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The Great Lalgarh Revolt

Including the Struggle in the Surrounding Jangalmahal Area



Paramilitary police set to attack a peaceful rally of the People’s
Committee Against Police Atrocities at Lalgarh on August 26, 2009.


Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Selected Press Reports
  3. Statements and Interviews by the CPI (Maoist)
  4. Solidarity with Lalgarh and CRPP Statements
  5. Pamphlets and Articles by Amit Bhattacharyya
  6. Articles from People’s Truth
  7. Photo/Video Gallery
  8. Useful Links



Introduction

      Starting in November 2008, the tribal people (or adivasis) of the Lalgarh village area of the West Midnapore district of West Bengal, India, rose up against decades of oppression and abuse by the police and armed thugs of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). This party is usually known by its initials as the “CPM”. Despite its name, this is by no means a revolutionary Marxist party; it is instead a revisionist or phony “communist” party, which represents not the workers, peasants and the poor, but actually the ruling alliance of exploiting classes (capitalists and landlords). The CPM has been in power in West Bengal for decades, and has come to demonstrate that old revolutionary Marxist addage that revisionism in power is nothing other than outright fascism as far as the masses of people are concerned.

      Naturally the people of West Bengal are more and more resisting this state oppression, but when a revolt like that in Lalgarh occurs, the CPM police and armed goons become all the more ferocious in their attempts to suppress the people’s upsurge and drive them back into submission. There are now huge numbers of state police and paramilitary forces in the Lalgarh area attempting to put down the people’s revolt. But the mass struggle is continuing!

      In recent years hundreds of adivasis in the Lalgarh area have been imprisoned on charges of having ties with the Maoist insurgency which is ongoing in large parts of India, and many of them have been murdered. This was the immediate spark for the uprising in late 2008. While the resistance of adivasis to their oppressive conditions has taken many forms over the years, the organized strength of this advanced political revolt grew from over a decade of work by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in the area. It has proven to be the only significant party which actually sides with the people in their fight against the oppressive CPM state machine. It has helped the adivasis set up People’s Committees, and start to take control over their own lives. Activists of the CPI(Maoist) have played a leading role in promoting these People’s Committees and in expanding the struggle to new areas. Among these people’s organizations, which have a broad range of support and participation, is the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) [also known as the Police Santrash Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee (PSBJC)], which is playing a very positive role in defense of the masses. This is the overall situation at present in the Lalgarh area and beyond.

      The reports and documents below, available either on this site or else via links to other sites, provide extensive information about this great Lalgarh struggle of the Indian masses. While many of the news reports from the establishment press which are included below are of course not themselves banned in India, they are listed here in order to present a fuller and more complete picture of all the many events in this prolonged struggle. Sometimes the ruling class suppresses views and information outright and directly, but more often it suppresses it through simply making sure it has very limited circulation and does not actually reach most of the masses. This is just as much true in the United States as it is in India, and maybe even more so, due to the tyranny of capitalist media market forces. Withholding news coverage to the people, or only very spotty news coverage, is really almost as bad as the outright banning of publications which try to break the news embargo. It is the goal of BANNEDTHOUGHT.NET to help break down both of these forms of suppression of news and ideas, and to combat the ignorance and “dumbing down” of the population which the rulers seek to impose on us.

      Much background information on sources below has been provided by researchers from the MLM Revolutionary Study Group in the US; their web site is www.mlmrsg.com, and they can be contacted at: mlm.rsg@gmail.com

      [Note added on April 20, 2010:] The new International Campaign Against War on the People in India website (at http://icawpi.org) has a large number of articles and commentaries about the struggle in Lalgarh and also Operation Green Hunt and related topics. This is now the best site for keeping up to date on news and developments relating to such events and resistance struggles. From now on we will only be posting a relatively small number of the more important articles relating to Lalgarh or OGH here on BannedThought.net.



  1. Selected Press Accounts and Commentary

  2. Statements and Interviews by the CPI (Maoist)
    [Note: Brief quoted comments of CPI (Maoist) leaders also often occur in the news reports listed above.]

