Hare Krishna Konar

Hare Krishna Konar was born to an upper middle class family and was the eldest son of Sarat Chandra Konar and Satyabala Devi. His father was a businessman as well as a landlord of Kamargoria village. He was born on 5 August 1915 in Kamargoria village, under Raina Police Station in Bardhaman District of Bengal in British India. Up to class 4 he used to study in Kamargoria Prathmik Bidyalay. At young age, he shifted to South Radhakantopur village of Memari with his father, mother and started education there. In 1930 while studying at Memari Vidyasagar Smriti Vidyamandir in class 9, the Satyagraha movement was going on around the country, Hare Krishna Konar along with his father Sarat Chandra Konar gather in a gathering of students who want to join Yuva Congress Party, that time Hare Krishna Konar was 15 years old and he was clinging to the balcony post in front of the District Congress House to join the party and his father was struggling to take him back home but he was not listening to anyone, and this was first time he met with Benoy Chowdhury who was the head in charge of the Burdwan District Congress volunteer force in that movement and then chowdhury advised konar to return home and he returned that day but soon, he broke his father's chest to collect money for the fees to join Yuva Congress and without asking his family members he joined Congress party as well as the Indian independence movement and he boycotted the school to participate in the Indian Civil disobedience movement at the age of 15 and was arrested on 6 April 1930 because of Mahatma Gandhi's abolishing of Salt March act. That time he was imprisoned for 6 months, in the jail he again met with Benoy Choudhury and Saroj Mukherjee who was convicted of Anushilan Samiti's bomb case activity then Choudhury suggested Konar join the revolutionary movement rather than support the Nonviolence movement. After releasing from jail in October 1930, he started to propagate that using the ideology of Ahimsa and Gandhism their country can never ever get Purna Swaraj, having to acquire arms and bombs to directly fight against British Empire. That time his father Sarat Chandra Konar was tensioned about Hare Krishna Konar's revolutionary activities against the British Raj as Sarat Konar's great wish was to admit Hare Krishna Konar in Cambridge University for his further studies, so his father took him to Kolkata to keep him away from the revolutionary activities and movements of Indian Independence. In 1931 his father admitted him in Bangabasi college under University of Calcutta to complete his B.A. but comrade Konar's love towards motherland India was so deep that he couldn't concentrate in his study and he joined the Jugantar revolutionary party just after few months of joining college and made an underground political group in Kolkata. This was the part of Calcutta's Jugantar group, this group were made to produce and manufacture arms and bombs to supply these arms to the Jugantar revolutionaries of Anushilan samiti. After 1 year of underground revolutionary activities, finally on 15 September 1932 at the age of 18 while studying B.A. on Economics at Bangabasi College, under the University of Calcutta he was captured and arrested by Britishers and British officers.[3][4][5]

On 15 September 1932 British officers took him to Burdwan Jail and the next day they transported Konar to Calcutta High Court and in his court trial Konar was present along with other revolutionaries from all parts of Bengal like Mohan Kishore Namadas and Sitangshu Dutta Roy (arrested for netrakona arms conspiracy case), Karthik Chandra Dey Das and Mukul Chandra roy (arrested for calcutta arms act case), Gourishankar Dubey (arrested for muzaffarpur political dacoity case), Bindubhushan Sen (arrested for jamalpur dacoity and arms conspiracy case), Jagadananda Mukherjee (cornwallis street shooting case) and when British Judges ask Comrade Hare Krishna Konar that did he is Shameful for his revolutionary activities against the British Empire or not then comrade Hare Krishna Konar said in his court trial that:

What I have done I am not shameful for that and what will be my consequences I will be proud for that.

After his addressing in Calcutta High Court, the court as well as the British judges sentenced him for lifetime imprisonment, firstly he was kept in Midnapore Central Jail and after a month transferred to Cellular Jail (Kālā Pānī) and it was ordered to gave him the highest punishment of Kālā Pānī on Cellular Jail in Andaman Islands, comrade konar was imprisoned for forming a political and freedom dacoity in 1932-33 and to produce bombs and arms for Jugantar group the part of anushilan samiti of calcutta (present day Kolkata) this jugantar group was formed towards to uproot British Raj in India.

106 = Hare Krishna Konar (The list of names who were integrated in cellular jail in 1932–1938).

