CALCUTTA, 3 October 2004 — Refusing to take a leaf out of Andhra Pradesh’s book, West Bengal’s ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) has announced that it will not hold talks with Naxalites, or left-wing extremists, unless they give up violence.
State CPI(M) boss, Anil Biswas, said recently that “peace talks are not possible if Naxalites keep exploding mines. They must denounce violence and adopt the path of democracy if they are eager to negotiate with the state government.”
The ultra-left Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People’s War, or PW, is holding the administration to ransom in some rural areas of the state accusing the Left Front government of pursuing anti-poor and pro-rich policies.
PW opposes what it calls the “CPI(M)’s post-colonial imperialism and feudalism” and exhorts its followers not to be fooled by the CPI(M)-led Left Front’s conventional politics, trade union activity or farm workers’ agitation but to seize political power by force.
Significantly, some Naxalite cells have sprouted in the capital, Calcutta, and the adjoining industrial belt adding to the government’s worries.
Anil also defended the decision of Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya’s government not to attend last week’s conference of chief ministers of Naxalite-affected states.
The conference was convened by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajshekhar Reddy in Hyderabad to enable chief ministers of nine left extremism-hit states to compare notes and evolve a joint strategy to handle the worsening situation.
A report prepared by the federal Home Ministry states that as many as 125 districts in 12 states are affected by left-wing extremism. Anil was reacting to West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee leader Manas Bhuiyan’s advice to the state government to open a communication channel with Naxalites to bring them to the negotiating table. Manas warned that police and paramilitary battalions deployed in growing numbers in Naxaliteaffected areas were not a permanent solution but merely a face-saving formula.
CPI(M) insists that some Congress and Trinamool Congress leaders are secretly in league with radicals for electoral dividends but opposition parties say the charge is ridiculous.
PW has gunned down at least 20 CPI(M) workers besides policemen, including Madhab Das, officer in charge of Bundwan police station, who was murdered last November.
The state government claimed to have wiped off the PW after the arrest of Asit Sarkar, the outfit’s military chief in December, but the PW lost no time to prove how hollow the claim was by repeatedly ambushing policemen.
In February, PW killed eight policemen in a land mine blast near Kokrakjhar town, 230 km from Calcutta. The blasts were triggered after Buddhadev’s visit to the restive Midnapore region.
West Bengal officials say that PW has forged a tactical alliance with Maoist guerrillas in neighboring states and in Nepal. They say that the PW network is in tact although the West Bengal government has thrown more than 500 PW cadres into jail.
Human rights groups have accused the state government of resorting to midnight arrests without warrants and torture of suspects, including women, in the red-versus-red battle.
According to government dossiers, PW — formed in 2000 — has killed dozens in broad daylight, snatched hundreds of police weapons and established “liberated zones” in three least developed districts of West Bengal.
What is most worrying for the Left Front is the support PW — basically a peasant movement — clearly enjoys among urban intellectuals ranging from writers and poets to teachers, engineers, doctors and even mid-ranking government officials.
