People’s War began its activities

Polarisation Among the People

Resistance by the people under PW’s leadership

Attack on Rama Tewari — Victory to Masses and Deathblow to the Fascists

The latest situation — Mass rallies defying CPM threats

Midnapore a south Bengal district has hit the all India headlines. The bloody battle for supremecy between the CPI (M) and TMC-BJP combine has drawn the attention of all concerned.

Gorbeta and Keshpur the two blocks in Midnapore district have come under sharp focus as profusely blood-stained areas in West Bengal. The threat of President’s rule, troubleshooter power-hungry Mamata Banerjee’s brazen cry for blood and the alibi for projecting a peaceful West Bengal etc. have made the political scenario intriguing enough for a brief study of the actual reality prevailing there.

Gorbeta and Keshpur, the fertile soil producing commercial crops like potato, are economically deeply polarised areas and now have transformed into a veritable battle ground for supremacy over the areas between the BJP-TMC combine and the CPI(M). The presence of fascist political gangs, adds a new dimension to the scene.

The political history of West Bengal provides a marvael of contractions and bizarities. While the CPI(M) led United Front tried to crush the Gorbeta Naxalbari uprising in 1967, and the CPI(M) and the Congress lumpens joined hands in a macabre dance to eliminate the CPI(ML) cadres in the 1967-72 period, now it is the rivalry and despicable display of muscle power by the TMC, a splinter organisation of the Congress (I) and its ally the BJP against a decaying, internally squabble-ridden CPI(M) ruling the for state the state for 23 years. The marauders of the TMC, BJP and the CPI(M) are now ruthlessly falling on village after village, burning houses, looting, killing and raping freely in many areas, Gorbeta and Keshpur in particular.

In the late ’80s, a small revolutionary group started organising people in partial struggles in some pockets of Gorbeta, Goaltore, Ramgarh and in some areas of Midnapore and Bankura districts. Social fascists let loose attacks first in Jayrambati in Bankura in 1989 and then in Nalpa-Kasthagura villages of Gorbeta in 1993 where Com. Bhajan Chakraborty was murdered and many were maimed, houses demolished, forcing many others to leave their areas. Finally the group joined the CPI(ML)(PW) in 1995 and started to organise people to put up resistance against the oppressors. However, serious work for armed resistance commenced from the year 1999.

By the year 1997 itself the BJP and then the TMC combined to unleash a series of attacks on the CPI(M) dominated villages keeping a covetous eye on the ensuing Panchayat and parliamentary elections in 1998. Gorbeta soon became the centre of this power struggle between the two fascist groups. The CPI(M) was at the receiving end. The TMC-BJP combine mobilised a large number of dacoits and anti-socials and relentlessly carried on loot, arson, and rape of women, killing people and torching village after village particularly in 1, 2, 3, Panchayat areas of Gorbeta adjacent to Hoogly and Bankura districts.

Most of the villages could not face the atrocities and surrendered to the marauding gangs while the CPI(M) leaders took fight to safer place in the towns. However, it is noteworthy that a section of the dissident CPI(M) leaders were instrumental in inviting the BJP-TMC gang in those areas. A section of the erstwhile CPI(M) hooligans also readily cast their lot with this gang. It was the common people who bore the burnt of this rivalry, paying taxes, losing properties and many a time the chastity of their womenfolk and even having to succumb to the armed pressure of the BJP-TMC gang for joining the CPI(M) dominated villages. It was enough to break the morale of the CPI(M) influenced villagers.

The rich people of Gorbeta mainly a section of landlords, rich peasants and big businessmen patronised and financed the emergimg BJP-TMC gangsters while the police looked the other way. An unscrupulous businessman cum smuggler of Gorbeta town, Rama Tewari who was earlier with the CPI(M) became the chief of the BJP gang and personally led many such fascist attacks. Now he has donned the crown of presidentship of the BJP’s Midnapore district unit. The CPI(M) also gathered some dacoit forces but they were no match for the well-armed opponents.

Against this background, the Midnapore Divisional Committee of the PW sent one organiser to Gorbeta by the end of ’98. In early ’99 an open seminar was organised in Gorbeta town, demanding remunerative prices for potato, facing all odds? Women activists were humiliated by the BJP gang. The PW then began to build up an armed squad as the situation demanded and a 3 member regular squad was formed. While the rural poor of Gorbeta, the supporters of Red Flag, welcomed it, it put a scare in the BJP-TMC camp. And the situation began to change. The police too swung into action. On one occasion the village women snatched one squad member arrested by the police on the tip-off by BJP-TMC leaders. It boosted the morale of the people. Soon after that a notorious BJP-RSS leader Swarup Sarkar, looter and rapist, was punished by the guerrillas on 9 September, 1999. Immediately the BJP-TMC gang mobilised all their murderers under the direct supervision of Rama Tewari and murdered Com. Anath Sarkar, a PW sympathiser. The very next day they savagely killed two relatives of the Sarkar family who had come from Hoogly to attend the funeral of martyred Com. Anath, and seriously injured another by firing repeatdly at his head and injuring his two eyes. They even murdered a 10 year old nephew of Com. Anath. All this happened in the presence of the police.