Before being arrested on 15 September 1932, he was already in contact with communist leaders like Abdul Halim, Muzaffar Ahmad, Bankim Mukherjee, Bhupendranath Dutta. Soon after imprisonment in andaman jail comrade konar faced the inhuman and unimaginable tortures, treatment of Kālā Pānī was physical tortures as well as the food that was given was not fit for human consumption, there were worms when they opened the bread and wild grass was boiled and served in rotten vegetables, rain water was given for drinking and the water was full of insects and worms, 13×6 cells were dark and damp and dingy thickly coated with moss, there were no toilets, there were no lights, no reading material, prisoners were not allowed to meet with each other, the guards carried out physical torture and flogging, their behaviour was insulting, things had become unbearable, so the prisoners came in a conclusion to do hunger strike against the jail authorities to improve the systems in jail, soon on 12 May 1933 the hunger strike was fast undo death, Mahavir Singh (arrested for convicted in Lahore Conspiracy Case and associated with Bhagat Singh), Mohan Kishore Namadas (arrested for Calcutta arms act case) and Mohit Moitra (arrested for convicted in Arms Act Case) died for Force-feeding by British warders during this hunger strike, their bodies were quietly ferreted away and thrown out to sea, so that the Indians could not get an issue to revolt against the British governments. Central Jail Lahore's inspector David Barker was called to break the hunger strike, he issued orders to stop the strike of drinking water. The freedom fighters were resolute, there was a huge outcry throughout India because of this hunger strike. After 46 days of this hunger strike, the British Raj had to bow and request to stop the hunger strike and they said the facilities they are demanding for will be accepted, so revolutionary of Cellular Jail had accept it, thus the hunger strike ended on 26 June 1933, and soon after the death of three respect revolutionaries Mahavir Singh, Mohan Kishore Namadas and Mohit Moitra in the hunger strike, the facilities won from cellular jail authorities improved, which prisoners will be noted as less dangerous he will be released but will under the eyes of Britishers, light was fixed in every cell, opportunity to play sports, cultural events was organised by the jail authority and jail work was reduced to minimal, prisoners were allowed and given:

• Soap to bath

• Bed to sleep

• Edible food

• Allowed to study

• Given respect by the jail authority to the prisoners

• Allowed to communicate amongst themselves and many other facilities were also grewed.

During the hunger strike comrade konar met with Satish Pakrashi (connection with Dakhineswar Bomb case), Subodh Roy (Chittagong armoury raid), Niranjan Sengupta (Mechua Bazar Bomb case), Ganesh Ghosh (Chittagong armoury raid), Batukeshwar Dutt (Central Legislative Assembly bomb case), Sachindra Nath Sanyal (Rash Behari Bose and founded Manifesto of H.R.A.) Jibendra Das (Anushilan revolutionary), Nalini Das (Mechua Bazar Bomb case), Shiv Verma (Bhagat Singh and Lahore Conspiracy Case), met many others and soon after the hunger strike the supervision and checking process in the jail was extremely reduced, so the prisoners had been able to smuggle in a lot amount of communist and socialist literature. Narain Roy, Niranjan Sengupta and Central Jail Lahore Group smuggled the largest volume of literature in the cellular jail. Several prisoners were of high learning and had been permitted all sorts of books for study in jail, on their release the prisoners made over their literature to the other revolutionary, who brought them to the Andaman unchecked by the so many authorities which formally checked them, on their way to the Andaman. The prisoners also requested the warders outside the andaman jail to get books direct from the book smugglers, the prisoners requested their relatives though letter to send them particular books, when they arrived in jail, they were checked by the authorities who finding them objectionable set them aside. However, some revolutionary prisoners who were working in the jail office who picked those books and gave them to their comrades. The cellular jail authority made a library for the revolutionaries but the control of the library passed into the hands of all the left radical who were formerly a revolutionary and named the library as "The Veritable University of Revolutionaries", this was about the year 1935. The prisoners spent most of their time in reading communist or socialist literature in "The Veritable University " and a thirst for books and knowledge began, there were students, doctors, lawyers, peasants, and workers all together, discussion of politics, economics, history and philosophy as the result that there was hardly any left who had not become a confirmed Communist or Socialist. Hare krishna konar, Shiv verma, Satish pakrasi held study circles, in which the principles of Socialism, Marxism and Communism were explained, biology and physiology given by the doctors amongst them, others gave the classes of historical and dialectical materialism eventually a different and new environment was created as the revolutionary met to discuss and read. Soon Hare Krishna Konar and Shiv verma decided to make an organ of the party which was called the Communist Consolidation, should be started immediately with 39 prisoners on 26 April 1935 the Consolidation was formed. “Vande Mataram” and “Bharat Mata ki Jai” and other national slogans were never used. The consolidation members only use the slogan of "Inquilab Zindabad" and "Dunia ka majduro ek ho". Dhanwantri, Bejoy Kumar Sinha, Batukeshwar Dutt, Narain Roy, and Niranjan Sengupta were appointed to the editorial board of a Newspaper, named “The Call”, which were published from the jail. The “Call” was started as a monthly paper and act as a mouthpiece of communist consolidation, the number of member in communist consolidation swelled to 200 and all of them contributed articles on different subjects dealing with Communism, Marxism, Socialism, Biography of Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, etc., “The Call” was like a magazine paper, only one copy was written and placed in the library, it had about 150 pages, later the consolidation member celebrates the May Day, October Revolution Day, Vladimir Lenin's birthday, etc. These activities of the Communist Consolidation continued unhindered till about the middle of 1937. The Chittagong arms Group members therefore, started military parades, at first without the sanction of the authorities, but a little later with the full approval of the authorities. They also had their uniform prepared, they prepared their buttons and badges from the silver utensils they were given for use. Ananta Singh was their leader instructor, they were able to put up a very impressive show. When they marched past, and performed several lying and attacking formations with their Bamboo sticks used instead of muskets, they appeared really magnificent. The members of the Communist Consolidation were so impressed with these military drills of the Chittagong group that they also sought permission from the Communist Consolidation leaders to join the daily parades of the Chittagong Group. This resulted in the number of the Chittagong paraders increasing to about 90 and all the chittagong arms group member also join the Communist consolidation. This is the time of 1937 the prisoners were enjoying their daily activities and saying themselves as political prisoners of Andaman Cellular Jail.[4][6][7]

