The river Mechi divides India and Nepal in the South Western corner of the latter. Despite the border, the lands on either side of the river appear similar. Naxalbari and Jhapa are two areas across the river Mechi in the Indo-Nepalese border. They are part of the ‘Terai’, the subtropical Gangetic plains that lie in Southern Nepal and Northern India. Although it is just few hours away from the Himalayas, the Terai is mostly not even 100 metres above sea level.
The land is home to mainly rural and poor peasants. They have been oppressed by their landlords for centuries. It was to be good breeding grounds for revolutionary politics. However, until the advent of Maoism, communist revolutionaries had paid little attention to the peasant as a revolutionary vanguard in India. The Naxalbari uprising of 1967 changed that.
Naxalbari Uprising
In 1964, the pro-Beijing faction of the Communist Party of India (CPI) broke away and formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist), known as the CPI(M). However,soon this new party also entered electoral politics. This decision was resented by the more radical members of the party. In 1967, some of these dissidents led by Charu Majumdar gave leadership to a peasant uprising in the Naxalbari area. At this time, the Western Bengal government was a coalition which included the CPI(M) and it crushed the rebellion with little difficulty.
After the rebellion was crushed the radical CPI(M) members formed the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) with a view of forming a revolutionary communist party. Meanwhile, several other areas in India saw outbreaks of violent uprisings.
In 1969, the AICCCR formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), known as the CPI(ML), as a pro-Chinese political party following Mao Tse-Tung and declaring Mao to be “our Chairman”. They were known as the ‘Naxalites’ or the ‘Naxalvadis’ as the movement had started in Naxalbari.
In the early stages, the party attracted mainly the urban intellectuals including students and waged a terrorist campaign to “eliminate class enemies”. Their campaign was mainly based in Western Bengal and was met with brutal police repression.
Meanwhile, the party broke in to various factions, especially after Charu Majumdar, their leader and main ideologue, was captured and died in police custody. The Naxalite movement became almost invisible by mid the 1970s only to re-emerge later.
Jhapa Uprising
Jhapa district of Nepal lies across the river Mechi from Naxalbari, in the Indo-Nepal border. The developments in China (Cultural Revolution) and India (Naxalbari uprising) was closely followed by the Jhapa District Committee of the East Kosi Coordination Committee. They began their campaign to eliminate “class enemies” in May 1971, four years after Naxalbari. Reportedly, the CPI(ML) sent two of their activists to help their comrades across the border. The Jhapa uprising claimed the lives of eight class enemies before the movement was crushed by the Nepali government. Seven leaders were executed and many more were imprisoned.
The Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist)
Although the Jhapa uprising did not achieve much in inspiring communist revolution, it ultimately gave birth to the largest single communist organization in Nepal. In 1975, the Jhapa District Committee held a conference with some other district committees and formed the All Nepal Communist Coordination Committee. Similar to the Indian counterpart of 1967, this Coordination Committee ultimately aimed at forming a political party. With other committees joining in, they held a national conference in 1978 and formed a party, Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist), known as the CPN(ML).
The CPI(ML), which was the inspiration for the establishment of CPN(ML), had broken into many fractions and had almost faded away from Indian political scene by the time the latter came in to existence. However, despite the plethora of communist factions in Nepal, the CPN(ML) generally fared better and by early 1990, it claimed to be the largest communist party of the country. Early that year, it merged with the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist) to form the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), known as the CPN(UML).
The CPI(ML) and the CPN(ML)
While the CPI(ML) fragmented to many fractions, the CPN(ML) consolidated itself in to a large political organization, even accepting other groups during the first twelve years. Meanwhile, although the CPN(ML) accepted parliamentary politics, the CPI(ML) totally rejected it as a “bourgeois institution”. It should be noted that out of more than 30 factions to emerge from the CPI(ML), only one or two had ever embraced parliamentary politics. Others always campaigned, or still do, for the “elimination of class enemies” following the basic concepts articulated by their foremost theoretician, Charu Majumdar.
References
Thapa, D., with Sijapati, B. A Kingdom under Siege: Nepal’s Maoist Insurgency 1996-2004, Updated edition (2004) Kathmandu.
Kujur, R., Naxal Movement in India: A Profile Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi (2009)
Hindustan Times, A History of Naxalism (2001)
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