R.N.S.

there was no trade with China on asignificant scale. But ,as .long asNew Deiohi's ~.ubservience 10 thesuper-powers continues, its attitude toChina would be one of hostility.

September 12, 1971

also not very fertile. The maximumoutput per acre (in the best 'fields)is 15 maunds whereas in West Ben.gal the average per acre output fromordinary land is 25 maunds.But in contrast to the latter, thepeasants in Tripura have to pay I!times more land revenue. Between1960 and 1970 there was an unprece-dented increase in land revenue-perkani it went up from 75 paise toRs 3.50. This affected the poorpeasantry very badly.

5

It is the poor peasants who suffermost. There is no hope in Tripuraof an industrial build-up-whatever it-had in the name of industry be-sides tea,-footwear and match-fac-tory-have been abandoned thanks tothe inefficiency of the State's bureau-crats. This together with the pres-sure on land has made the problem

Tripura has not succeeded in com-ing out of its semi-feudal embryo.Owing to inadequate communicationsa large number of essential commo-dities have to be imported and theirprices keep rising. Most of the vil-lages remain isolated from one an-other, so there is no proper distribu-tion of the local merchandise. Totake one can of kerosene oil toRaima, a village 1 00 miles fromAgartala, one has to pay Rs 18; perlitre the price is Rs 2.00. Salt is onerupee a kilo there, whereas nearAgartala kerosene per litre costs 50paise and salt 45 paise. At Kan-chanpur Dasda, 130 miles from Agar-tala, rice is 75 paise a kilo but inthe capital and nearby areas it isRs 2.00 and more.

Ch:nakyapuri to harass visitors mightdisappear. A couple of correspon-dents passsing for sports writers mightmake a trip to Peking with the ping-pong team. A trade agreement mightbe signed but in the best of days

The Story Of A Naxalite

HIS appearance is not as impres-sive as that of Che's. A

'young man of about 20 or 22, he isunusually polite and ·docile for his ageand except for two bright eyes set ina pale pockmarked face there is verylittle to note about him. But it is hiswords, his stories, his experiencewhich impress.

This is the story he told me:Tripura is very poor. In comparisonto Assam Or West Bengal it is muchsmaller and has no important naturalresources. The economy is based onagriculture. There are many vitalproblems. The first is scarcity ofcultivable land. In 1952 the popula-tion was about 600,000. The pres-sure on land was the least at thattime. But trouble started from thelate fifties when thousands of refugeesfrOm East Pakistan began to crossover i\1to the State. Most of themhave settled down permanently. Thisinflux resulted in two things: a ra-pid bulge in the population andheavy pressure on land. Recentlymore refugees have come followingthe army crack-down in East Pakis-tan. Approximately the local inha-bitants (tribals and refugees whocame 'after March 1971) number15.56 13khs, while refugees (whocame after March 1971 numberabout 12 lakhs. As a result of theincreasing pressure on land there iscontinuous fragment3ltion of farmholdings and increase in the numberof landless peasants. At presentabout 50% of the agricultural popu-lation are landless and about 75%possess 'are less than 5 kanis of landon an average (2t kanis are equiva-lent to one acre). The land itself is

diplomatic edge over India. Con-ditional release of the Sheikh and thehanding over of administration inDacca to a civilian will be held outas proof of General Yahya Khan'sbona fides. Once U.N. observerscome in, the Mukti Bahini opera-tions will slow down. If the AwamiLefgue leader$ip splits and onesection begins a dialogue with Islama-bad, India will come a cropper, sadd-led with the refugees.

Shortly after Mrs Gandhi took overin 1966, she visited Washington.The immediate outcome was an assu-rance of resumption of U.S. aid oncondition India should not criticisethe U.S. policy on Vietnam. MrsGandhi has been too anxious to visitWashington and to prove to theUnited States 'that the Indo-Soviettreaty meaDs nothing.

