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There is only one
department in India today in which employment opportunities are ever on the
rise. It is the only department to which budgetary allotments are increasing
year after. It is none other than the army and the police departments. Various
state governments and the central government are always at loggerheads over the
allocation of funds by the centre to the states. But when it comes to the
question of ‘extremists’, ‘terrorists’ and ‘naxalites’ all their dogfights are
forgotten. The central government, which has paucity of funds for the demands of
the states for drought relief, flood control etc. becomes quite magnanimous when
it is the question of dealing with naxalites. Ever since the formation of the
Joint Operational Command (JOC) of nine states and the centre and the increasing
Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) strategy, there is tremendous improvement in terms
of weapons and communication of the police and para-military forces. Armed to
the teeth by SLRs, AK-47s, LMGs, mortars and grenade launchers, large number of
forces are being mobilized within a short span of time as soon as they get any
information about the squads/platoons of the CPI (ML) Peoples War, MCC and some
other communist revolutionaries or when some chance encounter starts during the
course of heavy combing operations. Contrary to all the misinformation by the
police and the media, the guerillas have to fight with relatively low-grade
weapons and in heavily outnumbered situations. The only weapon that is of higher
grade than that of the enemy is the high morale of the guerillas owing to their
noble cause of the radical change of the present exploitative system and the
co-operation of the masses to guard, defend and save their vanguards. Armed with
these weapons, there are increasing instances of valiant fights by the guerilla
forces when they are heavily encircled. They are able to successfully break out
of encirclements with the absolute co-operation of the masses. We are reporting
here about two recent instances of such brave battles in the guerilla zone of
Magadh-Koel-Kaimur.
The first one was in
the Bhojpur district of Bihar. This battle took place in Madanpur village on
10th July 2002. Sixteen comrades of the area assembled in Madanpur to carry out
an armed action against some important Ranvir Sena leaders in a nearby village.
They comprised of some members of the local guerilla squad (L.G.S.) and the
others were militia members. The commander of the LGS was not with the squad on
that day for some reason. A chowkidar had been eliminated earlier in that
village for being a police informer. His son was appointed as chowkidar on
compassionate grounds. He got wind about the presence of the squad in the
village and got it confirmed and then went to inform the police along with his
uncle. The police arrived by 2.30PM in two jeeps and a van. They were nearly 30
to 40 in number. They encircled the house in which the squad had taken shelter
and tried to break open the door. The squad opened fire and a fierce encounter
started. One squad member jumped off the roof, left behind his damaged rifle and
safely came out of the dragnet of the police. Others also tried to go out of the
shelter. But as soon as they ventured out heavy firing took place in the by-lane
and Amarjit Singh died on the spot after sustaining bullet injuries. Suresh Roy
was injured in his thighs. The squad had to again retreat in to the shelter but
not before they killed a policeman. The death of the police arrested the
initiative of the police and they did not dare to venture into the house. They
kept raining bullets on the house. Meanwhile reinforcements of the police
started growing and reached 500 by the night. The police lobbed grenades into
the house. Three grenades exploded and three comrades were injured. The house
had an open ground on three sides. But there were haystacks all around. The
police started burning the haystacks and so the squad could not venture out on
that side. The firing continued from both the sides till 11PM.and by that time
the fire of the haystacks subsided and the squad broke the wall on one side and
taking advantage of the darkness they escaped. They took along some of the
injured. A few of the more seriously injured could not be taken away. The police
found injured Bachu Roy, Suresh Roy and Sudhir Kumar in the morning and shot
them. Had they been given medical treatment they would have survived but the
barbaric police shot them dead in cold blood.
Though the death of
the four comrades saddened the revolutionary masses and the cadre, they however
were more inspired by the heroic fight put up by the guerillas though they were
heavily outnumbered (nearly 30 times). They not only successfully broke out of
the encirclement and retreated to safety, during this daring fight they could
even inflict damage to the police. They fought valiantly though the commander
was absent and most of them were new and not even trained up as guerillas. They
could even take out with them most of the injured comrades also. Thus while this
battle that ensued for almost nine hours could dent a serious damage to the
prestige and morale of the police it boosted up the morale of the downtrodden
masses, especially of Bhojpur. Naturally, the Ranvir Sena, with its birthplace
and stronghold in Bhojpur, was panic stricken that the Peoples War guerillas
made good their escape. They were more perturbed that many of the guerillas and
two of the martyrs belonged to the Bhumihar caste, which they considered to be
their natural bastion. The most despicable reaction however came from those last
traders of the name of Naxalbari and Charu Mazumdar - the CPI (ML) Liberation.
