Naxalbari, cradle of ultra-Left uprising, looks at a Right turn

Naxalbari, the cradle of an over 50-year-old Maoist movement, is today taking a rightist turn, with the saffron brigade making its presence felt in the region by ironically adopting a model of the erstwhile Naxalites.

The tiny village in the foothills of the Himalayas bordering Nepal that had risen in rebellion in the spring of 1967 is now a semi-urban hardscrabble settlement that has moved on from its rebellious past.

Tucked away some 25 km from Siliguri, the commercial hub of the northern part of Bengal, Naxalbari is a bundle of contradictions. Its pastoral villages with expanse of greens and tea gardens look serene and calm, despite the telltale signs of poverty manifested in hutments that dot the landscape.

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The urban centre that sprouted along the lone road that connects Naxalbari with Siliguri and travels northwest to Nepal border, is buzzing with frenetic commercial activities. The bustling business has led to an unusual property boom in the entire Naxalbari belt.

“Value of one katha (720 square feet) of land in the prime location around the market area is anything between ₹5 lakh and ₹8 lakh,” said Amit Verma, a real estate agent in Siliguri.

Even in the rural area, the land prices have gone up. According to Verma, one katha of land in the countryside would cost around ₹1 lakh.

In the past decades, many Bengalis and Nepalis from the Northeast started settling in and around Naxalbari, which is very close to the commercial town of Siliguri, creating huge demand for property, Verma explained. Land prices in Siliguri are too high for any ordinary migrant.

On the other hand, due to lack of income, poor villagers are too willing to sell their land to meet their contingency requirements.

“Our entire generation had fought for this land. Ironically, today our next generation is either compelled or lured to sell their plot of land. Even I sold three kathas of my land to construct my house,” said Shanti Munda, one of the few surviving Naxalite activists from the 1960s.

Munda said she did not get any assistance either from the state or the central government’s housing scheme for the poor.

She now owns 3.5 kathas of land. The produce from that small plot of land is barely enough to feed her family. Moreover, she said that due to acute shortage of water in the area, farming was becoming increasingly unviable, forcing the menfolk to take up menial jobs in the cities.

Failures of the peasant uprising and subsequent governments to improve their life have made the ground zero of a radical Left uprising, a potential breeding ground for the BJP’s lotus to bloom.

“The BJP has tremendously increased its presence in Naxalbari because people feel that since others (parties) have failed to bring about a change in their life, it should be given a chance,” said Bhamuni Santhal, wife of late Jangal Santhal, one of the founders of the Naxalite movement.

In Matigara-Naxalbari assembly constituency the BJP had polled 21.31 per cent votes in 2016 elections as against a paltry 4.47 per cent votes it managed to secure in the 2011 assembly elections.

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In the 2016 assembly elections the seat was won by the Congress’s Sankar Malakar. This time the BJP is a strong contender.

The BJP’s growth, however, did not take place overnight.

“The RSS has played a huge role in the BJP’s growth. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, the Communists used to run informal schools in the tribal villages of the area. Now the same model has been adopted by the RSS. They appoint an educated youth of the area, preferably girl, to run one-teacher Ekal Vidyalaya,” said Darjeeling district secretary of the CPI (ML) Liberation Abhijit Majumdar.

Abhijit is the son of Charu Majumdar, a prominent leader of the 1967 Naxalbari rebellion.

There are over 100 such schools in Darjeeling district, under which Naxalbari falls, run by Vanbandhu Parishad, an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The BJP’s ideological fountainhead, the RSS also runs a full-fledged school in Naxalbari, called the Sarada Vidyamandir. Another RSS-affiliate Sarada Seva Trust runs over 110 primary schools named Sarada Sishu Tirtha in north Bengal.

Apart from schools, the RSS-affiliate Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA) operates five hostels for tribal students of classes 5 to 10 in north Bengal, including one in Kharibari, barely a few kilometres from Naxalbari, said Piyush Agarwal, a VKA functionary in Bengal.

Eight VKA branches in north Bengal districts are implementing educational, healthcare, skill-development projects and other social mobilisation programmes such as conducting mass marriage of poor tribals.

The RSS has a unit in all the 341 community development blocks in the state. It has also expanded its presence in almost all the gram panchayats.

In the sprawling Kharibari hostel of the VKA Sumit Urao, a student of Class 9, said before the COVID-19 pandemic they used to attend shakhas every morning. The hostel has 28 boarders, many of whom received bicycles under the Trinamool Congress’s Sabuj Sathi scheme.

“We tell them (beneficiaries) not to be carried away by such doles. If the government could make enough avenues for their future employment, then they would be able to buy motorcycles,” said Biswajit Biswas, the caretaker of the hostel.

Many BJP leaders in the district attribute their growth in the region to the “relentless work” done by these RSS affiliates on the ground for years.

“Our works inspire nationalism among people and the BJP being a nationalist party might be reaping the benefit of it. But we consciously don’t try to influence any voter,” claimed Agarwal, an argument not many would subscribe.

The RSS has a unit in all the 341 community development blocks in the state. It has also expanded its presence to almost all the gram panchayats.

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