SEPTEMBER 18, 1971

There is no progress with normali-sation of relations with China. TheForeign Office is rather cold to thewhole thing while the Prime Minis-ter's Secretariat and India's Kissingerare going ga-ga over nothing. Thestory of Mrs Gandhi's letter to MrChou En-Iai was planted by theRrime Minister's secretariat. Thencame all the moonshine of Mr B. C.Mishra coming ho~e armed with areply. The Foreign Office now saysthere was nothing in Mr B. C.Mishra's report when he came here tosuggest any change in the situation.But those outside the Foreign Officeseem to be executing a parallelforeign policy, making all kinds ofclaims about China's desperateattempts to normalise relations withIndia. Assuming ambassador-level re-lations are restored and a trade pactsigned, would it mean normalisationof relations? China has restored suchreJations with the Soviet Union buta million Soviet troops confrontChina all along the border. China isno longer guessing India's position orin.tentions. Once New Delhi rushedto sign the Indo-Soviet treaty inpanic, Peking knew the configurationand should be in no hurry to makeany gesture. At best, the policetents outside the Chinese Embassy in

Qf unemployment .acute.The Government has totally failed

to tackle the situation. It has prac-cally done nothing to ease the lot ofthe peop~e. The present Government,to spe k frankly, is a zamindari ofthe Chief Minister, Mr SachindralalSingh. He is endowed with all thequalities of a typical Indian parli::l-

:.mentarian. His efficiency has oftenbeen seen in groupism, in the tradi-tiond Indian politics of divide andrule ; in that sphere he is unrivalled.It is his autocratic rule that split the.congress. In his personal life, well,he is sometimes called Dr Jekyll andMr Hyde. There is however nothinghopeful about the rebel Con-gress eiher. Its le~ders accuseMr Singh of highhandednessbut they themselves have so longconnived at his misdeeds.

What about the other politicalparties? The CPI (M), although ithas a very good organization and inpower-politics its position is next tothat of the ruling Congress, in prac-tice thinks little of the common man.

In the circumst2nces, when the.country's economy is in an extremely

dverse situation and the parliamen-tary parties are making things worse,• ~ervention from radical leftists isnot only logical but also a necessity.

e, the N~xalites, therefore came onthe scene. The big factor which ins-'red Us to take active part in politics

wa~ the peasant uprising in Naxalbariand the Nax"lite activities in diffe-ent ports of West Bengal since then.

It is true that at the beginning wehad not any direct link with anybodyin C~1cutta who could send us pre-cise information ,rbout the Naxalites:and it was only through the bourgeoispress that we tried to piece togetherthe happenings in West Bengal.Whenever we read the news of the

urder of landlords ,and moneylen-ders in those papers we appreciatedit, because we believed that the endis sacred, it does not matter whatmean~ are adopted. By that time wehad alre~dy been convinced that nochange would be possible without

loodshed. Revolution needs blood,not onl)'lof the enemy, b\lt also of us,

Visit to CalcuttaIt was just before Durga Puja in

1969 that I had a ch3.nce to goto Calcutta. I was then connectedwith a local newspaper which wasideologically more radical than others.We used to send the copies of thispaper regularly to some students of awell-known college in Calcutta. Itook some copies of our paper withme. I had another thing in mymind, to make friends with them.

The very moment I reached Cal-cutta I noticed Naxalite slogans onthe walls and I was so impressed thatI wrote them down in my notebook.Then one day I took copies of ourpaper and went to see students of theparticular college at their hostel. AsI s~epped into their room I heard themtdking about politics, Naxalbari andCharu Mazumdar. I produced mypress credentials and handed over thenewspapers. They were satisfiedand began to talk to me. One ofthem proposed that the occasionshould be celebrated, called a bearerand asked for tea and biscuits. With-in a few minutes the atmosphere be-came so friendly th'at I forgot thatI was a stranger.

My friends asked me about my po-litical affiliations. I said I had none.They again asked me whether I h?dany interest in the stories of Naxal-bari and Srikakulam. I said we wereeager to know about all those. Forabout four and a half hours theytalked about, among other things, thepeasant struggles in Andhra, K?kdwipand Naxalbari, about the greatnessof Chairman Mao and the beloved oldman, Charu Mazumdar, the historicLong March by the Communist Partyof China, the role of the Chinesemandarins and the similarity of therevolutionary situation in India andChina. I once asked them to exphinthe inner meaning of one of theirfavourite slogans-China's Chairmanis our Chairman, China's path is ourpath. One of them said that byChina they never meant a merecountry, but something more. Theytried to put her before our eyes asthe ultimate goal of an ideal commu-nist. The entire Chinese nation was

to them the idem communist com-munity with Comrade Mao Tse-tungat the top. As the Indian commu-nists (Naxalites) wanted to set upthe same type of communist societyin this country they should follow theChinese line and in doing so theymust accept Mao as their Chairman,because it was he who showed themthe way of -revolution. Moreover,Mao was the true representative ofthe downtrodden Asians whereverthey may be while the leaders in thiscountry were agents of vested inte-rests and neo-colonial forces .

