Introduction
East India Company led by Robert Clive defeated the forces of Nawab of Bengal Siraj-ud-Daulah in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, operating from Fort William in the sleepy fishing hamlet of Kalikatta that is now the modern metropolis of Kolkata. Bhaktiyar Khalji defeated the Sena king in a surprise attack on 1204 AD as his ten thousand strong Turko-Persian cavalry ushered in the beginning of Islamic rule in Bengal. Bhaktiyar was in service of Muhammad of Ghuri who conquered Delhi in 1192 AD. Muhammad Ghuri came from the hills of Central Afghanistan replacing the Ghaznavid rule there and then diverted his attention towards Delhi. Bhaktiyar and his Turkish followers carried the Islamic political thought of a centralized Arab Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. British began to develop Calcutta on the east banks of river Hooghly with a great harbour and 154 Km from the head of the Bay of Bengal. The British period saw the first mass protest in 1905 when Bengal was partitioned. British were already wary of the growing protests against British rule in Indian with emergence of Congress as also the formation of Communist Party of India in Kanpur on 26th December 1925. Bipin Ch Pal, a journalist was involved in freedom movement from Partition of Bengal was the most revolutionary leader of congress in Bengal. Surya Sen was
best known for leading the Chittagong armoury raid in 1930. He was a leading member of Congress in Chittagong. The spirit of revolution was evenly spread out in both East and West Bengal cutting across religious lines, when in early thirties the Communal Award was declared after the 2nd Round Table Conference. With the accession of Subhas Chandra Bose as President of Congress, Bengal got leader of national caliber. With the Japanese invasion of World War II halted at Kohima, liberating India from the British by waging war ended for Subhas Chandra Bose and his INA (Indian National Army). In 16thAug 1946, as Muslim League declared ‘Direct Action’ Day a major communal violence broke out in Calcutta. Riots targeting Hindus broke out in Noakhali on October 1946, the extreme south of East Bengal. The Muslim dominated East Bengal joined the Dominion of Pakistan and rest of Bengal becoming a state in India. The seeds of communalism sown during British times was rite in Bengal to the already class ridden land ownership pattern in rural Bengal. The exploitation of the serfs by the landowning classes as the repressive organ of the British masters are predominant, leading to conflicts between the tillers of land and landlords.
Road to Naxalbari:
Chairman Mao’s lacquered personality became a rage as much as Che Guevara in the campuses and left intellectual circles in universities and colleges of the global South in1940s. The postWW II order was jolted in 1949 when a peasant army led by Mao could defeat a US backed Kuomintang (KMT) army led by Chiamg Kai Shek and liberate China from foreign yoke. The rise of modern China and the growth of communism in Asia owes largely to Chairman Mao’s charismatic leadership. Communist Party of Burma (CPB) which made its appearance in 1939, when
US dominance of Asia is entering a critical point as rise of China and Maoism became the principal ideology.From late thirties Mao Zedong’s dictum “political power grew out barrel of a gun, to spread like wild fire in Asia. After the defeat of KMT forces at the hands of Burmese troops the vacuum of the KMT bases in Tachilek in Shan State of Burma, was taken uð by the CPB. The cold war of US and China began to play out in northern Burma in early sixties between the Communist guerrilla army of nearly twelve thousand and the anti-Communist forces backed by US, Taiwan and Thailand. Bengal had its own share of Communist leaders of global stature in MN Roy, who followed the pro-Moscow line. The red star was ascendant in Bengal and remained an integral part of its anti-colonial struggle. It went as a parallel movement and at times converged with the national movement. At the direction of Lenin, MN Roy founded CPI (Tashkent Group) in late twenties.
Naxalbari covered on area of 500 Sq km covered by three police stations of Naxalbari Kharibari and Pnansidewa in Wst Bengal Naxalbari block os located in Siliguri subdivision in Darjeeling district.
In May 1967 Naxalbari nestled in the Himalayan foothills, a village not far from Siliguri in North Bengal became the focal point of a revolt. By then in neighbouring Burma, a Burmese of Bengali descent MN Ghosal was the chief dogmatist of the CPB and the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) Maoist ideology was fast replacing the 1962 Khrushev's revisionist line of CPSU (Communist Party of Soviet Union). The revolt that gave India the first Maoist upsurge as the peasants working as sharecroppers in Naxalbari. On May 25 that year, Charu Majumdar along with the two other key leaders, Kanu Sanyal and Jangal Santhal, launched the peasant uprising in Naxalbari. A month after Charu
Majumdar began the Maoist movement Thakin Than Tun chief of CPB ordered the purge of party ideologue MN Ghoshal, as it started its own cultural revolution. Charu Majumdar had visited Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh 1969 as the Srikakulam peasant uprising began relating to land lord atrocities. Peasant leaders in the North Andhra district such as Vempatapu Satyanarayana, began to get attracted by CPI (Maoist) ideology that Charu Majumdar started. Before Charu Majumdar started the Naxalbari movement peasants rose to revolt in 24 Parganas a year back. PWG (People’s War Group) was formed in Andhra Pradesh in April 1980 by Kondapalli Seetharamaiah who was already a leader Central Organising Committee of CPI (Maoists). Maoism from the 1970s began to make inroads from Andhra Pradesh to tribal areas of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and parts of Orissa. The leadership of PWG began to be dominated by Andhra Pradesh leaders Ganapathy and the current chief Namballa Keshaba Rao of as it continued to spread in India’s hinterland.
Undivided Bastar, India’s red corridor of Chhattisgarh was divided into seven district of Ranker, Narayanpur, Kondagaon, Bijapur, Dantewada, Jagddpur and Sukma, over 40,000 sq km area. It is a ideal place where the Maoists move to northern Andhra and Telangana, Malkangiri of Odisha and to Maharashtra on the west. From 1980s Bastar emerged as the next Naxalbari and the impenetrable forests of provide the ideal cover to launch attacks on counter attacks by security forces for nearly forty years. The conflict rages on in Bastar. From 2001 to 2019 (May) over 2236 lost their lives in the conflict. During 2005- 06 violent incidents in Chhattisgarh are as high as 639 violent incidents. The worst attack of CPI (Maoist) was in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh on April leading to death of 76 security forces on 6th April 2010.
In 24 April 2017 a Maoist ambush on Burkapal and Chintagufa in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh by hundreds of Maoist killed twenty five CAPF (Central Armed Police Forces) personnel. The Maoist commander Sudhir Korsa alias Prakash took part in the attack. He is part of Battalion 1 of the PLGA (People’s Libration Guerilla Army) of Dandekaranya in Bastar, whose head Madvi Hidma also heads the Central Military Commission of CPI (Maoist).