Table Of ContentTRIBAL GUERRILLAS
The Santals of West Bengal
and the Naxalite Movement
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TRIBAL GUERRILLAS
The Santals of West Bengal
and the Naxalite Movement
EDWARD DUYKER
DELHI
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS
1987
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Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford 0X2 6DP
New York Toronto
Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
Pooling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo
Nairobi Oar es Salaam
' * J Melbourne Auckland
and associates in
Beirut Berlin Ibadan Nicosia
© Edward Duyker 1987
SBN195619382
Filmset by South End Typographies, Pondicherry
Printed by Jay Print Pack.(P) Ltd-, New Delhi 110015
and published by R. Dayal, Oxford University Press
YMCA Library Building, Joi Singh Road, New Delhi 110001
Gooele Original from
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/?"//? r~
/ ' ? 'fS For my parents
Herman and Maryse Duyker
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Contents
List of Tables viii
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements x
Abbreviations xii
Glossary of terms xiii
Introduction 1
PART I
MODERNIZATION AND THE SANTALS
1 The Early History of the Santals 27
2 The Commercialization of Santal Agriculture 40
3 Contradictions in the Green Revolution 50
part n
THE NAXALITE RURAL CAMPAIGN IN WEST BENGAL
4 The Naxalbari Uprising: 1967 67
5 The Midnapore Uprising: 1969-70 80
6 The Birbhum Uprising: 1970-71 88
part m
NAXALISM AND THE SANTALS
7 The Vanguard 99
8 Naxalism and Santal Cultural Rationalizations 110
9 Inter-Tribal and Inter-Caste Response 133
10 Epilogue 150
11 Conclusion 159
Appendix I: Some Ethnographic Notes on the Santals 165
Appendix II: Programme of the Communist Part of India
(Marxist-Leninist) 173
Bibliography 181
Index 197
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List of Tables
I Bolpur P.S. and Environs 22
II Double Cropping in Birbhum 52
III Mayurakshi Project: Birbhum Command Area 53
IV Gross Cropped/Net Sown/Multi-Cropped Area
(Debra-Gopiballavpur) 56
V Average Rainfall/Net Area Irrigated/Total Product
(Debra-Gopiballavpur) 56
VI Agencies in the Distribution of Power Pumps &
Tillers, etc. 56
VII Political Killings: Birbhum, December 1970-July 1971
(Occupation of Victims) 62
VO! Political Killings: Birbhum, February-September 1971
(Number and Percentage of Incidents per Thana) 63
IX United Front Government Land Redistribution; Midnapore A
Birbhum (November 1969) 64
X Consumer Price Index: Midnapore 1970 and Birbhum 1971 102
XI Naxalite Killings: Midnapore, 1969-70 (Weapon, Number of
Participants and Location) 128
XII Percentage of Cultivators with Agricultural Labour as their
Secondary Occupation (Naxalbari, Phansidewa, and Kharibari) 137
XIII Percentage of Cultivators Holding less than 5 Acres of Land
(Naxalbari, Phansidewa, and Kharibari) 137
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List of Illustrations
MAPS
I Santal Population Dispersion
II Police Station Bolpur S
1
III Náxalite Activity, West Bengal and Bihar 8
IV Darjeeling District S
S
V Midnapur District 8
VI Birbhum District 8
DIAGRAMS
I Santal Social Divisions 141
II Santal Group Affinity: West Bengal 166
PLATES
(following page 96)
Sidhu/Kanu slogans of Jharkhand
Santal woman with chest tattoos
Santal women at Sriniketan Mela
Santal woman and child
The hunter
The Santal boy
The harvest
The Sohrae dance
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Acknowledgements
This study could not have been completed without the constant
encouragement and guidance of Sibnarayan Ray, former Reader in
the Department of Indian Studies, University of Melbourne. While
a student in his department, I was also introduced to the riches of
the Bengali language and gained something of the basic means to
communication within the village world, thanks to Atindra
Majumdar and Elizabeth Bacskovsky.
During my sometimes difficult sojourns in India, I met many
brave and generous men and women who helped me carry out
research on what is still a sensitive subject. For various reasons I
cannot name them all. I can, however, acknowledge an enormous
debt to Indrajit Sen, who patiently accompanied me on dozens of
excursions by bus, bicycle and on foot—braving the mosquitoes and
the elements—as friend and guide.
I will always be grateful to Fr. Hans Hendriks for the unique
introduction to Santal culture he afforded me, and for his help in the
translation of numerous Santal Hui songs, which I collected in the
field. Similarly, I can never forget the charity and kindness of Ellen
Laursen, of the Danish Santal Mission, who nursed me back to
health after a particularly debilitating bout of illness in the Santal
heartland. Many others in India assisted me far more than their
official duties would have required them to. Ashok Sen, of the West
Bengal State Archives, comes immediately to mind.
My thanks are also due to Dr John Martin, of the Department of
Germanic Studies, University of Melbourne, for his help in trans
lating ancillary German and Norwegian works, which opened doors
to less known (yet none the less rich) European scholarship.
In the course of writing this book, I incurred a major debt to
Dr Don Ferrell, Michael Cooke, Dr Robin Jeffrey, Roni Linser,
Barry York, and the staff of Oxford University Press, New Delhi,
who read through numerous drafts and helped fashion order from
confusion. My parents, Herman and Maryse Duyker, and later my
wife Susan, contributed to this process, but were also readily at
hand with the emotional and financial support that no writer can
survive without.
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