Lalgarh and the Subsequent Adivasi Struggle in West Bengal
In the first fortnight of November '08 a big rural struggle surfaced in West Bengal, a struggle that continued for many days and was expanding in nature. Besides, another peculiarity apart from many other ones, drew attention: the struggle was that from the very beginning the fight was conducted not under the aegis of or not under the direction of any party of establishment. Moreover, the Lalgarh movement was almost two concurrent struggles: [1] the struggle of the villagers of Lalgarh Block [Mandal in govt Hindi] against police atrocities, and [2] the struggle of Adivasi people of West Bengal in general in support of the Lalgarh struggle, which had some unspoken words to say beneath their actions and declarations. We shall deal with the events in some detail as many of them were deformed in established media.
The event started after 2nd Nov. WB chief minister along with multi billionaire industrialist Jindal and Indian minister of Iron & Steel Mr Pasowan went to Salboni in West Midnapur district for a foundation stone laying ceremony of a steel factory, which was later declared as a SEZ. While returning back from the ceremony riding on a mile long motorcade a landmine burst took place at the fag end of the convoy, which, as the police smelt afterwards, was due to an explosive, remote controlled by wire. But the most strange, staggering event occured next day when the police looked for miscreants not from nearby villages, but at places about 40 km away surrounding Lalgarh and arrested 3 homeward-bound students as Maoist-extremist in charge of sedition, blast etc! The police also tried to arrest a peasant who came to hire agricultural workers. Some women workers resisted that. Police raided the village at night and had those women workers severely beaten including an almost 80 years old Adivasi woman. Those women bled profusely, had their bone broken and perhaps one of them would loose sight for ever! These tortures were enough to open the floodgate of decades-old tolerance and a deluge of protesting Adivasi people and other inhabitants there put the Lalgarh Police Station in captivity. The arrested ones were freed. Those Adivasi people came with whatever 'weapons' they found at hand and the police trembled in fear. Roads were dug up and trees were fallen to make Lalgarh unapproachable by police cars/jeeps, reminding a form of struggle originated in Nandigram. But more events were at store. The Adivasi people of West Bengal were called up by the Bharat Jakat Majhi Madwa ? an organisation of traditional chiefs of different levels of the Adivasi people to join the fight wherever they are. Events of digging-up of roads and tree-felling were being reported from one place after another. Jhargram Sub-Division was on the verge of being cut-off. But after a few days one or two influential Majhi-s, who were well connected with the govt, vacillated somewhat. They came to the barricading Adivasi youth at some places near Jhargram to soften them by telling that govt would take some steps, would consider few other demands and so the blockade might be lifted. It bore a strange fruit. Those high level Majhi-s were jeered and sent back ? And a mist of disbelief started to cast shadow on their age-old tradition: tradition of putting unquestionable faith on their chiefs, of obediently executing their orders including orders of joining Wars of Independence against the British and Dikku [native exploiters ? moneylenders, contractors, landlords, etc]. The fight went on spontaneously. Everybody knows that Adivasis have their own way of maintaining linkage among villages spread over vast area, and that was seen again. Adivasi youth took an important role. Some other Adivasi organisations also participated in the struggle with full might, like the Kurmi youth and their social network, the Jharkhand Dishum Party - at the call of which Adivasis blocked road and railway transport in Hooghly, Bardhaman, Birbhum and other south Bengal districts. A Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities [PSBJC in Bengali Acronym or PCPA in English abbreviation] was formed in Lalgarh from Day-1 of the struggle. that committee spread its message of forming such committees everywhere in an assembly of Adivasis at Lalgarh, but that did not take effect, the struggle rode on a wave of spontaneity. The demands of Lalgarh people were: # culprit policemen must be punished; # the police super must come to Lalgarh and pray pardon by clutching his ears [a rural way of begging pardon]; # govt must take financial responsibility of treatment of the injured persons; # the injured must be compensated by the govt; # thenceforth the police would not raid any village from the dusk, without arrest warrants and without taking along with them local responsible persons; ?etc. The general Adivasi movement demanded that the govt had to listen to Lalgarh. The govt, the CPIM party, all seemed toothless; they couldn't do a thing other than howling about 'Maoist Plot'! They could not see the fact that the Maoists had no presence at all in lots of places in the vast tract covered by the Adivasi movement. The so-called great power CPIM, all its armed squads and hooligans, the govt forces that didn't hesitate to kill people at Nandigram ? all had to sit mum! After almost six weeks the govt had to relent, some demands were met, Lalgarh lifted its blockade. The blockades of other places had been lifted not synchronously, some perhaps a bit earlier, because the struggle was not being conducted systematically under a unified command.
