JAHANABAD
Resistance against Ranvir Sena
ON MARCH 18, workers and peasants established a new model of unity in the resistance struggle against Ranvir Sena in Ganhankura village of Ratni block in Jahanabad district in Bihar. Hundreds of people from Noama, Mirganj, Rita Bigaha, Inder Bigha, Malahchak and Gappochak plunged into resistance against Ranvir Sena men who were firing indiscriminately. This battle started at 8.30 in the morning and went on till 1 pm. At the end the Ranvirs had to flee. People chased them in order to finish them off. However, exactly at this juncture a large contingent of police arrived and they allowed the Ranvirs to retreat safely to Mirzapur village. Our comrades did not deem it fit to engage the paramilitary forces. By this time people from Harpur, Gaunchiya, Mushtichak and Mahadev Bigaha had also reached. They went to seize the lentil crop raised by Ranvirs. But there too police was present in considerably large numbers and was carting the lentil away with tractors. People went back to their villages. But this incident has revealed how far the administration backs the Ranvirs. Now the people are devising means of dealing with the paramilitary forces.
Anyway, three of the Ranvir goons suffered grave injuries in this encounter and one of them later succumbed. Under popular pressure, one of the agents of Ranvirs publicly aplologised and paid a fine of 2.5 mounds of lentil.
Ganhankura village was under influence of People’s War group. For many years some 12 bighas of bakasht land has been under poor people’s occupation. For the past one year, the Ranvir Sena has been attempting to evict the poor people and get this land vacated. Last year, Ranvirs killed two poor villagers but the PWG took no retaliatory measures. In the process of our protest against these killings the people of this village came in our contact. On March 18, 25-30 armed Ranvirs came and started cropping the lentil employing labourers from outside. It is against this forcible cropping that the whole battle started.
This is the same area where after the murder of CPI(ML)’s deputy mukhiya Comrade Nagendra Yadav, broad Yadav peasantry joined the resistance struggle. People dragged the nephew of the mukhiya, the killer, and beat him to death. Ranvir Sena had later ransacked a village. During this struggle, Noama and Mirzapur had emerged as the citadels of Ranvir Sena and broad workers and peasants concentrated their fire against these villages. RJD leaders did all they can to dissuade the Yadav peasants from entering this battle, but it was of no avail. Our Party took a number of organisational and movemental steps to shape this developing trend in our mould. The movement for measures against floods reinforced this new unity.
During the resistance struggle of Ganhankura, majority of the people were under the RJD influence. Some of the villages from where the people came were under MCC influence. To avert any possibility of involvement of the masses under the RJD influence in battles against Ranvirs, the RJD leaders held negotiations with Ranvir chieftains twice -- on 22 February and 12 March. In these talks, patrons of feudal elements Tunnu Sharma, chairman of the district council, Krishna Sharma, member of district council, Akhilesh Sharma, RJD minister and patron of Ranvir Sena, Shivcharan Yadav, local RJD MLA, Naresh Yadav and Nagmani Yadav, respectively mukhiyas of Ratni and Pandaul, local leader of Ranvir Sena and even the SP were present. The main objective of discussion was to achieve Yadav-Bhumihar unity and to isolate Maley. The meeting took place in Mirzapur village, and it is from the same place that organised Ranvirs came to crop lentil in Ganhankura. RJD minister Akhilesh Sharma had said, “I am a Bhumihar and the local MLA is a Yadav, but we can sit together and eat. You Yadavs and Bhumihars are fighting for no reason”. But the people rejected this negotiation with unholy forces and the fighting unity between peasants and workers demonstrated it.
The people of Ganhankura thus aspire to unitedly take the struggle to victory under Maley leadership. Drawing Yadav peasantry to our side politically, our Party is determined to bury Ranvir Sena in this area itself.
– Kunal