It was about 7-30 or 8 p.m. I leftthe hos:el. My friends gave mesome pamphlets to read, includingthe Communist M3nifesto, some se-lected writings of Lenin and Mao,the stories of Mushabari, the TaraiReport of Kmu Sanyal and a hand-written biography of Babul Biswakar-rna (who was killed during the Na-xalbari movement).

I stayed at Calcutta for about 45days, and met my friends severaltimes. Whenever we met, we dis-cussed the general political situationin the country, the international situa-tion, activities of the communists inthe Third World, and other subjects.One evening I myself talked aboutthe political situation in Tripura. Myfriends liked it and joined the discus-sion. Before I left Calcutta, I prO-mised to organize the CommunistParty (Marxist-Leninst). in Tripura.

n

A GARTALA is a small town. Iwas born and brought up here

and am still studying in a localcollege. Naturally a large numberof young boys of my age were knownto me, some of them intimatelyI decided to talk to them ,about theproblem. When I talked to them,to my great astonishment I discoveredtl1at they were also thinking in thesame way, about the same thing. IW2S delighted. All of them werestudents and there was every reasonfor their being dissatisfied with theexisting set-up. The students' out-

SEPTEMBER 18, 1971

The Will of G'odThe conversations between a T

boy and tribal peasantslike this:

The Toe boy: Hello,h?w do you do ?

lipm failed to attend. Sometimes they fall. But the government, thought~emed to be much more zealous passed the anti-Zum Act did nothinthan their teachers and organized concrete to compensate the tribals.group discussions on different sub- On the contrary they had to face adjects. The next thing the teachers ditional pressure when refugees bi>-asked us to do was to write slogans gan to cross over into the State fromon the walls. They said that these East Pakistan. Most of the fertileslogans would make the people cons- land, especially in the plains passedcious of their suffering. They would into the hands Of these refugees. Inalso know that the CPI(ML) had some cases the newcomers who wereemerged to protect their interests. much more affluent than the poor trl-

The notebook in which I had bals bought land directly froIp thetaken down the Naxalite slogans in latter, and some1limes rthe great Sa-Calcutta were now very useful. I chindralal Sinha illegally distributedcarefully read the slogans and select- thousands of kanis of fertile land.ed SOme of them. The slogans you among the refugees. This is one ofhave seen on the school, college and his election strategies. Under thesegovernment buildings in Agartala are extremely adverse drcumstances whenfrom my notebook. One thing, for their roads were blocked on bothslogans we also used the Red Book sides the tribals found no alternativeChairman Mao. but to step further ,down the econ

After the wall-writings we turned mic ladder. They began to work a&OUr attention to the peasantry be.- agricultural labourers in fields whichcause the main aim of the CPI(ML). were even 'a, few years ago their own.is to organize and mobilise the poor With alI these things in our mindpe?sants against the landlords, money- we prepared our next programme.lenders and other agents of feudal There were among our sympathisexploitation. In the course of their some tribal students. They were exstruggle the peasants will join the ceptionaIly rich among their peoplworking class in the cities. Anyway, but they had .also a genuine love fwe began to think of our ,next mis- us. We asked them to take ussion-operations in rural Tripura. I their villages. They agreed.have already told you that the eco- Generally, the average villagernomy of Tripura is based on agricul- very suspicious owing to his ignture. The local tribal people are the ranee and isolation. He will not toldest inhabitants and also the oldest intimately to any townsman, he rnaagriculturists, suffering from inhuman even inform the local landlord or •feudal exploitation. Many promises agents about any newcomer.were made to them since indepen- villagers however do it out of fdence by the local and Central gov- These complications can be avoidernments but none of those was ful- if the outsider gets shelter withfilled. On the contrary a very se- local man. Then the villagers m

vere restriction was put on them in treat him as a less dangerous fello1960 when a Bill was passed by the if not as a friend. AIl of the TTripura Government to put an end boys followed this policy, they cto the tribals' age-old method of cul- tacted their tribal friends and witivation, "Zum-chash", on the plea them went to their villages. Ththat it would lead to deforestation. then mixed with the tribal peasaIt is true that "Zum" type cultivation and tried to win them over to thegenerally takes place on forested slo- side.pes of mountains. The tribals or"Zurn" cultivaltOrs destroy these fo-

rests by setting them on fire and usethe 'ashes of the burnt trees as fer-tilizers. Naturally this means de-forestation ultimately leading to ero-sion of soil and affecting rcauIal' rain-

