The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress has ruled West Bengal for six years now. Her party had defeated the Communist Party of India (Marxist) -led Left parties in the 2011 Assembly polls, and decimated them in the 2016 polls. Overall, the democratic Left in India has seldom been this feeble since independence, both in terms of its legislative presence and strength on the ground. The radical left movement is a shadow of its glory years of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Why then has Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah picked Naxalbari as the spot to embark on a 15-day tour to connect with booth-level workers of his party?
Naxalbari is a village in Siliguri in West Bengal and was the birthplace of the radical left movement that started in the late 1960s.
Briefing the media on the party chief’s itinerary, Textiles Minister Smriti Irani said on Monday that Naxalbari is known for the call to overthrow the Indian State. She said over the years Sangh Parivar cadres have suffered violent attacks from the cadres of the Left parties.
Irani said the party chief’s visit to Naxalbari will be a message that the BJP stands by its workers who are facing attacks from Left cadres. The BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have long alleged attacks on their workers by Left cadres in Kerala, and earlier in Bengal.
Significantly, Irani equated the democratic Left, which comprises the CPI(M), CPI, Forward Bloc, Revolutionary Socialist Party and a few others, with the radical left Naxalite and Maoist groups that have influence in tribal areas of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and parts of Bihar and Maharashtra.
The Naxalite movement, as it came to be known, inspired many educated youths to take up arms against the Indian state. The Naxalite groups broke away from the CPI(M) in 1968 and formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969. Soon the CPI (ML) splintered into many parts.
But among the principal enemies of CPI(ML) and its offshoots were the cadres of the democratic Left parties, particularly the CPI (M). From 1977 to 2011, the Bengal police under the CPI (M)-led Left Front government in that state carried out several police actions against Naxalites/Maoists.
Over the years, CPI(M) leaders have been at pains to clarify that they believe in parliamentary democracy, which the Naxalites don’t. But CPI(M)’s political rivals have seldom lost opportunities to liken them to Naxalites/Maoists.
In 2009, Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee ran a sustained campaign that “Maoists and Marxists are two sides of the same coin. They are comrades in arms.” In 2010, DMK chief M Karunanidhi also accused the CPI(M) of harbouring sympathy for Naxalites, which was met by strong protests from the CPI(M) leadership.
By visiting Naxalbari, the BJP chief aims to liken the CPI(M) and other left parties; Leftist students’ unions in Indian universities and leftist intellectuals to supporters of anti-national Naxalites and Maoists. Incidentally, the visit comes a day after Maoists killed 25 paramilitary personnel in Chhattisgarh on Monday.
Post the Chhattisgarh ambush, one prominent television channel even asked what student leaders like Kanhaiya Kumar might have to say about the Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh. Kumar is a member of the CPI-affiliated All India Students Federation.
As for Naxalbari, it ceased to be the hub of the radical left by the 1980s. In the last two assembly polls in West Bengal, Naxalbari, which now is Matigara-Naxalbari assembly seat and reserved for the Scheduled Castes, has been a Congress stronghold. In 2011, the CPI (ML) candidate received a measly two per cent vote share. In 2016, while the Congress won the seat, the BJP candidate was at number three and managed a healthy 20 per cent vote share.
But for the Sangh Parivar, the Left parties present an ideological threat that they consider greater than any that Congress or other centrist parties can ever mount.
Politically, the Left parties currently rule two small states– Kerala and Tripura. In Parliament, their combined strength in Lok Sabha is an abysmal 11 and a poor 9 in Rajya Sabha. But the presence of Leftist students’ unions in colleges and universities, and of leftist intellectuals in academia, remains strong.
With the BJP having decimated Congress not just politically but also ideologically, the Left is the only force in the current political scenario that can potentially provide the ideological linchpin to any anti-BJP social and political formation– or that is the assessment among Sangh Parivar strategists.
The Sangh Parivar, led by the BJP, its political arm, would like to end this probable threat. Shah’s visit to Naxalbari is set to highlight the “anti-national” positions of the Leftist parties, student leaders and academics, and is part of the effort to purge leftist influence from centres of culture and education.