Mindless killing of innocents in Jangalmahal (spread across West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia) has left the rational man astounded. Blood shed in the name of any ideology is unacceptable and deserves criticism in the severest terms. 
Landless tillers, marginal farmers and daily wage earners have been systematically butchered by the Maoists in their self declared mission of attaining a class-less society.
How do the poor, who find it difficult to manage a square meal a day, serve to perpetuate the existing exploitive social order is indeed difficult to fathom. More bewildering is the fact that those owing allegiance to the Left Front have been at the receiving end of the Maoists who swear in the name of revolution and pledge for emancipation of the downtrodden. The prime target of the great peasant war against imperialism, feudalism and the bourgeoisie in West Bengal have been hapless village teachers and marginal farmers. Not a single incident has taken place where the CEO of a Multi-National Corporation or for that matter a clerk or a gate-keeper working there has been victimized by the Maoists. Not a single moneylender or landlord has ever fallen prey to the bullets of Maoists in West Bengal. Interestingly, this party believes in the annihilation of class enemies. Who then, according to them, are these class enemies – are the poor villagers, who live a hand to mouth existence, the class enemies that they are out to annihilate? What is striking is these Maoists have never been visible in any struggle against liberalization, privatization and globalization.
The Maoists claim to be fighting for the rights of the tribes in the forest belt that contains rich deposits of minerals which are of interest to mining companies. Though this argument may be true to some extent in states like Chhatisgarh, Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand, it does not hold water in West Bengal. The affected districts here do not boast of any mineral reserves. Even though this region is not rich in natural resources, it was considered as the red bastion of West Bengal. The people living in this region have traditionally been left supporters. The Maoists, along with their allies, have, therefore, targeted this region to wean the people away from the Left. The supporters and workers of CPI (M) and their allies have been targeted and killed in the most brutal manner. The primary objective is to convey to the villagers, in no uncertain terms, that they should stop supporting and voting for the Left Front. A weak Left Front in these districts will pave the way for the extreme right-wing parties to spread their tentacles. But what is intriguing is the unholy nexus between an ultra-left organization and an extreme-right party. What common ideology could they possibly have? What could be their meeting point? A fascinating aspect of this bonhomie is that one does not believe in democracy or votes and the other speaks about democracy does not believe in practicing it.
The other cause that has been attributed to the growing influence of the Maoists is that the government has done little for the poor who have been deprived of the fruits of development. This hardly is the truth and presentation of a half lie can be dangerous for any attempt to establish peace in the troubled area.
The Maoists, who talk about lack of development in Jangalmahal, has consistently ripped apart roads and destroyed schools. The question now arises, what according to the Maoists are infrastructure. Do they not consider roads and schools as part of developmental projects? Which ideology drove them to blow up the vehicle carrying a doctor and a nurse?
West Bengal is one of the few states where the focus of development has predominantly been on the poor and the underprivileged. Panchayati Raj system in the rural areas has ensured participation of the masses in development work in the villages. Establishment of successful three tier panchayati system serves as a watershed in the field of decenralisation of power. The success story of panchayati system in West Bengal is discussed and praised even by the detractors of the Left parties. That it has left a significant and a progressive impression on the rural socio-economic scenario is established beyond question. Effective transfer of power to the three tier panchayat bodies and allocation of meaningful resources to the rural bodies of self governance are giant strides taken by the Left Front government in making the rural people self reliant.
The indicators which testify the success rate of Panchayati Raj in West Bengal:
(i) Out-migration from villages has virtually stopped and begging in the towns or cities by the villagers is hardly found.
(ii) While in most Indian States, the percentage of rural non-workers has gone up, in West Bengal it has come down.
(iii) Agrarian production has virtually doubled in the last ten years, thereby exceeding all-India average. Bengal today is indeed greener than ever before.
(iv) West Bengal is the only State where the percentage of male agricultural labour in workforce has declined.
(v) The process of polarisation and pauperisation also appears to have been reversed in West Bengal.
