Volume 1, No. 9, November 2000

Reports from Bihar

The Karpi and Arwal blocks in Jehanabad district are the worst affected by the Ranbir Sena (RS) phenomenon. Bathe, Shankarbigha, Akopur, Katesar Nala—all these massacres by the RS took place in these areas. Many retaliatory actions by the PW have also taken place in this area. Recently Arwal has been made into a separate police district due to the strong presence of the PW in this area. This new district includes Karpi.

Apprehending more retaliatory actions by the PW, some new police stations have been set up and many police camps have been set up in those villages which are considered to be the strongholds of the RS. In Arwal block ( now Mehendia P.S.) there is a village, Sarouti, the native village of martyr comrade Dinkar. This has been a strong centre of the PW. More than 10 years back, people seized 85 acres of land belonging to the absentee landlords of Akopur village. At that time a police camp was set up there to protect that land from the naxalites. After a few years of struggle the people won and that land has been distributed among the landless and the poor peasants, and since a long time, people have been cultivating that land. A pond has also been seized here. It should be noted that Sarouti, Akopur, Chauram and nearby villages are notorious for the feudal excesses of the landlords belonging to the Bhumihar caste and the reactionaries. After an intense class struggle these forces were suppressed and as soon as the RS appeared on the shoulders of the police forces, they quickly joined their ranks. One Shyam Sharma of Akopur village, who is also a landlord, organised a massacre (of ‘Liberation’ sympathisers) in his own village. This was the first massacre by the RS in this area. In this massacre 3 people were killed.

On 17 August, Shyam Sharma, 35, was annihilated near Surya Mandir (Sun Temple) of village Etwan around 6 pm as he was coming to his village in a hired jeep. Shyam Sharma was also involved in the Bathe, Belkhara and Miyanpur massacres. He was one of the notorious organisers of the RS in this area and a hated enemy of the people.

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Ganiyari, in Karpi block, is a village of reactionaries belonging to the Bhumihar caste. This village is near Pariyari, the native village of martyr comrade Srikant. Before the RS phenomenon, this village was not active. A strong and intense class struggle had preceded the RS phenomenon in this area and these reactionaries had been suppressed and had started surrendering. But after the coming up of the RS, they stopped surrendering and joined their ranks.

One Jitendra, alias Mantu alias Gaubodhan Sharma,23, joined the RS in 1997 itself. He was one of the main gunmen in the western zone of Jehanabad. Very established in his gang for his brutality, he was a real terror. He was involved in butchering people in the Bathe, Shankarbigha and Miyanpur massacres. On 22 June he killed one PW sympathiser, Lalan Manjhi of Azadnagar village, contiguous to Ganiyari.

On 17th September, he was annihilated at Shantipur bazaar at around 10.45 am. Many reactionaries went for his last rites. In this action, three ordinary people also were injured accidently. The local Party committee of the PW gave Rs. 800 for the treatment of Pankaj Pandit, who was more serious.

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According to the newspapers, on 3 October, in Barhetta village of Kinjar police station (Jehanabad), an office-bearer of the Rashtravati Kisan Mahasangh, an outfit of the RS and ex-mukhiya, Lala Sharma was annihilated by the PW in broad daylight. In retaliation the goons of the RS killed three sympathisers of the PW of this village including an old woman of 60 years. Situated on Jehanabad-Arwal main road, this village of reactionaries and landlords belonging to the Bhumihar caste, is quite notorious. More than seven years back the PW had seized 5 rifles from the reactionaries of this village. A strong struggle for wage-hikes had also been waged here and won. An economic blockade had also been imposed on some of the reactionaries who surrendered later. The reactionaries of Barhetta were maintaining links with the RS long before the outfit crossed the river Sone and came to Jehanabad. The people have been struggling against these reactionaries for a very long time. In this area this is a notable achievement in the struggle against the RS.

Punpun area of Patna disrict has a history of revolutionary struggles. These struggles were led by the old CPI (ML) and then by the CPI (ML) (Liberation) under the leadership of comrade Jouhar. Of late, as the Liberation group plunged into parliamentarism, their tactics also changed to suit their electoral needs. As they gave up the strategy of protracted people’s war, the need to establish people’s authority, abolishing feudal authority is no longer on their agenda.

In Bihar, everyone knows that the parliamentary parties exploit the caste sentiments to consolidate their vote bank. The Liberation group is no exception.

What they do practically is that they keep people divided on caste lines and exploit the caste sentiment in the name of class struggle, in order to gather votes. In the name of figthing the landlords, they target even the poor and middle peasants of a particular dominant cast apparently to reap the advantages of caste antagonisms in the elections. They did this in Bhojpur and they have been doing this in every area including Punpun. As they left armed struggle, their squads (they do not maintain regular squads) degenerated into armed gangs. Every parliamentary party unofficially maintains armed gangs in Bihar.

