Naxalbari, a Village Remembered by Dr. Amitabh Mitra plus Naxalite by Asian Dub Foundation
Which runs on your wrist
But stands still for your eyes.
Most dangerous is that eye
Which sees all but remains frostlike,
Most dangerous is the moon
Which rises in the numb yard
After each murder,
But does not pierce your eyes like hot chilies. '
During the summer holidays in Gwalior, we all went to my grandmother home in Shibpur in Howrah to escape the extreme heat of Madhya Pradesh. During one such visit, we found the walls of her house and adjoining houses plastered in red with slogans, 'Naxalbari Laal Saalam'. As a young boy unaware of the politics of that time in Bengal, I had frequently asked my father and uncles about the slogans and graffiti which they always declined to explain.
Nobody had the courage to wash those walls. Many years later, North East India became my favorite tramping grounds and driving long distances through little hamlets on my way to Bhutan or Along was more frequent. Visiting Naxalbari became a reality during that time. But the explosive ingredients had long fizzled off and Naxalbari I found to my great disappointment just a small village like any other village in the Darjeeling district. The ghosts of Naxalbari could not be suppressed and curiosity brings thousands of people like me just to feel the soil or try to find a tiny ember of a revolution within the tea plantations and villages of that area. The Mechi River lies close to it and across it lies Nepal. Farm lands, tea estates and forests dot this fertile geographical part of Darjeeling district. The large villages in the region are Buraganj, Hatighisha, Phansidewa and Naxalbari. It all started in May 23 1967. The landless and poor peasants of Jharugaon village raised their bow and arrows.
The attacking police hordes were met with a shower of arrows, spears, stones. An inspector was killed, the rest fled. The Naxalbari armed struggle that was to become a historic turning point in Indian politics, had begun. At the entrance to Naxalbari, a Kargil martyr's statue stands. The statue looks out of place in the village of Naxalbari. The sculptor sold it to government who thought of it erecting it there just to divert the mind from a history that is part of this place.
A dusty path leads to the settlement of 30,000-odd people sharing borders with Nepal and Bangladesh. There is no development here, the highways are pock marked and the peasants look poorer. The illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Nepal do not know anything about this movement nor do they care to do so. The main occupation seems to be smuggling of essential goods through Nepal and Bangladesh borders.
A lone unkempt statue of Comrade Charu Mazumdar stands. The children of the village don't know anything about him. 26-Apr-2009
Asian Dub Foundation - Naxalite
Album: Rafi's Revenge
Brothers and sisters of the soul unite
We are one indivisible and strong
They may try to break us but they dare not under estimate us
They know our memories are long
A mass of sleeping villages
That's how they're pitching it
At least that's what they try to pretend
But check out our history
So rich and revolutionary
A prophecy that we will rise again
That we will rise again...
Again and again until the land is ours
Again and again until we have taken the power
Again and again until the land is ours
Again and again until we have taken the power
Deep in the forest
High up in the mountains
To the future we will take an oath
Like springing tigers we encircle the cities
Our home is the undergrowth
Because I am just a naxalite warrior
Fighting for survival and equality
Police man beating up me, my brother and my father
My mother crying can't believe this reality
And we will rise again
And we will rise again...
Again and again until the land is ours
Again and again until we have taken the power
Again and again until the land is ours
Again and again until we have taken the power
Jump into the future dub zone
Roots rockers
And we have taken the power
And the land is ours
And we have taken the power
And the land is ours
And we have taken the power
And the land is ours
And we have taken the power
And the land is ours
It's ours
Because I am just a naxalite warrior
Fighting for survival and equality
Police man beating up me, my brother and my father
My mother crying can't believe this reality
Iron like a Lion from Zion
This one going all the youth, man and woman
Orginal Master D upon the microphone stand
Cater for no skeptical man- me no give a damn
'Cos me a naxalite warrior
