E-Paper
Naxalbari 2006
?Dhappabaji (gimmickry), it?s all dhappabaji,? says 74-year-old Ramesh Ray Chaudhuri softly. He says he doesn?t believe a single word that the politicians say these days.
‘Dhappabaji (gimmickry), it’s all dhappabaji,’ says 74-year-old Ramesh Ray Chaudhuri softly. He says he doesn’t believe a single word that the politicians say these days. For despite the West Bengal government tom-tomming progress all around, there has been no real progress where he lives. That’s why he saw no point in attending the rally addressed by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee only a day before we meet. “Anyway, I’m too old for all that now,” he adds.
Sitting in his blindingly white clothes, scraggly white beard and a red tilak on his forehead, he looks like someone who could have said the same words about the political class 49 years ago, but with much more force — and violent consequence. But as it turns out, this resident of the village of Naxalbari in Darjeeling district had no time for cynicism in March 1967. He was then, like everyone in the village and beyond, mortally afraid.
Today, Naxalbari looks like any other North Bengal village. On either side where we sit just outside a shop selling bedsheets and blankets, there’s a mosque and a buzzing video rental store. The stereotypes of rural Bengal — a rickety chai shop, hutments surrounding one red flag atop a tall pole, the office of the Block Land and Land Reforms officer — cohabit with fresher images — a young man being given a facial in a saloon, Anand Restaurent (sic) and Bar, a BJP campaign shack on the roadside doubling as a cycle shop.
The bustle of Siliguri is 35 km away, while the airplane that I came out of only hours ago is probably still parked on the tarmac of Bagdogra airport that is 11 km away. And yet, as one approaches Naxalbari on the road, the small town noises of Bagdogra suddenly give way to the 4 p.m. sound of crickets chirping in the tea gardens on either side. If there are any signs that the ‘Naxals’ have a presence in Naxalbari, it is subliminal and part of urban rural legend. This is, after all, not CPI(ML) country. It’s the CPI(M) that rules here.
At the small CPI(M) election campaign office in Ghatani More, zonal committee member Dulal Dey seems almost resigned to his fate: another whopping victory for the party. “We don’t have any competition. There are some parties which appear and then disappear as suddenly.” Almost magically, a Maruti with the BJP’s lotus symbol pasted at every conceivable spot on its body buzzes past us. For Dey, it could well have been a fly.
Through his stubble, the communist leader tells me how there has been no problem — or ‘incident’ — in Naxalbari for a long time. “There may be some 20-30 of them operating from somewhere, but not in Naxalbari. Their method of using terror and violence has no place here.” A man next to him pipes up, “That sort of thing happens only in Purulia and places like that, not here.” There is general agreement all around.
This is probably the only thing on which that old man Ray Chaudhuri agrees with the CPI(M) leader. “A few people come every year to observe Charu Mazumdar’s death anniversary” — he fumbles with the date — “on July 28, and that’s that”. From a position of chronological advantage, he narrates how at around 11.30 in the morning on that fateful day in March 1967, the residents of Naxalbari got to hear that ‘they’ had entered the main market. Everyone ran to their houses for protection. “I ran straight to the market, but saw nothing.” But by the next few hours, a body had been found and reports of Maoists looting and setting fire to houses had started doing the rounds. “Six ‘ministers’ came to Naxalbari a couple of days later and said that they will take steps after they talked to the police. The whole village gheraoed the ‘ministers’ and said, ‘Everyone is here in front of you. Take steps now.’ Everyone was terrified,” says Ray Chaudhuri.
But life without the Naxal menace does not mean life without any hardships for the people of Naxalbari. Early last year, scores of people died of malaria. The local hospital was apparently not stocked with enough medicine. For a place that has been supposedly under the watchful eye of a party that prioritises the concerns of the farming class, it was nothing short of a scandal.
Bijoy Kumar Roy, who lives in Siliguri but knows Naxalbari well, was a CPI(M) candidate in the 1978 panchayat elections. He lost to a Congress candidate and never “tried his luck again”. He sincerely believes that the Left Front government has no time for villages like Naxalbari. From the straight pucca road leading to Naxalbari, he shows me construction work going on at the edge of Siliguri. “The government captured the land from the Chandmani Tea Estate and is building a satellite town. What happens to those working in the tea garden? The Left will lose seats in the Dooars for the same reason.”
Such discontent doesn’t seem to bother Dulal Dey. “This time, what has been significant is that even ordinary ‘apolitical’ people, especially women, have come out in support of the party.” After a small speech of outrage against the Election Commission’s decision to stagger polls in West Bengal in five phases (“This is not Bihar,” seems to be his basic point), he launches into poll-promise mode. “We have gone on a drive to see that every village is electrified and drinking water is made available to all. Schools that a few years ago would be shut because of storms are now proper buildings. The chief minister talked yesterday about providing midday meals to schoolchildren, which is so necessary. How can you learn when you go hungry?”
When I ask him whether it’s not odd that even after more than 30 years these provisions have not already been taken care of, Dey’s answer could have been coming from any party comrade’s lips in Kolkata or Delhi, “That’s because of central governments constantly holding back funds for Bengal for political reasons. Now things are getting better.” Just to show that he means business, Dey lets me know that he and his party colleagues in Naxalbari have petitioned the state government for a local fire brigade and a college.
“They’ve been talking about a college for exactly the last 20 years,” snorts Ray Chaudhuri. But surely, I ask him, things have improved under Buddhadeb-babu? “Dhappabaji,” he repeats, seemingly out of sync with the rest of Bengal’s opinion of the chief minister. “There’s not enough drinking water here. Many deep tubewells have just languished for years and haven’t been repaired. The hospital is appalling and not enough houses have electricity. So what progress are we talking about?”
Bijoy Ray points to the lure of power. “I had friends in the party. But being in power does things to you. People who smoked bidis now drive Qualises without having anything to show for them.” As he drives me back from Naxalbari to Siliguri, past the cricket-chirping tea gardens on either side, he says with his eyes firmly on the road in front, “There are still Naxals in this area. They just don’t say that they are, aloud. How else can you explain things coming to a standstill every time ‘they’ call for a bandh?” I don’t answer him. But I remember the answer provided by the resident cynic and seen-it-all of Naxalbari, Ramesh Ray Chaudhuri: Fear.
