30 years of naxalbari « naxal resistance

12/20/13

30 years of Naxalbari « Naxal Resistance

Naxal Resistance
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30 years of Naxalbari
Posted by Indian Vanguard on September 17, 2007
We are reposting a booklet entitled “30 years of Naxalbari” Published by Revolutionary
publications, Kolkotta, for archive of our blog
Download
— An Epic of Heroic Struggle and Sacrifice
INDEX
Heroic Martyrs of the turbulent Sixties
15th August 1947….. The Union Jack is lowered, the tri-colours unfurled. A hope is awakened.
Independence, freedom and a better life is expected and promised by the new rulers. A great
enthusiasm envelops the country. Time passes and so does Nehru, the first Prime minister of the
country. Slogans of socialism, non-alignment of the Nehru era give way to Shastri’s Jai Jawan, Jai
Kisan and then Indira Gandhi’s Garibi hatao. Now, twenty years have passed, a full two decades.
The situation remains the same. The hopes are dashed, the expectations turn to frustration. The
British are gone, but their capital remained, their laws remained, their colonial structures
remained…. merely added was the parliamentary edifice. To British capital, was added American
capital. While people continued to live in grinding poverty, the Tatas, Birlas of the country filled their
coffers with enormous wealth. People’s cries for justice were as ruthlessly suppressed, as in the British
Raj. The slogans of the rulers remained as mere slogans, the reality seemed different. The people were
now searching, seeking something genuine, seeking real answers. The people’s frustrations was
reflected in the results of the February 1967 general elections; when, for the first time, non-Congress
governments were formed in eight states. And then in the spring of 1967, a new ray of hope,
shattered the darkness engulfing the country. A fresh breeze from the East began to displace the
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stagnant, putrid air of the past twenty years. The veil of lies and deceit behind which our rulers took
protection, was torn asunder. A clap of thunder struck the remote village of Naxalbari in North
Bengal, and its reverberations shook the conscience of the entire country.
18th March, 1967…. The red flag is hoisted. The peasant convention of the Siliguri sub-division is in
session, at Naxalbari. Five hundred delegates, some armed with bows and arrows, chalk out a new
path for their future. Revolutionary leaders explain the bankruptcy of the CPI (M) and the peaceful
path to change. The Chinese revolution is given as an example of how the poor can seize political
power in a backward semi-feudal country. The convention ends with a call for the immediate seizure
of land and the setting up of liberated base areas. The peasants prepare for launching their offensive
against the landlords of the area..
PART-1 : THE NAXALBARI UPRISING
The First Spark Towards a New Party Naxalbari-type Upsurge (1) Srikakulam
(2) Birbhum
(3) Debra-Gopiballavpur
(4) Mushahari
(5) Lakhimpur-Kheri Profile of a Leader
PART-2 : THE SETBACK The Government Onslaught Martyrdom of CM Movement
Recedes Three Trends Emerge
PART-3 : INTROSPECTION A Self Critical Review The Importance of Mao Ze Dong Thought
PART-4 : REVOLUTION TAKES ROOT Bihar : (1) Maoist Communist Centre (2) CPI (ML) Party
Unity Andhra Pradesh : (1) The Initial Regrouping
(2) Telangana Regional Conference
(3) A Cultural Resurgence
(4) The Student Movement
(5) Go To Village Campaign
(6) Resurgence of the Peasant Movement
(7) Civil Liberties Movement
(8) Formation of CPI (ML) (PW)


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PART-5 : 1980-84 — FIRST STEP TOWARDS GUERILLA ZONE
Guerilla Zone Perspective
Movement’s Extension
(1) Dandakaranya
(2) North Telangana
PART-6 : 1985-89 — FIRST ROUND OF SUPPRESSION War of Self Defence
Efforts to Maintain Mass Links
Party Consolidates and Retaliates
Peoples’ Movement Regains Initiative
PART-7 : 1990-A BRIEF REPRIEVE
PART-8 : 1991 TO 95….. SECOND ROUND OF SUPPRESSION Tasks in the New Conditions of
Repression Struggles Continues Growing Armed Resistance PART-9 : POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS
PART-10 : A GUERILLA ZONE IS BORN
Economic Gains
Political Authority of Peasant Committees
Social Transformation
PART-11 : PARTY — THE LEADING FACTOR Continuing the Legacy of Naxalbari PART-12 :
INDIA’S BRIGHT FUTURE
The First Spark
Throughout 1966 itself the groundwork had been laid. In 1965/66 the ‘Siliguri Group’ [(of the newly
formed CPI (M)] brought out as many as six cyclostyled leaflets calling for the immediate
commencement of armed revolution. One of these leaflets gave a call to initiate partisan warfare in
the Terai region within six months. Throughout 1966 revolutionaries organised peasant cells in every
part of Siliguri sub-division; bow and arrows, and even a few rifles were gathered and liaison
established with the Nepalese Maoists active just a few miles away. In late 1966 a Revolutionary
Kisan meeting was organised in Siliguri. On March 3, 1967 the seeds of struggle began to
sprout………. A group of peasants surrounded a plot of land in Naxalbari region; marking the
boundaries with red flags, they began harvesting the crop.
Then….. the March 18 Convention was the signal for the peasant upsurge, which engulfed the entire
area for four months. The U.F. government in West Bengal sought to diffuse the movement by
announcing token land reforms. The revolutionary peasants replied to the revisionist rulers by setting
up peasant committees to take over the land of the jotedars. Huge processions and demonstrations

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were organised by Kisan committee members, many of whom were armed with lathis, spears, bows
and arrows. A sea of red flags struck terror into the hearts of the landlords and the countryside
reverberated with the slogan “March forward along the path of armed peasant revolution.”
The first clash was ignited when a share-cropper, Bigul Kisan, was beaten by armed agents of a local
jotedar. This was followed by violent clashes and the forcible seizure of land and confiscation of food
grains, by armed units of the Kisan committee. Any resistance by the landlords and their gangs was
smashed and a few killed. By end May the situation reached the level of an armed peasant uprising.
The CPI (M) leaders, who were now in power, first tried to pacify the leaders of the movement……
having failed, Jyoti Basu, the then home minister of West Bengal, ordered in the police. On 23rd May
the peasantry retaliated killing an inspector at Jharugaon village. On May 25, in Naxalbari, the
police went berserk killing nine women and children. In June the struggle intensified further,
particularly in the areas of Naxalbari, Kharibari and Phansidewa. Firearms and ammunition were
snatched from the jotedars by raiding their houses. People’s courts were established and judgments
passed. The upheaval in the villages continued till July. The tea garden workers struck work a
number of times in support of the peasants. Then on July 19, a large number of para-military forces
were deployed in the region. In ruthless cordon and search operations, hundreds were beaten and
over one thousand arrested. Some leaders like Jangal Santal were arrested, others like Charu
Mazumdar went underground, yet others like Tribheni Kanu, Sobhan, Ali Gorkha Majhi and Tilka
Majhi became martyrs. A few weeks later, Charu Mazumdar wrote “Hundreds of Naxalbaris are
smoldering in India……. Naxalbari has not died and will never die.”
Naxalbari gets recognition
The Communist Party of China, then the centre for world revolution, hailed the uprising. On June
28, 1967 Radio Peking broadcast : “A phase of peasants’ armed struggle led by the revolutionaries of
the Indian Communist Party has been set up in the countryside in Darjeeling district of West Bengal
state of India. This is the front paw of the revolutionary armed struggle launched by the Indian
people……”. Within a week, the July 5th edition of People’s Daily carried an article entitled ‘Spring
Thunder over India’ which said : “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.”
Meanwhile, revolutionaries in Calcutta, who had also been running a campaign against revisionism,
took up a massive campaign in support of the Naxalbari uprising. The walls of college streets were
plastered with posters saying : “Murderer Ajoy Mukherjee (the Chief minister) must resign.” The
revolutionaries [still within the CPI (M)] held a meeting in Ram Mohan Library Hall in Calcutta and
formed the ‘Naxalbari Peasants Struggle Aid Committee’, which was to become the nucleus of the
Party of the future.
Simultaneous to the police action, the CPI (M) expelled a large number of their members. Sushital
Roy Chowdhary, a member of the West Bengal state committee and editor of their Bengali party
organ was expelled. So were other leading members like Ashim Chatterjee, Parimal Das Gupta, Asit

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Sen, Suniti Kumar Ghosh, Saroj Datta and Mahadev Mukherjee. The Darjeeling district committee
and Siliguri sub-divisional committee were dissolved.
The spark of Naxalbari set aflame the fires of revolution in Srikakulam, Birbhum, DebraGopiballavpur, Mushahari and Lakhimpur-Kheri. The states of West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh,
Bihar, Punjab, U.P and Tamil Nadu saw a big spurt in Naxalbari-inspired struggles and Maoist
formations sprouted in nearly every state of India.
The Naxalbari Path
Naxalbari put armed struggle onto the agenda of Indian revolution….. and since then, the Indian
political scene has never remained the same. Naxalbari took place at a time when not only the Indian
masses were getting disillusioned by the twenty years of fake independence, but, at a time when the
entire world was in turmoil. Small countries like Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea were striking major
blows at the might of the U.S. Army; national liberation movements were surging forward in a
number of underdeveloped countries; in Europe and America massive anti-imperialist
demonstrations against US involvement in Vietnam merged with a violent outburst of the Black and
women’s movement; the student-worker revolt in France shook the DeGaulle establishment; and,
most important of all, in China, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (in the backdrop of the
Great Debate) attacked the revisionist ossification and distortions of Marxism. In the Communist
arena all Parties throughout the world were compelled to take positions in the Great Debate, between
the CPC (Communist Party of China) and the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) which
had been going on since Krushchev restored capitalism in the USSR in the late 1950s. Naxalbari was
a product and a part of this ideological-political ferment taking place throughout the globe.
Most important, Naxalbari restored the revolutionary essence of Marxism on the Indian soil which
had been distorted, corrupted and destroyed by the revisionist semantics of the CPI and the then
nascent CPI (M). Naxalbari provided the answers both ideologically and practically.
ON THE QUESTION OF PROGRAMME it attacked the revisionist concepts of the CPI and CPM
which saw India as basically a capitalist country with ‘feudal remnants’…….and clearly analysed
India as a semi-feudal country. It also attacked the revisionist theory that the ruling bourgeoisie in
India is basically national in character and that India achieved genuine independence in 1947……..
and clearly stated that the ruling bourgeoisie is comprador, Indian independence fake, and that India
is a semi-colony. It outlined the stage of revolution as New Democratic, the enemies of revolution as
imperialism, feudalism and comprador bureaucrat capitalism, while the friends of revolution being
the workers, peasants, middle-classes and national bourgeoisie – with peasants as the main force and
working class as the leading force.
ON THE QUESTION OF STRATEGY it opposed the path of ‘peaceful transition’ put forward by the
CPI and CPM, and upheld the path of protracted people’s war. It clearly stated that the path to
liberation lay in guerilla warfare, building a people’s army, creating liberated base areas in the
countryside and gradually encircling and capturing the cities. It stated that the immediate goal was
the establishment of a people’s democratic dictatorship (of the four classes) as the first step towards
transition to socialism. The final goal was communism.

