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Nandigram: An Analysis
When the armed CPIM hooligans and party-chieftains were celebrating their ‘victory' over Nandigram, their hired-hooligans and armed-cadres were celebrating victory in their prolonged war of capturing Nandigram by jubilantly raping women, killing, maiming persons and razing, burning down houses after houses for some days, the question that vexed the struggling workers and peasants and revolutionary activists is: What will happen to Nandigram, next? If any definite answer is unavailable, this question will naturally give rise to some sort of haunting pessimism, even though hidden, like: “Then… is Nandigram finished!” To get a definite and also correct answer, we must start with another question: What is really meant by ‘Nandigram'? For which ‘Nandigram' are you concerned or worried! The reason behind this troublesome question is that during the whole of the Nandigram episode the view of bourgeois media, be those in favour of CPIM or those against CPIM, had a sway; revolutionary communist viewpoint was markedly missing even among the so-called Communist Revolutionary [henceforth ‘CR'] Camp whose ‘mass' influence is infinitesimally tiny; and these led to immersion or submerging of CR activists in swarming media-propagated notions.
The media, both pro- and anti- Nandigram struggle, portrayed Nandigram struggle as a fight for ‘area grabbing', naturally for ‘electoral gains', between CPIM and TMC (or TMC led bloc). As evidence they could illustrate # the fleeing of CPIM leaders, activists with family from Nandigram, and then fleeing of BUPC supporters from the other side of the ‘border' or ‘line-of-control'; then, # TMC's active help and role behind the fighting platform of Nandigram, i.e., the BUPC, to the extent of even well-nigh usurping ‘control'; plus, # the continuous battle between armed cadres [and CPIM-hired hooligans] of both sides that naturally hints at active and regular supplies of arms and ammunitions from two warring parties, both TMC and CPIM. There were media stories hinting involvement of the Maoists too in the battle there after the March 14 incident. But nobody, even none of the parties or organisations mentioned above, tried to show and emphasize that it was those rebel ‘ordinary villagers' who really fought the decisive battles in Nandigram and most crucial results were decided by those thousands of ‘ordinary' rebels themselves; and so , that organisation argued, for the sake of further development of their struggle the toiling people should come up to take steering wheel of its own struggle and organisation in their own hands, they should take their destiny in their own hands!!
As for example: § Consider the very beginning of the battle, January 1st week — Who made Nandigram a virtual fortress digging up roads and pulling down bridges? How many tens or hundreds of thousands of man-days could it take to achieve such a feat what those ‘ordinary' folks did in a single day? More importantly, just think can any party of establishment and their leaders ever dream it or dare to instruct the masses for such an act ? No revolutionary party/group was there at that time, neither any of them could imagine such a step at that time. Then, who ‘designed' such a move and how was that achieved? It is those ordinary masses of toilers, scores of thousands, who themselves summed up the ‘lesson of Singur' in their own way and thought of obstructing the brutal anti-people state machinery, the govt forces, from entering Nandigram. § CPIM leaders are still trying to befool or baffle the ‘intelligentsia' saying ‘why did nobody of them tell anything about our [i.e. CPIM's] evicted people!' We are not going to the mess the CPIM leaders made about their ‘own' evicted people by continuously giving totally different numbers of the latter, but rather an unpleasant counter-question: why were some CPIM people ‘evicted' after 7th January ? What CPIM did there on 7th January? Who killed those three first martyrs of 2007 in Nandigram and under whose instruction were they killed? Dare Karat-Yechuri-&-co answer this? Didn't this brutal act of CPIM led to bursting of mass-anger and hatred against them in Nandigram? Who continuously threatened Nandigram that land will be forcefully grabbed there for ‘industrialisation' before and even after CM's ‘withdrawal gesture'? And finally, why CPIM didn't let most of those evicted CPIM persons go back