    • “Mamata Used People’s Movement in Singur, Nandigram: Kishenji”, The Hindu, Jan. 10, 2010.   PDF Version (197 KB);   MS Word Version (413 KB)
    • “Kishenji: Farmers in Lalgarh Region Don’t Have to Repay Crop Loans”, Hindustan Times, Dec. 17, 2009.   PDF Version (165 KB);   MS Word Version (29 KB)
    • “[CPI(Maoist)] Mouthpiece [magazine] preaches lessons from Lalgarh”, The Statesman, Nov. 22, 2009.   PDF Version (172 KB);   MS Word Version (29 KB)
    • “To Establish a Liberated Area”, interview with Koteswar Rao (Kishenji or Kisanji), Frontline magazine, Oct. 24 - Nov. 6, 2009 issue.   PDF Format (162 KB);   MS Word Format (40 KB)
    • “We Shall Certainly Defeat the Government”, interview with Ganapathi (Ganapathy), General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist), Open magazine, Oct. 17, 2009. A wide-ranging interview which includes comments about the struggle in Lalgarh.   PDF Format (294 KB);   MS Word Format (293 KB)
    • “Ready for Talks, but No Farewell to Arms: Top Maoist Kisenji [Kisanji]”, IndianExpress.com, Oct. 6, 2009.   PDF Version (112 KB);   MS Word Version (29 KB)
    • “Maoists Dare Govt to Weed Them Out”, (Report of comments by Kisanji in India Today), Aug. 21, 2009.   PDF Version (112 KB);   MS Word Version (29 KB)
    • “Second Phase of Lalgarh Operations Will Also Fail: Kisanji”, ZeeNews.com, August 20, 2009. PDF Version (88 KB);   MS Word Version (28 KB)
    • “Lalgarh is Naxalbari-II: Maoists”, quoted comments of Koteshwar Rao (Kishanji), Politburo Member of the CPI (Maoist), The Hindu, August 7, 2009.   PDF Version (133 KB);   MS Word Version (32 KB)
    • “CPI (Maoist) Message to the People of Lalgarh”, July 15, 2009.   PDF Format (126 KB);   MS Word Format (32 KB)
    • “Let us spread the Red Flame of Lalgarh to the Nook and Corner of the Country! Mobilise the entire party, PLGA and the revolutionary masses against the state offensive on the mass upsurge in Lalgarh!!”, call of the Political Bureau of the CPI(Maoist), July 10, 2009. From the CPI(Maoist) Maoist Information Bulletin, #10, Aug. 10, 2009.   PDF Version (176 KB);   MS Word Version (48 KB)
    • “Armed Movement in City [Kolkata] Before 2011 Poll”, report of interview with Kishanji, The Times of India, July 1, 2009.   PDF Version (78 KB);   MS Word Version (29 KB)
    • “We Fight for the People, and Our Only Partners are the Oppressed”, Interview with Koteshwar Rao, June 21, 2009 [from the Indian Vanguard website]   PDF Version (223 KB);   MS Word Version (51 KB)
    • “We Will Spread This Fire”, Comrade Manoj, prominent CPI (Maoist) member in Lalgarh, June 21, 2009.   PDF Format (146 KB);   MS Word Format (32 KB)
    • “It’s a People’s Uprising Against Oppression,” Interview with CPI (Maoist) West Bengal Spokesperson Gour Chakrabarty, Hindustan Times, June 20, 2009.   PDF Version (197 KB);   MS Word Version (30 KB)
    • “We are Ready to Talk to the Government”, Interview with Koteshwar Rao, Hindustan Times, June 20, 2009.   PDF Version (139 KB);   MS Word Version (30 KB)
    • “Oppose the Brutal Police Offensive by the Fascist UPA and Social-Fascist Left Front Govts against the Adivasis of Lalgarh! The Current Suppression Campaign will Lead to Massive Armed People’s Resistance!”, press release by Azad for the Central Committee of the CPI(Maoist), June 19, 2009. From the CPI(Maoist) Maoist Information Bulletin, #10, Aug. 10, 2009.   PDF Version (183 KB);   MS Word Version (35 KB)
    • “Our Aim is to Break CPM Shackles”, Interview with Comrade Bikash, Zonal Committee Secretary of the CPI(Maoist) for West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia districts, June 18, 2009.   PDF Format (139 KB);   MS Word Format (30 KB)
    • “Mainstream Politics Not for Us”, Interview with Koteshwar Rao, posted on the Indian Vanguard website on June 15, 2009.   PDF Version (135 KB);   MS Word Version (51 KB)
    • “Extracts of Interviews with Comrade Bimal, Politburo Member of the CPI (Maoist)”, May-June 2009.   PDF Format (162 KB);   MS Word Format (38 KB)
    • “We Want a Sustainable Development Path and Inclusive Growth Trajectory that Won’t Divest the Poor from the Fruits of their Labor”, Interview with Comrade Bimal, April 27, 2009.   PDF Format (213 KB);   MS Word Format (42 KB)
    • “The Mass Uprising in Lalgarh”, Maoist Information Bulletin #6, January 15, 2009.   PDF Version (182 KB);   MS Word Version (515 KB)

  3. Solidarity with Lalgarh and Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) Statements

  4. Pamphlets and Articles by Amit Bhattacharyya, Professor of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata

  5. Articles from People’s Truth, Voice of the Indian Revolution
    [The articles from issues #4 and #5 are not yet available separately, but the entire issues are available on BannedThought.net via the links below.]

  6. Photo/Video Gallery

  7. Useful Links

    • http://www.icawpi.org/ — Website of the International Campaign Against the War on People in India (ICAWPI).
    • http://sanhati.com/front-page/1083/
      Based in West Bengal, the Sanhati group and website have covered the Lalgarh uprising since it began. (The word sanhati means “support” or “solidarity”.)
    • http://lalgarh.wordpress.com/ [Note: Both this site and the Indian Vanguard site below seem to have come under pressure from the Indian authorities, and both were closed down briefly in October 2009.]
    • http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/
      Very useful site on the Indian revolution.
    • http://www.bannedthought.net/
      Banned Thought makes available CPI (Maoist) statements and People’s Truth to an international audience, as well as this Lalgarh information page.
    • http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/
      Sponsored by the Kasama Project in the U.S., this site contains news and analysis about the Maoist revolutions in India and Nepal.
    • http://www.no2displacement.com/
      Site of the International Campaign against Forced Displacement and Special Economic Zones, launched by the International League of People’s Struggle in June 2008. It also contains documents from the Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan (VVJVA), a nationwide anti-displacement organization.



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