IN THE REALM OF TACTICS it rejected parliamentarism and called for the boycott of elections. It


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IN THE REALM OF TACTICS it rejected parliamentarism and called for the boycott of elections. It
fought against economism, legalism and reformism in methods of work and organisation.
ON POLITICAL QUESTIONS it pin-pointed the two superpowers, US imperialism and Soviet
Social imperialism, as the main enemies of the world people; it exposed the modern revisionists of the
Soviet Union; it declared India as a multi-national country and supported the right of nationalities to
self-determination including secession.
AND MOST IMPORTANT, IN THE REALM OF IDEOLOGY, it uncompromisingly fought against
revisionism and all forms of bourgeois ideology within the working class movement and strongly
upheld Marxism-Leninism-Mao ZeDong Thought as Marxism of the present day. Particularly, it
established Mao’s thought as a development of Marxism-Leninism and undertook a big campaign to
popularise it. This had a lasting impact, particularly on the student and youth of the country.
Specifically, inspired by the on-going Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, it responded
enthusiastically to Mao’s clarion call “It is right to rebel against reaction.” It thoroughly imbued the
spirit of the GPCR call to “Fight self-interest and repudiate revisionism”, by displaying a deathdefying spirit of self-sacrifice, total devotion to the oppressed masses and a burning class hatred
against the perpetrators of exploitation in the country. Thereby, it struck at the class-collaborationist
approach of the revisionists and the pseudo-liberal approach of the intellectual Marxists and gained
enormous affection from the poorest in our country.
Though later, come tactical errors and a massive offensive by the enemy led to a temporary setback,
Naxalbari made an indelible impact on the revolutionary movement in the country.
Towards a New Party
While the Naxalbari movement was crushed, the politics and ideology behind the Naxalbari uprising
spread throughout the country. The ‘Naxalbari Peasants Aid Committee’ (or ‘Naxalbari Krishak
Sangram Sahayak Samiti’) held a conference which decided to form the ‘All India Coordination
Committee of Revolutionaries of the CPI (M)’. On November 12, 13, 1967 communist revolutionaries
from all over the country met and established the ‘All India Coordination Committee of
Revolutionaries of the CPI (M)’ A provisional committee was formed to consolidate all revolutionaries
and gradually form a revolutionary party.
The coordination committee undertook the task of propagating Marxism-Leninism-Mao ZeDong
Thought; uniting all communist revolutionaries on this basis; waging an uncompromising struggle
against revisionism; developing and coordinating the revolutionary struggles, specially peasant
struggles of the Naxalbari type; and preparing a revolutionary programme and tactical line. In May
1968, at its second meeting held on the eve of the first anniversary of the Naxalbari uprising, the
coordination committee was re-named as the ‘All India Coordination Committee of Communist
Revolutionaries’ (AICCCR) with Sushital Ray Chowdhary as its convenor.
Earlier, the communist revolutionaries decided to bring out a political paper to propagate the
revolutionary line. The first issue of ‘Liberation’ was brought out on November 11, 1967 with Suniti
Kumar Ghosh as its editor. ‘Deshabrati’ was brought out in Bengali. At its peak the circulation of
‘Liberation’ touched 2,500 and that of ‘Deshabrati’ 40, 000.

Meanwhile Naxalbari-type struggles spread like wild-fire throughout 1968, and the struggle in


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Meanwhile Naxalbari-type struggles spread like wild-fire throughout 1968, and the struggle in
Srikakulam was growing into a major uprising. Under these conditions the AICCCR in its February
8, 1969 meeting adopted the resolution to form a Party. At the plenary session meeting of the
AICCCR held between April 19 to 22, 1969 the final decision was taken and on the hundredth birth
anniversary of Lenin the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) was founded. A coordination
committee was formed to draft the Party constitution and prepare for the Party Congress. The
Party’s formation was announced by Kanu Sanyal at a mammoth May Day rally held at the
Calcutta maidan.
In the process of formation of the Party the Dakshin Desh group and the APCCCR (Andhra Pradesh
Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries) did not join. The Dakshin Desh group felt
that it was hasty to form the Party at that juncture and it also had differences with the method of
formation of the Party, while the APCCCR had differences with the political line of CPI (ML). The
Dakshin Desh Group went on to form the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) which is today, along
with CPI (ML) Party Unity, spearheading the armed struggle in Bihar. The APCCCR continued with
its right deviations, later splitting into two factions – the T.Nagireddy-D.V.Rao faction of the
UCCCRI (ML), and, the C.P.Reddy faction which later merged with the revisionist Satyanarayan
Singh faction of the CPI (ML) in 1975 only to split again into a number of factions.
By mid-1969 the government had moved in the para-military forces into all the struggle areas and a
man-hunt was launched for the leaders of the CPI (ML). The movement went fully underground. In
April 1970 the government raided the office and printing press of ‘Liberation’ and ‘Deshabrati’ which
too continued from the underground. The government began its campaign of liquidating the
communist revolutionaries.
On May 15, 16 1970 the Eighth Congress [in continuation of the 7th Congress held by the CPI (M)]
of the CPI (ML) was held under conditions of utmost secrecy. The Congress was held on the first
floor of a building in the railway colony in Garden Reach, Calcutta. On the ground floor were over
fifty volunteers who had gathered to celebrate a mock wedding. Some, were family members of the
delegates. The blaring loudspeaker helped drown the noise of the heated debates taking place above.
The Congress was attended by about 35 delegates from all over the country and elected a 21 member
central committee representing comrades from West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, U.P,
Tamilnadu, Orissa, Kashmir and Kerala with Com. Charu Mazumdar as general secretary. The ninemember politburo comprised Charu Mazumdar, Sushital Roy Chowdhary, Saroj Datta, Souren Bose
(all West Bengal), Satyanarayan Singh (Bihar), Shiv Kumar Mishra (UP), Shroff (Kashmir), Appu
(Tamilnadu) and the two seats allocated for A.P. were never filled.
The Prairie Fire
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 their hardships of rural life, thousands of youth
integrated with the landless and poor peasants and aroused them for revolution.

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In Calcutta the university campuses were turning into hotbeds of revolutionary politics. During the
1967-70 period, the prestigious Presidency College and Hindu Hostel had become the nerve centre
for Maoist politics. The Presidency College Students’ Consolidation emerged as an important force
following their overwhelming victory in the student union elections in 1967/68. Throughout 1968 and
1969 the Maoist students wing – the Progressive Students Coordination Committee (PSCC) –
captured almost all the student unions of the different institutions in and around Calcutta. The PostGraduate students federation of Calcutta University under Maoist influence discovered the militant
form of ‘Gherao’ by launching numerous such struggles against the university authorities in 1969.
Later, at the call of the Party it was from these colleges that hundreds of students gave up their
studies and integrated with the peasant masses. Many became martyrs in the brutal massacres of
youth in 1970/71 in which thousands were killed in Calcutta.
In Andhra Pradesh it was the students of Guntur Medical College who were the first to come out in
support of Naxalbari and form the Naxalbari Solidarity Committee. M. Venkataratnam and
Premchand were the pioneers, translating articles from ‘Liberation’ into Telugu and distributing
them amongst the communist rank and file. Chaganti Bhaskar Rao and Devineni Mallikarjunudu
were the brilliant medical students who subsequently went to Srikakulam as guerilla fighters. Earlier
Bhasker Rao, a gold medalist, had brought out a handwritten magazine, ‘Ranabheri’, to disseminate
Peking Radio news and articles and propagate Naxalbari politics among students.
In Punjab, Bihar, UP, Tamilnadu, Kerala and even amongst the Campuses of Delhi and Bombay
thousands of youth were attracted to Maoism and the politics of Naxalbari. Youth, with ideals, at last
found a meaning to their lives after total disgust with the deceit, corruption, greed and unprincipled
opportunism that pervaded parliamentary politics. Naxalbari symbolised to this youth a new future
of justice, truth, equality, humanity and a self-respect for the downtrodden which the present society
could never give . Fired with this missionary-like zeal they set out to exterminate the perpetrators of
injustice, inhumanity , to eradicate the demons and ghosts who run this oppressive system, to
remove the sting of the scorpions, snakes and other vile creatures who roam the corridors of
power……. to execute the executioners. They sought to create a paradise on earth. They shared the
on dreams of their leader, affectionately known as CM, to create a bright future where no person
shall go hungry; where no one shall oppress another, where there shall be no discrimination based on
caste, religion or sex; where a new socialist human being will be born in whom greed, selfishness,
ego, competitiveness will be replaced by selflessness, modesty and cooperation, and where a concern
for others will take precedence over concern for oneself. And it is these youth who, together with the
more experienced leaders, marched forth to turn their dreams into reality, by building Naxalbaritype struggles in many parts of the country.
Naxalbari-type Upsurge
The period 1968 to 1967 saw the outbreak of struggles of landless and poor peasants that stormed the
feudal bastions of the ruling classes.
(1) Srikakulam :
Charu Mazumdar once said that “Srikakulam is the Yenan of India.” Though that may have been
an exaggeration, it was a landmark in the history of armed struggle in our country. This hilly,
forested tribal belt in the North East of Andhra Pradesh was the beacon-light that blazed the