when situation for that was ready, i.e., by May-June'07? Was that not for the single purpose of using them only as ‘trump-card'? § Consider a least media-focused episode, that of the 16th March. CPIM party thugs and state police forces together attacked Nandigram on 14th March; mass-carnage, gang rapes and … what not followed that raid! The Governor, and a good section of intelligentsia too, felt cold shiver of ghastly terror; members of intelligentsia took to streets on protest…. Everywhere, in all discussions, the violence, state-terror etc filled all the space. Nobody could imagine a ‘fight back' to be at all possible. But some 35-40 thousands of those rebel ‘ordinary villagers' spontaneously got organised by snowballing from funeral march of a few, and the mournful funeral march ‘suddenly' turned into a double-quick resistance march of tens of thousands seething in wrath that overwhelmed police forces and CPIM cadres camping in Sonachura — Nandigram was ‘re-liberated' within 48 hours of the state sponsored massacre! Again think: who ‘decided' that course of action; who ‘organised' and ‘led' the masses? TMC? SUCI? BUPC local-leadership? Maoists? … No. Nobody could think of such a measure that time. But that materialised, and the architects-cum-labourers of this move were the masses of toiling people themselves. Everybody seems to have forgotten that masses of people, i.e. workers and peasants can think out and do things themselves. Everybody chose not to see that history in its remaking is giving birth to struggles “from below” [and organisations “from below” too, in some places]!
Then why didn't we see any such ‘mass spontaneous action' during the gory assault of CPIM in the first two weeks of Nov? Why Nandigram couldn't remain the same, i.e., the indomitable fortress of BUPC? What happened to the ‘spontaneity' of the masses? [Of course anybody will admit that ‘spontaneity' is not a mechanical thing that can show the same repeated reincarnations time and again like, say, a perfect ‘simple harmonic motion' or a ‘looping'. Though, even so, there remains the question: why we saw totally different mood of the masses in 7–11 Nov, from what it was 10 months ago, during 7–11 Jan!] What affected them? To understand the reasons we are to diagnose of first 10 months of Nandigram Struggle and look into some factors that influenced the process: ( § 1) The internal factor — but actually we'll see that there were ‘two' different crucial internal factors: ( § 1.A) the factor connected to the ‘war', as the battle, a literally speaking ‘battle' was going on there for almost ten long months; and then ( § 1.B) there was the factor connected with ‘peace' or the non-war activities of the leadership of both local level BPPC and TMC, etc ‘outside' forces; and both these had ‘effects' on the ‘masses of people' there; in practice these two factors worked hand in hand, they were interconnected; but we'll discuss these separately only for the benefit of better understanding. ( § 2) The external factor, i.e., the ‘environment' within which Nandigram had to fight.
( § 1) As we wrote about the feat of those rebel ‘ordinary' village toilers in our editorial < Nandigram: Some Aspects Seldom Discussed > in April '07 issue (click here to read): “During the January-March period …the Nandigram fighters showed extra-ordinary (in today's standard) organised behaviour and also during their fight they could cast aside their (old) party-identities . Months of resistance and the fight back on 16th March shows their organised way of acting evidently, and indeed by their March 16th they overshadowed March 14th.” What Nandigram showed on the 1st week of January and 16th March were not their exceptional ‘behaviour'; spontaneously arranging peoples' night-vigils for months where each day hundreds participated in turn and the striking “Sankh-and-Ajaan” phenomena [Sankh means Conch-Shells the sound of which symbolises start of a puja and Ajaan is prayer call from mosques — these two were used by Nandigram masses to summon people for urgent quick mass-assembly of thousands ready-to-fight] had been continuing there for a long period. But both the internal factors of ‘war' and ‘peace' were conducted by the leadership in such a way consciously or unknowingly that led to dampening of the spirit of the masses, the spontaneity, let alone any effort for organising-and-educating the spontaneous ‘mass in action' to form a formidable mass-force.
