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Exactly 53 years ago, a group of armed men led by Jangal Santhal ambushed a police party resulting in the death of inspector Sonam Wangdi. The village was actually Prasajudot, but the movement came to be known by the name of the adjoining village, Naxalbari.
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There are few families in Bengal that do not bear the scars. My maternal uncle, a Naxalite leader, went to jail in 1973, and came out a broken man in 1977, surviving just a few years more.
A paternal uncle was a police officer on the other side who had to face enquiries about shooting at students. One grandfather went prematurely to his grave just worrying about his son. And we were far from being the worst hit.
So many of the brightest of Bengal's students who believed in the social justice that it was supposed to bring either joined the cause or fled Bengal. The educational system took a battering from which it never really recovered.
I wish sometimes that the ones who survived don't have to live with the fact that though they joined from a sense of idealism, by supporting Mao they were actually propagating an even more predatory & opportunistic system than democracy.
I have no nostalgia about Naxalbari.
I have no nostalgia about Naxalbari.
