Revolt of the forgotten Communist

6

It's not surprising that a renewed Naxalite movement in India started as the country was marching on the highway of globalisation. In Bengal though, it was coupled with the potent mixture of a 33-year-long Communist rule, which reaped the benefits of one-time land reform programme in repeated elections, but failed to cling on to its pro-poor image. But for a CPI-M led Left Front government, that continued their rule just three years back with a thumping election victory, things started going wrong with Singur and Nandigram. In Singur, the government gave agricultural land to TATA for making the Nano at a throwaway price; in Nandigram, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's police force killed innocent villagers, protesting land acquisition, in broad daylight, ripping apart the pro-poor Communist image. It was a question of land after all. That's how it had started back in the late 60s. The movement, which began as a....