( § 1.A) Nobody saw that there was any conscious, unwearied and continuous attempt on part of the ‘leaders' or ‘armed-fighters' there to help the struggling masses there to become conscious ‘actors' and help them organise, if needed and possible, a peoples' own ‘forces'. Rather, what they did de facto meant: making struggling thousands dependent on perhaps a few dozens of ‘armed-fighters', and ultimately putting ‘arms' above the people. Roughly from April till September, a long period of 6 months was there when the ‘battle' was confined in a narrow zone, and in that narrowed battle too there was no part for the people. People were taught indirectly that they had no ‘business' with the matter of border-war; neither they have any ‘business' in policy making. People were taught indirectly that it was better to think of the next election [of Panchayat] where their role would be to ‘vote out' CPIM; people were relegated to the role that parliamentary democracy permit people to do — but these belong to the ‘peace' part. But people knew that the ‘border-war' was important for the survival of Nandigram and for that ‘important' thing they should recognize the ‘beneficial' role of ‘external' human agents who ‘managed' the supply-lines, who ‘train' and/or ‘lead' the ‘platoon'… the ‘beneficial' role of the ‘armed-fighters'… the ‘beneficial' role of those through which ‘aids' were coming… even the ‘benevolent' role, as some of them told a workers delegation that visited there on May 1, of the ‘intellectuals' who were bringing media limelight to the erstwhile dark Nandigram [most villages of Nandigram are without electricity] — it is really interesting, the people were tutored this way in our society! If really the Maoists were there and had some ‘command', they too cannot evade responsibility of all these. And CPIM cunningly, patiently continued the border-war to help the process of making the people reliant on ‘external' benefactors, few ‘leaders' and ‘armed personnel', because they knew ultimately CPIM goons could overwhelm Nandigram only when the masses of people would not repeat another early January or 16th March!
( § 1.B) TMC, naturally as a bourgeois parliamentary party, cannot want to see its grip loosening over masses turning anti-CPIM, never can want to see workers-peasants masses leading their own struggle and organisation. But TMC was not the sole factor there. The most important factor was ‘the masses themselves' who are coming out of the shadows of the past, the habits of the past like that of depending on ‘external' ‘educated' ‘ladies and gentlemen' etc , but still couldn't make a decisive break with the past, still the ‘old' and the ‘new' are mingled inside their consciousness. We'll look into this factor again later. The other determining factor was CPIM, who continuously made armed attacks for 2 reasons: the best possible result for them was to ‘recapture' Nandigram and keep Nandigram under its boots; the worst possible result for them was that due to continuous armed assault by CPIM the masses there would be compelled to solicit ‘armed' help from external forces like the TMC, then the masses will come under TMC's grip which is better than masses building up their own fight and organisation, and if CPIM can portray the Nandigram struggle is a fight between two warring parties or blocs where ‘masses of people' have nothing to obtain than sufferings, then that will help CPIM to move closer to its desired best result.
But have ‘the masses of people' totally succumbed to dual pressure of TMC and CPIM and became ‘just TMC men' or pawns? Certainly No. Then? Firstly, the continuous battle engaged their mind awesomely; plus, they couldn't believe in ‘promises' of a Chief Minister that the proposed Chemical Hub will not be set up there, because the govt and CPIM behaved so wickedly that no one can put faith on its promises. Without direct backing of thousands of toiling people there it was not possible to maintain an effective ‘line of control' by a handful of armed fighters. Secondly, none of those working as the local level leadership that time could grip with full seriousness the necessity of ‘organising and educating' the masses, always keeping them conscious and ready, etc, which eventually made the masses of people disarrayed, or better to say ‘passive', for so long a period, at least in the vital May-to-Sept period which gave somewhat a ‘breathing space'. But it was not only readiness to fight that matters, also, and more importantly, there was the necessity of bringing the masses to ‘control' the fight and the organisation. Barring a small revolutionary organisation that incidentally had no ‘say' there, nobody gripped the theme of reawakening of the workers-peasants masses and the necessary agitation-propaganda thereof. Thirdly, the disarrayed-ness or passivity of masses of people increased with increased ‘division' of masses-versus-leaders that was natural to grow due to the role of the not-so-conscious leadership, especially if the leaders enter into the domain of ‘governmental administrative activities' generating bureaucratic tendencies among them, obviously keeping the masses at backyard. The peacetime activities of some of the top/middle ranking BUPC leadership also estranged the people. Fourthly, the TMC, either unwittingly or being ‘befooled' by CPIM govt, thought and propagated within the masses in those crucial early-Nov days that an honourable ‘settlement' had been reached, ‘we have won', etc; which resulted in further disarrayed-ness and a major section of the masses were taken aback by the sudden high-pitch assaults of CPIM! Though it must be mentioned that in one particular sense, i.e., regarding “the necessity to prolong the ‘battle' or keep intact the ‘free-of-CPIM zone' at least till next summer”, the frame of mind of the masses and the plan of TMC coincided, because, the masses too believed that keeping their bastion intact means keeping CPIM from regaining Panchayat-administration there; and that was due to, what we mentioned earlier, the frame of mind of the masses who still couldn't make a decisive break with the past, still the ‘old' and the ‘new' are mingled inside their consciousness, who still thought and measured win-or-loss mainly in parliamentary-political terms.
