Four activists from Kolkata \u2013 who had travelled to West Bengal\u2019s Jangalmahal \u2013 the forested areas of Purulia, Bankura, West Midnapore and Jhargram \u2013 were picked up by the state police last week.<\/p>\n
Sabyasachi Goswami, Arkadeep Goswami, Tipu Sultan and Sanjiv Majumdar \u2013 were picked up by Goaltore police station officials and charged with sedition. Their arrest and subsequent slapping of the sedition charges has sparked a series of protests in Kolkata.<\/p>\n
Sabyasachi Goswami, a writer and poet had been arrested earlier on charges of links with Maoist organisations. A resident of Agarpara of North 24 Parganas adjoining Kolkata, his political articles are published in magazines regularly.<\/p>\n
His friends say that Goswami was perturbed about the growing Hindutva support in the Jangalmahal area. He was in the region to talk to families of political prisoners in the state. The others who were arrested are all from Kolkata, though one of them hails from Birbhum\u2019s Shantiniketan.<\/p>\n
Tipu Sultan and Arkadeep Goswami are former members of the United Students\u2019 Democratic Front (USDF) \u2013 a students\u2019 union that West Bengal police claim, has links with Maoists and Maoist frontal organisations.<\/p>\n
Sanjiv Majumdar has been working with the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) and other human rights organisations such as the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR).<\/p>\n
It is not known whether the four had gone to Jangalmahal together. However, sources say they were in regular touch with families of political prisoners. According to police, they were regularly travelling to the area and talking to the families of Maoists and activists who are now in prison. In the process, they have gained considerable support in the area.<\/p>\n
Arrest linked to the alleged starvation deaths of tribals?<\/strong><\/p>\n Interestingly, the arrest of the four has been linked with the alleged starvation deaths of seven tribal people in the Jangalkhas village of Jhargram, a tiny village with a predominant poor Shabar (tribal) population. The village is close to the Jharkhand border.<\/p>\n Seven persons in the village have died in the past few months, four of them in November. There are talks that this was due to starvation. A team led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had visited the area last week and the party members have said that people in the village are suffering from acute hunger.<\/p>\n However, district magistrate Ayesha Rani has gone on record saying some of the deaths were from tuberculosis. She added that there was enough food disbursed by the state for the area.<\/p>\n In Kolkata, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said (without mentioning Jangalkhas or the Sabar deaths) that there were no starvation deaths in the state. She said the government has special packages for backward areas of Bengal.<\/p>\n According to activists in Kolkata, the four visitors were looking at the details of the alleged starvation deaths, and the government was bent upon suppressing the facts, lest these come out in the open.<\/p>\n Sources in the government deny this. They say that the four activists from Kolkata were trying to influence people in the area into Maoist ideology and the movement of Maoists who had gone into hiding for long was being felt in the area all over again. \u201cSome villagers are apparently offering shelter to Maoists again. The activists from Kolkata have been regularly visiting Jangalmahal, and Maoist leaflets and documents have been found from them. Interrogation is on,\u201d said an officer.<\/p>\n Debopriya Shome, a member of the USDF, said that people cannot be arrested for their ideological belief, unless they are involved in some kind of violent act. \u201cIt is therefore illegal to slap sedition charge on them,\u201d Shome said.<\/p>\n The background <\/strong><\/p>\n Jangalmahal has remained \u201ccalm\u201d since the death of CPI(Maoist) politburo member Kishanji, who was killed in a reported encounter with the security forces in November 2011.<\/p>\n Trinamool Congress\u2019 close alliance with the People\u2019s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) \u2013 a frontal organisation of the CPI (Maoist) active in Jangalmahal \u2013 prior to 2011 has been no secret. Since Mamata Banerjee\u2019s coming to power in Bengal in 2011, the government had made several attempts to hold talks with the Maoists, but it didn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n The Maoists though, vanished from Jangalmahal. There are reports that some left to the neighbouring Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Some activists of the PCPA joined the ruling Trinamool Congress. Many others \u2013 Maoists active during the pre-2011 days, surrendered before the state.<\/p>\n But as the situation is likely to be when a political party is in power for several years \u2013 in this case the Mamata Banerjee government has been in power for seven years now \u2013 there is disgruntlement. Whether it is in the form of political oppositions gaining more power, or her own party leaders engaged in corrupt practices that are depriving the poor, there are forces against the ruling party in the state.<\/p>\n Whether that force is strong or not in terms of votes, only time can tell. But the fact remains that there are voices against the ruling government trying to gain strength.<\/p>\n And with the BJP and human rights groups in the city both making allegations against the government, the politics of Jangalmahal is likely to get more and more complex in the coming days.<\/p>\n [Cover photograph: Facebook]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Four activists from Kolkata \u2013 who had travelled to West Bengal\u2019s Jangalmahal \u2013 the forested areas of Purulia, Bankura, West Midnapore and Jhargram \u2013 were picked up by the state police last week. Sabyasachi Goswami, Arkadeep Goswami, Tipu Sultan and Sanjiv Majumdar \u2013 were picked up by Goaltore police station officials and charged with sedition. 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