Who are the real Maoists in West Bengal? The real Marxists? The revolutionaries? The reactionaries? The Communists? The saviours? The victims?
These questions are at the core of this hotly contested assembly election in West Bengal, in which the last vote will be cast on May 10th.
The answers are as confusing as they always were. We traveled to Lalgarh, in western Midnapur district in south-west Bengal. Lalgarh is the site of the bloodiest clashes between the ruling Communists government, the Maoists, the tribals, the police and all manner of party workers.
Driving through the fresh green, tranquil and unspoiled forests into the Jangalmahal area where Lalgarh is located, it is hard to picture it as the scene of the many pitched battles between security forces and tribals. There are signs of tribal life everywhere. Animism, which turns the trees into shrines protected by garlanded clay Bankura horses (the same horse which is the logo of the government owned cottage industries emporia across India), and two-tier mud huts with thatched roofs. Unlike the villages in India’s plains, the tribal villages are meticulously clean and tragically poor, as all tribal regions in India have become.
Here, the political presence is everywhere; the roads are festooned with flags and posters of every political party. Communist, Congress, Trinamool, BJP, Left –and gruesome posters of dead men which each party claims are their martyrs killed by the others. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) represents this district but has done little. It becomes clear when we stop at Lalgarh. The villages are quiet and reluctant to talk. They want what everyone in Bengal wants, law and order and “shanti”, jobs and water. A helicopter cuts the jungle quiet. It is on its usual round of surveillance. And then the border security force boys roar through the main market place on their motorcycles. They are young, clean-shaven, strong and smiling – just young boys who have a secure job but could be dead by tonight, should yet another battle take place. Kon Kon Bagri, a share-cropper, says flooding is an issue; when it rains, they have to live in the trees. The roads are unpaved and muddy; a simple paved road through the market place will transform this place, and a bridge over a nearby river would end Lalgarh’s isolation from other villages. But, say the residents, nobody cares; everyone migrates to nearby towns – and a safer but sadder life.
Lalgarh came into prominence in 2009 when Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee visited to lay the foundation stone of a new steel plant for JSW, owned by Sajjan Jindal. Then, a road mine exploded after the Chief Minister had passed; nobody was killed and no one knew who planted the mine. The region’s forests are contiguous with Jarkhand, from where a Naxal could have come, planted the bomb and disappeared. Without an investigation, the wrath of the CPM exploded over this tribal village. Many were beaten and arrested, for months.
In frustration, the villagers blocked access to their roads and gheraoed the police camp in Lalgarh. Home Minister Chidambaram and the state sent in the border security force, which broke the peaceful protests of the tribals and has maintained a strong armed presence since.
We drive deeper into the forest and immerge into open fields. Here, in a clearing under an old banyan tree are sitting the supporters of the protests called the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities, a movement led by Chhatradhar Mahato, which is asking for security forces to apologize to people when they do something wrong. The communist party regards Mahato as a “murderer, a killer” according to Deepak Sarkar, the Midnapur District Secretary of the Communist Party and the chief “organizer” of the party’s violent cadres. Mohato was arrested through deceit and jailed. He has now joined the electoral fray and is running as an independent candidate from the region. He has support from the villages, certainly, and intellectual sympathy from Calcutta civil society stalwarts like filmmaker Aparna Sen, playwrights and students from Jadavpur University.
This is at the heart of the battle for Bengal. Wresting it from entrenched and disliked Communist control is a task by itself and Mamata Banerjee may succeed in unseating them, but will she be able to change the fortunes of this state? And like Obama, she will inherit a mess – declining growth, the war within and the onus to prove that a minority – a woman – is upto the job. Will she be the one to bring solace, ‘shanti’ and employment to citizens like Kon Kon, the share-cropper of Lalgarh? Can she alleviate his many sorrows?
Manjeet Kripalani is Executive Director of Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations.
This blog was exclusively written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read more exclusive content here.
For interview requests with the author, or for permission to republish, please contact outreach@gatewayhouse.in.
© Copyright 2011 Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized copying or reproduction is strictly prohibited
Image courtesy: BenSutherland/Flickr