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revolutionary path for communists of Andhra Pradesh.
Two school teachers had built up a mass base amongst the tribals since the late 1950s. Vempatapu
Sathyanarayana (popularly known as Sathyam) the legend of Srikakulam, together with Adibhatla
Kailasam were finding the militancy of their struggle coming into direct conflict with the revisionist
state leadership. Forcible harvest of crops, land occupations, growing clashes with the landlords were
developing into armed clashes with the police. These two teachers were soon joined by the youth
leader Panchadi Krishnamurthy. Added to this, the verse and song of Subbarao Panigrahi became
the vehicle of revolutionary politics. With the growing repression, the people were disarmed and
panic-stricken as the state leadership was unwilling to resist.
Then came the news of Naxalbari. Sathyam and others immediately embraced the politics of
Naxalbari as in it they found the answers for which they were groping, and which the state
leadership [of the then CPI (M) and later APCCCR] was unwilling to provide. The tribals were now
welded into an irresistible force.
The spark was triggered on 31st October 1967 when two comrades – Koranna and Manganna-were
shot dead by landlords at Levidi village while way to the Girijan Sangam Conference. In reaction the
girijans rose in a big way against the landlords; seizure of landlords land, property and foodgrains
spread from village to village with tribals moving in groups armed with traditional weapons. This
continued for six months paralysing the local police forces. But in March 1968 the government sent
in a massive posse of police. The people fought back, but were faced with defeat as they were not
adequately trained in guerilla methods of warfare.
It was only after coming into contact with the AICCCR that a decision was taken for squad
formation and a more systematic resistance. The guerilla squads now assisted the people in the
seizure of landlords’ property and annihilation of class enemies. On 25th November 1968 the agenda
of armed struggle was set, when 250 tribals raided a landlord’s house, took out a procession of the
hoarded foodgrains and property worth Rs. 20, 000 and burnt hundreds of documents. On 20th
December 1968 at Balleruguda village 200 police were surprised in a guerilla attack by 500 villagers
using stones, bows and arrows and one country-made gun. The police fled; the villagers pursued,
killing two constables and one circle inspector.
In 1969 the number of functioning squads increased and so did the actions. But, in October 1969 the
government sent in 12, 000 CRPF and the battle raged on for nearly six months. Major guerilla
actions took place in the upper Aviri area, on the Bothili hills and near Sanjuvai, Vegulavada and
Ithamanugadda. By January 1970, 120 police had been killed. But, one by one, the leaders became
martyrs. Sathyam, Adibhatla Kailasam, Panchadi Krishnamurthy, Panchadi Nirmala, Bhasker Rao
and Subbarao Panigrahi became part of the folk-lore of the area.
(2) Birbhum :
‘Deshabrati’ drew a number of students and youth towards Naxalbari politics from the towns of
Suri, Rampurhat, and Bolpur. Organisers from Calcutta and Siliguri went to Birbhum in 1968 to
develop the revolutionary movement. After doing some rural surveys they began to organise the


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villagers on issues of wages and tenancy rights. Many youth joined the movement. The next year the
landlords retaliated and evicted the peasants. A militant struggle was launched against the eviction.
The struggle spread like wildfire and soon engulfed the whole area.
The party’s work had spread from Bolpur and Suri to Santhal Paraganas in the west. The first attack
on a class enemy was made in Dubrajpur thana in 1969 and the annihilation campaign started from
the beginning of 1970. Guerilla squads came into being and about 70 class enemies covering 20
thanas were eliminated. In some cases jotedars were punished following the people’s verdicts in
people’s courts. The struggles also spread to the small and medium towns of the district, like Bolpur,
Hetampur, Suri, Rampurhat and Nalhati, drawing in the youth and students. The squads also
formed into larger units (then called the people’s army), eliminated many tyrants, destroyed
documents, confiscated their property and distributed it amongst the people. They seized guns in the
villages in nine thanas of Birbhum, three thanas of Murshidabad and three thanas of Santhal
Paraganas. In all over 200 guns were snatched from the landlords and police. In some areas secret
Revolutionary Peasant Committees were also established. But by mid 1971, besides big contingents
of the police, the government moved in the CRPF and army. With the ‘Left’ line then prevailing, the
movement could not face this combined onslaught and suffered a setback.
(3) Debra-Gopiballavpur :
Many revolutionary intellectuals from Calcutta settled in Gopi-ballavpur of Midnapur district in
1968. In September 1969 a guerilla squad attacked and annihilated an oppressive landlord which
had an electrifying effect in the area. Landlords fled to the towns and in November 1969 a big
peasant movement began which took up the forcible harvesting of landlords’ crops. In the midst of
this movement a large number of guerilla squads were formed and in early 1971 launched an attack
on a police camp of the Bihar Military Police – one policeman was killed and nine rifles seized.
In neighbouring Debra a strong movement had been built in 1967 by the local CPI (M) cadres. But
as the movement became militant warrants were sent for the arrest of their own party men and Jyoti
Basu clamped prohibitory orders in the area. Meanwhile, two popular leaders who had joined the
Maoists, influenced by the Gopiballavpur struggles set up a central guerilla unit and a number of
local guerilla units. In October 1969 thousands of armed peasants, supported by the guerilla squads
attacked the house of a notorious jotedar, seized the hoarded grains, the mortgaged articles and
brunt the documents. This was followed by ten more actions in quick succession……
(4) Mushahari :
Naxalbari attracted the bulk of the CPI (M) cadres of Muzaffarpur district towards the CPI (ML). By
mid-1968 land struggles began…… peasants with arms in their hands openly harvested the
landlord’s’ crops. By August the ‘seizure of crops’ campaign intensified with increased clashes with
the landlords and police. The government sent in big police forces which resorted to assaulting and
arresting villagers, burning their huts and plundering their property. The movement spread to seven
thanas of the district with attacks continuing on class enemies. Towards the end of 1968 guerilla units
were set up to face the police. The masses and guerilla units successfully repulsed the police in many
places and continued their attacks on landlords……..
(5) Lakhimpur-Kheri :

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The movement started in 11 villages in this Terai region of UP close to the Nepal border. Here
landlords owned anything from 500 acres to 2000 acres with large goonda gangs. The peasants
began their struggle for land in early 1968 and witnessed a big upheaval by June. Clashes between
the peasants and goondas ensued with the peasants thrashing the goondas, confiscating landlord’s
property and seizing arms. Police camps were established, the movement went underground and
continued in the form of guerilla strikes. Many landlords fled the area………..
The spark of Naxalbari spread to most corners of the country. The epi-centre was West Bengal, with
strong movements in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Tamilnadu and there were flashes of Maoist
resistance in nearly all the states of India stretching from Kerala in the South to Kashmir in the
North, from Maharashtra in the West to Assam in the East. The movement threw up brilliant leaders
like Sushital Roy Chowdhury, Saroj Datta etc but the chief ideologue and visionary was Charu
Mazumdar.
Profile of a Leader
Charu Mazumdar, or more popularly known as CM, was born in a Zamindari family of Siliguri in
1918. As a school student he was influenced by the petty-bourgeois national revolutionaries and
became a member of the All Bengal Students Association, affiliated to the Anusilan group. His
father, a lawyer, was an active Congress freedom fighter and his mother was progressive for her
times. In 1937-38 he dropped out of college and became a Congress worker organising bidi workers
and others. After a few years he quit the Congress and joined the CPI, working in the peasant front.
Primarily he worked amongst the Jalpaiguri peasantry and became a popular leader amongst them.
When a warrant was issued for his arrest he went underground. At the outbreak of World War II the
party was banned and he did secret organisational work amongst the peasantry and became a
member of the CPI Jalpaiguri district committee in 1942. During the great famine of 1943, he
organised the seizure of Crops in Jalpaiguri. In 1946 he participated in the Tebhaga movement and
organised militant struggles of the peasants in North Bengal. This movement had a profound impact
on him and shaped his vision on armed peasantry developing a revolutionary movement. Later he
worked amongst the tea garden workers of Darjeeling district.
In 1948 the CPI was banned and he spent the next three years in jail. In January 1954 he married
Lila Mazumdar Sengupta, a CPI cardholder from Jalpaiguri. They shifted to Siliguri, which
remained the centre of his activity. His ailing father and unmarried sister lived there under severe
financial constraints having lost their ancestral property. As the peasant movement receded he spent
his efforts organising tea garden workers, rickshaw pullers, etc. After the Palghat Congress in 1956
his ideological differences with the party widened. Severe financial constraints added to his
depressing conditions. But, the Great Debate, in the international communist movement lifted his
spirits. During the Indo-China war he was again put in jail. Though he joined the CPI (M) in the
split, he found the leadership dodging the key ideological questions. In 1964-65 he was sick and
devoted time to studying and writing about communism and Mao’s thought. It was here that he
developed his ideas which were recorded in his writings and speeches of 1965-67 – subsequently
known as the ‘Historic Eight Documents’ — which formed the political-ideological basis for the
emergence of the Naxalbari movement.
PART — 2