SBPTEMBER 18. 1971

burst is not an isolated event but an\ .

eloquent reflection of the nationalcondition. One of my friends whojoined the local CPI(ML) told mewhy. When he sees at home howhard up his parents are now--even afew years ago men lived more com-fortably here-it is impossible forhim not to take part in the politicsOf his country. My friend was right.We took part in politics not for anyself-interest but for the poor peoplewho were being bled white by theirexploiters.

Abourt a month after my re.-turn to Agartala I received a letterfrom my NaxaJite friends saying thatthey were sending a 'representative toTripura in order to organize theCPI(ML) and start class struggleagainst class enemies. Withina few days the man came. He wasan economist and used to teach in acollege somewhere in West Bengal.Soon after this two more young mencame and joined us. Both of themwere engineers, but unemployed.

We organized the TOC or theTown Organization Committee [of

the CPI (ML)]. It ,always remainedunderground. The screening for en-rolment in the TOe was very strict.Only 30 boys were selected as office-bearers but th"t too not at a time.At first only five boys were selected.After a few weeks more were takenin. During the third s<.reening 10mOre were admitted. In this waythe figure finally reached 30. These30 boys were the initiators of alloperations. Within a short time afterthe arrival of the three leaders fromCalcutta we had about 1,000 activesympathisers in and aroundAgartala.

The leaders first decided to teachthe TOC members the basic princi-ples of Marxism-Leninism, growth ofcapitalism, feudalism, the utility ofclass struggle, its ways, definition ofclass enemies etc. The responsibi-lity of arranging the theoretical clas-ses was entrusted to me.

These classes used to be held so-mewhere in the town. The TOCm~bors wore very regular and sol-

SEPTEMBER 18, 1971

venth hour. We however succeeded inbeheading two villagers, one of them alandlord and the other an agent. Theformer was a nightmare to the peo-ple of Maharani, a village about 40miles from Agartala. He had ille-gally in his possession more than 100kanis of land, besides being a money-lender who used to charge a veryhigh rate of interest. Conrary to ourbitter experiences at other places, wegot a satisfactory response to our callfrom the local peasants of Maharani.Actually there the TOC boys work-ed only for about a month and suc-ceeded in convincing the peasantsof the necessity of class struggle andannihilation of the local moneylen-ders, landlords and their agents. Itwas most probably in March, 1970,that the peasant guerillas of Maha-rani killed that landlord. The TOeboys themselves conducted the opera-tion l)ut the actual killing was'doneby the local peasants. This is howit went:

areas we aimed at the destruction ofall ,the machinery of imperialism intowns. First of all we decided toblow up the system of educationwhich since the 19th centuryhas been producing agents ofimperialism. We used to attackschools during the day, oftenduring the recess. We used to carrywith us highly explosive bombs. pipe-guns, knives and petrol. GenerallyOUr t;rgets of attack were the library.the office and the room of the head-master. After receiving an "all cloorsign" from OUr sympathisers we en-tered the school and divided into fourdifferent groups: one to attack theroom of the headmaster, to cut thetelephone wire in his room and des-troy all his valuable office files ; an-other group to enter the library and~et the books on 'fire, another to enterthe office to ,destroy everything includ-ing the money, and the fourth groupto guard the school entrance andwatch the movements of the studentsand teachers. This group used to

The Operation have many bombs and pipe-guns.At about 2 a.m. the guerillas slip- while the others carried petrol and

ped into the house, found the man knives.in his bedroom sleeping on his cot. In this way we raided a large num-One of the guerillas took out a knife ber of schools, including the Pragatiand stabbed him on the head, chest School, the Prachya Bharati School.and stomach. He died ing.tantaneous- Avaynagar Higher Secondary SchoolIy. The guerillas then slipped out and the Vodhjang High School. Asas silently as they had entered a few for the Avaynagar School not a singleminutes ago. sheet of paper was left in the office