Perhaps Dipankar Bhattacharya, the rightful heir to the revisionist Vinod Misra,
was more saddened than even Ranvir Sena that the police could not finish off all
the guerillas. How else can one understand the statement of Liberation that the
Ranvir Sena convinced the police to let the Peoples War guerillas off the hook
and only because of this nexus that developed between the Peoples War, Ranvir
Sena and the police, the guerillas could break out of such heavy encirclement
(sic)! They had the audacity to say this after four of the comrades laid down
their lives in the fight and the whole village was witness to the nine hour-long
encounter! Liberation has long lost all the faith in the ability of the masses
to carry out armed revolution. So it is illuminating the royal road to the
Indian pigsty and appealing to the masses to follow them on that road. Therefore
it is not surprising that they found it unbelievable that guerillas can in fact
successfully resist the police onslaught. Their other allegation that the Ranvir
Sena had helped the Peoples War guerillas shows the abysmal depths of casteism
that the Liberation has sunk into. They cannot believe that even peasants of the
bhumihar caste can join the revolutionary ranks. They perhaps castigate all
those belonging to the bhumihar caste to be the supporters and activists of the
Ranvir Sena. They have more faith in the Ranvir Sena leadership than in Marxist
politics. That is the reason they forget that though the feudal leadership of
the Ranvir Sena could rally most of the bhumihars to their support initially,
their exploitation of their own caste men is leading to the realization of the
poor and a section of the middle peasants about the nature of the Ranvir Sena
leadership. Some of them are getting ready to resist the high-handed,
exploitative and extortionist leadership of the Sena. Those who fail to grasp
this reality can never objectively assess the unfolding contradictions. Bachu
Roy and Suresh Roy, the two-bhumihar brothers who died martyrs in the battle
came into the revolutionary ranks after fighting the high-handedness of a
commander of the Ranvir Sena, Mangal Roy of their own village, Ilamchak. The
Ranvir Sena looted all their property and they had to flee their village. Should
not such exploited people be taken into the revolutionary fold just because they
belong to the bhumihar caste? At least Dipankar Bhattacharya thinks so. He says
that none of the Kurmi caste people in Punpun area of Patna district can be
taken into the revolutionary fold, as they were once supporters of the Bhumisena.
He refuses to see that the Bhumisena has long died and the ordinary peasants
cannot be left to the mercy of the ruling class politics just because they once
supported the Bhumisena in this caste-ridden society. Similarly he castigates
all the bhumihars to be Ranvir Sena members. Especially if they are in the ranks
of Peoples War, he can see nothing but a nexus between the Ranvir Sena and
Peoples War. The toiling masses of Bihar are watching who are fighting the
Ranvir Sena and who have tamely laid down their arms. They cannot be hoodwinked
by Goebbelian propaganda of the Liberation. They are seeing through these
despicable lies and their party’s theatrics to join the ranks of the old
revisionists well entrenched in the parliamentary path.
Meanwhile the
revolutionary masses are readying themselves for more death defying battles,
inspired by the battles like that of Madanpur.
Another such brave
fight was put up by the Kisho-Senha local guerilla squad in Lohardagga dist. in
Jharkhand in the latter half of September, 2002. The squad had taken shelter in
Barwadih village. They stayed in a govt. building (perhaps the Anganwadi) on the
village road. There was a good crop of maize - tall, green and dense, all
around. Long Range Patrolling was going on in the whole area at that time. It
was raining, when, at around 9 AM, nearly sixty police surrounded the village.
The sentry opened fired with his 12-bore gun as soon as he saw the police
advancing towards the shelter. He called to the commander. The commander came
out immediately and opened fire with his semi- automatic rifle. The policemen
immediately fell down in position, their advance stopped. They started firing at
the firing squad, from all the directions. The commander told all the members to
come out immediately from the shelter. All the comrades came out of the shelter
firing at the enemy. Taking advantage of the maize crop they advanced cautiously
countering the enemy’s fire from time to time. By now the enemy’s rapidity of
firing increased. More and more enforcements of the police also started pouring
in. But aided by the people and taking concealment of the maize crop the squad
made its way out of the encirclement in half an hour and climbed a nearby hill
and watched the happenings in the village. Only one comrade, a very recent
recruit, hesitated to follow the squad and hid himself in the maize crop. Later
he was arrested along with his 12-bore gun. Police could not notice the squad’s
retreat. The enforcements continued to surround the village and their number
increased to a few hundreds. They continued firing till sunset confusing their
own firing from a different direction to be that of the squad. They altogether
fired 32 grenades, 12 mortar shells and nearly 2000 rounds of bullets. The squad
watched all this ‘tamasha’ from the hilltop and retreated later. This
incident turned the police in to a laughing stock. The people were greatly
enthused by the failure of such a large number of police to do any damage to a
very small squad of about ten members. This brave retreat of the squad in spite
of being heavily outnumbered gave a new confidence to that squad and other
squads as well.
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