(vi) Studies show that the agricultural labourers and the poor peasants in West Bengal have fully profited from the development work of the Panchayats.
(vii) Panchayati system has considerably eradicated village poverty.
Sustained efforts have been made to bring more area under cultivation. At present 78.42 lakh hectares of land is under cultivation and more than 75 % of this area is supported with irrigation. With planned development in agriculture, the state of rural economy has undergone a sea change since the Left Front has assumed power in West Bengal.
The recent times have seen a concentrated attack on the village system in West Bengal. Schools are being burnt, teachers are being shot in open daylight and even the students are not being spared. Elected representatives of village panchayats are killed regularly and many are driven out of villages by the Maoists in the name of effecting change and betterment of rural Bengal. Clearly the developments that have swept across rural Bengal are the cause of discomfort for those who had hitherto called the shots in the villages. The landlords and the moneylenders, for whom the farmers were nothing more than bonded labourers, exploited, underpaid and violated them in every other means. The present state of democratization through village panchayat and the granting of ownership of land to the farmers are state of things that they want changed. Through this chink in the armour walked in the Trinamool Congress Party, who commissioned the so-called revolutionaries into performing the role of private army of the landlords to usurp the rights of the people that they had acquired under the Left regime.
TMC is in cahoots with the Maoists to be able to win a few seats in Jangalmahal in the forthcoming Assembly elections. Their desperation to win has blinded their judgment to the extent where they have no qualms about hobnobbing with that force which has been declared as "the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country", in 2006, by none other than the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh. The leader of TMC, Mamata Banerjee, has from an open podium declared that all political prisoners in West Bengal would be released after she became the Chief Minister. It was a clear signal to the Maoists to help her in becoming the Chief Minister in exchange of the freedom of all those Maoists and their sympathizers who are currently behind bars.
In the name of effecting “change” mischief mongers are fomenting trouble for realizing their narrow political gains. Conspiracies are being hatched with sections with vested interests to dislodge the government which believes in the power of the people. It is therefore time for the rationale minded to sit up and assess the nature of the change that is being professed so vociferously .The direction of “Change” has to be critically assessed before we fall in line for “change”.
Landless tillers, marginal farmers and daily wage earners have been systematically butchered by the Maoists in their self declared mission of attaining a class-less society.How do the poor, who find it difficult to manage a square meal a day, serve to perpetuate the existing exploitive social order is indeed difficult to fathom. More bewildering is the fact that those owing allegiance to the Left Front have been at the receiving end of the Maoists who swear in the name of revolution and pledge for emancipation of the downtrodden. The prime target of the great peasant war against imperialism, feudalism and the bourgeoisie in West Bengal have been hapless village teachers and marginal farmers. Not a single incident has taken place where the CEO of a Multi-National Corporation or for that matter a clerk or a gate-keeper working there has been victimized by the Maoists. Not a single moneylender or landlord has ever fallen prey to the bullets of Maoists in West Bengal. Interestingly, this party believes in the annihilation of class enemies. Who then, according to them, are these class enemies – are the poor villagers, who live a hand to mouth existence, the class enemies that they are out to annihilate? What is striking is these Maoists have never been visible in any struggle against liberalization, privatization and globalization.
The Maoists claim to be fighting for the rights of the tribes in the forest belt that contains rich deposits of minerals which are of interest to mining companies. Though this argument may be true to some extent in states like Chhatisgarh, Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand, it does not hold water in West Bengal. The affected districts here do not boast of any mineral reserves. Even though this region is not rich in natural resources, it was considered as the red bastion of West Bengal. The people living in this region have traditionally been left supporters. The Maoists, along with their allies, have, therefore, targeted this region to wean the people away from the Left. The supporters and workers of CPI (M) and their allies have been targeted and killed in the most brutal manner. The primary objective is to convey to the villagers, in no uncertain terms, that they should stop supporting and voting for the Left Front. A weak Left Front in these districts will pave the way for the extreme right-wing parties to spread their tentacles. But what is intriguing is the unholy nexus between an ultra-left organization and an extreme-right party. What common ideology could they possibly have? What could be their meeting point? A fascinating aspect of this bonhomie is that one does not believe in democracy or votes and the other speaks about democracy does not believe in practicing it.
