People's Democracy

Bengal LF Will Go Amidst Masses

For Democracy, Against Anarchy

                        B  Prasant

The Bengal Left Front has decided to go once again in a big way for mass contact over the second half of November with issues of the moment issues that touch the lives and livelihoods of the mass of the people of Bengal.  The geographical foci of the programme are the jangal mahal, the north Bengal region, and the Sunderbans.

The jangal mahal has recently seen a spurt of violence as the district has also witnessed the left deviationists being cornered and isolated from the masses.  The CPI (M), the Left Front, and the mass organisations shall campaign against terror and anarchy, and for democracy and development, during the programme scheduled from 24 to 30 November.

In north Bengal, as in the jangal mahal developmental work has been put to jeopardy by the various secessionist and separatist acts.  There has been an effort to deviate the hill people away from the mass of the citizenry of the region.  For these reasons and for campaigning in favour of peace and democracy, the week shall see as in the jangal mahal, rallies, smaller meetings, marches and various ‘days’ associated with the different societal sections of the people.

The programme in the Sunderbans shall emphasise the need to maintain the precious, fragile, and variegated bio-diversity of the zone where, too, the right reactionaries have attempted to disrupt democracy and development.  Forty per cent of the Sunderbans are in Bengal, the rest being in Bangladesh.  Thus, an international cooperative effort must be initiated to maintain and development the mangrove and forestry region with its multitude of creeks and its teeming millions of various life forms.

The initial day of the statewide programme on 24 November would see the Bengal left Front leading the effort.  The rest of the days would be left to the various ass organisations to lead and organise.  A central rally would be held on 30 November under the aegis of the Left Front.  The following ‘days; are identified at the meeting of the Left Front held under the stewardship of chairman Biman Basu during the morning of 9 November.

-                     Demonstration programme in the metro centre of Kolkata over 24-30 November

-                     24 November – workers’-employees’ day

-                     25 November – women’s day

-                     26 November – kisans’ day

-                     27 November students’-youth day

-                     28 November – cultural day

-                     29 November teachers’-educational employees’ day

-                     30 November - central rally with participation from the jangal mahal, north Bengal and the Sunderbans

Bengal LF shall publish and widely circulate a leaflet on the entire gamut of the programme.  The programmes shall be, marked by exhibitions of topical photos, posters, and shall have a rich cultural line-up.

GRISLY KILLINGS

The jangal mahal has seen increase in the resistance of the people to the threats hanging like a pall of death over them, and the result has been a two-fold response from the killers.  First, they have fled what they inchoately called their ‘terrain,’ and second, they have started to indulge in their hated mode of targeted killing of innocent villagers, mostly for the ‘crime’ of being members or supporters of the CPI (M).

Thus, Biman Basu would put it whilst summing up the programme set out by the Bengal left front in the coming weeks.  The programmes, Biman Basu stressed would be held at the level of the districts and would not be confined to the urban conurbations alone, leave apart metro-based thoughts.

For the recent weeks now, the ‘Maoists’ with their Trinamuli handymen had been seen to indulge themselves in wanton violence in a few select areas of Midnapore west bordering the neighbouring states, where, let us iterate, the law-and-order agencies are; to put it mildly, less-than-active.

It is with deep sadness that the Bengal Left Front chairman narrated the tale of mayhem let loose in a period of 24 hours by the ‘Maoist’ assassins killed six villagers for the straightforward bloody-minded ‘reason’ of instilling fear in the hearts-and-minds of the rural folk.  We grieve the fact that a 52-year old woman was killed simply because her son is a havildar in the CRPF and posted in the jangal mahal.

The first assault took place at Chandra, in the Bandhgara GP, where the local Trinamuli lackeys of the terrorists deep into the lonely night of 8 November when comrades Shukchand Mandi and his son comrade Nepal Mandi, both CPI (M) workers, were dragged away, and then shot to death. 

During the next night of 7 November, the same GP witnessed another spate of grisly killings where a housewife, Sandhya Mahato (whose son in a serving CRPF havildar as we have said) as well as two members of the rural poor, comrades Wajed Ali and Rashbehari Das were abducted and stabbed to death.  The same night of the long knives also saw another murder.  CPI worker and former GP functionary Kanai Roy was shot in front of this own hutment when he had responded to his name being called and had come out.