Naxalite leaders Kanu Sanyal, Souren Bose find fire has gone out of their movement

Kanu Sanyal and Souren Bose (second and fourth from left) on release from jailLast fortnight all eyes in West Bengal were turned towards Andhra Pradesh, eagerly awaiting the arrival of two things. One was 50 megawatts of extra power to be routed through the Orissa grid and the other was a copy of the judgement by the Andhra Pradesh High Court acquitting two front-ranking leaders of the Naxalite movement, Kanu Sanyal, 53, and Souren Bose, 55, of all charges in the now famous Parvatipuram Conspiracy Case.While Chief Minister Chenna Reddy's Congress(I) Government in Andhra Pradesh promptly released the additional energy to the none-too-friendly West Bengal, the aquittal orders were unusually late in coming. When the documents dated April 30 finally arrived on May 7, Sanyal and Bose received a hero's welcome outside the Alipore jail where they had been detained.Exactly 10 years ago, on May 1, 1969, Sanyal had announced the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) (CPI-ML) at a rally in Calcutta. On the same day, Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, who was home minister in the second United Front Government, was addressing another rally. Basu branded "Sanyal, Mazumdar and company" as "partly political and partly anti-social", and promised ruthless administrative measures against them. But in the intervening 10 years Basu has had a change of heart and took personal initiative in securing release of Naxalite leaders, Sanyal and Bose among them.Lengthy Trial: The Parvatipuram Conspiracy Case instituted in 1969 will go down in history as the most important landmark in the trial of communists after the Kanpur Conspiracy Case of 1923. Of the 140 people accused, 20 were killed in allegedly fake encounters with police. Charu Mazumdar, an accused and founding father of the Naxalbari movement died in custody on July 28, 1972. Sushital Roychowdhury, another accused and a prominent leader, died in hiding. The others were sentenced for various terms including life imprisonment.Seventeen of the accused, all of whom had- been sentenced for life, made an appeal before the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 1976. The hearing of the appeal drifted from courtroom to courtroom and the years rolled by. Finally, the hearing commenced on March 26 this year and the Andhra Pradesh Government made a counter-appeal. The two appeals were referred to a five-judge division bench and the hearing concluded on April 19. The judges rejected the state Government's plea unanimously, and ordered acquittal of 11 of the 17 appellants. Sanyal and Bose were among them.Requests from the ruling Left Front of West Bengal to withdraw the case were turned down by the Chenna Reddy Government, and finally it was left to the judiciary to settle the matter. It could hardly have been otherwise, since withdrawal of the case could only have meant a negation of the Congress approach towards political dissent.Sanyal and Bose, who spent four years in Vizag Central Jail, in a secluded enclosure guarded by electrified barbed-wire nets, moved into Alipore Central Jail in Calcutta in 1976. The news of their acquittal was communicated to them by their counsel on April 27.Naxalite Uprising: Both Sanyal and Bose come from the bustling North Bengal tea town of Siliguri. Together with Cham Mazumdar and Jangal Santhal, they masterminded the Naxalbari uprising on March 3, 1967, a day after the CPI-M to which they then belonged came to power for the first time in Bengal's history as a constituent of the first United Front.Charu Mazumdar-the founding fatherThe peasant uprising of Naxalbari, which was promptly lauded by Peking Radio ("front paw of Indian revolution") and the People's Daily ("spring thunder over India"), was soon suppressed by the United Front Government through an unprecedented police mobilization. Leaders like Mazumdar, Sanyal, Bose and Santhal were thrown out of the CPI-M, as a wave of expulsions gripped all state units of the party, particularly in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.The first United Front Government fell in 1968, and all Naxalite leaders were arrested during President's Rule. In 1969, the Leftists registered a landslide victory, and set the Naxalites free immediately on assuming office. But that in no way reduced the Naxalites' hostility towards the CPI-M ("neo-revisionists") and the CPI ("revisionists"). In subsequent years, at least 1,700 CPI-M and Naxalite workers were killed in street clashes.In 1970, Bose was sent to China by the CPI(ML) Central Committee to assess the views of Chinese leaders about the Indian situation. In Peking, leaders like Chou En-lai were bitterly critical of Charu Mazumdar's leadership. Bose's report of the conversation with Chou finally split the party into pro-Charu and anti-Charu factions.Improved Relations: As for now, the coldness in relations of the late '60s between the CPI-M and the Naxalites - or at least a section of them - has given way to a positive warmth. Both Sanyal and Bose are apparently grateful to the CPI-M for having taken keen interest in their release. Santhal, and the mercurial student leader, Asim Chatterjee, against whom no cases were pending outside the state, had been released earlier by the state Government. They too are obviously indebted to Basu.However, different break away factions of the Naxalites are still maintaining the earlier hostile stance toward the CPI-M. Many of them like the Vinod Misra group, have not yet rejected their earlier theory of creating red bases through individual murders. Others have given undertakings to the Central Government that they will abjure violence. During the 10 years, the "spring thunder" has virtually spent itself, and the "front paw" seems to have led the Indian revolution nowhere. Published By: AtMigration Published On: Mar 12, 2014 15:16 IST--- ENDS ---

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Naxalite leaders Kanu Sanyal, Souren Bose find fire has gone out of their movement

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