Anirban Roy Chowdhury
On August 31, the Martyr’s Day of the historic food movement, the people of West Bengal witnessed a unique stubbornness, and confidence to fight back and struggle at the Curzon Gate square of Bardhaman town. The Bardhaman, a witness to many historic struggles in the past, that day saw a spontaneous gathering of people from different parts of the district, villages, and towns, standing in front of water cannons, tear gas, and police batons with only red flags in their hands, looking into the ruler’s eyes, created a unique collage of resistance to the whole West Bengal. The disobedience program, based on multiple issues including unrestrained commodity price hike, agricultural debt, unemployment problem, GST, anti-people policies of national and state governments, and corruption was a pre-scheduled program of CPI(M) Purba Bardhaman District Committee. So for several weeks in every block, village panchayat, and municipal area of the district, our party comrades have been campaigning intensively for this program. Similarly, the continuous programs of student, youth, women, farmers, and workers organizations made the civil disobedience program of August 31 more relevant to the leftist supporters and common people of the entire district. Therefore, there was already insanity and spontaneity among the supporters and comrades of Lal Zhanda about this program which was revealed through the interested attitude of the comrades across the district from the night before the law disobedience program. Many comrades were encouraged to attend the program.
The entire city of Bardhaman was decorated with red flags from the evening before the program. On August 31, from 10 am, according to the pre-arranged decision, the construction of the stage for the gathering started at the Baranilpur intersection of Bardhaman. Before noon, the stage decorated with red flags stood up at the Barlinpur intersection. Two meetings were held that day as decided. Before 2:30 in the afternoon, a large number of people started gathering at the two meeting points, in front of Bardhaman Junction and Baranilpur area, from different parts of the district holding red flags who came by buses, tempos, and trekkers. Within 30 minutes, from Baranilpur to Police Line, one of the busiest areas of Bardhaman became practically jammed with hardworking working people from different parts of the district including various rural areas like Raina, Khandhghosh, Jamalpur, Bhatar, Kalna, holding lal jhanda in their hand. Meanwhile, the work of keeping the traffic in one lane is going on as directed by the leadership. It was done with skill. Among the crowd of ordinary working people, farmers of Jamalpur, Rayana, farm laborers, day laborers of Vatar, Katwa, jute farmers, weavers of Purvasthali, mill workers of Bardhaman, Katwa; we students also feel that besides saving our own school, college, Burdwan University; in the future for the sake of our employment, we also need to participate in this march, this civil disobedience program, to save the land of our fathers, to save the mills of the district from the hands of the Adani Ambanis, for the development of Katwa thermal power plant. So we also called the students of the entire district to participate in this program.
Responding to this call, along with their parents, many students were also present in this program. The program started shortly after 3 pm. A cultural program was held on the stage and then Comrade Mohammad Salim, the only speaker of the day’s rally, addressed the people. As soon as Mohammed Salim’s speech was over, the rally started from the Baranilpur intersection with the collage of loud slogans of the struggling comrades who appeared from different parts of the district. Similarly, 10 minutes after the start of the rally at the Baranilpur intersection, a second rally was started from Bardhaman Junction premises under the leadership of Comrade Amal Halder, Achintya Mallik, the leader of the farmers’ movement. The mood of the comrades was different from the beginning of the march, the slogans of the students and youths, the footsteps of thousands of people, and the bright cheers of the red flag, the GT Road area of Bardhaman took a unique look in no time. Twenty minutes after the start of the rally, the two rallies from the two ends of the city came together and converged at the Curzon Gate area, the heart of Bardhaman. Within five minutes of the rally reaching the Curzon Gate area, the first barricade created by the district administration at 12 noon was broken by the working people who participated in the rally and the people who were eager to break the barricade, the whole Curzon Gate was full of slogans. Information: shortly after breaking the first barricade, the participants of the rally started working on the second barricade, but shortly before the second barricade was broken, the district police suddenly started firing water cannons without any provocation from the participants of the rally. And then the shooting of tear shells started one after the other. Thus began the task of dispersing the comrades. And then the lathicharge began arbitrarily. Men, women, old persons, and young students are all subjected to arbitrary lathi charges. At that time our highest leadership Comrade Mohammad Saleem forbade the administration to create incitement by tear cell and lathi charge, but the police administration did not listen to the request. And along with that, bricks were thrown at our comrades from the Vidhayak Sahayata Kendra (MLA Support Center) and its surrounding houses. But this day the mood of the comrades was different from the beginning. Therefore instead of keeping silent in the face of the attack, the students, youths, workers, farmers, and government employees from different parts of the district came together to form a resistance and the police bowed down to the resistance and started retreating. The furious crowd went forward in a mood of counter-resistance against the police, forcing the invading police force to retreat. Party comrades took over the Curzon Gate square and protected the policemen from the people carrying the red flag as a symbol of struggle and Bhukhapet. Then resisting the police attack, the protest of the affected people went to the Curzon Gate square for an hour. The Biswa Bangla logo, which was established by the administration along with the local MLA support center in violation of the Heritage Act of Curzon Gate, was pulled down by the affected people. In the adjacent area, angry people tore down the board with the certificate of work, which had Mamata Banerjee’s photo.
