India- The spirit of legendary Comrade Gundahar Murmu- Part 2

This is the continuation from December 11.

By Harsh Thakor

In the view of an oberver, "The Sangh is inventing new form s of struggle with every passing day. They are utilizing Social boycott as weapon which was previous used by exploiters. Their heroic struggle in Padmagiri-Pandrapeni is a morale –booster to the rest of the country. I believe heart and soul if mass movements flourish all over India, Then Malkangiri will be the fist to establish Red rule in the country in the years to come. So all of us should support it and expand mass movements all over he country." Arguably in the last 3 decades mass agrarian revolutionary line was practiced by the Sangh more than any organization in India.

In Padmigeri-Pandrigani the Vigilance and fighting preparedness of the Sangh during the entire period of the enemy's all round attack, while the democratic Revolutionary Mass leaders were imprisoned with the main Sangh functionaries going underground, demonstrated coherence of planning in mass line. The awakened people and the Sangh cadre dealt with the enemy on their own initiative, organisational Skills and fighting potential which was testimony of the political prowess of the Sangh. The fact that the Adivasis armed themselves with traditional weapons in self –defence and protest ,encircling the police camp ,thwarting the contractors and the henchman from felling trees testified their practice of revolutionary mass line. It .set a base for major militant armed peasant struggles to occur. It was also the launching pad of creating revolutionary class consciousness of the Adivasis in carrying out an agrarian revolutionary movement, and winning over sections of the peasantry.

During the 1999 election campaign The Executive committee of the Sangh planned to concentrate it's election propaganda in the selected belts of the mass organization rather than carrying out an extensive campaign throughout the mass organisation's influence and work. The organization was divided into propaganda teams which would be sent through different pockets to organize mass meetings and suitable gatherings.

On May Day even regularly in the last decade the Malkangari   Adivasi Sangh has led a rally mobilize around 6000 persons. With intensive planning and organization. This year it led a rally of around 6000 Adivasis demanding implementation of Forest rights Act, demand of Jungle-jal zameen, scraping of bill that snatched land, rights from Adivasis, proper education facilities, distribution of paata lands re-instatement of retrenched workers opposing governments attempt to revive an act of colonial days which would snatch rights from Adivasis,and against atrocities on Operation Greenhunt. At one juncture police tried to brand tribal activists as maoists.4 programmes were held of highly qualitative success this year.; The convenor of the MZAS stated that a protracted campaign would now be launched against scrapping of acts which protected tribal land rights and against Operation Greenhunt and Hindu fascist forces. Significant that he still felt the time was not ripe to wage armed struggle and the Maoist armed squads could not sustain any mass movement it attempted to create or replenish its losses .

Sadly he was virtually paralyzed due to prolonged strain and illness from 2003 and was forced to be inactive. His absence was a major blow to the revolutionary movement which could not be replenished.

The failure of the Maoist party to give direction to movement in Lalgarh in recent times is an illustration of weakness of practice of mass line, No doubt initiated by the most creative pioneering efforts of the C.P.I.(M.L.)Peoples War under KIshenji the Maoists made incredible strides and at one stage seemed on verge of a victory but finally the chinks were exposed in their armoury, with a revolutionary peasant association nit re-organized . The failure in Lalgarh could be attribute to inadequate depth of building of agrarian revolutionary movement or analysis of weakness of subjective factors as earlier practiced by comrades like Murmu in the peasants association and replacing peoples movements with armed squads. It was this very agrarian revolutionary line that Gundahar Murmu lit the spark from the 1960's. which sadly could not turn into a prairie fire but succumbed to left deviation. I would have loved to visualise Comrade Murmu working in Lalgarh giving the movement direction by accurately and dialectically assessing the subjective factors. Arguably the intervention of the Communist Party Re-Organization Centre of India(Marxist-Leninist) to which Murmu belonged was greatly missed here with respect to opposing left adventurist tendencies by armed squads in relation to the PCPA an rightist deviation of PCPA towards participating in elections. It was also greatly missed in the peasant movement in Bhangar recently which eventually capitulated to right deviation. He Kshet Mazdoor Krishak Sabha existed till the time of Murmu's death but we never read any reports of its activities for very long.

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Sadly today 10 years after his death no revolutionary has been able to replace Murmu in Bengal by duplicating his role in re-organizing a peasant association and a revolutionary peasant movement. Such a comrade wasn’t very need of the hour with neo- fascism accentuation and right opportunism prevailing predominantly in the non-Maoist camp. He would have been an ornament in Bengal today in organizing solidarity movements against Hindutva fascsim and in combating Operation Green Hunt at its very core. It is also a deep regret that none of the homage memorial programmes in his memory are given publicity on social media like for other martyred comrade.

The presence of the CPRCI(M.L.) which Comrade Murmu belonged to is greatly missed in shaping the important workers or peasant movements in West Bengal today, It is the role of such a group to bring the scattered party forces together.

The End.