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THE SETBACK
Dark Clouds gather……….
The Government Onslaught
Martyrdom of CM
Movement Recedes
Three Trends Emerge
Revolutions never proceed in a straight line. The history of all successful revolutions show this. The
path is zig zag, there are ups and downs, there is victory and defeat repeated a number of
times…..before final victory. Of course, there is no final victory until the stage of communism is
reached. Even the gigantic success of the Russian and Chinese revolutions were followed by reverses
three to four decades later…..no doubt these defeats will be followed by victories in the future.
Revolutions trace a tortuous course, there are no short-cuts, no easy paths. Setbacks are inevitable as
they face a rapacious monster, but with greater experience of class struggle, a deeper understanding
of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Ze Dong Thought and a better grasp of the ground realities, the losses
can be minimised.
Though the immediate cause for the setback was the ruthless repression unleashed by the
government, the large losses came from certain short-comings on all the above three counts.
The Government Onslaught
It was during this period that the police introduced the method of ‘encounter’ killings. It is a method
which sets aside even their own bourgeois norms. But then, their ‘democracy’ is only for those who
accept their system while for those who question it, or challenge it, it is a cold, brutal fascist madness.
During the Telangana uprising in 1950 the Nehru government murdered thousands of tribals and
hung communists along the trees leading to the villages. The same Nehru treated the same
‘communists’ as his closest associates once they entered parliament just two years later. During those
days, Nasser, while on a visit to India, exclaimed in shocked surprise at the freedom communists
had, and chidingly told Nehru “we put all communists into prison.” Nehru smilingly replied “it is
much the same, you keep them in prison, we in parliament – in both, they become harmless.”
Staged encounters became the norm in the 1970-71 period. Besides, revolutionaries were subjected to
inhuman tortures. In all the struggle areas the police would pick up young men and women in the
age-group 17 to 25, suspected to have links with the Maoist movement…. and subject them to brutal
torture. The purpose of torture was not just to extract information, but to break their will, destroy
their self-respect, so that they do not challenge the system and the established status quo. The roller
treatment, hanging from the roof and being beaten, inserting hot iron rods into the rectum, electric
shocks, burning with cigarette butts and many more savage methods were used against Maoist
suspects. Of course, this never frightened the revolutionaries, but made their hatred against the
system more intense. So, the ‘encounter’ killings.

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In 1969-70 the government had pressed into service not only the reserve police forces, but also the
para-military and even the army. By 1971 most of the Naxalbari-type uprisings had been cruelly
crushed. Then the government turned its fury on the revolutionary youth of Calcutta. By 1970 urban
guerilla struggles had reached unprecedented dimensions in the city, effecting students, workers,
employees etc. The tremendous support they received frightened the ruling classes, and the large
sections of the CPI (M) cadres, that switched alliance to the Maoists, created panic in the CPI (M)
leadership.
In the 1971-72 period hundreds of youth of Calcutta were systematically shot dead by Congress-led
vigilante squads. These killer squads were led by Congress leaders like Priya Ranjandas Munshi, and
put into action according to a plan hatched by the Chief minister Siddarth Shankar Ray and police
chief Ranjit Guha. For example, in August 1971 Congress hoodlums joined hands with CPI (M)
cadre to massacre hundreds of Maoists in the Baranagar and Howrah areas of Calcutta. The most
infamous was the Cassipore-Baranagar massacre. Armed goons of the Congress together with CPI
(M) activists conducted house to house searches, raping women, burning houses and beating up
youth with any known sympathy for the Maoists. Then, the Congress went on a killing spree, while
the CPI (M) men formed a human chain around the area, to prevent anyone from escaping. Young
boys were murdered, elderly people were doused with kerosene and burnt to death. Two important
Maoist leaders of the area, Panchu Gopal Dey and Karuna Sarkar were killed in the most gory
fashion. Dey’s limbs were cut off, one by one, and then stoned to death. Karuna Sarkar was caught
by the goondas and CPI (ML) was carved on her chest. Other places where similar massacres took
place were Ratan Babu Ghat, Kashiwar Chatterjee Lane, Baral Para Lane, Kutighat Road, Atul
Krishna-Bose Lane, Maharaja Navalakumar Road, Lal Maidan, Bholanath stree, Jainarayan
Banerjee Lane, Kashinath Datta Road and Vidyatan Sarani.
In this period over 10, 000 Maoists and their sympathisers were killed, most of the leadership had
been decimated and thousands more were languishing in jails. And while this savage extermination
was going on not a single parliamentary party even raised a voice.
Martyrdom of CM
Earlier, two central committee members, Saroj Datta and Appu just ‘disappeared’. Till today is is not
known what happened, but it is quite clear that they have been arrested, tortured, then killed and
their bodies disposed off by the police. Sushital Roy Choudhary died of a heart attack. In AP and
Punjab the bulk of the leadership were killed. Charu Mazumdar, the ailing leader of the movement
still evaded arrest. By 1972 he was the most wanted man by the Indian government.
But, on July 16, 1972 after the brutal torture of a courier, Charu Mazumdar was arrested from a
shelter in Calcutta. At the time of his arrest he was seriously sick with cardiac asthama. During his
ten days in police custody no one was allowed to see him – not even his lawyer, family members nor
a doctor. The Lal bazar lock-up had achieved a reputation throughout the country of the most
horrifying and cruel tortures. At 4.00 A.M. on July 28, 1972 Charu Mazumdar died in the police
lock-up. Even the dead body was not given to the family. A police convoy, with the immediate
family members carried the body to the crematorium…. The whole area was cordoned off and not


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even the nearest relatives was allowed in. Charu Mazumdar’s body was consigned to the flames. And
with his martyrdom the first glorious chapter of the incipient revolutionary movement in India came
to a close.
Movement Recedes
With the martyrdom of CM the young Maoist movement was thrown into disarray. With much of
the leadership, at all levels, killed or in jail, and with a fascist terror reigning, the links between the
revolutionaries broke. It was left to local organisers to recoup the forces. Most of these lacked
experience, were being hounded by the police and, in many places, the mass base was shattered by
police attacks. Yet pockets of resistance continued particularly in West Bengal, Bihar and Andhra
Pradesh.
But the government could not contain the peoples’ anger and a wave of protests shook the country.
In Bihar and Gujarat there were massive student movements against corruption and government
unaccountability; in Maharashtra severe drought sparked off unrest and the Dalits (scheduled castes)
rose in revolt with the Dalit Panther movement; the nationalities were beginning to stir with
movements for the development of local languages, more equitable centre-state relations and for
separate states; the all India strike of railway workers in 1974 brought the economy to a virtual
standstill; and, to top it all, even sections of the police launched unprecedented revolts against the
government.
The ruling classes too were in disarray. They found themselves unable to contain the peoples’ anger.
Each new day brought fresh reports of more attacks on the system. Yet, in the absence of a conscious
intervention by a well-organised revolutionary party, the spontaneous challenge of the people was
sought to be diverted into parliamentary channels. Jaya Prakash Narayan who became the symbolic
leader of the movement against corruption gave a call for ‘Total Revolution’. In many places the
movement spontaneously took a violent turn, but JP’s ‘total revolution’ was directionless. But, the
mass movement threatened the ruling Congress government which finally clamped an internal
Emergency on June 26, 1975. On 25th night the entire opposition parties and even some dissident
Congressmen, mass leaders, civil rights workers and revolutionaries and their sympathisers were
thrown behind bars.
The pockets of Maoist resistance that continued in this period were particularly in the Telangana
region of Andhra Pradesh led by the AP State Committee of the CPI (ML), later to become the CPI
(ML) (People’s war), in West Bengal it was the Second CC with a strong base in Nadia and 24
Parganas districts and the MCC in the Sunderbans; and in Bihar three groups continued their
resistance – in Bhojpur it was led by the CPI (ML) faction of Jawahar (later to become the Liberation
group), in Jehanabad by what came to be later known as CPI (ML) Party Unity and in South Bihar’s
Hazaribagh and Giridh areas by the MCC.
Three Trends Emerge
In this period of setback three distinct trends developed within the CPI (ML). The first was a
continuation of the left line of ‘annihilation of class enemies’ which was represented by some pro-Lin
Piao groups like the Second CC and the Mahadev Mukherjee group, also the CPI (ML) led by
Jowahar in Bihar and CPI (ML) led by Kannamani in Tamilnadu. The second trend comprised of

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those who swung to the right, by criticising the entire tactical line of the CPI (ML) and once again
sought participation in elections. This was particularly led by the CPI (ML) faction led by
Satyanarayan Singh. Others like Kanu Sanyal, Ashim Chatterjee, Souren Bose swung even further
to the right finally veering towards the CPI (M). The third trend was particularly represented by the
COC (Central Organising Committee) which upheld the essence of the CPI (ML) line but sought to
rectify the left errors. The COC comprised the CPI (ML) state units from Punjab, West Bengal,
Andhra Pradesh and Bihar – the Punjab unit later merged the Unity Organisation to form the CPI
(ML) Party Unity and the Andhra Pradesh unit developed into CPI (ML) (People’s war).
The revolutionaries belonging to the first trend were unable to withstand the police pressure for long.
They fought heroically, but were suppressed. This was particularly so in Bhojpur. Annihilations
rocked the district from 1971. Notorious landlords, upper caste gentry who had raped dalit women,
goondas of the landlords …. all fell victim to the blazing guns of the revolutionaries. The movement
threw up dedicated revolutionaries like Jagdish Mahto and Butan Mushahar….both school teachers
and lovingly referred to as ‘Master’; and there was Rameshwar Ahir, the landless peasant-turned
criminal, turned revolutionary. Then there was Dr. Nirmal the medical graduate who had
experienced casteism even amongst the educated students and realised that genuine equality can
only be achieved through revolution. And then there was the legendary leader of the CPI (ML)
group Subroto Dutta, popularly known an ‘Jawahar’. The battles raged in the plains of Bhojpur right
into the Emergency. But four days after the declaration of Emergency the battle turned in favour of
the enemy.
It was June 29, Bahuara village with 143 families. The CRP and the Jat Regiment aided by 300
heavily armed Bumihars surrounded the village. The attackers set the whole Dalit tola on fire. The
Ahirs, led by the CPI (ML) cadres fought back. The battle raged for three whole days. Finally after
96 hours of heavy fighting, four men made an attempt to break out of the heavy encirclement. Two,
including Dr. Nirmal escaped. But a wounded Butan, ‘Master’, could not. He was arrested in the
next village and shot dead. It is said that in these plains the revolutionaries linked up huts with
underground tunnels, for their security. A few months later, a police party raided the house of
Sakaldip Chamar in Babubandh village. The people inside put up a valiant resistance. After the
smoke cleared, many lay dead. Among them was Dr. Nirmal. He was just 27 years. Among those
who escaped was Jawahar; but he was severely wounded and died a few hours later. The Mushahars
did not allow the police to capture the body; with tears in their eyes, they carried it away secretly
through the fields. Resistance continued to smoulder throughout the period of the Emergency.
Rameshwar Ahir and Jagdish Mahto too became martyrs. After the Emergency the new secretary of
the party Vinod Mishra, while negating the left errors, step by step led the party to the extreme right.
By the end of the 1980s this party revised all its earlier positions ending in the camp of the CPI and
CPM. Of the groups in the first trend the Kannamani group was totally liquidated, and the second
CC after some divisions, a few reviewed their past and tried to come out of the ultra-left line.
Most of the groups in the second trend, with varying degrees of right deviations, finally became part
of the revisionist camp, like the SNS group, Kanu Sanyal, Ashim Chatterjee etc. A few, though still
within the revolutionary camp, are getting more and more bogged down in parliamentary politics,
or keep on postponing the question of armed struggle. Some of these have been going through a
series of unifications and splits.

