Programme: Special Correspondent Report by: Bipasha Mukherjea Telecast: Saturday, Sept 27, 9.30 pm Repeat Telecast: Thursday, Oct 02, 4.30 pm "A peal of spring thunder has crashed over the land of India. Revolutionary peasants in Darjeeling area have risen in rebellion. Under the leadership of a revolutionary group of the Indian Communist Party, a red area of rural revolutionary armed struggle has been established in India..... The Chinese people joyfully applaud this revolutionary storm of the Indian peasants in the Darjeeling area as do all the Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary people of the world. "
`Spring Thunder over India`
July 5th edition of People`s Daily Naxal has been a dreaded word for the Bengalis for past few decades. The memory of seventies haunts the present and makes it so miserable that hardly anybody wants to speak about it. But gradually as the time is passing by, people of Bengal have been able to adjust to this fact that Naxalbari is an essential part of their past and present. Maoists revolutionaries active in any part of the country are normally known as Naxals, be it of PWG or MCC. Very few are aware of the fact that the word, Naxal is derived from the name of a small panchayat area situated in Darjeeling district of West Bengal, Naxalbari. The place being close to Nepal border, with acute poverty and problems of labour exploitation in tea estates made it highly susceptible for the Maoist Communist movement to sow its seed in 1967. This revolution was known as spring thunder too as it was recognized by the international media. The urban bourgeois press gave the name Naxal in the late sixties when it started in the country. Initially the movement had a huge support in the state. Catching up like a fire among the urban youth it was able to indoctrinate even the common masses. But the mean or rather the "Khatam Line", the method of eliminating individuals identified as enemies of class struggle, spelled its doom. The cream of India`s youth and students joined, what came to be known as the Naxalbari movement. While the parliamentary politicians were busy playing the politics of power and amassing personal wealth, young revolutionaries were sacrificing everything - studies, wealth, families - to serve the oppressed masses of our country. Displaying a death-defying courage withstanding enemy bullets and inhuman tortures, facing the hardships of rural life, thousands of youth integrated with the landless and poor peasants and aroused them for revolution. The CPI (ML) formed in 1969 on the basis of this ideology of revolution, mainly propagated this line as shown by Charu Mazumdar. No doubt, soon it turned into bloody hooliganism. In the fight between Naxals and anti-Naxals many innocent individuals lost their life. The mass murder in Baranagar-Cossipore area on 12th and 13th August 1971, claimed many lives of which there is no record. Worst examples of this mass murder are Ashto, a young boy of 20 and Von aged 15. Archana Guha, another case of police torture is the sole example who has survived the repression of police torture and has been able to achieve justice partially. After a legal battle of nearly twenty years court announced one year imprisonment to the concerned police officer Runu Guha Neyogi and his associates. Naxal, the ideology of seventies might be history today, but their active existence in the country is a reality. Naxals operating in the guise of PWG or MCC are mostly active in the Chotanagpur plateau region of the country. From across Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, parts of West Bengal to Nepal they are trying to form a Compact Revolutionary Zone or CRZ. This is the belt rich in mineral ore.
The armed revolutionaries in certain parts of this area are so powerful that they are even running parallel government. These armed revolutionaries within the country might be divided in ideology yet they are united under the umbrella of Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties of South Asia or CCOMPOSA. They have become a threat for both the concerned state governments and the Central government. The villagers living in these areas are vulnerable to these revolutionaries. They exploit them at the gunpoint and the police and administration, on the other hand, harass them for harbouring such revolutionaries. The country and the Central leadership need to wake up to this genuine problem and take serious note of this rising menace of Red Star over the Bastar region.
With the death of Charu Mazumdar the revolution gradually split in various factions and lost its steam. Today, thirty years later, nearly all the leaders of the past accept that revolution was not successful because it took the path of violent armed struggle.
Kanu Sanyal, one of the front ranking leader of this movement even today dreams of uniting all the factions and once again bring back those days of seventies. But he accepts that it was a "great mistake" on his part to follow the Charu Mazumdar line of Khatam.

The movement is still very much in force in the tribal belt of Bihar and in some parts of Andhra Pradesh. However, by an large, the movement is almost in it`s death-bed. What was once a dream of thousands of youth, now lies in a coffin. The wave of consumerism has succeeded in weaning away the revolutionary fervour in a long way.