JANGAL MAHAL REJOICES UNDER THE RED FLAG

By B Prasant

 

KOLKATA, 2nd Sept. 2010 (INN): For some time now, like about three months, the left sectarians, heinous criminals who go under the costume of their brand of so-called ‘Maoism,’ have been forced on the backfoot by the mass of the people. The résistance, much absurdly reflected in an expectedly bitter corporate media, comprises, as we were very recent witness to the mass movements in Midnapore west, and indeed elsewhere in the red clay rural belt, three distinct phases.

BLOOD LETTING

First, in places like Pidakata and Dharampur, the left sectarians and their somewhat loosely weaved, amorphous, and, Trinamul-financed ‘front’ of armed goons called the PCAPA (‘people’s committee against police atrocities’ is the full nomenclature), are initially with politeness, and then with vigour asked by the rural people, who have had enough of the blood-letting of the poor by the villains, to let them alone.

Second where this is heeded, rare, the mass of the people put up the Red Flag, organise rallies, house-to-house campaign on the truth behind the ‘Maoist’ phenomenon, and then go about the good and great business of bringing rural tranquillity back in place.

In due course, democratic activities resume, shops and stalls open, the tea stall is a vital sign of normalcy, the smoking chullah sending out the signals of the right kind as a massage of comfort to the early morning toilers as they trudge across unploughed fields, lying barren both from disuse and from the pitiless sun pouring heat from the frighteningly, unseasonably, bright blue above. Life resumes its hum and rhythm.

MAOIST RANKS CRUMBLE

Third, and this is becoming a sickening repetition ad nauseum now more than ever, there are pockets that are situated deep into the dark grey-green foliage of whatever forestry is left behind by the electric chain-saw wielding illegal fellers of trees, ‘Maoists’ featuring prominent among their ranks, we had better note right here and now, in pockets, described by the terrorists and enemies of the people as ‘terrain,’ there are splinter groups of the ‘Maoists,’ and the splintering has been fashioned both vertically and horizontally, a classical example per se of the crumbling of those who mistake crime for rebelliousness, with everyone ‘inside,’ suspecting everyone else, there are ‘desperadoes’ who would not heed the writing on the wall.

Here what the rural masses do is an interesting example of the people’s idea of résistance -- in words and deeds. And, no, we are not talking of counter-violence and/or listening, and reacting to the tired uncredenced, hesitant drumbeats that are heard in the corporate media about ‘armed camps,’ (the Union Home minister would even go so far as to mention the bourgeois-damned ‘c’ word, when he talked about ‘cadres,’ but would not confront the truth).

BAITING VIOLENCE

 

The rightist supremo, ruthless, hateful, and a violence-baiter, who has by now quite suborned the pathetically keen political arm-weaving of a drowning unit called the Pradesh Congress, may allow the corporate media to run away with lies and half-truths that the reactionaries always adhere to, and the left deviationists thrive on, but the facts speak for themselves. Let us here and now pose a question that begs for an answer, and it is this: ‘how many ‘Maoists’, and for the record armed Trinamulis have been killed, now and ever in the past, except in police actions? Would the proponents of the much-vaunted armed camps theory that they shamelessly go sickeningly ga-ga over, kindly stand up and be counted, even if once? In the circumstances, we confess they had better pay heed to what we saw, and what made us joyous and proud.

The place of occurrence is Dharampur, some miles away into the deep of the jangal mahal. The date is 2 September 2010. The time is day break and into the morning hours of sun and sweat. Readers will no doubt recall what has been reported in these columns in the arid summer of 2009. It was the 15th day of June. For close to three days, the left deviationists surrounded and cut off Dharampur from the rest of the forest sub-division.

THE NIGHTS OF LONG KNIVES

Then the killing of the helpless and the innocent started. Initially the Trinamul-identified leading cadres of the CPI (M) were beaten up, hacked away with sharp weapons and then left mangled, bleeding heaps, and in the intensity of agony to die the most horrible death imaginable. The peasants were next. Anybody with links, even the remotest of links to the CPI (M) Kisan Sabha, the SFI, and the DYFI, and the AIDWA were singled out and beaten up – some were to succumb to their injuries for days afterwards, as the cries of help for medical attention went unheeded.

 

Women were systematically raped and left disfigured, some, unable to withstand the agony, mental and physical, were later to take their own lives. The houses were looted and put to the torch. In the year that followed, close to 270 CPI (M) leaders and cadres were murdered in the contiguous areas of the jangal mahal around Dharampur and Lalgarh, in particular. Villages after villages of the area were made bereft of activities, even of the most basic kind. Kisans left their home-and-hearth-- and took shelter in the district wherever they could, the helpless and innocent fugitive, and the refugee was born again.

CORPORATE MEDIA AND ITS WOES

Would the corporate media report a line of this, oh, no, and who ran armed camps then, friends, and at under whose patronage-- could this be explained by those same members of the media corps who today doth protest mightily and too much, too soon, about they having been ‘attacked,’ during their recent approach into Pidakata, not far away from Dharampur?

May we venture an educated guess (that may very be the truth as well, however unpleasant it may seem in some quarters) for their recent brand of protestations? They, quite frankly, do miss their fond linkages with the now-fled ‘Maoists.’ They fly into a rage when they see the Red Flag aflutter from fearfully large number of hutments and establishments, and not just in Dharampur, for the welcome scene is repeated along large tracts of the jangal mahal now where the people have torn apart the veil of fear-- and have spoken, loud and clear. Those that are the soil of the earth, those that were driven away from the red clay zone, have now returned. Life is tough. The tea stall chullah, however, smokes again, the aroma of tae and of oven-fresh succulence of soft bread loaves spread, the bright Red Flag alert and a-flutter from the shambled top of what is now effectively a shanty, among many shanties that are in a serious need of a clean up, the housewives nod and agree. Life has picked up its age-old cycle of normalcy in the better part of the forest areas of Midnapore west.