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The third trend was the trend of the future……and it is this trend that has been growing in many
parts of the country. They are basically represented by three organisations : CPI (ML) Party Unity,
CPI (ML) (People’s war) and the MCC. Though the MCC never joined the CPI (ML) and has an
independent history of its own it is today the strongest revolutionary force in Bihar. These three
trends, in order to coordinate the struggles, formed a broad common platform called the All India
People’s Resistance Forum or AIPRF in 1992 with its organ ‘People’s Resistance’ in English and
Hindi.
PART — 3
INTROSPECTION New rays of hope…………. A Self Critical Review The Importance of Mao Ze
Dong Thought
The major reason for the setback were some errors in the movement, specifically in the realm of
tactics. Repression, brutality, inhuman torture, etc are second nature to the capitalists. These
‘gentlemen’ are fine and courteous as long as their interests are not threatened; but touch one paisa of
their ill-begotten wealth and they turn into poisonous vipers, ruthless executioners, inhuman demons,
spouting death and destruction on their path to glory. It is the class struggle that brings forth their
real nature and any revolutionary or revolutionary movement must be equipped to face it. The
tragedy of the liberals is that they are unaware of this reality, while the revisionists seek to hide it.
The bourgeoisie is not threatened by the liberals or the revisionists, who strain every nerve to look
‘respectable’ (to the bourgeoisie), and so the rulers can afford to be ‘civil’, ‘decent’, ‘rational’ in their
dealings with the liberals, revisionists and their like. Some confuse this ‘decency’ for the gory reality.
The politics of Naxalbari threatened them, and they came out in their true colours, discarding all
refinement, shedding all democratic pretensions, discarding all ‘decency’, with a ruthlessness that
would make even Hitler ecstatic.
After the setback in 1972 there has been much introspection. Specifically the COC units tried to
grapple with the problems of revolution in India in the light of this latest experience. In doing so
various assessments came forward one of which was the self-critical review put forward by the
Andhra comrades led then by Kondapalli Seetharamaiah.
A self-critical review
Success or defeat in revolution is, first and foremost, governed by the political line of the party that is
leading the revolution. If the line is in conformity with the laws of development of society and
revolution, then the movement will go towards victory. But if the line is not in conformity with these
laws it will be defeated. The CPI (ML), unlike the CPI and CPM, correctly understood the laws of
development of India society, when they characterised it as semi-feudal, semi-colonial and the stage
of revolution as New Democratic. The CPI (ML) also grasped the fundamental law of revolution i.e.,
the need for revolutionary violence to change the system. Marx and Engels had shown that all
hitherto existing social systems had not passed away peacefully but through violent class struggles.
The very bourgeoisie in the capitalist countries had come to power through a violent overthrow of the
feudal order. Marx’s famous quote that “Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with the
new” was thrown to the winds by the CPI and CPM. The CPI (ML) not only restored this Marxist
law of revolution, they went about implementing it. And in doing so, certain errors arose in the
methods adopted.

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Being equipped with the general laws of revolution is not sufficient; there must also be a concrete
analysis of concrete conditions, a class understanding of friends and enemies, an assessment of the
changing class alignment of forces at any given moment and the methods required to build the
revolutionary forces to face the enemy. Errors in any of these spheres can also lead to reverses. And it
is here that some errors were made.
These errors were best summed up in the CPI (ML) (People’s war) document entitled “Summing up
the past let us advance victoriously along the path of armed struggle.” This document listed first the
positive aspects of the CPI (ML), then the shortcomings and finally drew lessons on the basis on
which to advance. This contrasted sharply with numerous other critiques from erstwhile leaders of
the CPI (ML) like SNS, Kanu Sanyal, Ashim Chatterjee, etc who merely sought to throw blame on
CM and escape into the revisionist camp. Of course, genuine criticism was raised earlier, particularly
by Sushital Roy Chowdhary in late 1970, but he was the lone voice in the leadership then.
Unfortunately, a few months later, he died of a heart attack. Though belatedly, Com. CM himself
initiated the process of rectifying the errors as could be seen in his article “People’s interest is party’s
interest” written in May 1972, two months prior to his martyrdom.
While clearly stating that the positive aspects were primary the CPI (ML) PW document outlined the
main shortcomings as :
(i) An incorrect understanding of the era : The document stated that the party wrongly estimated
that the character of the era had changed and on that basis had called for continuous attacks,
without a thought to the relative strength of the revolutionary forces and that of the enemy. The
document added that : “what should have been done instead, is to base (tactics) on a concrete
assessment of the relative strength and weaknesses of the opposing sides of the contradiction, in a
revolution.”
(ii) A wrong estimation of the International and National Situation: The document stated that the
Eighth Party Congress report had looked upon US intervention in Kampuchea as the beginning of
World War III. It also said that the party had wrongly estimated the situation in the country and
therefore called on the people to start armed struggle everywhere. The document added that in India
there is uneven economic development, and the levels of political consciousness and social and
cultural development vary, this, it added, has to be borne in mind, while formulating the tactics of
struggle.
(iii) A disregard for the subjective factor : There was no proper estimate of the strength of the
revolutionary forces vis-a-vis that of the enemy. There was a tendency to get carried away by the
immediate success of the struggles.
(iv) Giving immature slogans : The over assessment of the objective factors of revolution led to many
immature slogans and calls.
(v) The Line of Annihilation : The document succinctly analysed this point saying : “All forms of
struggle are subordinate to, and are guided by the concrete political line. If the concrete political line
deviates from the mass line, the forms of struggle cannot but be otherwise….. So in order to negate
the line of annihilation, we have to negate the wrong ideology which is alien to Marxism and its
consequential political and organisational manifestations….. The problem is not whether the class

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enemy will be annihilated or not ….. Rather the problem is, whether the party should adopt the mass
line or not …. Every Marxist-Leninist Party must propagate revolutionary violence which may
express itself in various forms of struggle; one of which may be annihilation of class enemies.” The
party had earlier asserted that the annihilation of landlords was the only means of arousing the
landless and poor peasants. This document put the question in correct perspective.
(vi) The rejection of other forms of struggle and organisation : Until then the party negated all mass
organisations and all other forms of struggle, thereby isolating the party from the masses which
made comrades easier targets for the enemy. As the document pointed out “In order to combat the
long-standing revisionist practice of conducting mass struggles on the lines of economism and
adopting legal and open forms of organisation as the only form of organisation, our party arrived at
a one-sided and wrong formulation that the armed form of struggle is the only form of struggle and
armed form of organisation the only form of organisation.”
(vii) A wrong approach to the United Front : The document in its assessment of the earlier position
said, “The United Front will be formed in the course of struggle only…. to work for it right from the
inception of the struggle is the bounden duty of the working class. To say instead, that it will not be
possible to form a United Front until one or a few liberated base areas are established….amounts to
rejecting in practice the truth, that a United Front is essential for the victory of revolution.”
(viii) Guerilla struggles in the cities : The document said that it was wrong to have started urban
guerilla warfare in Calcutta… leading to enormous losses.
(ix) Wrong bureaucratic tendencies in Organisation : The document explained that – bureaucratic
methods, a lack of self-criticism, a lack of committee functioning, sectarian methods of solving
differences, and finally the assertion of Com. CM’s individual authority above the Party…. did much
to damage the movement. The document also added that this was a major reason why the party
could not correct errors in time.
These then were the major errors of the movement and it is on the basis of a rectification done with
this analysis, that the CPI (ML) (PW) has carried forward the heritage of Naxalbari, the basic line of
the Eighth Congress and created the primary forms of the guerilla zone.
The importance of Mao Ze Dong Thought
Remoulding of the existing petti-bourgeois outlook to a proletarian outlook is a continuous struggle.
The pace of the incipient revolutionary movement outstripped the pace of development of proletarian
ideology. Besides, non-proletarian traits acquired through long association with the revisionists
added to the havoc and splintering of the movement. The lack of a self-critical approach allowed
some ‘leaders’ to swing from one view to exactly an opposite view without so much as a attempting
to analyse why the earlier view was wrong. Such political and ideological semantics abounded in the
post-1972 period. Together with this individualism, personality-based groupism, a small circle
mentality etc., added to the proliferation of groups-each one, ofcourse, claiming they alone were
right. Mao no doubt has written against all this, but it is one thing to accept Mao theoretically, quite
another to imbibe his teaching in practice.