A question naturally springs up: why the Adivasi people of West Bengal burst out so impulsively? Is it solely against the police atrocities in Lalgarh? Though seemingly they fought against the police atrocities in Lalgarh, the spread and intensity of the struggle suggest that the wrath accumulated in them for ages showed a manifestation through this struggle. The Adivasi people in general, even in West Bengal, are victims of extreme poverty, starvation, semi?-starvation and they had been under intense exploitation of British Colonialist power and native Dikkus or contractor-usurers and non-peasant-land-owners in the British era and Dikkus afterwards. In the British period they fought the state power time and again, among which the wars led by Sidho and Kano, by Birsa Munda had found their places in the pages of history. Once the exploited toiling poor of WB put their faith on the left parties like CPI, CPIM etc and so did the exploited toiling poor Adivasis. They thought that under the Left rule they will get at least some relief from the harsh exploitation if not a total freedom from that. But they got only some titbits of governmental relief that looks as if pieces of breads thrown to them under the left reign too; plus some city roads-plaza were named after their leaders and perhaps a few statues of those leaders as 'extra, free'. Exploitation of non-peasant-landowners, contractors and usurers are still very much there. As extra, the Adivasi toilers have to face the age-old 'custom' of social exclusion, inequality and insult-abuse-neglect of the rural gentry (or Bhardalok in Bengali, the opposite being Chhotolok). The Sarkaari Babu-s are ditto. The behaviour of Police personnel towards them are a variant of the same: Adivasis get very abhorrent abominable behaviour and police terror. There is only some job-reservation for govt jobs meant for them, but only an infinitesimally small fraction of Adivasis can really get job through that because of lack of proper educational qualification. In that 'reserved' floor space of higher education or govt jobs they are to face jeering of sons of the Bhadralok as if they entered a sacred space only by govt benevolence. All these were piling up as if like a dormant volcano in the minds of Adivasis; the Lalgarh incident just ignited that volcano.
But we should keep in mind another aspect too. It is indeed true that Adivasis are victim of severe poverty, starvation, semi-starvation, harsh exploitation of contractors, usurers, non-peasant-land-owners, neglect of govt administration coupled with insult of the high-caste gentry etc but through their considerably extensive and intense struggle from the first day till the last of the recent movement Adivasis never voiced demands of petty relief measures connected with so called 'development' nor any demands for increasing titbits of govt 'crumbs' meant for 'poverty stricken' people. Then what are those they wanted to express through their struggle? They demanded, among other things, the police super must come to Lalgarh and pray pardon by clutching his ears [a rural way of begging pardon]; and not only that ? at a place near Jhargram town when some police officers went to lift the road block and sent some Adivasi youth to police custody, the Adivasis quickly assembled in great number, tied those police officers with a tree as their 'prisoners', and only exchanged 'prisoners' of two sides before letting the police withdraw back. Through all these they wanted to tell that they no longer want to endure the way the police and administration enforces the will of the exploiters and their representatives on the toiling people, on the society at large. They demanded that govt must admit its guilt, the officers including the top ones must get their punishment straight from the people in front of them. Naturally, such demands cannot be met in this social structure or under this rule. But what they did speaks out something more. The class conscious proletariat knows that all these can be met only if such a 'state' can be formed in which the people have the power to hire and fire govt employees and officials, which means only elected peoples representatives, regularly elected and called back if needed, will have the actual 'power' of administration, judiciary, law enforcing agencies. So by this they in an unspoken, un-'conscious' way (i.e. unconscious about actually what they want, under what conditions they can be achieved and in what way to advance to that goal) they voiced their desire for 'real' or 'total' democracy; which will only be possible by carrying on a peoples democratic revolution. It is not an important, vital agendum for Adivasis alone, rather it can be achieved through struggle of all oppressed-exploited people of this country together; and only the working class can lead the toiling masses towards this goal.
