Indian Politician (1919?1972)
Charu Mazumdar
(
Bengali
: ???? ???????; 15 May 1918 ? 28 July 1972), popularly known as
CM
, was an Indian Communist leader, and founder and General Secretary of the
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)
.
[1]
Born into a progressive landlord family in Siliguri in 1918, he became a Communist during the
Indian Independence Movement
, and later formed the militant
Naxalite
cause. During this period, he authored the historic accounts of the 1967
Naxalbari uprising
. His writings, particularly the
Historic Eight Documents
, have become part of the ideology which a number of political parties in India.
[2]
Biography
[
edit
]
Mazumdar was born in
Matualaloi, Rajshahi
(now Siliguri) to a
zamindar
family.
[3]
[4]
His father Bireshwar Majumdar was a
freedom fighter
and president of the Darjeeling District Committee of the
Indian National Congress
during the
Indian independence movement
.
[5]
In 1930, as a student in Siliguri, he joined the
All Bengal Students' Association
, which was affiliated to the underground anti-colonial organisation
Anushilan Samiti
, at the instance of
Sewmangal Singh
and
Brojen Basu Roy Choudhuri
.
[6]
Having graduated from his ‘Matric’ exam in 1937 with a First Division, Mazumdar took admission to
Edward College
in
Pabna district
(present day Bangladesh). However he returned to Siliguri after sometime, having quit his formal education, in order to join the independence movement. In 1938, at the age of 19, he joined the
Congress Socialist Party
.
[7]
The next year when the
Communist Party of India
(CPI) was organised in the neighbouring
Jalpaiguri
district, Mazumdar joined the then-banned party to work in its peasant front. Soon an arrest warrant forced him to go underground for the first time as a communist activist. Although the CPI was banned at the outbreak of World War II, he continued CPI activities among peasants and was made a member of the CPI Jalpaiguri district committee in 1942. The promotion emboldened him to organize a 'seizure of crops' campaign in Jalpaiguri during the
Great Famine of 1943
.
[2]
In 1946, he joined the
Tebhaga movement
in the
Jalpaiguri
region and embarked on a proletariat militant struggle in
North Bengal
.
[8]
The stir shaped his vision of a revolutionary struggle. Later he worked among tea garden workers in
Darjeeling
.
The CPI was banned in 1948 and he spent the next three years in jail. In January 1952 he married Lila Mazumdar Sengupta, a fellow CPI member from Jalpaiguri.
[9]
The couple moved to Siliguri, which was the center of Mazumdar's activities for a few years. He was briefly imprisoned in 1962.
During the mid-1960s Mazumdar organized a
leftist
faction in
Communist Party of India (Marxist)
(CPI(M)) in northern Bengal. In 1967, a militant peasant uprising took place in
Naxalbari
, led by his comrade-in-arms
Kanu Sanyal
. This group would later be known as the
Naxalites
, and eight articles written by him at this time?known as the
Historic Eight Documents
?have been seen as providing their ideological foundation: arguing that revolution must take the path of armed struggle on the pattern of the
Chinese Communist Revolution
. When the
Naxalbari uprising
was crushed in 1967, Mazumdar said: "...hundreds of Naxalbaris are smoldering in India....Naxalbari has not died and will not die"
[7]
The same year, Mazumdar broke away and formed the
All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries
which in 1969 founded the
Communist Party of India (Marxist?Leninist)
?with Mazumdar as its General Secretary.
Death
[
edit
]
He was captured in a state of bad health at his hideout on 16 July 1972 at 3 AM by an officer of
Calcutta Police
, Ranjit Guha Niyogi (alias Runu Guha Niyogi) and his team. As per the police, Mazumdar died of a massive heart attack at 4 AM on 28 July 1972.
[10]
But all the fractions of
Naxalites
opine that it was a custodial murder and he was killed by not being provided medicine in the police lock up.
[11]
His body was cremated at
Keoratola crematorium
under the surveillance of armed police and paramilitary forces.
[12]
The radical leftist movement in India has seen many ideological splits since Mazumdar's death.
[13]
The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation
observes Martyrs day in the day of Mazumdar's death.
The Communist Party of India (Maoist)
observes Martyrs Week in the last week of July in remembrance of Mazumdar's death, where members revisit his ideology and memorialise his influence on their movement.
[14]
Books on Charu Mazumdar's life
[
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]
See also
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Roy, Arundhati (29 March 2010).
"Walking With The Comrades"
.
Outlook India
.
Archived
from the original on 25 February 2016
. Retrieved
18 October
2021
.
- ^
a
b
"Charu Majumdar ? The Father of Naxalism"
.
Hindustan Times
. Archived from
the original
on 4 November 2012.
- ^
"????? ?????? ???????? ???? ????, ?? ???? ??? ?? ???????? ????? ???"
.
thelallantop
. Archived from
the original
on 7 December 2021.
- ^
"Naxalbari@50: Maoist uprising was sparked by this tribal woman leader"
.
Hindustan Times
. 23 May 2017.
- ^
Mahotsav, Amrit.
"Bireshwar Majumdar"
.
Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, Ministry of Culture, Government of India
. Retrieved
31 March
2024
.
- ^
Mukhopadhyay, Ashok (6 June 2022).
"Charu Majumdar: A new biography imagines the CPIM(L) leader's interrogation by the police"
.
Scroll.in
. Retrieved
24 March
2024
.
- ^
a
b
Banerjee, Sumanta (1984).
India's Simmering Revolution: The Naxalite Uprising
. Zed Press. p. 112.
ISBN
9780862320386
.
- ^
Banerjee, Rabi (3 July 2016).
"The man India loves to forget"
.
theweek.in
.
Archived
from the original on 29 June 2016
. Retrieved
18 October
2021
.
- ^
"Charu and Son: Revisiting the Legacy of a Revolutionary Father 50 Years After Naxalbari"
.
The Wire
. Retrieved
24 March
2024
.
- ^
"The last of the three"
.
The Indian Express
. 25 March 2010.
- ^
"Charu Majumdar -- The Father of Naxalism"
.
Hindustan Times
. 9 May 2003
. Retrieved
12 January
2022
.
- ^
"Charu and Son: Revisiting the Legacy of a Revolutionary Father 50 Years After Naxalbari"
.
The Wire
. Retrieved
12 January
2022
.
- ^
Kujur, Rajat (2009).
"Naxal conflict in 2008: an assessment"
(PDF)
.
Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
.
- ^
Bhattacharjee, Sumit (31 July 2020).
"Is Charu Majumdar's ideology relevant today?"
.
The Hindu
.
ISSN
0971-751X
. Retrieved
18 October
2021
.
External links
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