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Mao had once said “A communist must never be opiniated or domineering, thinking that he is good
in everything while others are good in nothing; he must never shut himself up in his little room, or
brag and boast and lord it over others.” Sectarianism was deep-rooted at that time, highly opiniated
views existed, intolerance of another view-point, an unwillingness to learn from others, not even from
practice and reality……all this added to the fissures and divisions, and also retarded, or atleast,
delayed, the ability to learn from one’s own experience.
In 1972 itself the AP State Committee had presented a short self-critical assessment, though this was
accepted by Com. CM shortly before his arrest and martyrdom, it was not able to gain acceptance.
These views, presented in a well elaborated form to the then COC in 1975 was not even able to rally
the other units, even though the COC contained many of the best elements from amongst the CPI
(ML). Even if this was not accepted no other view could find a common agreement. With the result,
the first COC literally withered away in 1977.
Mao Ze Dong Thought is the development of Marxism-Leninism and an essential weapon for the
proletarian movement. It gives the ideological basis for fighting all forms of deviations and the most
powerful weapon in combating revisionism particularly modern revisionism. Today, when the
international communist movement has faced a setback and even the mighty CPC has turned
revisionist, the danger of revisionism lurking in the background is ever-present. The struggle against
imperialism and feudalism is impossible without a struggle against revisionism…..and for that,
Maoist ideology, politics and military science are absolutely fundamental.
PART — 4 REVOLUTION TAKES ROOT The Storm clouds gather……….. Bihar : (1) Maoist
Communist Centre (2) CPI (ML) Party Unity Andhra Pradesh : (1) The Initial Regrouping (2)
Telangana Regional Conference (3) A Cultural Resurgence (4) The Student Movement (5) Go To
Village Campaign (6) Resurgence of the Peasant Movement (7) Civil Liberties Movement (8)
Formation of CPI (ML) (PW)
Where there is oppression there is resistance. Revolution is not a conspiracy, it is a festival of the
masses. Secret methods of organisation and guerilla forms of warfare are necessary for a smaller
force to defeat a larger force. The Indian state is relatively big and powerful. Besides, they get
continuous training from the Americans, British, Russians and the Israeli intelligence, Mossad. After
the defeat of the reactionary forces in Vietnam, counter-insurgency training internationally has
reached a higher level of perfection. Today, the strength of India’s armed forces is 15 lakh, plus there
is a 8 lakh central para-military force and 12 lakh police force (3 lakh of whom are the armed-police).
The total expenditure on the army and para-military forces was Rs. 37, 000 crores in 1996-97 and
that on the police was Rs. 7, 200 crores. Together with this, large secret funds are allocated for covert
operations of the IB, RAW etc. This entire force of three and a half million, incurring a massive
expenditure of over Rs. 45, 000 crores yearly is used for the suppression of the Indian people-i.e., the
government is spending Rs. 500 per family per year for their suppression. It needs a powerful force,
with deep roots in the masses, and well-versed in guerilla warfare to take on the enemy forces of the
state. The amatuerish methods of the 1969-72 period were easily defeated.
Taking lessons from this experience, the movement began taking roots on a more solid foundation.
The seeds of this movement were sown in the early 1970s itself, they began to sprout in the postemergency period, a strong erect structure developed in the decade of the 80s, and in the 90s they

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began to bloom in the bright sunshine blazing over the forests and plains of Andhra Pradesh,
Dandakaranya and Bihar. Through massive repression and most bestial brutality the Indian
government tried to snuff out the seeds, it failed; it tried to trample over the young saplings, it failed
again; it tried to axe the strong structure that began to take shape, yet again it failed; and now it is
trying to drown the sweet fragrance by emitting a vile odour – it will also fail.
First, a brief introduction to the movement in Bihar led by the MCC and CPI (ML) Party Unity.
Later we shall go into a detailed description of the movement led by CPI (ML) (PW) in AP and
Dandakaranya.
Bihar
After the suppression of the Bhojpur movement, the CPI (ML) Liberation made a swing towards the
Right and slowly went into the morass of revisionist politics. The enormous mass base so
systematically built by the martyrs of Bhojpur was step by step disarmed and pushed into
parliamentarism. In short, the revolutionary movement was liquidated. What is worse, this group
was utilised to launch attacks on the genuine revolutionaries. The most notorious incident being the
murder of two leading members of the CPI (ML) 2nd CC – Ramachandra Thakur and Jassiya Ray.
Thakur was member of the Central Committee. Also, they had aggressively attacked and killed
cadres from the MCC and CPI (ML) Party Unity. It was only when these organisations retaliated
that the Liberation group’s aggressiveness reduced.
Soon, the focus of the movement shifted from Bhojpur to the districts of Gaya, Aurangabad and
Jehanabad where two organisations with dedicated cadre were quietly building their revolutionary
base. These two organisations were the Maoist Communist Centre and, the other was, what later
came to be known as the CPI (ML) Party Unity.
(1) Maoist Communist Centre
The MCC, while supporting the Naxalbari struggle, did not join the CPI (ML) because of some
tactical differences and on the question of the method of Party formation. Its history can be traced to
three phases.
The first phase can be stretched from 1964 to 1968 and began when the revisionist line was
established at the first Congress of the CPI (M). Functioning as the ‘Dakshin Desh’ group (after the
Bengali Magazine brought out by it) it led a revolt against the revisionist line and established a secret
revolutionary centre to develop a revolutionary line. The two main founders of this group were
Amulya Sen and Kanai Chatterjee. It was a period primarily of ideological struggles. While doing so,
the major comrades were already playing a leading role in the trade union front, student front and
youth front. The leading comrades too were linked to the workers and peasants movement. The
theoretical issues raised in this period were :(i) drawing a clear line of demarcation with the
revisionists in the political and organisational fields, (ii) linking the daily revolutionary practice of
Indian revolution to the theory (iii) developing a political and tactical line not merely as a formality,
but giving it a concrete structure in various spheres of activity and (iv) based on these revolutionary
policies, style and method, and in the course of revolutionary struggles and guided by a
revolutionary theory, to build a revolutionary party.

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The second phase, which stretched from 1969 to 1978, was a period of implementation of the party’s
line, policies and plans. It was a period of gaining practical experience towards the path of
establishing the ‘Red Agrarian Revolutionary Resistance War.’ It was initiated by two articles printed
in Dakshin Desh (Lal Pataka in Hindi) entitled ‘The Perspective of Indian Revolution’ and ‘The
Tactical Line of Indian Revolution-perspective’, and, the formation of MCC on October 20, 1969.
Work was begun on this basis in the Sundarbans, 24 Parganas, Hoogli, Midnapur, Kanksa, Gaya
and Hazaribagh. Of these experiences the most encouraging was that of Kanksa and Hazaribagh.
Here, a wide movement was built on issues like wage hike, seizure of crops, fertiliser problem,
confiscation of grains from landlords and against various forms of political and social oppression.
Also, a wide mass movement was built, some notorious landlords punished and steps were taken
towards disarming of the enemy and arming the people. Some guerilla squads and self-defence
squads were also built and through the Kanksa struggles the concept of the Revolutionary Peasant
Committees first developed. In the 1972-77 period the movement faced enormous repression.
The third phase, which stretched from 1979 to 1988, was a period of taking the lessons, both positive
and negative, of the second phase and enriching both the theory and practice. In this phase the MCC
focused on Bihar; and with the perspective of building a people’s army and base area, the BiharBengal Special Area Committee was established, the ‘Preparatory Committee for Revolutionary
Peasant Struggles’ was formed and soon Revolutionary Peasant Councils emerged. In this phase
militant struggles developed and the landlords’ authority smashed, thousands of acres of land seized
and distributed to the landless, and property of the landlords seized and distributed. But it was in this
period that the two founding members of the organisation passed away – Amulya Sen in March
1981 and Kannai Chatterjee in July 1982.
Now the movement has grown to a number of districts of Bihar including Hazaribagh, Giridh,
Gaya, Aurangabad and others. Today, the MCC is a force to reckon with, in Bihar.
(2) CPI (ML) Party Unity
Cadres of the CPI (ML) from Jehanabad-Palamau region fought against the disruptionist and
revisionist line put forward by Satyanarayan Singh in 1971. Also while struggling against the left
line of the Bhojpur comrades, they built some roots in the area. After the release of many comrades
from jail in 1977, the movement picked up momentum and was re-organised. They organised
themselves into the CPI (ML) (Unity Organisation) in 1978.
The Jehanabad-Palamau region is one of the backward regions of Bihar. In addition to cultivation,
the peasants have to rely on the collection of forest produce for their subsistence. In this area the writ
of the landlord lay unchallenged. The situation began to change with the entry of the Unity
Organisation. Learning from their previous ‘left’ errors special attention was paid to build a mass
base for the activities of their armed squads. A peasant organisation was formed – The Mazdoor
Kisan Sangram Samiti (MKSS). All old practices were questioned and landlords’ authority
challenged. Struggles for wage increase, against the social oppression of women and scheduled
castes, and the biggest struggles arose over the auction of forest produce.
The incipient movement saw three of its young activists martyred on 10th August 1982. The
landlords of Bhagwanpur village in Gaya district kidnaped Lakhan Manjhi (20 years), Sudeshi
Manjhi (19) and Balkishore Manjhi (15) and killed them. Lakhan was an important member of the

