Naxalbari Movement

Naxalbari movement

Introduction

It was exactly 35 years ago in 1967 that a minor clash between a police force and a group of armed peasants took place in an obscure corner of West Bengal. But it unleashed a force of events, which escalated over the years into a political movement that derived its name from that area and brought about far-reaching changes in India’s socio-cultural scene. Today it evokes a variety of strong emotions ranging from admiration to denunciation, cutting across the political lines of the established parties. The movement itself is also hard pressed by new challenges and endemic splits. Yet, we cannot deny that even after three decades of its tortuous and self-divisive and often self- destructive odyssey, the movement that started in Naxalbari and now known as Naxalite movement, still remains a force to reckon with.

What is peculiar to the Naxalite Movement is not its physical occupation of and administrative control over land, but its abiding appeal...