Seeing this mood of the affected people, the police leadership retreated. After announcing that the program was over when the comrades were on their way home alone, the police started attacking the marchers again without maintaining the SOP like cowards. Not only the participants of the rally but also many pedestrians were attacked. Innocent passers-by who came to buy medicine were attacked by the police. Then the arrests began. 173 leaders and activists were arrested from the place of the incident or outside it and were attacked by the police in this incident. The police arrested so many people till eleven at night that they could not provide enough space to keep them all in the Burdwan Sadar police station that night. In the meantime, it should be noted that during the arrest of our comrades the police did not even bother to use the police prison. The women comrades like Comrade Pitha and Mehuli were beaten and their hair was pulled by the police during their arrest; without a prison van, they were dangerously loaded into a small trekker and taken to the police station. Arrested activists were transferred to police stations in different blocks of the district as the police could not provide enough space at night. In the morning we were taken to court with false accusations against everyone. There were two cases filed against us, one by a Trinamool Congress worker against 119 comrades and the other by the IC of Burdwan police station against 57 of us. Seven of us were remanded in police custody for three days (later extended by three more days) and 42, including Binkasem Da, and Abhas Da, were given 9 days in jail custody.
On our first day in police custody, we were badly mistreated. Various policemen and civic volunteers abused us and even our parents with their words and did not even give us enough water. Many political prisoners were kept in a small dirty rooms with other prisoners. The interrogation lasted till night. Food quality was also very poor. The bread that was given as dinner was inedible. During the first three days in police custody, we were not even allowed to take bath, and the toilet facilities were extremely unhygienic. Then after three days when our lawyers discussed this matter in court, arrangements were made to bathe in police custody. But the food quality remains the same. Even though we were taken from the police custody to the hospital every day for medical examination, the comrades injured by the police were not even given a doctor’s visit, the medical examination certificate was brought sitting in the police car. And in the meantime, every night from different parts of the district, many comrades were arrested again from their houses by searching their houses.
Then on September 7, our police custody ended and for eight days we were sent to jail custody. We were again produced in court on September 9. Bail was dismissed. We got bail, filed by the Burdwan Police Authority, on September 9. And in the meantime, our comrades organized the 37th SFI Purba Bardhaman District conference in Katwa on September 10th and 11th with great success in my absence. I went to jail and had a new experience. Like people outside the jail, the people inside the jail are pouring complaints against this dictatorial Trinamool government from morning to night. Just as they want to be released from this jail, they also want to be released from the prison made by the Trinamool. Day and night they were also talking to us and were complaining about this government. Our jailed comrades have also promised to continue our fight against this dictatorial government, the other prisoners have faith in us. Within a few days, our comrades became a place of hope for many hapless prisoners. Finally, on September 13, we were taken to court again and on that day, the legal battle of our advocates came to an end. Through a legal battle, we were all released after the judge ruled in favor of our bail. After the release, the march started from Burdwan Court Square and more marches will continue in the future.
This march will continue in the future. The determination shown by the comrades participating in the movement inside and outside the jails has proved that this struggle will continue. There is no question of bowing down to this despotic, corrupt government. The autocratic Trinamool Congress government of the state will be forced to bow down to the struggle of fighting workers. History has repeatedly proven that it is not the tyrannical dictators but the people who have the last say in the heart of this society.
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