After this incident, while a large number of police and para-military camps were posted to arrest the PW squad to check its possible retaliation, the leaders of the BJP-TMC gang were busy launching barbarous attacks on the newer areas bordering Midnapore-Hoogly-Bankura districts.

The Sheelabati river divides Gorbeta block in two parts — 7 panchayat areas on one side 5 on the other. The PW started its work initially in the No. 2 Panchayat area and tried to extend to No.2,3 and 4. But due to stiff resistance and control of the BJP and TMC, extension in this area was slow. While the PW squad moved on the other side of the Sheelabati, i.e. 10 and 12 No. panchayat areas, it had to face the CPM threat and attacks as this side has been dominated by the social fascists all along. Thus two sides of the Sheelabati were occupied by the two fascist forces both having their own killer gangs and threatening the people not to give food and shelter to the PW squad. But braving their threats of dire consequences, people prepared themselves to secretly work under the CPI(ML)(PW)’s guidance. The squad moved in the whole area defying the fascist terror and adopted gurrilla tactics to hit the enemy at opportune movements. The enemy camp became more and more demoralised and people got more and more confidence on the PW’s squad. The squad had to face attacks from three sides, i.e., CPM, BJP-TMC and police.

People witnessed two types of armed activities side by side. While the CPM and BJP-TMC armed gangs were totally anti-people and brutal in nature, and engaged in looting, extorting, killing, raping at will, the PW squad maintained good relations with the people, and tried to organise them in resistance and educate them in revolutionary politics risking their own lives to save the people from fascist attacks. While the fascist parties always made the common people their target of attack, the PW squad differentiated between the leaders and the led of the fascist parties and always targeted the main leaders, the main culprits, the main anti-people elements and organised attacks on them. The ruling class parties used terror as their weapon to bring people to their side. Consequently people could draw a clear distinction between these forces and the revolutionaries and slowly began to get organised even under the fascist terror of these parties.

By the end of 1999, the BJP tried to attack some villages in No. 10 panchayat area but under the PW’s leadership people successfully resisted a big BJP mob, killing 2 and wounding several of them. The news of this resistance spread like wild fire in the whole area. People got more confidence and began to polarise around revolutionary politics. But their urgent issue was saving their lives and properties from the clutches of the marauder gangs. Political consolidation and imparting class consciousness to the downtrodden masses remained the most important task while resisting the fascist force. People definitely became more and more conscious through the practice and politics of the CPI(ML)(PW).

Thus with the help of people, the PW squad continued its activities on both side of the Sheelabati, but mainly concentrated on the northern side, i.e., the border areas of Midnapore, Hoogly and Bankura. Attempts were taken to punish notorious BJP leaders like Bhola Malik, once the right-hand of the CPM leader Mukunda Patra who was murdered by a BJP gang in 1998. With his murder the BJP got the upper hand in the area and could spread its empire ousting the CPM from the area. But persons like Bhola, the henchman of the CPM leader, became the henchmen of BJP-TMC combine.

Anyhow, Bhola saved himself narrowly. But the attack sent a chilly terror down the spines of the BJP leaders. Bhola immediately became inactive from politics and some other BJP stalwarts fled the area. But till that time the BJP was not a declining force. Moreover it was gathering more and more criminals from all around and was preparing to launch a final offensive on the CPI(ML)(PW) and villages that had till then not surrendered to them. They panicked to face the PW squad as they came to know that people from different villages were contacting the CPI(ML)(PW) squad in increasing numbers. The PW squad was even moving in many BJP-dominated villages also and organising people at night. They knew that any new attack will obviously invite resistance from people under the leadership of the CPI(ML)(PW) .

The Manikbandhi villagers were so panicky that most of them left the village even before the attack. So effective resistance could not be put up here though the fascist gang lost their member and one villager was also killed in the battle. This negative experience of Manikbandhi was turned into a positive lesson in the adjacent Selampore and Bheute villages of Hoogly district where almost the whole villagers were organised by the CPI(ML)(PW) squad to put up resistance against the fascist attack. The village youth were trained in guerrilla fighting to build up tough resistance. A series of attacks took place over the two months of May and June 2000 on these villages. But they could not penetrate an inch into these villages. Further they suffered a lot of causalities in the long-drawn battle. Some 10/12 BJP-TMC attackers might have lost their lives. One among them was the local TMC leader Nitai Senapati, the death of whom attracted Mamata from Calcutta to condole his family.

