Kanu Sanyal: No more adventurism
In 1967, Kanu Sanyal and Charu Majumdar, leaders of the Naxalbari movement, split from the Communist Party of India (CPI) and founded the All India Organising Committee of the Communist Revolutionaries of India. On 22 April 1969, Lenin's birthday, Sanyal announced the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), with Charu Majumdar as secretary. Sanyal, now 79, is still leader of the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) – though this party was founded in 1978 and is, Sanyal emphasises, different from the original. Sanyal is also deeply involved in the struggle at Singur against land acquisition by the West Bengal government. Though frail, the fire clearly still burns within him, and passion continues to resonate in the voice of this leader who was once much feared and has long been revered.
What motivated you to start the movement?
I believe that the reasons for the Naxalbari struggle still exist today. If you go to the villages, you will find the situation just like it was in 1967. As long as there are imperialists, feudal landlords and monopolistic capitalists, exploitation remains and the relevance of Naxalbari also remains. From a struggle against feudalism, this is now a struggle against imperialism – as is being witnessed in Singur and Nandigram.
When you look back, what went wrong?
We were members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in those days. But there was a revisionist movement, and the CPI (M) was trying to forge an alliance with the Congress party to contest elections and come to power. They did that in both the 1967 and 1969 elections. The CPI (M) was in power when the Naxalbari uprising and police massacre of 11 people took place in June 1967. Also, the CPI (M) had accepted the land ceiling of 25 acres imposed by Congress, whereas Charu Majumdar and myself believed that land should be given to the tillers – should be owned by them, and not by the landlords. In general, the CPI (M) was not fulfilling the party programme after coming to power. There was also a lot of infighting. Then we went wrong strategically, calling for a boycott of the elections in 1967 and 1969. But the communist movement teaches us that boycotting or contesting elections depends on the situation. If people are in a mood to struggle, then you can boycott elections. Otherwise, you take advantage of elections.