In the time 1937 the revolutionaries of cellular jail started feeling the atmosphere for the world war and the freedom fighters thought that before the war starts we should get back to our country to be with our people and take active part in the Anti-war movement and as after studying about Marxism, Communism and Socialism the freedom fighters of jail started saying themselves as political prisoners so they want to get treated like other political prisoners who were treated in other jails for that's why a petition was sent to Viceroy and governor-general The Marquess of Linlithgow on 9 July 1937 by Shiv Verma and Hare Krishna Konar that:

All political prisoners should be repatriated to the mainland and released. An ultimatum was given that if these demands were not met a hunger strike would begin.

But there was no response from the viceroy The Marquess of Linlithgow, so finally on 25 July 1937 the 385 political prisoners went on hunger strike, some of the 80 other prisoners got bailed by giving the excuse to the jail authority that they are going on their personal works and businesses, but actually they were going to propagate and to encourage the Indians to do protest against the British government to transfer the prisoners from andaman to mainland and creating a noise and protesting against the force feeding by the jailers. The prisoners also arrange to get information regarding Indian reactions to the hunger strike, it had already been arranged that the newspapers containing Indian reactions should be smuggled inside the jail through some warders and other contacts which had been established with some of the local peoples. A country wide movement on the mainland in support of demands of the Andaman freedom fighters began to treated as other political prisoners like other jails. There was a mass demonstration of working people, intellectuals and students. This upsurge clearly showed that their people on the mainland did not forget them. After four weeks telegrams from leaders of the nation Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Sarat Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, etc. poured in imploring the freedom fighters to end their hunger strike. Letter to Viceroy on 3 August 1937 by Rabindranath Tagore that:

I as a poet appeals you to transfer the political prisoners of cellular jail to mainland as the hunger strike begins and we cannot allow this flowers of the nation to wither away, so please don't use cellular jail as a concentrating camp of revolutionaries and you have to release the political prisoners from jail.

Letter to Hare Krishna Konar on 28 August 1937 by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Working Committee that:

The whole nation along with me and congress working committee members appeals to you to end the hunger strike and assures you to take up your demands and to see them fulfilled.