Liberation is maintaining such gangs officially in the name of revolution. This is the only difference. Their policy has been to wage ‘political struggle’ against the landlords, reactionaries and the state, and to wage ‘armed struggle’ against the PW. Phrase–mongering against the RS(Ranbir Sena) is their main form of struggle against the RS. No doubt, their armed attacks on the activists of the PW and its mass organizations has appeased the state and in turn the state allows them to maintain these gangs. This has been the character of these "Sarkari Naxalites" in the battlefield of Bihar. Thus, they are playing a true revisionist role of serving ruling class interests, in the garb of being a communist party.

In the last two years, they have killed more than twenty activists/sympathisers of the PW and its mass organizations in Patna district and the nearby Jehanabad block.

Recently, the PW has entered the Punpun area, winning over a section of the poor and middle peasants belonging to the Kurmi caste and a section of the dalits. This has, obviously, challenged the ‘rangdari’ of the armed goons of the Liberation in this area. People, both the dalits and peasants of the Kurmi and Yadav castes, are joining the PW. Obviously upset by these developments, the Liberation group has resorted to the killing of innocent sympathisers of the PW.

The recent incident of early October should be seen in this context. Previously the banks of river Punpun were auctioned by the government. Many years back the auction system was eliminated after struggle. After the abolition of the goverment auction, Liberation began to auction the banks and the local leaders and sympathisers of the Liberation used to take these river banks on contract. Giving contracts (of a fixed amount) to its lower committees has been an important part of Liberation’s financial policy. Upper committees give contracts to lower committees and it does not matter how much the lower committees collect and in what manner. This has generated a core of corrupt activists in this group who collect money from ordinary people for the use of the river banks.

On second October , three peasants (sympathisers of PW), of the nearby village Baraipur, were loading their onions on a boat. One important leader of Liberation, Nagi Paswan — he was a candidate for the assembly elections during the last elections — ordered his men to loot the onions. Immediately the onions were looted and the only reason for this was that they were sympathisers of the PW. People of this village Baraipur protested against this.

In reaction, the armed goons of the Liberation attacked the unarmed people. These unarmed people then fled to save their lives and entered village Karai in the Masauri police station area.

The goons surrounded this village and started firing . Hearing the gun shots, an armed squad of the PW , which had taken shelter in a village two miles away from village Karai, came running there along with members of the GRD. As they reached the spot, an intense encounter began. In this encounter nine of the goons were killed and the PW squad seized six weapons — 4 countrymade guns, 1 DBBL, 1.3006 mouzer.

One of the members of the GRD, Comrade Sanjay, was martyred during the encounter.

Panicking by the expansion of the PW in their old ‘Jagir’, the Liberation group has resorted to senseless killings of activists and sympathisers of the PW. However, people in that area , despite the attacks by Liberation are welcoming the PW and resisting the ‘rangdari’ of Liberation. The incident of October 2, has been a major achievement against the Liberation group in this area.

Liberation will certainly try to give it a caste colour in order to fan caste sentiments. The PW, on its part, is trying to consolidate peasant–labour unity in this area, to eradicate the goondagardi of the Liberation group and to establish people’s authority.

Since the girl in the picture was from the Bhumihar caste and the boy from a backward caste (Koeri), some lumpen elements of the backward caste instigated the father of the boy, Rajinder Singh to protest against the punishment. Suddenly on 17th August this lumpen group gave a call for an Imamganj bandh and blocked the roads. There was also a police lathicharge on these people. All of a sudden on 18th August, the Liberation group began to speak in the language of this lumpen group and started a slander campaign against the People’s War saying that the PW was hands in glove with the Ranbir Sena and police! (Just because the girl concerned belonged to the Bhumihar caste.) AISA (Liberation’s student front) activists then closed a primary school adjacent to this school as a mark of protest against the jan adalat. The police again resorted to a lathicharge and firing which resulted in the cold bloodied murder of three students. The PW and MKSP condemned this police brutality. This however was of no significance for the Liberation whose General Secretary, Deepankar Bhattacharya, went to the extent of ridiculing ‘jan adalats’. ( He even forgot that they themselves conduct jan adalats! ) This entire incident was nothing but fishing in troubled waters by the Liberation.

Not content with a mere slander campaign, the CPI(ML) (Liberation) is also brandishing its guns on the PW. In Dhurki in Garwah district, they attacked a squad of the PW. In Masauri in Patna district, they killed two sympathisers and an activist of the PW. Krishna Devi was shot dead in her own house just because her husband happened to be a sympathiser of the PW. She was 40 years old. Another sympathiser Tuntun was killed on his way home. However the most disgusting incident was the killing of 22 year old, polio stricken Vinay Kumar who was an activist of the BNS (Bharat Naujawan Sabha). This incident took place on 22 July. After this, the Bihar secretary of the Liberation Group, Ram Jatan Sharma, said that "the state government has failed to curb extremism in Bihar."

All these incidents show once again that the rusted guns of Liberation have found a new lease of life and now their battle is no longer with the state or the class enemies but with the revolutionaries.

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