shelter in the most poverty-stricken home and passed on the teachings of rebellion. Sooner, the landlords and the secrurity personnels discovered the malafide intensions of the Red Force and intensified their operation. By 1976, hundreds of youth had lost their lives, thousands were decaying in jail as undertrials and the rest ran for their lives. The struggle became myth for some, and curse to others.

Since the beginning of the movement, a period of forty years has passed and a lot of water has flown from the riverbed of the Ganges. The armed struggle of Naxalbari has raised his head again, not by the charisma of Charu Mazumdar but adhering to the gospel’s words this time. The cities of Kolkata, Patna, Bhuvaneshwar, Hyderabad are calm but the movement is showing its colors in Lalgarh, Jhargram, Midnapur (WB), Sasaram, Gaya (Bihar), the whole of Jharkhand, Gadchiroli, Gondia (Maharashtra), Mirzapur, Sonbhadra, Chitrakut (UP), Balaghat (MP), Chattisgarh and parts of Orissa.
The movement had sown the seeds in rural India and now the million crops are blossoming. This time around, the leadership has been a conglomeration of diversified dedicated souls who believed in accomplishing the clinical surgery with utmost accuracy, challenging the governments to confront them. The comrades are no more hero-worshipping, gun loving city bred youth, rather they carry on with their actions which are visible and melt away soon after implementing. Believe it or not, all major State Governments in India are now feeling the heat from the naxal movement.

In response to the swapping case of abducting police officials with the apprehended naxal leaders, and the hijacking of Rajdhani Express, the statements given by the Union Home Minister and the Prime Minister of India are worth looking at. It is a long drawn battle, says Chidambaram while Manmohan Singh has said, “Poverty in certain tribal regions are the cause of Maoist violence.” Both the comments are well conceived confessions by the two well educated politicians. But the confessions have come very late. The red bastions are conspicuous, guns are oiled, tiny-clad armed villagers moving and the bullets are raveneous. The battles are already drawn.

It’s a long drawn battle.