‘Naxalbari forced rulers to undertake partial land reforms’

Sirimane Nagaraj, convenor of the People’s Movement for Equality and former Naxal leader, today hailed the Naxalbari uprising of landless farmers in West Bengal to reclaim their rights over land by stating that the movement had forced the ruling classes to undertake many progressive initiatives including land reforms.

He was addressing at a convention organised in Raichur by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) to commence the year-long events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Naxalbari rebellion.

“Led by CPI(M) leader Charu Mujumdar, the rebellion of exploited and oppressed peasants of West Bengal against the force of landlords forced the ruling classes and the State to partially undertake many seemingly pro-people initiatives including land reforms,” he said.

The armed revolutionary movement, he added, fastened the process of polarisation in the communist camp in India drawing a clear demarcation between revolutionaries and revisionists.

Strongly criticising the two streams of movement - one that completely upheld the Naxalbari movement with all its wrongdoings and the other that completely opposed it including its achievements, Mr. Nagaraj suggested for a third path of retrospective review of the revolt and aftermath that led to the suppression of the struggle. “With such a retrospection, we learn a lot of lessons from the rebellion. We need to uphold and continue the right approaches and discard the wrongdoings that ultimately led to the collapse of the movement.”

CPI (ML) party leaders B. Rudrayya, Chinnappa Kotriki, and S. Rajashekhar and others were present.