Charu Mazumdar Continues to Live...In 1972 this day, he was declared dead in a police lock-up in Calcutta where he was under illegal detention for the preceding 12 days. He was Charu Mazumdar (1917-1972). Police and Indian ruling classes might have taken pleasure to announce that the person who brought a militant and armed class struggle on to the agenda of Indian peopleʹs liberation movement, was made to breathe his last. But even after forty four years, he continues to live. Whatever may be his mistakes and inadequacies (some of them forced by his time and objective conditions), the path he blazed continues to grow. As he himself wrote in 1967, "Naxalbari lives and will live...We know that as we move forward we shall face many obstacles, many difficulties, many acts of betrayal and there will be many setbacks. But Naxalbari will not die...."
It is worth remembering a quote from his notes of discussion with a comrade on April 5, 1972 regarding the question of dialectical development of struggle: "The law of growth or development is that at a certain level of development everything splits. Things then again start from scratch. This is unity of opposites....In our country struggle has come to a close after reaching a new stage. It will again start from the new level. This is an incubating period. Thus there is no reason to get depressed. Struggle will again begin at a higher form..."
Long Live Charu Mazumdar! Long Live the Path Blazed by Naxalbari!!
- N.Venugopal Rao, Editor, Veekshanam
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