People's Democracy

A FIFTY-thousand-strong rally organised by the Bengal CPI(M) at Bandowan in Purulia district on January 11 threw a direct challenge to the Maoist killers to try to stop the process of ongoing development.

The area had seen the brutal killing of district secretariat member of the CPI(M) Rabindranath Kar and his wife, Anandamoyee by Maoists assassins who burned the couple to death at the dead of the night.

The corporate media, especially the ringleader of the anti-CPI(M) brigade, the Ananda Bazar Patrika, had triumphantly dubbed the assassination as a ‘revenge for Chhoto Angaria’ where some Trinamul Congress and PWG activists were blown to pieces when the bombs they were putting together burst inadvertently.

The link between the CPI(M) and the Chhoto Angaria incident, as the Bengal CPI(M) points out, is likelihood only in the eyes of the Patrika reporters, it seems.

Not a word was spent and not a single sound byte was devoted to regretting the incident. The Bengal opposition groups, to whom the corporate media appears to be the thinking cap, followed suit and called the CPI(M) ‘guilty as a terrorist group’ for the murder.

The Pradesh Congress’s grudging confession about this unwanted incident was forthcoming but only after the Bengal CPI(M) secretary Anil Biswas had lambasted the Pradesh Congress leadership for remaining smugly silent over the issue. This is political bankruptcy of a shocking kind.

The Maoists, more handy with guns and ammunitions than with political-ideological apparatus, have responded to Anil Biswas’s essay in The Marxist to say that they targeted the CPI(M) rather than the Pradesh Congress, Trinamul Congress, and the BJP because the former was a ‘social fascist while the latter were all of them legitimate democratic parties.’

The convoluted formation puts political-ideological perspective firmly on the backburner and gives opportunism a place of prime importance. This has been a hallmark of the Naxalite thinking of the 1970’s as well. The Maoists’ stance not only exposes the desperation of a terrorist group, which already considers itself to be on the political fringe in Bengal and beyond, but also betrays its deep class affinity to the bourgeois parties, and to reactionary outfits.

The vast and enthusiastic rally, populated by the mass of the people and overwhelmingly dominated by the colourful presence of tribal men, women, and children, from far-flung areas as well from Bandowan was itself a rousing protest against the killing spree unleashed by the Maoists anarchists on the CPI(M).

Anil Biswas spelt out the stance of the CPI(M) vis-à-vis the terror tactics unleashed by the Maoists on the CPI(M). "However much the intensity of the assaults is, we shall counter the inroads politically, and we shall never deviate from the path of continuous development of the state."

Anil Biswas chastised the killers for speaking about ‘people’s courts’ sentencing CPI(M) workers to death. Anil Biswas said that a process marked by hiding in jangalmahals of neighbouring states and then targeting CPI(M) workers, while chanting about the bourgeois parties as ‘democratic outfits’ merely signalled the maturity of a trend among the Maoists to act as the agents of the ruling classes, and little else.

The Maoists represented an affront to the tenets of Marxism-Leninism much like their counterparts in south Asia and beyond, said Anil Biswas who asserted that the CPI(M) would go on resisting the distortions of scientific socialism even at the cost of blood and tears. Anil Biswas also countered with hard data, as he had done earlier, the tale told in the corporate media that the Maoists were the consequence of a lack of development in the western part of the state.

Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M), Biman Basu described the attack on the CPI(M) as an attempt to try to weaken the Party in the run up to the assembly polls. Pointing out that the Maoists and their likes had supported the BJP candidate at the Bandowan seat, Biman Basu underlined the depth of deviationism affecting the Maoists.

Speaking once again in clear terms and with facts to back up the statement that the Maoists had close links with the Trinamul-BJP combine, Biman Basu noted that the unholy nexus also included the Jharkhand groups of various persuasions and fractions.

Biman Basu called for a political-ideological battle against the Maoists and said that they must be allowed to realise that such attacks as the one on Comrades Rabindranath Kar and Anandamoyee Kar would have grave consequences. "Do not play with fire. If you do it will be at your own peril," was Biman Basu’s note of warning to the Maoists killers.

Also addressing the rally were: CPI(M) MP, Basudeb Acharya, and CPI(M) leaders Manindra Gope, Upendra Kisku, and Debalina Hembram (who spoke in Santhali); Forward Bloc MLA, Bir Singh Mahato, Ashis Bhowmick of CPI, and Subhas Goswami of RSP.

Later Anil Biswas and Biman Basu visited the remains of the house where the Kar couple had lived with their extended family, and consoled the family members. Rabin Deb, CPI(M) chief whip in the state assembly, accompanied the leaders. (B P)