After a lot of deliberation and discussion this historic 36-days hunger strike of 200 revolutionary freedom fighters ended. The process of repatriation started in September 1937. There were a total of 385 freedom fighters in jail at the time. 339 from Bengal, 19 from Bihar, 11 from Uttar Pradesh, 5 from Assam, 3 from Punjab, 2 from Delhi and 2 from Madras and most of the member of this organization along with Hare Krishna Konar was previously the member of Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar or from Pro Marxist groups and by January 1938 Hare Krishna Konar along with his other comrades were released.[6][8]

After being released from jail in 1938 he met with M. N. Roy (Founder of CPI), Muzaffar Ahmed (Prominent member of CPI from Bengal), Abdul Halim (Member of CPI from Bengal), Bankim Mukherjee and Bhupendranath Datta, whom konar has previously met before arresting in 1932 and after releasing he again met with them and earned the membership of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and from that year Hare Krishna Konar's Communist movement and path through the Anti-capitalism and Anti-imperialism starts. So, legally comrade konar earned the Communist Party of India's membership in 1938 but he was involved or get influence with the ideology of Communism and Marxism-Leninsim since the middle of the 1930s.[3][4]

1957–1962
In the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1957, Hare Krishna Konar and Jamadar Majhi was elected as the representative of the Kalna constituency and the Communist Party returned as the second largest party with an increased representation. This platform enabled the Communist Party under the leadership of Jyoti Basu in West Bengal to exacerbate agitations against the prevalent food crisis in West Bengal by acting as the principal opposition on the floor of the assembly, increasing public awareness and providing a united front for agitators to rally around.[13]

1962–1967
In the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1962, Hare Krishna Konar was once again re-elected as the representative of the Kalna constituency.[14] In the following period the Communist Party underwent a vertical split with a section of the party including Hare Krishna Konar going on to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist). There were several ongoing ideological conflicts between sections within the Communist Party with regards to the nature of the Indian State and the characterisation and method of interaction with the Indian National Congress, with regards to the approach towards the ongoing debate between the Soviet Union and China and with regards to the handling of the border disputes between India and China. These debates were further exacerbated by the food movement in West Bengal and brought to the forefront by the rising border tensions between India and China.[15] The Communist Party had also become the second largest party in the Lok Sabha following the 1962 Indian general election with nearly 10% vote share which is described to have brought prominence to the internal divisions of the party.[16][15]

1967–1969
In the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1967, fourteen opposition parties contested through two pre-poll political alliances;[17] Communist Party of India (Marxist) led United Left Front and the Communist Party of India and Bangla Congress (splinter of the Congress party formed in 1966) led People's United Left Front.[18] The Communist Party of India (Marxist) became the second largest party outstripping its former party, the Communist Party of India. Following the election, the two alliances joined forces to form the United Front government in West Bengal. During the negotiations between the two alliances, Jyoti Basu was denied the position of chief minister due to opposition to the idea from the Communist Party of India and Bangla Congress,[19] all of whom eventually settled for Ajoy Mukherjee of the Bangla Congress as the consensus candidate for the position while Jyoti Basu became the deputy chief minister and in-charge of the finance department and Hare Krishna Konar as the Minister of Land and Land Revenue.[2][20] The government however collapsed within a year when the food minister, P. C. Ghosh resigned from the government after facing persistent agitations led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (both part of the same government) against his policy of seeking voluntary measures from landlords and middlemen which were ineffective in resolving the food crisis.[13]

1969–1971
For the mid term West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1969, the United Front Committee was formed consisting of all the coalition partners of the previous government which agreed upon a pre-poll alliance to contest the election together under a 32-point programme.[17] Under terms of the agreement, if the alliance were to attain a majority then Ajoy Mukherjee would become the chief minister while Jyoti Basu would become the deputy chief minister.[17][21] In addition during the negotiations Basu was able to secure the portfolios of fisheries, food, excise, labour, civil defence and education for the CPI-M as well as Minister of Land and Land Revenue was changed his name to Minister of Land and Land Reforms and the minister was Hare Krishna Konar.[22][21] In the election, the United Front won an overwhelming victory with 214 out of 280 seats and as a consequence the Communist Party of India (Marxist) stood as the first party other than the Congress party to become the largest party in the assembly.[23]

The second United Front government however too fell within a short period of time, on this occasion the chief minister Ajoy Mukherjee resigned in March 1970 after facing an aggravated and dysfunctional government where smaller member parties were in confrontation with the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the largest among them on various issues. The government continued to be operational until the dissolution of the assembly by presidential proclamation on 30 July.

