When Cobrapost reporters caught commanders of the Ranveer Sena on camera boasting about how they perpetrated serial massacres of the fighting rural poor in Bihar with the blessings and patronage of senior BJP leaders, the clips did not just dig up the ugly truth about a sordid chapter of Bihar from the recent past. They also brought to the fore the glaring weaknesses and biases in the judicial process where massacre perpetrators go scot-free and victims are denied justice. And most crucially, the revelations exposed the rotten feudal core of the BJP in a state like Bihar and the complicity and appeasement on the part of the JD(U)-RJD leadership that allowed the BJP-Ranveer Sena nexus to get away with its politics of feudal violence.
The Cobrapost released its video investigation about the Ranveer Sena in Delhi on 17 August. The very next day we saw Modi address a rally at Ara in Bhojpur, and quite characteristically Modi attempted to brush the entire truth about the BJP-Ranveer Sena nexus under the carpet with the theatrical announcement of the so-called Rs. 125,000 crore Bihar package. But the truth was out again after forty-eight hours when BJP-Ranveer Sena goons killed CPI(ML) leader Comrade Satish Yadav near Agiao. The BJP’s campaign for the Bihar Assembly elections had begun, much the same way as during the Lok Sabha elections, when Comrade Budhram Paswan, another popular leader of the CPI(ML) was killed in a similar fashion.
Comrade Satish Yadav was a young popular leader of poor peasants and sharecroppers. He was a key leader of the recent agitation conducted by the CPI(ML) and All India Kisan Mahasabha to compel the administration to procure paddy from small farmers and sharecroppers. The procurement agitation was followed by a second round to secure payment of dues for the paddy sold. Be it the issue of irrigation for farmers, ration for the poor, electricity supply to the hamlets of the poor, education for local children or dignity of the oppressed, Comrade Satish was always in the forefront of the campaign to serve the people and fight for their rights.
The Ranveer Sena has always sought to justify its murderous campaign against the rural poor in Bihar in the name of ‘protecting the interests of the peasantry’. But once again it has been caught red-handed killing a popular leader who fought as much for the peasantry as for rural labourers and stood for the broader unity of the aggrieved agricultural population. When they could no longer sustain the politics of massacres, the feudal-criminal nexus epitomised by the Ranveer Sena began targeting individual CPI(ML) leaders. It started with the assassination of Comrade Manju in Arwal in November 2003, and more recently we have lost Comrade Bhaiyaram Yadav (member of Party State Committee and secretary of Rohtas District Committee), Comrade Budhram Paswan (member of Bhojpur District Committee), and now Comrade Satish Yadav. Comrade Upadhyay Yadav, popular leader and Zila Parishad member of Jahanabad district survived a lethal attempt on his life in May this year and is now recovering from serious bullet injuries.
Serial massacres, targeted killings of CPI(ML) leaders and activists, attacks on Dalit students and hostels in the wake of the killing of Brahmeswar Singh, brutal assaults on women (the gangrape of Mahadalit girls in Kurmuri of Bhojpur in October 2014 and the recent attack on dalit women in Shiromani Tola in Parbatta block of Khagaria on 27 July this year are two horrific instances in recent months) – such has been the track record of the feudal-criminal forces patronised by the BJP in Bihar. And the BJP in turn has been appeased by the JD(U) till as recently as 2013 – the disbanding of the Amir Das Commission and the dumping of the Land Reforms Commission Report having been two most conspicuous examples.
Even when the RJD and now the JD(U) have been claiming to oppose the BJP, more often than not they have capitulated to the BJP, if not connived with it, in targeting the fighting rural poor and the Left, CPI(ML) in particular. The BJP in Bihar is not imported from Gujarat, nor is it an external power represented by the Modi government at the Centre. First and foremost, the BJP is the organic political representative of feudal power in Bihar. It is easy to treat the BJP as an external power and talk of Bihari pride; but challenging the feudal-communal roots and designs of the BJP within Bihar and resisting the growing corporate-communal offensive that it is unleashing on a countrywide scale is an altogether different proposition. Those who collaborate and connive with forces like the Ranveer Sena can only pay lip-service to the task of checking the BJP.
Ever since its inception, the CPI(ML) has challenged the domination of feudal forces in Bihar most courageously, comprehensively and consistently. The Janata Dal of course emerged as the dominant political force in the post-Congress political order of Bihar, but its record of complicity with the anti-poor anti-Dalit offensive of the feudal camp has only emboldened the feudal forces to rally more aggressively around the BJP. But the people of Bihar are not going to take this feudal aggression lying down and we have witnessed intense popular anger against each and every recent instance of feudal violence – be it the attack on Comrade Upadhyay Yadav in Jahanabad, the assault on the women of Shiromani Tola in Khagaria or the killing of Comrade Satish Yadav in Bhojpur. The CPI(ML) and the Left must transform this anger and resolve of the people into a powerful political force against the aggressive BJP-NDA and the opportunist JDU-RJD-Congress combine.
