Waking up one sultry post-Pujo morning in Calcutta, I found a home delivery of Rahul Pandita’s Hello Bastar awaiting me. The book’s cover claimed it to be “The Untold Story of India’s Maoist Movement”. So finishing my morning chores, I sat down to read the narrative about a movement which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has dubbed as India’s biggest internal security threat. Admittedly, the book stumped me and left me engrossed. Some five hours later, I had turned the last page.
The book was certainly well written and had presented the facts of the Maoist movement in a perceivably dispassionate manner, which is difficult to come by given the intense passions and romance that can engulf any writer on the subject. Chapter after chapter had followed the history of the struggle from before the Naxalbari conflict flared up to contemporary times. What is more, a glowing afterword by Maoist ideologue Kobad Ghandy written from the ramparts of the high security cells of Tihar Jail, Delhi had dissected the idea of the Indian nation as we know it.
Coming from another conflict-zone – the Northeast, being a student of Presidency College, Calcutta, which itself was a so-called headquarters of the Naxal struggles of the 60s and 70s, and a boarder of two years at Hindu Hostel, which had housed some of the then-radicals; I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the history of the movement. Indeed, one of the most vivid memories of my early days in Calcutta was staring with awe at the openings in the ceiling of my hostel room where arms and ammunition had once been stowed away from repressive police eyes and hearing whispered tales of Asim Chatterjee alias Kaka, and other student leaders of those days. Even with that background, Hello Bastar was an eye-opener. Continue reading
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