The other cause that has been attributed to the growing influence of the Maoists is that the government has done little for the poor who have been deprived of the fruits of development. This hardly is the truth and presentation of a half lie can be dangerous for any attempt to establish peace in the troubled area.
The Maoists, who talk about lack of development in Jangalmahal, has consistently ripped apart roads and destroyed schools. The question now arises, what according to the Maoists are infrastructure. Do they not consider roads and schools as part of developmental projects? Which ideology drove them to blow up the vehicle carrying a doctor and a nurse? West Bengal is one of the few states where the focus of development has predominantly been on the poor and the underprivileged. Panchayati Raj system in the rural areas has ensured participation of the masses in development work in the villages. Establishment of successful three tier panchayati system serves as a watershed in the field of decenralisation of power. The success story of panchayati system in West Bengal is discussed and praised even by the detractors of the Left parties. That it has left a significant and a progressive impression on the rural socio-economic scenario is established beyond question. Effective transfer of power to the three tier panchayat bodies and allocation of meaningful resources to the rural bodies of self governance are giant strides taken by the Left Front government in making the rural people self reliant.
The indicators which testify the success rate of Panchayati Raj in West Bengal:
(i) Out-migration from villages has virtually stopped and begging in the towns or cities by the villagers is hardly found.
(ii) While in most Indian States, the percentage of rural non-workers has gone up, in West Bengal it has come down.
(iii) Agrarian production has virtually doubled in the last ten years, thereby exceeding all-India average. Bengal today is indeed greener than ever before.
(iv) West Bengal is the only State where the percentage of male agricultural labour in workforce has declined.
(v) The process of polarisation and pauperisation also appears to have been reversed in West Bengal.
(vi) Studies show that the agricultural labourers and the poor peasants in West Bengal have fully profited from the development work of the Panchayats.
(vii) Panchayati system has considerably eradicated village poverty.
Sustained efforts have been made to bring more area under cultivation. At present 78.42 lakh hectares of land is under cultivation and more than 75 % of this area is supported with irrigation. With planned development in agriculture, the state of rural economy has undergone a sea change since the Left Front has assumed power in West Bengal.
The recent times have seen a concentrated attack on the village system in West Bengal. Schools are being burnt, teachers are being shot in open daylight and even the students are not being spared. Elected representatives of village panchayats are killed regularly and many are driven out of villages by the Maoists in the name of effecting change and betterment of rural Bengal. Clearly the developments that have swept across rural Bengal are the cause of discomfort for those who had hitherto called the shots in the villages. The landlords and the moneylenders, for whom the farmers were nothing more than bonded labourers, exploited, underpaid and violated them in every other means. The present state of democratization through village panchayat and the granting of ownership of land to the farmers are state of things that they want changed. Through this chink in the armour walked in the Trinamool Congress Party, who commissioned the so-called revolutionaries into performing the role of private army of the landlords to usurp the rights of the people that they had acquired under the Left regime.
TMC is in cahoots with the Maoists to be able to win a few seats in Jangalmahal in the forthcoming Assembly elections. Their desperation to win has blinded their judgment to the extent where they have no qualms about hobnobbing with that force which has been declared as "the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country", in 2006, by none other than the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh. The leader of TMC, Mamata Banerjee, has from an open podium declared that all political prisoners in West Bengal would be released after she became the Chief Minister. It was a clear signal to the Maoists to help her in becoming the Chief Minister in exchange of the freedom of all those Maoists and their sympathizers who are currently behind bars. In the name of effecting “change” mischief mongers are fomenting trouble for realizing their narrow political gains. Conspiracies are being hatched with sections with vested interests to dislodge the government which believes in the power of the people. It is therefore time for the rationale minded to sit up and assess the nature of the change that is being professed so vociferously .The direction of “Change” has to be critically assessed before we fall in line for “change”.
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