People's Democracy

 

                        People’s Resistance to

                        Anarchy Grows in South Bengal

                        B Prasant

 

SPECIFICALLY in three places, north and south 24 Parganas and east Medinipur, popular struggle has forged ahead against the undoing and riotous activities of goons, history-sheeters, and plain old criminals with a police record several metres long.  All of these ‘jewels’ in the right reactionary ‘crown,’ expectedly belong to the Trinamul Congress.

 

Near the dwip or peninsular-island communities of south and north 24 Parganas, touching the mangroves of the lovely Sunderbans, Biman Basu, CPI(M) Bengal state secretary addressed meetings, rallies, and generally spoke to the people.  The masses, rural and semi-urban in nature, came in their droves of thousands.  Across to Haroa-Mina Khan, you run into a maze of riverine Gangetic plateau with its soft alluvial soil and fertile grounds.

 

Deeper south, some of the fields and market places where Biman Basu has of late addressed meetings, teemed with people, waving countless Red flags, bright in the afternoon sun, spring is finally here, albeit late, hanging on to the speaker’s every word. Yet violence hung like an albeit shredded coverlet over and across the dwip region, replete as the area is with multitude of riverine wetland patches green with vegetation, full-grown forests of short, thick trees that sport more flowers than leaves, mangrove clutches, large openings of rice paddies, water bodies, and also, menacingly, tragically, enough cover for terrorists to run loose and mount ambushes. 

 

Already five CPI(M) comrades have had to face martyrdom and countless others have been left with varying degree of assault-related injuries, over the past months soon after the popular resistance to the Trinamuli misrule in the Zillah Parishad commenced of late, under the vanguard leadership of the CPI(M).  The resistance  continues as the popular tide fills out with fervour and militancy.

 

Across the moth of the Ganges to east Medinipur, Sunia near the Dariapur side of Kontai, has already seen a steady stream of marchers moving across the rural and semi-urban areas, the areas being then cleared of anti-social elements with appropriate help of the district authorities. Lately, Haldi has been witness to several large rallies in which thousands of people have taken part.

 

On 2 October Mukundapur, also near Kontai, was witness to a massive rally of marchers that covered in jatha form, 52 villages, and areas in between, over a period of two days and two nights. Everywhere the marchers were welcomed and offered a surfeit of refreshments. The villagers strung up numerous Red banners, buntings, and posters welcoming the jatha.  The intermittent bike-borne assaults by the Trinamulis, especially the incident of bomb-throwing at Deulpota, a Trinamuli ‘stronghold,' were indifferently brushed aside by the large mass of the people who marched on regardless and then took part in a sit-down rally at Mukundapur.  The township of Kontai strained in sympathy of the marchers – and held rallies in support of the march and against the tyranny let loose in the district by the forces of right reaction and ‘left’ sectarianism.