Real Face of Communist Politics : Violence in Kerala and West Bengal

The Communist Party of India (Maoist) was founded on 21 September 2004. The newly found organisation was a result of a merger between the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCC) and the People's War Group (PWG). The CPI(Maoist) became the communist terrorist face of India. After 5 years, in 2009 the party was declared a terrorist organisation by the Union government, leading to the ban of the Communist Party under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act – UAPA in the same year.

Although India was never wholly under Communism rule, the country’s parts have witnessed the horrors of communism. The South Indian state of Kerala, and the West Indian state of Bengal, have suffered largely in the hands of Communists and their followers.

In the 1990s when the CPI (Marxist) was the ruling party of Kerala, in Parumala its student wing, the Student Federation of India (SFI) had a minor dispute with another student wing, Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) during the college elections of the Devaswom Board College. The next day around 100 SFI students welcomed the ABVP students with hockey sticks, rods, and other violent gear.

The attackers ran after the students and the students were forced to jump into the Pampa River to save themselves. This violence led to the death of three students, Karunakaran and Sujeet of class 12, and Anu of B.Sc. final year, who died by drowning.

The police remained inactive during the incident as they were instructed by the Marxist leaders to not assist the students. To spread awareness regarding the incident ABVP, Bhartiya Majdur Sangh, Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad called for a State close on September 18.

On the same day, the opposition boycotted the house and berated the left-wing government over the incident. The elected Chief Minister Erambala Krishnan Nayanar or E.K. Nayanar did not take this matter seriously which made the opposition and other groups angry.

Following the incident, the head of RSS, Professor Rajendra Singh aka Rajju Bhaiya announced that the RSS will not blatantly take in violence.

Demanding the resignation of Kerala’s CM E.K. Nayanar and education minister P.J. Joseph, the students of ABVP were peacefully protesting in front of the state secretariat when the plain-clothed Police threw stones and tear gas towards the protestors.

The situation turned chaotic soon and the police then started beating and chasing away the protestors with sticks, conducting a lathi charge.

Many severely injured senior persons of the ABVP were left bloodied on the road. The Police seemed to especially target female students. These students were again targeted when the organization members were trying to send them to the hospital.

The next day to protest against police brutality, another peaceful march was organized near the state secretariat. During the dispersal of this march CPI (Marxist) members and plain-clothed policemen started throwing stones causing a ruckus which initiated another act of violence against the students.

The incident resulted in many injuries and damage to private and public property including 300 public buses. Speculations were made that the whole event was preplanned and doubts regarding this increased when in the same afternoon fruitless raids were made in the offices of RSS, Bhartiya Vichar Kendram, Tapasya, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Seva Bharti, and Bhartiya Majdur Sangh.

Along with extreme violence, hunger also became a problem in Kerala under the Marxist government. Increased poverty leading to hunger caused the death of 10 people in the state.

The left-wing government dismissed the cause of these deaths stating the people died due to health issues and not because of hunger. Death caused by hunger revealed CPI (Marxist) revealed that the ruling party no longer has time for the lower-class people, it exists now to extract money through donations from the industrialists and capitalists.

CPI (Marxist)’s enemies were the members of BJP and RSS. The communist party started attacking them in the broad daylight.

Opposition members were killed or made permanently disabled for a lifetime, their homes were also looted, and also did not receive any help from the police as the Police were with the ruling party.

The left-wing party lost the next election but continued the tortures to maintain their terror of the state. The extent of violence even reached a 2-year-old girl, whose leg was chopped off by the Communist supporters.

Two ex-CPI (Marxist) members who had joined RSS were also targeted by the attackers. C.K. Sujish P. Sunil and other 26 ex-members had joined RSS, inspired by its cause however both Sujish and Sunil soon died in an attack by Marxist fanatics who wanted to establish a statement against the youth who were leaving the Marxist Party.

The violence of the CPI (Marxist) did not stop in Kerala; their extremism was also seen in West Bengal. The West Bengal Intelligence Department had recovered 70 boxes of bombs from an area of Kolkata around the time of the upcoming municipal elections.

The stand of the left wing was decaying during this time in the West Bengal State. It had lost the last Lok Sabha Elections against the Trinamool Congress-Bhartiya Janta Party (TMC-BJP), not even winning a single constituency, which led to the speculations of attack during the upcoming Municipal elections.

Hooghly, Midnapore, and Panskura, three districts of West Bengal had regular violence in their areas. Two main rival parties had entered into a play of power surrounding the areas, resulting in public unrest, arson, bloodshed, and disruption of law & order.

The keepers of law were either indifferent towards the scenario or sided with a party. If a party was ruling a village in the district, its rival(s) were forced out of the village and their properties were taken over by the ruling party.

The situation was unfortunate in a democratic country. The defeated CPI (Marxist) wanted to dominate through muscle power and was targeting TMC and BJP members through arms.

Inhumane cruelties were committed against women and even children were not spared. Out of self-defence, TMC supporters had to pick up guns and answer back with violence; children had modern equipment, young girls had formed a Village Defence Corps, and disputes were happening every day.

CPI (Marxist) was failing in its agenda and depleting politically in Bengal which is the reason they were continuously attacking TMC and BJP supporters.

One morning a mass massacre took place in the Nanoor village of Birbhum district; 11 TMC supporters were killed by CPI (Marxist) supporters and the left party made excuses for the killing.

Villages were suffering, schools were shut down, farming was subdued, and people had to flee from their own homes fearing the same fate as the 11 supporters.

The fourth pillar of democracy, the media was also not safe under the Communist Rule. In 1993, Mamta Banerjee was conducting a strike in the secretariat building, the Writers' Building, outside of Jyoti Basu’s chamber, demanding to punish a minister of CPI (Marxist) for his crime of raping a mute girl.

The police started beating up Mamta, and journalists and photographers also became a victim. This incident was protested by the journalists and as a response the left-wing government removed the fifty-year-old ‘Press Corner’ from the Writers' Building.

Seven years later, on 10 April 2000, another attack was launched on journalists who had come to gather news in the Writers' Building, this resulted in the injuries of 11 journalists.

After 3 days, on April 13, journalists were again attacked by the CPI (Marxist) during the municipal elections in Hooghly. Even after submitting evidence, no action was taken against any person of the ruling party.

Not just citizens, opposition, and journalists, Bangladeshi Hindu refugees were also threatened by the CPI (Marxist). They were told to join the Communist Party or return back to Bangladesh.

The refugees had pleaded to the government officials to not send them back to Bangladesh and that they would be happy to stay even in the jails of India.

Despite this, many Hindu refugees were forced to go back by the state police under the orders of Communist activists. Numerous refugees were also stopped from entering the country.

West Bengal is also the state of origin of Naxalism. The term ‘Naxal’ derives its name from the village Naxalbari of West Bengal. Originating as a rebellion against local landlords who were unfairly treating the peasants, Naxalism started spreading to other Indian States too.

Naxalites support Maoist political sentiments and ideology which is capturing State power through a combination of armed insurgency, mass mobilization and strategic alliances.