But in ,the second case, we made a room, every thing was burnt to ashes.big mistake. Instead of killing the Wherever we went, neither the stu-landlord we killeCl his servant. It dents nor the teachers ever dared makehappened this way. The man any protest. We fell upon them likecame to know of our plan much be- a tiger on a herd of sheep. Nowherefore our TOC boys could reach his. did we experience any resistance ex-village. So On the particular night cept some feeble protests from thehe went to sleep in :another room old headmasters. Those bloody goodywhile the poor servant was ordered goody men used to say: Babara kenato sleep on his master's cot. Our esob kordhha} Agun lagie ki hobeguerillas were equally deceived. They etc. (My boys I What are you doing?could not recognise in the dark whom What will you gain by setting every-they were killing. The next morning thing on fire}) •when they saw the lancl10rd proudly Similar was the fate of the coll-stepping out of his house a shiver eges in Agarta,la. For about sixwent down their spines, many hur- months everything was at OUr mercy.riedly left the village but on their way Classes were postponed, examinationsto Agartala some of them were ar- held up and Ithe stupid teachers wererested by the police. always seen inside their houses. But

Along with our activities in rural we did not kill any of them. Here

The peasants: Well. Aren't youthe guest of our Bachudhan Ba~}

TOC Boy: Oh yes. Aren't youDabua whose father Maju Riang wasa big farmer of this village} I knowall of your friends. _

Dabua: Yes, my father was alandlord but his son is now a la-bourer and in the same farm.

Other peasants: We too had ourown land but God has deprived usof it.

TOC boy: God or the presentlandlord} Bachudhan Tripuri saysthat you were evicted by somebodyof this village. Isn't it a fact?

The peasants: Yes, Bachudhan isright, but nothing can happen with-out the will of God.

So it was the ghost of God whoften prevented us lirom proceeding

further. The tribals believed thattheir poverty was due to the will of

od, their sufferings too weretlue to the will of God. So to mOveagainst the landlord or moneylender. to rebel against God. For instance.one of the TOC boys working in aVillage at Khoai once asked the local

asants whether they had made upeir minds to kill the landlord as they

ad said they would on the previousmght. The peMants said they knew

~ w.as there to help them. But itwas useless to kill that man. "You

ow that God has written on oureheads that we will have to sufferd starve. So what's the use ofis murder}"In some cases there was no God,

Or his spectre, but mutual interestbetween the landlord and the pea-

nts which defeated our program-mes. For instance the TOC boy

'd if the peasants realizedthat they were being exploited by

at man, why did they not kill him }The peasants said it was true that

e exploited them but he also helpedthem in distress. In lean times they

uld borrow money and paddy fromhim. If they killed him who would

lp them?Yet. we succeeded at some other

aces. There we could have killed11 the class enemies had not cir-

tances betrayed us at the el&-

of course we definitely deviated fromthe line of our comrades in WestBengal.

Days were rolling on and we werebecoming more and more powerful.On the last birthday of Comrade MaoTse-tung we organised a procession.Carrying placards and pictures ofMao, Lenin and Charu Mazumderwe walked :along the different streetsof the town. The pedes.trians lookedon but made no remark; even thepolice who were following us from asafe distance did not dare to comeout of their four-wheeled cages. Atabout 9 p.m. we dispersed in thedarkness. ,near pangeI1par. About

ten minutes later the police reachedthe spot, got down from their vansand raised a "hall a" (noise).

C1ashu with CPMThis single incident proves our

strength and stamina,. Really, unlikeall other political parties the CPI(ML) grew with unprecedent-ed rapidity. And this involved us inclashes with the CPI (M) . It is truewe had genuine n3.tred for Congressbut our hatred of the CPI(M) wasunlimited. It was because they speakof revolution but sit in parliament.Theirs is a p3.rty of economism, agi-tating for some economic demandsand concessions. They try to excitethe middle-class Bengalis in the nameof revolution and thus keep the starv-ing people hr away from actual c1aS5struggle. The leaders of the CPI(M)are from typical middle-class stocksharing all the vices and shortcom-ings of that class. They know itwell that if there is a revolution theywill be its first viotims because theirsole aim is self-enrichment at the costof the toiling millions. That is why wemade the CPI(M) our main politicalenemy. We first attacked the party'sstudent front. In one operation, forinstance, we severely beat up the lea-der of the students' union in ourcollege. That fellow was an out andout CPI (M) supporter and he usedto spread an sorts of rumours againstus. One day we entered the college,dragged him out of the class roomand gave him a good beating. As

SEPTEMBER 18, 1971

one of the TOC boys took out a knifeto stab him, he began to run.Somebody among us threw a smallbomb and the boy was injured. Hewas bleeding profusely. But we fail-ed to catch him, he ran away.

