Several weeks after the Nandigram carnage, we still do not know how many people have exactly been killed, how many women have been gangraped and if the children and young girls missing from the area will ever return. But we know that some twenty dead bodies have been found so far and at least two rape victims are alive to narrate their horrendous experience. We also know that Nandigram was not just another case of unprovoked police firing, but this savage operation was planned days in advance and carried out jointly by the police and armed CPI(M) goons. Nandigram clearly marks the biggest blot on the three-decades-old rule of the CPI(M) led Left Front in West Bengal.
The shock and anger generated by the state-sponsored carnage has been so massive that some other wings of the state had to move in quickly to absorb some of the shock and reflect a bit of the massive public outrage. The Governor of West Bengal made some public statements questioning the legitimacy of the use of force, and the Kolkata High Court termed the police action unconstitutional and asked the CBI to begin a probe right away before the evidence was lost or destroyed. Reassuringly enough, the ‘activism’ of the Governor and the High Court has not succeeded in lulling the people into inaction. The working people and the intelligentsia of Bengal have been particularly vocal in their protests and in spite of growing public scepticism regarding the efficacy of bandh as a means of protest, the state observed a truly spontaneous bandh on 16 March defying the CPI(M)’s threats to keep life ‘normal’.
Initially, the Chief Minister and the CPI(M) leadership bluntly tried to justify the operation. The CPI(M) said it had become absolutely imperative to send such a huge posse of police to the villages of Nandigram to restore the ‘rule of law’ and resume normal ‘governance’ in the area and they blamed it on the people of Nandigram for ‘inviting and provoking’ the police action by their stubborn opposition and resistance. The Chief Minister told the State Assembly that the police had to open fire in ‘self-defence’! But in the face of countrywide public condemnation and acute political isolation, the CPI(M) has finally been compelled to utter a few words of regret and the Chief Minister has now claimed ‘moral responsibility’ for the March 14 operation.
Such empty words however mean little. It should be remembered that after the first major expression of popular resentment against the proposed SEZ at Nandigram on January 3, the district administration had called a peace meeting on the 6th afternoon even as armed CPI(M) goons swooped down on the area and went about killing and injuring people in a targeted manner. The Chief Minister had then given an assurance that nothing would be done against the wishes of the local people, yet the mayhem of 7 January was re-enacted in such a big and barbaric way on 14 March. If the Chief Minister is serious about accepting moral responsibility for the savage killings and violence, he must first resign and offer unconditional apology to the people. And instead of raising fingers at others and dishing out irrelevant facts, the CPI(M) General Secretary must self-criticise for his party’s sordid role in planning and perpetrating the carnage.
Thirty years ago the CPI(M) had come to power in West Bengal promising relief and democracy for the people and unfurling the banner of struggle against the Congress and the central government. Today the CPI(M) is known for its new-found bonhomie with big business, growing collaboration with the Congress and ruthless imposition of the entire gamut of neo-liberal policies emanating from the Centre. Unable to manufacture political consent for this wholesale reversal of policies, the party is increasingly resorting to terror to bulldoze its own traditional supporters into submission. The Singur sell-out to the Tatas and the Nandigram carnage have now become the hallmarks of the CPI(M) not only in West Bengal but all over the country.
For revolutionary communists, the tasks now are clearly cut out. We must stand solidly by the fighting peasants of Bengal and intensify the campaign to secure justice for the carnage-ravaged people of Nandigram. We must channelise the shock and anger of the people into a powerful democratic movement. And there is also the larger communist task that we must fulfil at this historic juncture. The obvious derailment and degeneration of the CPI(M) has caused tremendous anguish among Left ranks and well-wishers all over the country. We have to make sure that this anguish does not lead to frustration and passivity but is transformed into a renewed resolve to hold high the red flag. Like Naxalbari in 1967, Nandigram is growing into another watershed in the history of the communist movement. We must reach out to all communist ranks and sympathisers and expand and strengthen the CPI(ML) in the heat of the struggle. The success of the March 23 Inquilab Rally in Delhi must be converted into new energy and initiative in this direction.