1971–1972
In the following West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1971, the parties contested alone but Communist Party of India (Marxist) remained as the single largest party while increasing its number of seats from 80 to 113.[17] Both the former chief minister Ajoy Mukherjee of the Bangla Congress and the former Minister of Land and Land Revenue of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) contested from the Kalna constituency which ended with Hare Krishna Konar and Jyoti Basu winning.[17]

1972–1972
In the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1972, Congress won an overwhelming majority and Siddhartha Shankar Ray who was previously in the Bangla Congress and later appointed as a specialised union cabinet ministry called West Bengal Affairs Minister became the new chief minister of the state.[24][19] The Communist Party of India (Marxist) was only able to secure 14 seats and Hare Krishna Konar for the first time lost his seat in the Kalna constituency to his former associate Nurul Islam Molla.[19] Before the election, the Communist Party of India allied with Congress while a section of the Bangla Congress had also merged with the Congress.[19] The opposing alliance was led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) which included the previous members of the United Left Front alongside the Biplobi Bangla Congress, a splinter of the Bangla Congress.[19]

He knew 16 international languages like Chinese, German, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, Vietnamese, etc. He was the member of Chinese Communist Party, Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Communist Party of Vietnam, World Federation of Trade Unions International and as a representative of the Communist Party of India, The Workers Party of Vietnam held its third national party congress in Hanoi from 5–12 September 1960 and to meet with Ho Chi Minh the founder of Workers Party of Vietnam. From Communist Party of India the representative were K. Damodaran and Hare Krishna Konar Allegedly, Ajoy Ghosh the general secretary of Communist Party of India had instructed the two delegates to stay away from contact with the Chinese delegation at Hanoi. In Vietnam Hare Krishna Konar and K. Damodaran met with Ho Chi Minh and discussed the serious matter about the ideological dispute between China and USSR, In Hanoi Congress Damodaran refused to meet with Chinese delegation, but Hare Krishna Konar met with them and accepted their invitation to visit Peking (present day Beijing), immediately after the Hanoi congress. In Peking (present day Beijing) Hare Krishna Konar met with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao and other leaders and immediately an emergency conference had held in Peking (present day Beijing), China in 1960 for Indian Communist leader Hare Krishna Konar, the meeting between Mao Zedong and Hare Krishna Konar is the landmark meeting in Indian Communist history as well as Chinese Communist history, in that meeting Mao Zedong said to Hare Krishna Konar that if the Communist Party of India will led in whole India rather than Indian National Congress then only we will release all the captured land from India and also stopped the Sino-Indian War for boder dispute, Upon Hare Krishna Konar's return to India he argued for Chinese Communist Party positions on border issue as well as the wider ideological conflict between Communist Party of Soviet Union and Chinese Communist Party. This was first direct attempt by Chinese Communist Party to gain influence inside the Communist Party of India. He also attended the Trade Union International of Agricultural, Forestry and Plantation Worker's conference at Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1970; He attended the Communist Party of Cuba's conference at Havana, Cuba in 1970 and met with Fidel Castro; He attended the Progressive Party of Working People's conference in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1970; He has also attended the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's conference and met with communist leader Leonid Brezhnev at Moscow Kremlin, Soviet Union (Present day Russia) in 1971; He attended the Romanian Communist Party's conference and met with Nicolae Ceaușescu at Bucharest, Romania in the 1960s; He had also attended Worker's Party of Korea's conference at Pyongyang, North Korea in 1971 and there he has given lecture in front of Choe Yong-gon the Head of State of North Korea and met with Kim Il Sung; He attended Italian Communist Party's conference at Rome, Italy in 1971; He attended the Mexican Communist Party's conference at Mexico City, Mexico in 1973 and Socialist Unity Party of Germany's conference at Berlin, Germany in 1973.[12][2]