AHer this incident, everyone of theCPI(M) became very panicky. Weerased their slogans from t1he wallsand wrote our own; nobody cameforward to challenge us. In fact, wedid what we liked during those

months. One thing, however, we didnot do. We did not kill anyone ofOUr political enemies. Not only that,we believed in the basic identities bet-ween the hard core cadres of theCPI(ML) and the CPI(M), but thesituation was not very helpful. Un-like Calcutta, Agartala is a much

smaller pl:3.ceand most of us, I meanthe political workers and leaders,were known to each other intimately.BesidesL there was le~s sophisticationin our politics. So we could beatsomebody u.EJ but could not think ofkilling him. That does not mean thatwe ever compromised with ourclass enemies.

But our fall was as meteoric asour rise. The moment we reachedthe peak we came to learn that wehad among us many spies. We triedto be more alert but it was too late.Towards the end of 1970 some of ourTOC boys were arrested. We there-fore left our homes, shifted our officeand "school" to a safer place some-where outside the town. Long beforethis, we had been sleeping elsewhere2<1 night to avoid the police. Afterthose unexpected setbacks we chang-ed our shelters. But 13.11 these provedfruitless. Almost every alternatenight some TOe boys and activesympathisers were caught and jailed.Then one day came my turn. Likeother TOC boys I also_did not sleepin my house. My widowed motherwho did not like these things from thebeginning became very unhappy. Sheoften said that I could dowhatever I liked but I should re-member that I was her only son, andshould not die. "My SOn do not

sleep outside at night." On the occa-sion of a festival I agreed to spend

the night at home. At about 3 aI woke up ala. loud noise outsidegate. I left the bea, looked through:;the peephole of the door and foundtwo truckloads of the CRP and TItpura Police. I still pity themThough they encircled the house they,did not dare come ins;ide for they,feared that I might throw bombs.So the OC began to shout: 'SudhirBabu, I ask you 'to surrender, po ntry to run away or throw bombs, my;men are ready with their guns." Hepeated this warning but none of hi$;men came in. Meanwhile my mother also woke up and began to weep~ therefore decided to surrender. Iopened the door and said ~ "Yes,now you can come in. Look I I amunarmed." The OC was to take me .his jeep but my mother rushed outand said that they must call somebodas witness, otherwise they migbkill her only son and deny that thhad arrested him. The OC ag!and my mother called in our nexdoor neighbour, a headmaster wschool we once raided. I was sprised when I heard the headmasay that I was an extremely polite aninnocent boy, that whatever I .[ did it for the people and withopen mind. Another surprise wthat for one man there cameleast 60 armed policemen I Thdemons are alway~ afraid of death.

The lock-up was dark most oftime, the floor was wet with urine, twalls were plastered with excremenI W,2S given two bricks so thatfeet did not get wet. For seven da[ sat on the bricks. The food servin the evening was smelly and fullstone chips. The six Or seven convicwith whom I shared the lock-out us

. to tell me that the food was s>oprpared that it would spoil my liver f.ever. Whatever be the truth, my Iivhas been 'damaged.

Reasons for FallureThe failure of Our movement w

mainly due to two important factorabsence of mass support and internconflict. ~ admit that whereverpeople allowed us a free hand in ou