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Party’s Red Squad. In June 1984 the movement faced a severe loss, when the popular secretary of the
MKSS, Krishna Singh, was shot dead by landlords. In May 1984 the Palamau-Aurangabad Regional
Committee of the MKSS had held its conference and plans were being made for fresh attacks on the
landlords. On June 17, Krishna Singh was conducting a meeting of the MKSS at Jharna in Palamau
district. The local landlord and goondas attacked the meeting, opening fire. A chase began, Com.
Krishna Singh allowed his comrades to get away, and fell to the enemy’s bullets. Condemnation of
this murder spread in a spate of protests throughout the area. The protests led to the arrest of 35 of
the hoodlums involved.
Meanwhile in 1983 the Unity Organisation merged with a section of the COC, CPI (ML) to form the
COC, CPI (ML) Party Unity. As the movement grew the party too put forward the perspective of
building up a guerilla zone. At the Party Congress held in 1987 the COC, CPI (ML) Party Unity
outlined the following tasks : “We are tackling the steadily increasing armed onslaughts of the state,
through mass resistance. But gradually the squads too will have to come forward to participate in
this resistance. At the phase of confiscating all lands of the landlords and on the eve of building up
the guerilla zone, the activities of the squads will be the main aspect of the people’s resistance against
the armed attacks of the state.”
In Gaya-Aurangabad a call was issued for all landlords to deposit their weapons with the Kisan
Samitis. Those who refused found their houses attacked and their weapons seized. The movement
grew, and today the COC CPI (ML) Party Unity is also a force in a number of districts of Bihar.
Andhra Pradesh
While in the late 1960s the nerve centre of the Maoist movement in India was West Bengal, by the
late 1970s it had shifted to Andhra Pradesh. … Ofcourse, Andhra Pradesh has a glorious history of
revolutionary struggles. It had seen the historic Telangana struggle where, by July 1948, 2500
villages had been organised into’communes’. It was the famous ‘Andhra Thesis’, that for the first
time demanded that Indian revolution follow the Chinese path of protracted people’s war. As early as
June 1948 the ‘Andhra Letter’ submitted to the Central Executive Committee of the Party, laid down
in unambiguous terms a revolutionary strategy based on Mao’s New Democracy. It was the first
time anywhere in the world (outside China) that ‘Mao’s Line’ had been asserted. In fact, the ‘Chinese
Path’ for the backward countries was first asserted by the CPC only in November 1949 at a meeting
of the World Federation of Trade Unions being held in Peking. But this line was vehemently opposed
by the Ranadive leadership of the CPI. It was only in May 1950, after the Cominform came out with
its approval of the Chinese revolutionary strategy as a model for the backward countries, that the
‘Andhra Thesis’ was accepted and became the official line of the Party. But this line lasted for just one
year, as, with the withdrawal of the Telangana struggle and a decision to participate in the
forthcoming elections, the Andhra Thesis was withdrawn. In May 1951 Ajoy Ghosh was elected as
secretary in place of Rajeshwar Rao and a new leadership introduced the revisionist line.
Then came the Srikakulam uprising, and now, by 1972 the shift was once again back to the
Telangana region.
(1) The initial regrouping

By November 72, of the 12 member AP State Committee only one remained to regroup the forces,


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By November 72, of the 12 member AP State Committee only one remained to regroup the forces,
the rest had been either killed or arrested. Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, together with some leading
members of the state, reorganised much of the fractured units. Earlier, in March 1972, the existing
three members of the state committee (two of whom were arrested in November) sought to correct
the errors of the Naxalbari period by maintaining its revolutionary essence. This committee decided
to build mass organisations, take up the partial struggles of the masses and spread to new areas by
building legal mass organisations, where possible. It also decided that the annihilation of class
enemies should be conducted only as part of the class struggle. With these decisions a two member
delegation went to meet CM. CM spoke to the delegation just ten days before his arrest and
approved all the decisions. At this meeting CM also disclosed the fraternal suggestions of the CPC
regarding rectification of certain methods of work.
In August 1972 the Party launched its political magazine ‘Pilupu’ (The Call) to rally the
revolutionary forces. This magazine, besides dissemination of the stand of the Party on national and
international issues, conducted an ideological battle to repulse the attacks of the dissidents within the
CPI (ML) (example – SNS, Kanu Sanyal, some of the jailed leaders in AP) and from those outside
(erstwhile APCCCR), in defense of the CM-line and the new organisational methods to be adopted.
‘Pilupu’ played an important role in repulsing the right and ‘left’ deviations rampant in the
movement at that time…..steering the movement onto a correct path. Together with this, in order to
knit the cadres on a strong ideological basis, a large number of political classes were held.
Besides reorganising the Party in AP, KS made attempts to contact central committee members from
West Bengal and other states. Of the four central committee members from AP elected at the 1970
Congress two were killed and two in jail. In January 1974 KS attended a meeting of a reconstituted
Central Organising Committee comprising Sharma (elected secretary of the COC) of Punjab, Suniti
Ghosh of Bengal and Ramnath of Bihar, of which the first two were original CC members elected at
the 1970 Congress.
Meanwhile as there was no state committee in existence in AP, in August 1974 it was decided to
reconstitute a three-member committee comprising KS (representing Telangana region), Appalasuri
who had just escaped from jail (representing coastal Andhra) and Mahadevan, who had just come
out on bail (representing Rayalaseema).
The COC which had to prepare a common self-critical review was unable to come to any agreement
on the three separate reviews presented. At the two month September 75 meeting it was decided to
withdraw these reviews and instead produce a tactical line. It was hoped that this tactical line would
strengthen unity through practice and act as the basis for a common tactical line, entitled ‘Road to
Revolution’, though prepared after intense discussion, did not help unity. While the May 1977
meeting the Bihar and West Bengal representatives resigned, and the AP representative did not
attend due to the arrest of KS. With the collapse of this first attempt to reorganise the Centre, the AP
comrades turned their focus back to the movement in the state.
(2) Telangana Regional Conference
At the time the Telangana Regional Conference was held in February 1977 all the preparations had
been completed for the launching of a powerful mass movement. In the previous five years, the
scattered revolutionary forces had been regrouped, the political line had been effectively defended

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from attacks from both the right and ‘left’, a powerful revolutionary student movement had
developed which were to provide a large number of cadres for the Party, fraction work had
effectively laid the seeds of organisation amongst a section of the workers, particularly the coal mine
workers, and the seeds of a peasant movement had been sown in Karimnagar and Adilabad districts.
All the conditions were ready for the take-off and the Telangana Regional Conference was to ignite
the fuse.
The Conference was held basically to review the growing Telangana movements and to elect a
leadership. In this conference three major decisions were taken – (i) to broaden the party’s base
amongst the masses (ii) to hold a series of political classes to train the big influx of new cadre and (iii)
to send squads into the forest for launching armed struggle. Finally, the eight districts of Telangana,
excluding Hyderabad, were divided into two regions and two regional committees were elected.
(3) A Cultural Resurgence
AP had a rich tradition of revolutionary culture. After Naxalbari, the big names of Telugu literature
like Sri Sri, R.V. Shastri, Kutumba Rao etc turned towards the revolutionary trend. With the CPI
taking to the parliamentary path, the Progressive Writers Association stagnated. It was the
Digambara (naked) poets of 1965 which broke the dullness that had engulfed Telugu literature.
Poets like K.V.Ramana Reddy, Cherabanda Raju, Varavara Rao, C. Vijayalaxmi, CV Krishna Rao,
exposed social evils, corruption, exploitation, political bankruptcy, meaningless middle-class
existence, commercialisation of literature, etc. The anthology of 15 poets, Rathiri (night) was like a
flash of light in the darkness. The incisive poems of Cherabanda Raju and Varavara Rao have been
translated in nearly all languages.
By 1965 there were three important groups of poets who were to rock the Telugu literary world : the
Hyderabad based Digambara poets, the Warangal based Thirugubatu (revolt) poets and the Guntur
based Pygambara poets. After the Naxalbari uprising these poets, together with the leading lights of
the literary world ( i.e. Sri Sri and others) merged to form VIRASAM in 1970 – i.e., the Viplava
Rachayithala Sangam or the Revolutionary Writers Association (RWA). Even in the period of setback
it was the inspiring poems, short-stories, novels which continued to attract thousands of the youth
towards the politics of Naxalbari. Not only were the writers politically uncompromising, they were
artistically brilliant. Further, RWA initiated the formation of an all-India revolutionary cultural
forum in 1983. Revolutionary cultural organisations came together and formed the All India League
for Revolutionary Culture (AILRC). The AILRC brings out a regular quarterly cultural magazine in
Hindi entitled ‘Amukh’.
Besides these writers, a number of artists from Hyderabad, inspired by the the Srikakulam struggle
and the songs of Subbarao Panigrahi formed a group in 1970 called the Art Lovers. They comprised
the famous film producer Narasinga Rao and the now legendary, Gaddar. In late 1971 this group
became directly affiliated to the Party and changed its name to Jana Natya Mandali (JNM). Through
its cultural programmes of song, dance and plays the JNM propagated revolutionary ideas and drew
the masses towards revolutionary politics. In 1977, district level troupes of JNM were formed in
Telangana. An eight-member troupe was first formed in Adilabad which gave a record 300


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programmes in 1978-79. District teams were formed in Warangal and Karimnagar in 1978 and
could function legally till 1984. Central training schools were held for the JNM troupes between 1980
and 1982.
(4) The Student Movement
Once the left line was rectified, students who had been inspired by Naxalbari and Srikakulam and
the RWA and JNM, surged forward in their thousands. Initially the students of the CP Reddy group
and those with the AP State Committee worked under one banner – the Progressive Democratic
Students Union or PDSU. But, as the differences grew sharper and working within one organisation
became difficult (with continuous contradictions) the revolutionary students left and formed the
Radical Students Union or RSU. This organisation grew with such speed and gained such support
that even today activists are popularly known as Radicals.
The Radical Students Union was formed on October 12, 1974 and the first State Conference was held
in February 1975. This first conference released a manifesto exposing the various revisionist
tendencies and holding aloft the banner of a revolutionary student movement. Hundreds of students
inspired and Mao Ze Dong Thought attended the conference. The biggest contingents were from
Telangana, specifically form Karimnagar, Warangal, Khammam and Nalgonda. Large numbers
also came from Ananthapur, Tirupathi and Vishakhapatnam.
After the conference and before the next academic year, the Emergency was declared and the RSU
had to face the full brunt of the repressive machinery. More than 500 students were subjected to
inhuman torture, and 70 were thrown into prison. Four young students, Janardhan, Murali Mohan,
Anand Rao and Sudhakar were taken to the Giraipally forests and shot dead by the police. Student
activist, Nagaraju, was also arrested and shot. Yet RSU re-organised secretly and continued
agitations specifically in their two strongholds – the Regional Engineering College of Warangal and
the Osmania University in Hyderabad. They also started a magazine ‘Radical’ which was widely
distributed amongst students.
After the lifting of the Emergency student agitations swept the state around a number of issues : In
Hyderabad it was around the Rameejabi rape (in police custody) case, in Kakatiya University it was
against the Hindu fundamentalists, in Bellampally in support of the workers strike, in
Mahaboobnagar in support of the hotel workers – also there were state-wide agitations on ITI and
Polytechnic students’ issues and a state wide strike for students demands for better social welfare
benefits.
The second conference was held in Warangal in February 1978. In preparation to this conference a
big debate took place as certain units said that mass organisations should confine themselves to
partial demands and not propagate revolutionary politics. The two views were debated in all units,
and finally the second conference rejected the proposed changes. Lenin’s writings on the nature of a
revolutionary student movement were widely circulated to educate students and activists on this
issue.
The mass upsurge of students throughout 1978 and the active ‘boycott election campaign’ to the
state Assembly culminated with the third state conference of the RSU held in Anantapur with 2000
delegates. This was preceded by district conferences in 13 districts. With the sweep of the

