Harvest is just months away and the paddy fields in and around Naxalabari gleam emerald in the sunlight. It is, in fact, an unusually green area, surrounded by sprawling tea gardens and shaded by dozens of large, old trees. The site of the peasant uprising in 1967 that famously developed into the widespread Naxalite movement is just another quiet Indian village today.
Located in the Terai region of West Bengal, at the foothills of the Himalayas, it is bordered by Nepal on the west just across the river Mechi. It looks moderately well-off. Houses have tin roofs, many with dish antennas. There are the usual tea shops and small kirana stores and boys playing barefoot in the dust.
Significantly, Amit Shah chose to launch the BJP’s expansion drive into West Bengal from Naxalbari. When I visit, workers are busy scrubbing the walls clean of BJP posters and replacing them with graffiti to celebrate the golden jubilee of the uprising that falls on May 25. Activists and party workers distribute pamphlets and paint posters to engage residents in the celebrations.
A series of red busts of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Charu Mazumdar, and other leaders line the rough track that leads to the school in Bengaijyot hamlet. The school wall, in an interesting juxtaposition, has quotes on religion by Vivekananda.
Everyone in the village knows of the movement, and they happily direct journalists to the houses of the uprising’s leaders. But the leaders, now in their 70s and 80s, are a little tired of journalists. “How many more of you will talk about Naxalbari,” asks Shanti Munda, once a revolutionary leader, today just another villager.