The second most important aspect of this struggle is that the Adivasi people in general, from the very beginning of this struggle, were not guided by any established party. They neither went to any such party for help or guidance, nor did let any party poke their noses in. Even various groups of Jharkhandis could not interfere. Ms Chunibala Hansda, the sole MLA of Jharkhand Party didn't gain any foothold there, rather she had to walk in a demonstration in support of that struggle in Jhargram to get a footing. This is also an important and noticable aspect of this struggle.
Thus far we discussed about 'Parties'; but in another field too a 'change' appeared. After the struggle went on for a couple of week or so, the govt administration tried to interfere to 'normalize' the situation taking the help of some influential tribal chiefs who had both respectable acceptance among the Adivasis and also somewhat good amount of closeness or relation with the administration. Some Adivasi Chiefs got involved in that administrative game plan. They discussed in the administrative office and went public with the news that govt had accepted some demands; the remaining issues would be discussed later; and on that basis the roadblock movement would be lifted. They went to some 'trouble spots' near Jhargram town to this effect. But they were spellbound seeing the mass-reaction. The gathered mass of Adivasi people just ignored their words and seeing the situation turning out-of-hand they quickly came back. Thus, almost silently, a big change occurred. Adivasi people had struggled in the past against foreign rulers and native dikkus with a age-old tradition, tradition of obeying their chiefs, tradition of even joining wars of Independence (Hul) at their call ? and on that particular time, for the sake of continuing and advancing their struggle, they defied the age old custom!
Thus the Adivasi people broke up their relationship with old parties, they overrode the command of old leadership, their influence, even the command of some chiefs who seemed to them as vacillating or compromising. Thus they broke apart the old LAKSHMAN REKHA and showed their courage of taking their own fate in their hands, of taking the rein of their own activities. But they are not yet conscious of the fact that the desire they expressed through their struggle cannot reach its logical culmination until and unless they, along with all the oppressed and exploited people of India, develop the struggle of establishing total democracy and put an end to this oppressive and exploitative regime. They are to realize that only through the peoples democratic revolution under the leadership of the proletariat they can ultimately lead their struggle towards correct finale.
But how can they? How can it be expected from Adivasis at this juncture of history? The class only which can attract the Adivasis to this path, the working class, is unorganized, disarrayed. There is no stream of revolutionary struggle in the society, nor is there any class party of the proletariat. The advanced class-conscious section of the working class must understand that till the working class develop a separate stream of revolutionary movement, till they create their own party, such struggles like the one discussed cannot march towards the truthful conclusion and likely to fall in the trap of bourgeois, petit-bourgeois parties. For that purpose, the working class must organize their own class, must build up their own party.
Last few years saw big struggles in India, obviously in today's measure keeping in mind present frame of reference; such struggles in which the lower strata of the society, the inhabitants of bottommost layer had shown signs of awakening and through their struggle they are raising their heads. If we count from the beginning of 2006: # the Kalinganagar Adivasis faced police firing, the subsequent movement almost crippled the a big zone affecting the Steel Belt and the struggle continued for quite some time; # in Singur and Nandigram, particularly in the later one, it was the bottommost stratum of the society that took the decisive steps ? like the insurgence in the first week of January 2007 and re-capturing Nandigram on 16th March after the police and CPIM goons took hold of Nandigram by a bloodbath; # the big fight of the Maharashtra Dalits; # the so called ration-revolt in rural Bengal and recently # the struggle of Adivasis against the govt attempt of uprooting them at the behest of CESC - a the House of Goenka company which holds the monopoly of supplying electricity in and around Calcutta and industrial zone and so on. Now Lalgarh and subsequent Adivasi struggle is added to the list. Seen from this perspective, Lalgarh is not an isolated incident. Rather all these show the so-far-very-narrow but still running stream of struggle or rebellion that is flowing at the bottom of the society. All these show that a restlessness is being developed among the toiling poor. But it is also a fact that at present the strength of the rebels and rebellions are still in no match to that the domination of revisionism-reformism present in the society. So there is every chance of people going back to square one after a rebellion. So, besides the effort of organising the advanced section of the working class it becomes also a task that the advanced and thinking elements thrown up by the struggles need to be attracted to the stream of revolutionary stream, to organize them in revolutionary force tirelessly.
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