By A CORRESPONDENT

Cossipore-Baranagar

WHAT appeared in the newspapersabaut the Baranagare-Co.ssi-

pore killing af August 12-13 was buta small part af what actually happe-ned. The press reparts were po.licereports. But what happened wo.uldbe beyand anyo.ne's camprehensian.Murder. af sorts is a familiar thingnaw days. But the Baranagar-Cassipore carnage was neither fami-liar nar secret. It has braken newgrounds and set a new pattern withthe mast o.minaus sign af the sh~pe afthings to. came. So. lang the palicewauld came to. the ho.use of a Naxa-lite suspect, ransack the hause and,if he happened to. be there, drag himout. The palice wo.uld nat makeany charge, wauld praduce no. war-rant and wauld nat answer any ques-tian. The day fallawing there wauldappear in the press a spoof abaut abomb attack an the palice Or anattempt to. escape and about thedeath af the bay. But this time itwas entirely navel. More than 150yaung boys were butchered withintwa days-the Friday-Saturday. Otherswho. were nat yaung had also. to. die.Lest there be any mistake, a list can-taining the names af the bays killedwas hung up an an improvised scaf-falding an Kutighat Raad, the maioraad cannecting the Baranagarpalice statian with the ather parts.There were haur-ta-haur additians to.the list, and the list covered anly apart of the whale ,area af o.peratians.The list ran to. mare than 60 nameson Friday alane, and enlisting thedead was disoontinued as the deadwere last caunt af.

The bays were murdered becausethey were nanconfarmists and Naxa-lites. Nat all af them were acti-vists; indeed very few o.f them were.Some were friends; many were neigh-bours; athers happened to. have tal-ked to. same o.f them ance ar twice.

The big business cancerns (there arequite a few at Baranaga,r), the shap-keepers and the local political leaders

I ask my friends to. watch the waraf Bangladesh. It is nat yet a classstruggle but a mere clash af interestsbetween twa groups af colonialpeople. But there may emerge athird graup-the real revalutianarieswho. will crush the first twa. Lookand learn. Here in India alSo. thereare . twa graups af hypocrites: therightists and the sa-c3lled leftists. So.think af yo.ur next step. Yau havealready made yaur path slippery.

as per the written instrudtians framheadquarters. It was we the lacalTOe bays who. built up the party infripura but aur service was nat suffi-ciently taken into. accaunt. Theleaders seldam asked us to. take partin the screening committee far admis-sian. As a result a large number ofspies entered the party and sabotagedour aperatians. By the beginning af1971 many efficient and trustedworkers had been arrested and impri-saned. Inside the TOC we had .agenuine feeling o.f bratherhood. Wewere ready to. die far ane anather.But this relatianship did nat lastlang because af the tactics af the threeleaders. Finally, they themselves werearrested. They were let dawn byIthe same peaple wham they hadtrusted mare than they did us.

Since my release I have left theparty and decided to complete mystudies. Besides, I shall taak a£terour small grocery-the only means o.four livelihood. But don't tbink thatI have betrayed the party. I havenot and I must not. The only thing[ want to. say is that for the timebeing West Bengal and Tripura haveno. bright future. West Bengal inpal1ticular will see bigger tragedies.Only the ~PI(ML) can save her framruination but it should rememberthat it will have to take the peapleby its side. 'People' is nat a myth.it is a, reality. Hawever, because ofindiscriminate murder af individualswhaever they may be-a teacher, amiddle pe3sant ar a policeman-andbecause af the so-called cultural re-valutio.n, people had nat came far-ward far their defence.

For FRONTIER contact

S. P. CHATTERJl<:E

Anather thing that weakened usas internal conflict and for this theultimate l1'espansibiIiltylies with the

ig Three" af aur party who camem Calcutta. Whatever they .did,

ey did accarding to. their whims and

anons, they '<lidit aut af fear andtout af lave Or sympathy. Wete slagans an the walls but seldam

'ed to. make the people understandtheory. Middle-class peaple are

sically opartunist land timid.augh sametimes they cry far a,

change, basically they prefer .thetatus qua. That is why they sup-

t the CPI (M) . They know thatthe CPI (M) will nat tum aver the;iystem, but help it to. run, it willmoreaver secure far them same con-t=essians. Naturally, when we raided

e schaols, burnt baaks ar beat uplCPI (M) students peaple ~gan ,to.

oubt our sincerity. I aften heardwhisperings behind me amang the

dents in my college that whatdhir had been daing was nat good.has been said earlier that many

boys and sympathisers werested while asleep. Thase who. gave

em shelter themselves betrayede boys. They waul-d: nat havee so. had Jley any layalty to. the

. A large number of boys areratting in jails. Nabody cares far

.r release. From my experiencecan say that revalutian depends an

participatian af the peaple. Basi-., the peaple do. no.t take any ini-

tive. This intiative shauld comem a revalutio.nary. He will createsituation favaurable far people's

ticip2tion. Far this hawever heuld have patience and farsighted-s. AlI these we ignared from the

art.