The Unsound Naxalite

"I have no fear. We have only class enemies and no individual enemies. Class enemies as such would never dare to come upon me because we have the vast support of the masses"

Turning the tables in Communism; Image Source: Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)

Communism, the red blood that gushes in the veins of those who are devoted to its ideologies. Communism isn’t a concept of today, the fight for a change isn’t something new. For decades it has been striving to see a new sunrise, a day when it will truly be a just, equal and liberating society, whose lanes will be forgiven from the chaining of evils.

The revolutionaries had sacrificed their lives for this fight. From the era of independence, thousands of young revolutionaries had led their lives in worshipping the dream of independence, lingering on their lids of a thousand sleepless nights. Among those lionhearted revolutionaries was Nagbhushan Patnaik, a Communist revolutionary and a participant of the Naxalbari movement. He was a front-rank participant whose tale further enhanced the path of future revolutions in Communism.

When asked about his childhood, Nagbhushan opened the narration with an amusing incident. His father was informed that he had beaten a boy in school; hence the furious father followed him to discipline him. Nagbhushan rushed and hid in a temple. His father closed the door of the exit. Finding no way to escape, Nagbhushan picked up a brick as a weapon and warned his father that he would protect himself and that he would have to face unprecedented consequences. A very angry father, who eventually surrendered, named his son Nagbhushan from that day. (If we break the literary meaning of Nagbhushan down, it will reveal ‘the Lord wearing snake’, and if you are well acquainted with Hindu mythology, you know who it is!)

The highly spirited boy, as one can conclude from the above snippet, was a born revolutionary. Right from childhood, his heart was filled with the fire of fearlessness and courage. At a very tender age of fifteen, while studying at S. K. C. G. College (Paralekhemundi), he became a part of A. I. S. F. For his post-graduation course, he was embellished as a student of BHU (Benaras Hindu University). There, the surroundings covered with the mist of socialism influenced Patnaik greatly. Apart from being a great rebel, our Patnaik was a poet in secrecy as well. The poet in him was heavily influenced by Nazrul Islam. He gained the knowledge of Oriya, Bengali, and Telugu but composed mainly in English. His ‘Poems of Prison’ was published in 2012.

He started his career as a practising lawyer at Gunupur. He came across Donkada Bhuvan Mohan Patnaik (DBM Patnaik), another renowned Communist lawyer, and both of them worked in the service of poor peasants.

After the unanticipated split in the Communist party (1964), Patnaik and his companions decided to be a part of CPIM. He made assorted attempts to urge Malkangiri’s local Adivasis and Balimela’s workers to join forces in the dawn of the 60th decade and moulded the movement with his own hands. However, he was imprisoned along with the other leaders and was pushed into Tihar Jail in 1966.

In the confines of Tihar Jail, he began conversing with Sundaraya, a leader of Telangana, mainly about his action plan. Sundaraya found himself as a supporter of it. Ramamurthy, the one in charge of the trade union, when asked to slow down the tides of the movement and to chart its path according to the democratic procedure, he refused. He fueled the armed peasant's movement, workers movement in his own language.

The conflict in abiding by the policies persuaded Nagbhushan to repel CPIM. This led to the foundation of CPIML (Marxist-Leninist) on April 22, 1969. Nagbhushan is one of its illuminating alumni.

1966 was a rough year for him. He had to go through a stomach operation which weakened the stronghold of the leader. He and his old comrade, DBM Patnaik, admonished the fellow peasants of Gunupur to revolt for their deserving rights in 1969. Unfortunately, the police of Odisha heard the whispers and plummeted into the hideouts of Naxalites or the rebels. Nagbhushan was lucky enough to dodge the bullets of an arrest only till July 15, 1969; he and his ten comrades were taken under police custody.

In October 1969, he fled from Vishakhapatnam Central Jail but got a hint of freedom for a short period of time. He was again arrested but this time, he was brutally tortured. In an interview, he disclosed, “In the early period, they kept me handcuffed and fettered 24 hours by tying me upside down to the bars of the doors, keeping me under solitary confinement lock-up with three sentries round the clock, away from even the central jail. Subsequently, as a condemned prisoner, I was kept under solitary confinement for three and a half years with no access to news. However, during the latter part, we struggled for better conditions in the prison and managed to lead a somewhat better life”.

While he was tortured in jail, his family wasn’t spared from societal torment. He believes that the Government didn’t release him, it’s the Supreme Court that released him on conditions of unconditional parole. He is still deemed as a prisoner on parole even to this day. In the words of a true rebel, “Our conception of development is entirely different and is based on a scientific philosophy, Marxism-Leninism, which brooks no individual terrorism. We have our sight set on the course of human development. It is only a masquerade of planning to divert the revolutionary involvement of the people. Can you call it development with such soaring prices and rising unemployment? What kind of industrial development is this? The speed of development can’t be achieved since the development itself is not real”. The questions are quite relevant to the present, isn’t it? Well, that’s what we call dwelling in the past with no absolute wishes of a better future, I suppose.