Mainstream Weekly

Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2011 > Unjustified Aggressiveness!

Mainstream, VOL XLIX, No 48, November 19, 2011

Unjustified Aggressiveness!

Monday 21 November 2011, by D. Bandyopadhyay

#socialtags

My attention was drawn to “An Open Letter to the Chief Minister of West Bengal” which was signed by thirty members of the civil society of Kolkata and Delhi. What disturbed me was the tone and tenor of the language used in the letter in denouncing Ms Mamata Banerjee’s bold initiative in inviting the Maoists of Junglemahal for a dialogue after “ceasefire”.

May I ask with all humility who among the Chief Ministers of the 12 Left-wing extremism-affected States took the initiative in this regard before the present Chief Minister of West Bengal? Both the leaders of the Central Government and affected State governments had been following a “hawkish” line in containing the “Maoist” problem. The result is for all to see. From one State, one district and one police station area of Naxalbari in 1967, the movement has spread to 12 States, about 200 districts and roughly 2000 police station areas in the last 44 years. Meanwhile the combined police budgets of the Centre and States have increased enormously. Yet the problem flourishes with occasional ups and downs, twists and turns.

To create an ambience of peace talks, the CM of West Bengal had suspended the operations of the combined forces in the Junglemahal. Yet the Maoists or killers in the name of Maoists murdered six local AITC leaders and active workers in the area. The gesture of peace shown by the CM was not fully reciprocated by the Maoist leadership.

I was shocked by the allegation in the letter that the development package announced by the CM for the Junglemahal did not take “into recognition the real demands of the people there”. Do the signatories of the letter have a list of the “real demands” of the people there? If so, why don’t they publish it for the information of the public? And may I ask: how did they ascertain the real demands of the people there?

Mao Zedong himself laid down the methodology for this in his Red Book. He writes: “The only way to know conditions is to make social investigation to investigate the conditions of each social class in real life.” (Red Book, Peking, 1967, p. 154) And he himself enquired into the causes of the unrest among the peasants of Hunan province and produced that classic Hunan Report. This Report of his, and his deep personal understanding of the problem helped him to chalk out the strategy and tactics of his Long March which ended in capturing power in 1949. Who among the Maoists in the Junglemahal or elsewhere in the country prepared a document like the Hunan Report to frame their strategy? There is no such thing anywhere among the Maoists or their friends and sympathisers among the enlightened members of the civil society who are now criticising the CM of West Bengal.

Do our friends know that way back in 2004 five members of a Sabar family at Amlasole died of starvation in spite of having rice under the “antyodaya” scheme to be used for such cases of starvation? When I had once asked a well-known CPI-M economist: “How could such a tragedy happen in spite of the ‘antyodaya’ food being available with the BDO?”, his reply stunned me and even now agitates me after so many years. He blandly replied: “Don’t you know that the Gram Panchayat is controlled by the Jharkhand Party?” So having returned Jharkhandi members to form the Gram Panchayat, the Sabars of Amlasole forfeited their right to life—so solemnly guaranteed in Article 21 of the Constitution of India—under the CPI-M regime!

Today rice is reaching each ST family as all of them have been declared as having entitlement under the BPL. Do our friends think that providing food to hungry families belonging to various ST groups does not constitute a solution to the real problem of hunger? My humble request to my friends is that before making wild allegations please try to assess the objective realities through investigation as Mao Zedong had suggested in his Red Book.

May I know why my esteemed friends are accusing Ms Mamata Banerjee for the “people killed during the last few decades”? Was she the Chief Minister then? She was sworn in on May 20, 2011 as the CM of West Bengal. She has been the CM for five months and 17 days (as on November 7, 2011). During this period no “Maoist” or alleged “Maoist” has been killed in any police encounter. Please verify the facts before making any allegation. Why did not these worthy persons write such open letters to the then CM, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, during whose regime such killings took place? A crime is an individual offence. It canot be extinguished with the change of regime or passed on to the official successor. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee ordered police firing in Nandigram on March 14, 2007. The Calcutta High Court declared it illegal and unconstitutional. The then State Government went to the Supreme Court in appeal. To the best of my knowledge and information the Apex Court partially dismissed the appeal asking the State Government to pay compensation to the victims of police firing and directed the CBI to complete the enquiry against all the alleged culprits including police officers. So how does anyone accuse the present CM for the wrongdoings of her predecessor?

I shall now deal with the economic and social condition of a “class enemy” of the Maoists, late Lalmohan Mahato. I had been to his house in his village about 11-12 km from Jhargram town. The house he lived in had two mud-rooms with a roof of thatch. It had a small mud-verandah in front barely one foot and six inches higher than the surrounding ground. He was educated but as he was anti-CPI-M and pro-TMC he was denied teachership in the primary school. He opened a pre-primary coaching class for children from three-to-five years of his village. Parents of the hamlet whom I had occasion to meet were very happy with his coaching class. He was a well-respected person. He strongly protested against extortion of 30 per cent of teachers’ salaries by the Maoists or their sympathisers each month. Initially, all the teachers continued to pay the illegal levy of the Maoists. But gradually they gathered courage and tried to organise against such extortion. When the Maoists or their sympathisers saw that their source of regular income through 30 per cent extortion of teachers’ salaries would be cut off, they struck. They killed Lalmohan Mahato who protested against such illegal extortion.

With these facts before them would the venerable signatories to the “Open Letter” kindly enlighten me as to whether Lalmohan Mahato, a poor teacher, was a “class enemy” deserving death penalty. What is your verdict? I am confused.

By way of information it needs to be also pointed out that contrary to what the signatories of the open letter are claiming, as late as in the first week of November, Maoists have killed several tribal citizens in the Junglemahal area before the resumption of the joint forces’ operation.

Architect of ‘Operation Barga’ during the Left Front Government in West Bengal, the author was Secretary (Rural Development) and Secretary (Revenue) in the Union Government. Now retired, he is currently a Member of the Rajya Sabha representing the Trinamul Congress.

ISSN (Mainstream Online) : 2582-7316 | Privacy Policy|
Notice: Mainstream Weekly appears online only.