Naxalite movement derives its name from Naxalbari, a small place in Siliguri subdivision of Darjeeling district of West Bengal. It all started in 1967 after the first non-congress government came into power under the name of United Front Government. The dominant forces in the government were the Leftists. The main forces were the CPI and the CPI(M). They represented the aspirations of the marginalized and the poor. The minister-in-charge of Land and Land Revenue was Hare Krishna Konar who was a veteran peasant leader. In an interview with his party mouthpiece Ganashakti, he made his intentions clear about the quick distribution of surplus land and he further asked for peasant initiative and organized force. What he did not realize was that the aspirations of the poor peasantry were already on a high note and his invitation escalated them further. As the later developments showed they went far beyond his expectations. Although there were no doubts about the intentions of the leftists in the government about the redistribution, the path to achieve the goals was not that simple. There were some constraints before government. To name a few first they were not sure about how to recover the land from the landlords. Second the landlords could take the help of law to delay the seizure of land and thus postpone the redistribution for an indefinite period. Third was the working of the bureaucracy. There were some instances of even defying the orders of the ministers. As a result of these obstacles, the government could not implement the land reforms quickly. The CPI(M) was in a difficult situation because it was in the power so it could not totally do away the legal and official procedure and on the other hand the aspirations of the peasantry had to be satisfied. Everyone was not happy with government policy of redistributing the land through legal process. One of such prominent figures was Charu Mazumdar who was attacking Hare Krishna Konar on three accounts. The first point was that he submitted to the bureaucrats and feudal gentry. The second point was that there might be disputes among the peasants who acquired the land through legal process and those who got it through forceful means. The third point was that the peasants who would acquire the land through legal process might eventually become a complacent middle farmer. Developments at Naxalbari: In this light a peasants’ conference was held under the auspices of CPI(M) at Naxalbari and it gave a call for ending the monopoly ownership of land by landlords, organization and arming of peasants to destroy the resistance of landlords. Among the sponsors of the conference were Kanu Sanyal and Jangal Santhal who later became prominent leaders of the Naxalbari movement. Both of them were in favor of political propaganda and mass mobilization what was opposed by Charu Mazumdar. He wanted only action. So there were some differences on the part of the strategy to be followed but they were clear on many points such as that India's liberation could be achieved only through China's path, propagation of politics of agrarian struggle among the working class and the peasantry and building up a secret party to prepare cadres for this purpose. As a result of those differences pointed out already, Siliguri Local committee cadres decided to go on the path of mass movements whereas West Dinajpur unit decided to stick to the idea of Charu babu. Now the mobilization started on a large scale. From March to April (1967) all the villages of the Naxalbari were organized and 15000 to 20000 peasants were enrolled as whole time activists. They soon occupied the land in the name of peasants’ committees, burnt all land records, cancelled all hypothetical debts, and passed death sentences on oppressive landlords. They also formed armed bands by looting guns from the landlords, armed themselves with conventional weapons and set up a parallel administration to look after the villages. By May of that year itself three or four places were totally under the control of rebels. In the meantime Charu babu addressed a meeting of the cadres and asked them to always be on the side of the poor and landless peasant. He said that our relation with rich farmers would always be of struggling nature. Observing that the situation going out of control UF government woke up and Hare Krishna Konar was sent to the Naxalbari region and he asked the rebels to put down their arms and file the petition for the distribution of land vested with the government. It was also agreed that all the persons wanted by Police would also surrender. But the agreement was never implemented. Just after the return of minister from that place, a Police camp was established there. In the wake of these developments the first serious clash between Police and the peasants occurred on 23 May 1967, when a policeman was killed and in retaliation police opened fire on a crowd of villagers and killed nine people. Out of them six were women and two were children. This incident created tensions within and outside the United Front government. The West Bengal Secretariat condemned the incident and accused Chief Minister Ajoy Mukherjee, an ex-Congressman of laying ‘one sided stress on police measures to maintain law and order’. Meanwhile, news of clashes between peasants and landlords kept pouring in from Naxalbari and between third and 10 June. There were as many as eighty incidents of dacoity, two murders and also one abduction. Mr. B. Chavan Union Home Minister told the Lok Sabha that a reign of terror has been created in Darjeeling. By the end of June while the leadership of Communist Party of India (Marxist) was openly against the Naxalbari rebels. In Calcutta several groups within and outside CPI(M) were coming together. These groups formed the Naxalbari Peasants Struggle Aid Committee, which became a nucleus of separate party of the future. CPI(M) expelled 19 members in the light of the formation of the committee. In the meantime some other important developments were also taking place. On 28 June Radio Peking supported the movement and dubbed the United Front government as a ‘tool of Indian reactionaries to deceive the people’. This was the first incident of Chinese support to rebels and of Peking's disenchantment with CPI(M). On 12 July a major police action was launched. Although Chief Minister claimed that it was cabinet's decision, but CPI(M) tried to dissociate itself from the police action. The Chief Minister also came under attack. By 20 July the prominent leaders like Jangal Santhal were arrested and by October 1967 an apparent lull was set in Naxalbari. Assessment of the Naxalbari Movement and causes for its failure: Coming to the evaluation of the Naxalbari Movement, we should keep in mind that although it was a moderate success it was suppressed within a few months. It enjoyed immense mass support, but it could not sustain for a long period of time. There are mainly two versions for the failure of the movement. One is from the point of view of Kanu Sanyal and other one is from the point of view of supporters of Charu Mazumdar. Kanu Sanyal's in his famous Report on the 'Terai Peasants’ Movement has penned down some of the reasons. The main reason according to him was excessive reliance on the spontaneity of the masses and taking them as armed forces. Among the other reasons were the inclusion of some vagabonds and making them leaders of the movement. Lack of proper plan for the redistribution of grabbed land led to conflicts among the peasants. But according to him the main defect was failure to establish a powerful mass base. Talking about military weakness of the movement, Kanu Sanyal admitted that the revolutionaries underrated the strength of the State machinery and thought that United Front Government would not go to the extent of suppressing the movement.[25][26][27]