( § 1 A+B) Ultimately the local leadership had to go to the masses, ultimately again two demonstrations were there on both of which CPIM fired; but it was too late, and the Nov 2nd week demonstrations didn't had the ‘mood' of 16th March one. When a rally of some ten thousand went to Nandigram Police Station and urged their help, their presence, with the rallying masses towards interior [which the police declined] — the incident itself portrayed the stark difference of early-Jan-&-16-March with early Nov. May we call it spontaneity ‘chained' and ‘dampened' for time being due to various factors!
( § 2) Now lets see the ‘external' factor(s): Nandigram was an isolated rebellious island amidst a sea of enforced-peace; but then their situation was not as difficult as that of workers of Hindustan Unilever [Garden-Reach, Calcutta] in the late-1980s in the sense that rebellions amongst workers have in the meantime started, new fighting organisations have cropped up, albeit in a small number of factories, and lately the trend of rural restlessness breaking into rebellion has started too. Recent months showed many cases of rural revolts, and not surprisingly, many such rebels warned the village vested interest nexus: ‘We'll make Nandigram here'. It also compelled CPIM to show workers and peasants at large that ‘CPIM can crush Nandigram' to frighten the people least they dared to rebel. Any way, the ‘environment' is not that favourable for Nandigram that they can depend for help from the quarters of rebelling workers and peasants. The Nandigram rebels' battle for carrying on the fight depended almost solely on themselves. If there were a strong current of ‘new' struggles of workers and peasants, if Nandigram got active help from them, Nandigram could found itself on more favourable ground, and would not have to depend on forces ‘external' to them. In other words, mainly by extending the area of ‘new' struggles and organisations, by broadening the rebel bastions and by intensifying fights, the ‘external' world could help Nandigram effectively. But anyway, the situation right now is not like that.
( § 1+2) All these added up to become what it happened in the first two weeks of Nov 07. But we are to remember, Nandigram is not Keshpur-Garbeta where the CPIM ousted TMC in area-grabbing fights between two established parties — Nandigram is in some sense a manifestation of the ‘new' struggles of masses of people that are coming up. Elements of ‘new' and ‘old' were admixed there with the ‘old' in dominating position, but the ‘new' announced its birth, its presence there, its possible mightiness, through clarion calls. So no final verdict can be passed on Nandigram for long term and even for short term. And then Nandigram, as a rebel spirit is alive in the fights, in the rebellions of workers and peasants in general.
The relatively ‘advanced' elements of rebel masses of people in Nandigram are surely summing up the experience of last one year, trying to learn from battles won and lost, and it is very important and vital. As we are finishing this notes, indications obtained from there declare: contrary to media reports of CPIM ‘triumph', ‘recapture' and offensive, Nandigram's rebel spirit is still pulsating; they are in no ‘surrendering' mood in many villages and that made CPIM rather worried. It is the bounden duty of the class-conscious workers to help them in correctly summing up of the rich experience they went through.