This long battle slowly demoralised the fascist gangs. Panic set in their camp. Slowly the hired goons from outside began to disapper and finally they fled the scene. Another incident of mass resistance must be mantioned here which put the last nail on the fascist attacker’s coffin.

As we already noted, Rama Tewari is the BJP president of Midnapore district and the main organiser of the fascist bahini since its initial stage. He was a businessman from the West, an offshoot of a comprador family who nourished the dream to be the new Zemindar. Rama first joined the CPM and was long patronised by the CPM. Then with the rise of the BJP he switched over to the BJP. He personally led the fascist gang in the Sandhipur massacre which was published in the CPM’s state mouthpiece ‘Ganashakti’ in a big way to discredit the BJP, but never did the ruling party file a case against Tewari for his heinous murders, let alone take him into custody. So it was the duty of the people and the revolutionaries to punish him. Further he was instrumental in sending police forces repeatedly to arrest the PW squad. So he became the most hated target of the people and revolutionaries.

Bansda is a village in Gorbeta which has remained a long time stronghold of the communist movement. Here three villagers laid down their lives while fighting the police force during the great Tebhaga movement in 1949. Till now that village carries the communist tradition of standing against all oppressors. Earlier this village was with the CPI. Then after ’77 it became a bastion for the CPM. But finally it became one of the villages that stood firmly with the CPI(ML)(PW) politics and facing all the odds, became a stronghold of revolutionaries.

In the last week of June, Rama personally planned to destroy this communist stronghold. For that purpose on the one hand he mobilised a large gang on one side of the village and he personally led one large police force from another side first to flush out the PW squad from the village and then to attack and loot the village.

But anticipating his plan, the PW squad mobilised the village women in large numbers and gheraoed the police party, and while they were being beaten by the village women with broom sticks, Rama began to retreat hurriedly in his car to a safe distance and became isolated both from the protector police and from his gang. At this opportune moment the PW squad attacked Rama Tiwary’s car. The car was badly damaged and Rama could escape narrowly with his gang. But, this incident spread great panic among the BJP-TMC camp and the fascist leader never again dared to enter the GB village. These incidents of resistance that we have mentioned earlier were all published in the press as a fight between the BJP-TMC and the CPM forces, which was a white lie.

This attack along with the defeat and losses in the Selampur battle broke the morale of the fascist gangs totally. They lost all their intiative and fled away and vacated the whole area.

After the fall of the BJP-TMC domination in Gorbeta and adjacent Goghat villages due to the resistance organised by the PW, the CPM leaders came out of their safe havens and began to organise their own gangs to chase away the fleeing BJP-TMC forces and once again capture the areas left vacant by the BJP-TMC and impose its own domination. So the defeat of the BJP-TMC combine in Gorbeta gave some boost up to the sagging morale of the CPM and demoralised the BJP-TMC camp totally. The CPM was cunning enough to utilise this situation to conduct one after another attacks on the demoralised BJP-TMC forces, first in Gohat in Hoogly, then in Keshpur in Midnapore and then in Sihar-Gopinathpore areas of Bankura districts. Just like the BJP-TMC marauder gangs, CPM also organised criminals, anti-socials and a section of the people and formed 1000-1500 strong armed gangs to attack BJP-TMC dominated villages one after another — burning, looting, killing, beating and imposing taxes, etc.; what the communal fascists were doing till yesterday. Only in the PW squad’s operating area, the criminal activities of the CPM gangs were checked to a great extent due to the people’s resistance.

Now as the BJP-TMC forces were vacating all the areas under their domination without even minimum resistance, the CPM quickly took control of the areas as the PW did not have an adequate party structure or subjective force to cover such a vast area. But whatever may be the ruling class propaganda, people in the vast area of Gorbeta, Goghat, Keshpur, Shalboni and other adjacent blocks, are well aware about the actual picture of the anti-fascist struggle of the Gorbeta-Goghat areas and gained a lot of confidence in revolutionary politics. So innumerable contacts and invitations began coming up from the common suffering people of the whole area asking the PW to form organisations in their respective areas.

In this situation what were the conditions of the Gorbeta area where the PW was working? Here the PW had to face renewed threats from the CPM which was dreaming of wiping out the PW with the help of the police. So the stage was being set for another round of struggle, this time around with the more cunning social fascists. Most of the rich and landlords who were patronising the BJP-TMC forces till the other day now changed their coats to become patrons of the CPM. Similarly many of the criminals and killer gangs that were operating under the banner of the BJP-TMC till yesterday suddenly became their comrades and are being utilised by the CPM in the same way as was done by the BJP-TMC. The CPM also organised one motor cycle gang to terrorise the common people in the area and particularly to threaten the people not to support the PW programme or help them. So the so-called pro-people image of the social fascists began quickly sloughing off before the people. People began seeing their real face and realising from their bitter experience that all the ruling parties are fascists and anti-people in nature and there is no difference between them in essence.

— Sukanta