Though the UF came to power with tremendous electoral support, it had to function strictly within the rigid parameters of the Indian Constitution, the established basic laws, Judicial review of executive action and set legal and administrative procedures and practises. Any threat to any of the established parameters would have led to a summary dismissal by the not so friendly central government. The political genius of Hare Krishna Konar lay in his ability to play his own ball game with the same set of rules which were apparently set against it. The Constitution of India guarantees the right to form associations and unions and to assemble peaceably. The Indian Evi-Dence Act permits disbelieving of documentary evidence on the strength of overwhelmingly reliable oral evidence. The Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC)(u/s 110) allows some sort of public participation for gathering evidence against a person allegedly engaged in "bad livelihood" in order to bind him down for good behaviour. Nowhere is it stated that the restraining powers under the CrPC should always be used against the peasantry and workers. If the agricultural workers and share-croppers assemble peacefully to espouse a cause, if public order was threatened by landowners, the latter could be restrained under the CrPC in the interest of maintenance of public order. Combine the essence of these constitutional and legal rights and procedures and you have the "Konar" recipe of legal reform with popular participation. It was so simple, so bold and so novel. Konar did not approve of the seizure and occupation by force of private property by peasants, even though such lands had in many cases been held 'benami'. Peasants, according to him, were conservative by nature. In their psyche private property was inviolable. Having lost their land through the process of exploitation, they hankered for their land as their own property. Hence illegal occupation of even illegally-held land would not absolve them of the sense of guilt for an illegal and even immoral action. Therefore, they would not have the courage and determination to fight for their rights if threatened with eviction in a changed political situation. Konar, therefore, favoured the legal way of vesting land in the state. Once the land became the property of the state, what would happen to it would be a matter of state policy and no individual's property right would be involved. It may look strange for a revolutionary, but being a hard-headed realist, it made sense to Konar.[20][29]

Abdullah Rasul (left), Hare Krishna Konar (center), Benoy Choudhury (right)

Barga Operation was his notable contribution to the people from Left Front Government of West Bengal. To begin with, group meetings between Officials and Bargadars were organized during "settlement camps" (also called "Reorientation camps"), where the bargadars could discuss their grievances. The first such camp was held at Halusai in Polba taluk in Hooghly district from 18 to 20 May 1978. In noted camp two Adibashi Borgaders objected procedure adopted by the official for Barga Operation. They suggested to start it organising people in the field instead of sitting in the houses of rural rich people or the places dominated by them. Having that report Hare Krishna Konar immediately reorganised action plan and successful Barga Operation was done.[12][29][30]

