The Eastern UP region, comprising some parts of Chandauli and Mirzapur districts and almost the whole of the Sonbhadra district, is to a large extent a hilly, forest region inhabited by many tribal communities — Kols, Panikas, Kharvars etc. — apart from non-tribal population.
Using a landmine blast by the CPI(Maoist) as a pretext, the Mulayam government has unleashed heavy state repression in this region. Apart from innocent poor people, the repression was politically targeted against CPI (ML). On Nov. 23, the Party’s Chandauli district office at Mughalsarai was raided and ransacked by police when the office was locked and all comrades were away at a demonstration. The locks were broken and important files and papers were seized, though the police and administration have not dared to accept it officially. Police raided the houses of RYA leaders Tilakdhari Bind (Zila Panchayat Member) and Sudama Yadav and also Chandauli Party DC member Naseem Shah. On Nov. 24, Comrade Shankar Kol, district President of AIALA was arrested from a dharna at Mirzapur district HQ, tortured brutally in unacknowledged illegal police custody, pressurising him to give a statement implicating the top Party leadership in November 20 blast. However when he refused to budge despite the most inhuman torture, he was sent to jail on fake charge of protecting ‘Naxals’. Comrade Shankar Kol is the main leader of the party in Khoradih area where the MCC once had sizeable influence but has gradually become weak. The area has seen some successful land struggles led by the Party, where 350 Bighas of land have recently been distributed. In Comrade Shankar’s leadership, the area was developing as a strong bastion of people’s resistance against the forces of reaction.
On November 25, the death of Ram Chandra Kol, husband of Shanti Devi village Pradhan of Hinout-Narkati, in police custody, was reported. His family and relatives are CPI (ML) supporters. He, along with three other family members was arrested, two days after the blast, on an allegation of providing food to a ‘Maoist’ squad. The heinous mode of torture perpetrated on Kol was truly barbaric — his thighs were torn apart at their joint. Such brutality seems even worse when one takes into account the fact that Kol was already disabled; as a labourer, he had lost both his hands from the wrists in a blast while cutting stones!
The fascist dimensions that the state repression was acquiring, was revealed in administration’s open collusion with the ‘Sriram Sena’, a private army of landlords from the backward Rajbhar caste of Bihar, formed with an avowed claim to eliminate Naxalism. (So much for those who had faith in the potential of ‘backwardism’ to be a bulwark against fascism!).
Under the title ‘Deployment of Sriram Sena of Bihar in Naugarh forests’, the national daily Hindustan wrote on December 13 – “after two big actions by Naxalites in Majhigai and Hinaut Ghat, Sriram Sena squads, arriving here at district police’s invitation, have started combing with police in Naugarh forest area. The first batch of 70 armed men from Purvi Block of Bihar reached here on Saturday night. The Superintendent of Police provided them police, PAC and CRPF escort. Through their relatives in naxal-infested areas, Sriram Sena jawans have started laying traps. Sena chieftain Musafir Rajbhar claimed that he would return only after elimination of naxalites”.
At this juncture, the self-proclaimed champion of Dalits, Mayawati and her party preferred to maintain silence, while the BJP and the Congress were demanding, still more repressive measures to tackle the ‘menace of naxalism’ and the CPI(M) leadership, in their true ‘consultancy’ role, issued a statement, advising the govt. to take measures to win the confidence of the tribal masses so that the ‘youth from naxal-hit areas could be lured to join border paramilitary forces, as proposed by UPA Defence Minister Pranab Mukerjee’.
When this state-sponsored terror was in full swing without a single voice of protest, the CPI (ML) came out with a bold political initiative. The Party State Secretary and PB member Comrade Akhilendra Pratap Singh went on a 72-hour fast in Naugarh, which later turned into a fast-unto-death. Though apparently a passive form of protest, the fast actually proved to be the most appropriate form of political intervention, which unleashed the initiative of the masses, despite all sorts of manoeuvres and heavy repression by the state. Tribal masses, holding high red flags, from almost all parts of the region, marched to Naugarh to join protest-solidarity meetings at the fast venue, which became a centre of mass resistance against state autocracy.
In response, the Mulayam govt. adopted a two-pronged strategy of ‘repression and relief’. Along with the most brutal repression, Samajwadi party MLAs, in order to keep the poor, toiling masses in good humour and preserve them as their vote bank, were shedding crocodile tears on the backwardness of the area and parroting the pet liberal theory of naxalism being a ‘socio-economic problem’ instead of a ‘law and order problem’. Even Mulayam Singh, addressing students in Lucknow University, spoke in the same vein. The Administration sponsored some stage-managed shows to isolate us, namely, a mass meeting against naxalism, under the leadership of a hired tribal leader, just one day before the fast was to start. Another meeting of people’s representatives was held addressed by the District Magistrate himself, just in front of the venue of the fast, where all sorts of sops from development, from to land to various relief measures were offered, of course on the condition of distancing from and opposing naxalism and CPI (ML)!
However, the administration was forced to beat a retreat in the face of ever-widening support for the fast, which fast evolved as a movement. Other democratic sections of the society started joining it. The Chakiya Bar Association observed a one-day strike. Human rights activists, cultural personalities and democratic intellectuals came in support. Sandeep Pandey of NAPM, Prof. Deepak Malik of BHU, Chittaranjan Singh of PUCL, Dr. Anand Deepayan of PUHR and others issued statements in solidarity.
The administration bowed down and the week-long fast came to an end. Among others, Com. Ram Naresh Ram, PB member of party and Ramji Rai editor of Lokyudh addressed the concluding meeting. The initiative succeeded to a great extent in protecting the masses from state repression, checking the demoralisation of masses and the left ranks, exposing the anarchists and winning over the support of a broad cross-section of democratic forces.
The Party has followed up with a call for a Lucknow March on March 17, with a comprehensive democratic agenda, most notably on the question of democratic rights focusing on false cases under the draconian Gangster Act and NSA being used against party leaders in Lakhimpur and eastern UP.
— Lal Bahadur Singh