Thread by @tathagata2

The retrograde, self-destructive,nation-killing movement called Naxalism or Maoism rose,spread its fetid smell,fell and died here in West Bengal. I watched it carefully and am now putting very briefly its sordid history.The word 'Naxalite' originated #MaoistAgainstConstitution

from the village of Naxalbari,in West Bengal's Darjeeling District. There was a peasant uprising here in 1967. But some CPI(M) comrades,who are now known as Urban Naxals,tuned on to this and quickly usurped the movement. It was a rage those days. #MaoistAgainstConstitution

The movement was led by one Charu Mazumdar, considered a super theoretician of the movement. He coined slogans like "China's Chairman Is Our Chairman,China's Way Is Our way" Driven by the fashion,many of West Bengal's college-going youth ran out and #MaoistAgainstConstitution

joined the movement. It soon acquired a perversity in which schoolteachers and traffic policemen became their main targets. The youth fanned out to the countryside and began to kill 'jotedars' (small landholders) which they called 'srenishatru khatam' #MaoistAgainstConstitution

(finishing a class enemy). Charu babu,in his blind following of Mao,also started saying 'Gram Diye Shahar Ghero', (surround the cities by the villages),forgetting that this not China,here rebellion against established order has always started from the #MaoistAgainstConstitution

cities. The fools,many good students from wealthy families among them,who flocked to the villages got no support from the local population which is an essential requirement of guerrilla warfare. Many died from exposure,snakebite,dysentery. Then they #MaoistAgainstConstitution

returned crestfallen to their families who packed them off to other states,some to the West. Meanwhile the policemen in the cities saw red at the killing of the defenceless traffic policemen and started killing key Naxalite leaders like Saroj Datta in #MaoistAgainstConstitution

fake encounters. A lot of common criminals also infiltrated their ranks and did their work under the garb of 'revolution'. University professors who had joined the movement out of romanticism when caught and questioned sang like canaries and betrayed #MaoistAgainstConstitution

their colleagues. Charu Mazumdar was betrayed,caught and died from cardiac asthma. Then the Naxalites killed very popular Forward Bloc leader Hemanta Basu and Congress leader Nirmal Chatterjee of Baranagar. The last tipped the scales. Enraged workers #MaoistAgainstConstitution

from Congress and CPI(M) and even ordinary people went berserk,pulled out more than 100 Naxalites from their homes and killed them on the night of 11 August 1971.

That was more or less the end of Naxalism in West Bengal. Later it flared up in the #MaoistAgainstConstitution

forested tri-junction of West Bengal,Jharkhand and Odisha under the leadership of a Telugu leader called Kisanji. They sabotaged a passenger train called Gyaneswari Express and killed a large number of innocent people. The original Naxalite party, #MaoistAgainstConstitution

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) split into some 27 factions and became a laughing stock. Meanwhile China abandoned Mao and embraced Deng and brought about an economic resurgence. The Soviet union vanished into thin air. #MaoistAgainstConstitution

But in retrospect it breaks one's heart to think how many promising young priceless lives have been lost in the pursuit of this failed philosophy.
A number of books have recorded the above history. However,they are all in Bengali. We must now educate #MaoistAgainstConstitution

the masses all over India so that they learn from the experience of West Bengal and do not fall prey to the cheap romanticism of this murderous cult. There is no other way to prosperity than democracy,sustained hard work and free enterprise. #MaoistAgainstConstitution