People's Democracy

BENGAL NEWSLETTER

�Maoists� Put on the Defensive

B Prasant

THE widening of people�s resistance to the left sectarian incursion has put the self-styled �Maoists� on the defensive. The Bengal unit of the CPI(M) believes that the sectarians are meeting with such resistance in several areas of Midnapore west, Bankura, and Purulia.  We recall especially after a recent tour of three days in the western districts of Bengal that the siege mentality that had never worked with the working class and the rural proletariat here in Bengal, even when Naxalism was at its height in the 1970s, is simply not present. Fearlessness is the key in a great swathe of the countryside. The violence of the �Maoists� continues but the masses would not be cowed down.

The initial firepower of the �Maoists� along with the ambivalence of the union government and the logistical support of the Trinamuli brigade of lumpens, may have had a �desired effect� of the ruling classes in the villages.  Now, however, political resistance, more than protest, is the order of the day in the laal mati areas of Bengal.  The CPI(M) stays in the front line, as the vanguard party of the working class, organising, agitating, propagating, and leading the mass of the rural people.

Elsewhere, several top flight leaders of the �Maoists� have been caught by the Bengal police sleuths. The latest such a person to be apprehended is Venkateswara Reddy aka Dipak aka �Telgi� Dipak, aka Sukumar. 

This heinous criminal with several murders attributed to him by the police investigation agencies went about Nandigram under the latter nom de plume and was instrumental in providing arms training to Trinamul Congress cadres, and some of these were later allowed to join the ill-formed and undisciplined ranks of the �Maoists� in both Midnapore west and Bankura, later also in Purulia and beyond.  Reddy shared the dais with Trinamuli supremo and her lieutenants according to the claims made by members of the �Maoist� unit of Midnapore west.

An uncomfortable Sisir Adhikary, a central minister, as a bouquet of reward for his �work� in Nandigram and elsewhere was found visibly embarrassed when queried about the �Maoist claim.

The villain and killer �Kishanji� aka Koteswara Rao has stopped appearing before the television channels.  He has started to cosy up to the union home minister by putting forth his personal cell phone and facsimile number on the scroll of very many TV channels, with no response from the union government, on the surface that is.  The compulsion of what is called the dharma of the alliance and the alluring prospects of sharing the loot in Bengal has certainly kept the two uncomfortable partners, the two Congresses, Pradesh, and Trinamul, on the tenterhook of political uncertainty that occasionally bursts out into internecine violence.

However, the impression should not be conveyed through the above words that the left sectarians have ceased operations.  The attack on the Silda camp of the EFR has been recently �justified� by the �Maoists� in a Bengali leaflet as �a response� to a �Chidambaram-led State violence� in Bengal (one can always learn from the �Maoists� lessons on �how to distort Marxism-Leninism,� even the �thoughts� of Mao Ze-dong).  Since then five CPI(M) workers have been done to death in a brutal manner in the laal mati zones. 

FILIPINO

CONNECTION?

The so-called New People�s Army of the Philippines (NPAP) of the �Communist Party of Philippines� (who are self confessedly �Maoists�) have been helping the �Maoists� of Bengal with military training.  The information has been leaked by sources in the ranks of the �Maoists� of Bengal themselves. 

We recall how not far back, in the beginning of this month, the NPAP ambushed the Filipino army on the outskirts of the Mansalay township in Mindoro Oriental province killing 12 soldiers and looting their arms and ammunition plus the fatigue uniforms, much like what the �Maoists� do in Bengal and elsewhere.  Like the �Maoists� here, the NPAP has also been on an extortion spree over the past decade calling upon young men and women to join the �ranks,� or to pay up.

Police interrogation has brought to light that Venkateswara Reddy aka Dipak aka Sukumar has been trained by the Filipino �guerilleros,� probably in Jharkhand and that he has developed into a psychopathic assassin who kills at will and has no trauma from doing the deed.  Amongst the cadres of the CPI(M) whom Dipak killed with his own hands were comrades Kartick Singh and Gatilal Tudu at Barikul, comrade Fagu Baskey at Belpahari, comrade Sudhir Singh Sardar of Belpahari, and comrades Rabindranath and Anandamoyee Kar at Bandowan (the Kars were burnt alive after being shot).

The �Maoists� have in the meanwhile ran a sweep of armed assaults across Salboni in Midnapore west and killed comrades Shibshankar Das, Chandan Singh, and Binod Singh.  Dipak has confessed that he is well-known to members of the so-called �civil society� and is especially in good terms with an elderly woman litt�rature as well as a �human rights campaigner.�

'Maoists� relent

under people power

The writing on the wall has been there for some time of late.  The noxious game of the left sectarians of kidnapping villagers and minor officials and the calling for what these thugs term an 'exchange of prisoners,' has finally come to deserving and shamed halt. 

The headmaster Ranjit Duley was kidnapped last week from Sarenga in Bankura. The demand for exchange of six hardened killers with Duley could be turned down by the police solely because of the free-ranging courage as opposed to any mental frame of siege of the rural masses of the district. 

Rather than let free the six criminals, the police went ahead and took into custody, for interrogation, 37 more 'Maoists' who had been cosy, careless, drunk and were entrapped.  What would Koteswara Rao aka Kishanji say to all this.  Ranjit Duley has returned home.  We recall how the �Maoist� criminals had gunned down his brother Bishnu a year back.

'Vikash' the other piece of garrulousness of the criminals has not been 'on air' for three weeks now, we note.  Coming back to the metropolis, we note from Biman Basu, chairman Left Front and Bengal CPI(M) secretary that the Left Front would begin talks with the Workers� Party whose secretary has expressed a desire to join the Left Front in times when �fresh attacks are raining down on the Communists and the Left� from imperialism and divisive forces.

LEFT FRONT STANDS BY

DEMANDS PARA TEACHERS

The demands of the para teachers who bear a bulk of teaching assignment in Bengal have raised certain legitimate demands.  The demands have arisen in the backdrop of the decision of the Congress-led UPA government to draw the curtains on the total literacy campaign come 31 March of this year.  The decision shall impinge on the financial arrangement and social position of the para teachers who number more than half-a-lakh in Bengal.

The para teachers have appealed to the state LF government to take up the financial responsibility of the teachers once the union governments sticks to its resolve to end the total literacy mission.  Bengal CITU president Shyamal Chakraborty has said that he would raise the issue in the Rajya Sabha at the earliest opportunity.

CITU secretary Dipak Dasgupta spoke in some detail at the rally held by the para teachers� organisation held on 18 February at Dharamtolla.  Dasgupta said that in Bengal, the attacks being organised on the para teachers by the goons of the Trinamul Congress and Pradesh Congress added to the �norm� that these two outfits have adopted for te para teachers in the way of not renewing the contract of the teachers in areas where the local bodies are under the thumb of these people.

Dipak Dasgupta also said that the state education minister had already written to the district magistrates and the TLC officials to renew the para teachers� contract immediately.  The state LF government shall ensure that the para teachers do not stand to lose their livelihood.  Dasgupta also condemned in strong terms the physical attacks on the para teachers by the lackeys of the political outfits the ruling classes sponsored. 

Other CITU leaders and LF government ministers spoke at the rally where financial assistance was extended to the families of the two para teachers whom the �Maoist�-Trinamuli hoods had killed at Midnapore west recently.