‘The CPM is a tout of Big Capital’

‘The CPM is a tout of Big Capital’

Born in 1929, Kanu Sanyal was one of the founding leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) which was formed in 1969. He was one of the key leaders of the Naxalbari uprising by radical communists, including dissenters within the CPM, to initiate an 'Indian revolution' by armed struggle. Sanyal announced the formation of the original CPI(ML) on Lenin's birthday (April 22) in 1969 at a massive public rally in Kolkata. He drafted the the seminal Terai report on the nature of Indian revolution.

Sanyal was portrayed as a great revolutionary in the popular narratives of Bengal and the rest of India and he was a superb organiser and charismatic leader. He organised the peasantry, the tribals and the poorest of the poor in Naxalbari, Jalpaiguri, among other places in the interiors of north Bengal. He went underground during the Naxalite uprising. The death of his comrade Charu Majumdar, who was the leader and theoretician of the movement, was followed by fragmentation within the Naxalite movement. Sanyal was known to have announced that he had left the path of armed struggle and apparently accepted parliamentary politics as a form of revolutionary activism. Sanyal was arrested in August 1970. The news of his arrest sparked off violence all over Bengal. Sanyal was by then a legendary revolutionary hero, along with Jangal Santhal and others. He was jailed in Andhra Pradesh for seven years. Hundreds of Naxalite leaders and supporters were jailed for many years, tortured or eliminated in fake encounters. Charu Majumdar died in prison, reportedly after facing intense torture. 

After his release Sanyal formed the Organising Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (OCCR). In 1985, Sanyal's group, along with five other Naxalite organisations, merged to form the Communist Organisation of India (Marxist-Leninist). Sanyal was declared as the leader of the new outfit. Currently, he is the general secretary of a new outfit — the CPI(ML), formed by merging several splinter groups of the original party. Sanyal has been active in the oppostion to land acquisition in Singur. He was arrested in December 2006. On January 18  , 2006, Sanyal was again arrested along with protestors for disrupting a Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express train at the New Jalpaiguri railway station near Siliguri , protesting against the shut-down of tea gardens in the region, where several hundred starvation deaths have been reported. Here, still passionate about mass movements and 'revolutionary transformation', Kanu Sanyal, a changed man, talks to Hardnews in Kolkata after visiting Nandigram.

You have just returned from Nandigram. Why did you go there? 

Nandigram is the place where the people's resistance has forced the mighty Left Front government to retreat. A fresh wind is blowing in the state. The people are increasingly losing faith in the state government. It is our duty to turn it into a major mass movement against the ruling establishment. That is why I went there.   

Do you think that the current shift is enough to dislodge the ruling Left Front led by the CPM from power? 

No. I don't believe that the CPM can be dislodged from power in the next elections. It is not that easy. Especially, when their front partners, particularly the Forward Bloc, RSP and CPI are with them. Unless they come out of the front, there is no way the CPM can be ousted from power.  But Nandigram has proved that the people, if determined, can resist even the armed onslaught of the State machinery and the armed gangs of the ruling party. That has boosted the morale of the people.

Do you think the fragmented political opposition can avail of this opportunity?