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revolutionary student movements RSU (jointly with PDSU) began winning all the student union
elections. The 1981 RSU state conference at Guntur was preceded by 16 district conferences. Prior to
this conference RSU had organised a meeting of 10,000 to condemn Soviet Aggression of
Afghanistan.
From 1981 the ABVP (student wing of the Hindu fundamentalist BJP) organised systematic assaults
on RSU activists and even killed some leaders. The police stood by and watched. The RSU replied –
first with a systematic exposure of the ABVP; and then they also resisted the physical assaults and
wherever necessary retaliated. With this resistance campaign the movement spread to the High
Schools. In the 1982 student elections the RSU achieved unprecedented victories in Osmania
University (Hyderabad) and in the towns of Warangal, Karimnagar, Nalgonda, Mahaboobnagar,
Adilabad, Guntur, Chittoor, Kurnool, Cuddapah and Khammam districts. The student union election
victories further facilitated the spread of revolutionary politics in the educational institutions. The
inaugural functions, cultural events ….. all became centres of revolutionary enthusiasm spreading
the movement to every corner of the state. By the time of the 5th
State conference, RSU had spread to 18 out of the 21 districts of AP. In 1984, 25000 polytechnic
students from 47 colleges went on a 104 day strike and achieved their demands. Even high school
students went on an indefinite strike to get their syllabus reduced. In February 1985, at the initiative
of the RSU the All India Revolutionary Students Federation (AIRSF) was established at a conference
held in Hyderabad. But by mid-1985 the police launched its massive attack on the party and a chief
target was the RSU. Police raided schools, colleges and hostels, arresting students and brutally
torturing them.
Since then, the RSU has been pushed underground and had to change its style of functioning from
large open meetings to small secret meetings, class room meetings, etc. In 1985/86 a number of
students leading the RSU were killed in cold blood – Nageshwar Rao, Shyam Prasad, Sreenivas,
Yakaiah, Ramakanth, Muralidhar Raju and Satish fell to enemy bullets. Nageswar Rao was the state
vice-president of RSU. Since then all conferences of the RSU have been held secretly.
(5) ‘Go to the Village’ Campaigns
The ‘Go to the village campaign’ was an ingenious method discovered by the AP Party to effectively
integrate the students with the ongoing peasant movement. It was also a brilliant method to push
ahead the organisation amongst the peasantry with enormous speed. In the summer holidays
students scheduled to go on a campaign would first go through an intense one weak political school.
In this school the method of conducting the campaign would also be informed. Also in this school
they would be informed about the subject to be taken for intense political propaganda amongst the
peasants. After this they would be broken up into batches of about seven each and proceed to the
villages covering an area as per the party plans. In the village campaign they were also to set up
youth organisations wherever possible and keep a note of the names of all potential activists. These
names would then be handed over to the local party organiser who would follow up and deepen the
organisation.
The first such campaign began in the summer of 1978. In the first campaign 200 students
participated. The aim of this campaign was the propagation of the politics of agrarian revolution and
the building of RYL (Radical Youth League) units in the villages. The campaign went on for one

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month and culminated in the holding of the first RYL Conference. The significance of this campaign
was that it helped trigger off the historic peasant struggles of Karimnagar and Adilabad.
In the next year, the ‘village campaign’ of April to June 1979 was for the first time jointly conducted
by RSU and RYL. This time preparatory classes were held in 15 centres in which 500 students and
youth participated. Besides propagating the politics of agrarian revolution the campaigners strived to
expose the “Soviet-backed Vietnamese aggression against Kampuchea” – they sold Pol Pot badges
in the villages. The campaign focused on “Soviet Aggression against Afghanistan” and also
expressed solidarity with the nationality movement of Assam. The 1981 campaign exposed police
brutality in the wake of of the massacre of tribals in Indervelli in Adilabad district. The campaign
mobilised support for the tribal movement being led by the CPI (ML) (PW) in the Dandakaranya
forests. In 1982, the theme of the campaign was the unconditional release of KS and other political
prisoners and demanding a judicial enquiry into ‘encounter’ killings in the state. The teams also
helped mobilise workers for the first State Conference of the Coal miners union SIKASA (Singareni
Karmika Samakhya). The 1983 campaign exposed the repression being unleashed by the Telugu
Desam government and explained that political leaders like NTR cannot usher in all-round
development of the Telugu nationality. The 1984 campaign, the last that was possible before the allout onslaught unleashed in 1985, focused on government repression and demanded the withdrawal
of the CRPF from Telangana.
With each campaign the number of student and youth participants increased, inspite of the fact that
in each successive year the police attacks were getting more and more vicious. In 1983/84 it was a
virtual hide-and-seek between the police and the campaigners. In the 1984 village campaign about
1100 student and youth participated, organised into 150 propaganda teams. That year alone they
carried the message of agrarian revolution to 2419 villages.
(6) Resurgence of the Peasant Movement
In the latter part of 1977 huge peasant rallies and demonstrations were held all over the district, not
only on local issues but also for the release of political prisoners, against ‘encounters’, tortures in
police lock-up and for removal of police camps. Slowly, peasant and agricultural labour unions
began taking shape. The three thousand strong public rally at Gollapally on September 27 was an
indication of the growing force. Also, in the same month, the workers of the Singareni Colleries at
Bellampalli of Adilabad district rejected the revisionist leadership, took a militant agitation under the
leadership of revolutionary politics and wrested bonus and other demands from the management.
Seeing the growth of the people’s movement the landlords began their attack. In November 1977 the
landlords attacked and killed Lakshmi Rajam of Sircilla taluq and Potta Poshetty of Jagityal taluq.
In the next summer the RSU village campaign gave a big impetus to the peasant movement and
from June 1978 the struggles began to pick up tempo. The major issues around which they rallied
were : the enhancement of daily wages for agricultural labourers, increase of the monthly and
annual wage rates for permanent farm labour, abolition of customary free labour and customary
payments in cash and kind to the landlords, refund of bribes, taking possession of government land
under landlord’s occupation, occupation of waste land, confiscation of firewood and timber grown
by landlords in government forest lands, etc. Specifically, the struggles for the abolition of unpaid
labour and enhancement of agricultural wages spread like wild fire throughout Jagityal taluq. The
peasantry of Jagityal alone collected refunds amounting to lakhs.

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Strikes of agricultural labourers spread from village to village. Landlords were physically brought to
public gatherings and asked to confess their crimes and apologise for their oppressive behavior and
pay back the illegal extortions. The peasants moved in big rallies, with red flags and occupied waste
lands and government lands under landlord occupation. Also the strike movement, of labourers at
beedi leaf collection centres in many taluqs of Karimnagar and Adilabad, gained momentum.
One of the most powerful and popular forms of struggle that developed during this period was the
‘social boycott’ of the landlords and their anti people agents. When it was decided to socially boycott
a landlord, the entire village decided to stop any interaction and service to him – he was deprived of
his servants in the house, cattle feeders, agricultural labour, washermen, barbers etc. Later, this form
of struggle was also used against police officials camping in the village.
Another remarkable phenomenon in this period, was the usurping and revolutionising of the
institution of ‘Panchayat’ by the peasantry. ‘Panchayat’ is a traditional institution of the villages of
the Telangana region, where any petty dispute is publicly adjudicated – with the landlord presiding,
and, of course, passing judgment. Now, the landlords’ authority was displaced and the revolutionary
peasants took over the running of panchayats, and, in many cases, put the landlords on trial.
Inspite of police repression, the movement grew and culminated in the historic march in Jagityal
town. On September 7, 1978 over 35,000 people marched to Jagityal town. Of the 152 villages of
Jagityal taluq, peasants and agricultural labourers from 150 villages attended the rally and meeting.
Shaken by the strength of the movement, while some landlords fled to the cities, the other landlords
and police began an offensive. Destroying and looting peasant houses, attacking, beating and even
resorting to firing on peasants, became a daily occurrence. The peasants retaliated. A war-like
situation grew. Heavy police re-enforcements reached the area and the rampage began. Within just
two weeks all the 150 villages were frequently raided, mass beatings and arrests, and torture in police
camps of hundreds of activists took place. In Jagityal taluq alone, in just four months, 3000 peasants
form 75 villages had been implicated in false cases. Besides, 800 were jailed and hundreds more
tortured in police camps and let off. On October 20, 1978 the AP government declared Sircilla and
Jagityal as ‘Disturbed Areas’ giving the police draconian powers.
While the peasant upsurge lasted from June to September 1978 the police onslaught continued from
September to December 1978. Though the upsurge receded in the face of police action, the resistance
grew, and, in some taluqs of neighbouring Adilabad, took on a mass character.
By the beginning of 1979, the peasants regained their initiative, after recouping from the first shocks
of the white terror. Now, organisational consolidation took place, political consciousness was raised
on the nature of the state and the need to smash it, and the necessity of secret functioning was better
understood and underground methods became better developed. The political and organisational
basis was laid, to raise the struggle to a higher plane. Also during this period the anti-feudal struggle
spread to Peddapalli, Manthani and Huzurabad taluks of Karimnagar district and to Laxettipet,
Asifabad and Khanapur taluqs of Adilabad district.
In 1979 the struggle intensified with a number of landlords being annihilated. Now the villagers,
specially the women, found new methods of resisting and fighting back police terror. By early 1980
the anti-liquor movement (initially for the reduction in price of liquor) had brought the liquor barons
to their knees. The authority of the peasant association was growing in all matters of village life.

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30 years of naxalbari « naxal resistance

30 years of naxalbari « naxal resistance

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