THE LAND QUESTION is a national question and not one affecting merely the peasantry. If we fail to solve the land problem, the whole society will go down. If the nation as a whole does not stand behind the measures for land reform, the peasantry or the Government can do very little by themselves. History tells us that the land question and the struggle of the peasantry to resolve it were the motive force behind every revolutionary uprising whether in Russia or China or Vietnam. We are not sure how the land problem is going to be solved in India and what the future of this country will be. As I had said, the question of land reform does not affect the poor peasant only. Land reform is an imperative necessity for the revitalization of a moribund economy and a backward country. Modern research puts all the emphasis on providing technical know-how to increase agricultural production. This is a one-sided approach. Agriculture does not depend on the bounties of Nature alone. The peasant must have a love for his profession and there must be conscious effort for increasing production. Concentration of land in a few lands will condemn many to forced unemployment and make them a liability of society. Even if there is full production, it will not lead to equal distribution of food unless there is an equal distribution of land. Sanction of law will fail to put an end to malpractices. If opportunities to reap higher profits with less labour and investment exist, people will naturally try to take advantage of such opportunities and it is idle to believe their attitude can be changed through sermons. Solution of the land problem is necessary not only from the point of view of social justice but also from that of increasing food production. To build up our country try we must stand on our own legs and shed dependence on foreign aid. A scientific mobilization of our natural and human resources will go a long way to develop our agriculture. It is wrong notion that small holding are a bar to increasing production. Even if the peasant is given a small plot of land, he will feel the urge for increasing production since he feels it is his own. Of course, these is a limit to such an increase. The primary task, therefore, is abolition of large scale land and its distribution to the landless, the next step would be for the government to explain to the peasants the disadvantages of cultivating small holdings. The peasant will then voluntarily take to collective farming. Private ownership of land will thus be done away with. Then comes the question of removing the pressure on land. Land distribution by itself will not solve this problem. The pressure on land has to be reduced gradually. Cottage industries have got a positive role in this respect and those to be developed. The development of cottage industries, however, will not make for full-scale economic regeneration. We have to embark on industrial development. The rich will be denied the luxurious living they enjoy now, not because we have any personal grudge against them but because that mode of living does not fit with the over all interest of the country. Without going in for a radical change of the existing social system, we can not take the country along the path of progress and prosperity. It is impossible for the government to solve the land problem under the present social system. The Zamindars and Maharajas, who have other sources of income, should not be allowed to possess land. But the constitution stands in the way of taking such step. We, however, can and should try to plug the loop holes in the law relating to celling on land. The machinery of the Government connot carry out land reforms even though there are honest officers in the administration. In our case, there is the bureaucracy – a built in obstacle. The efforts of the administration have to be strengthened and supplemented by the conscious and organized participation of the peasants and the people at large. Academic discussion, to be useful, must shed their abstract nature and be practical and down to earth enunciation of policies and programme. A combination of all these factors will enable us to solve the land problems.[31][32]

Hare Krishna Konar regarded Mahatma Gandhi, the congress leader as his young age freedom hero, and konar also says that the ideology of Ahimsa and Nonviolence is a great ideology though which India can obviously get freedom from the British raj. So, he chosen the nonviolence path and also join Civil Disobedience Movement. But after gandhiji signed the Gandhi–Irwin Pact for joining the second round table conference in London and gandhi also abolished the Civil Disobedience Movement then comrade konar said that:

India was just near the independence from the British Raj but for that fellow congress leader India's independence has delayed to another 10 years.

and after this incident Comrade konar did not believe in the Gandhian ideology – which advocated Civil disobedience and other forms of non-violent resistance, and felt that such politics would replace one set of exploiters with another but there was similar ideology between comrade Konar and Gandhi and that was both of them believed that without the unification of Hindus and Muslims India can never ever will get independence from British, towards this communal riots he said that:

If is communal riot begins it will led to Partition of India and this will led to a violent conflict between Hindus and Muslims.

So, finally on 1931 he join the India's Extremist Movement of Calcutta that was Jugantar founded by Sri Aurobindo, a principal leader of Indian independence from Bengal, that time comrade konar's aim was only independence no matter it would be Violence or Nonviolence way of independence and for a year comrade konar started to produce arms and booms for the jugantar revolutionary group but soon was captured in 1932 by the British officers and was transported to Cellular Jail in Andaman Islands.[33]

While comrade Konar was in cellular jail, he was an avid reader of the teachings of Mikhail Bakunin and also read Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, he studied the history of the revolutionary movements in India, europe and abroad. Konar describe Lenin as an revolutionary of modern world and he also he read the revolutionary thoughts of Trotsky. And he said that Satish Pakrashi were the man who taught him Communism, Socialism, and Marxism in the Jail. So in 1935 he get so attracted towards the Communist Ideology and by then he founded a Indian revolutionary and Communist Organization named Communist Consolidation in Jail and later it was the highest resistance against imperialist British.[34]

Hare Krishna Konar came under the influence of Communism, the ideology of Karl Marx, on year 1934.

After the founding of Communist Party of India (Marxist) Comrade Hare Krishna Konar's aim was to start India's first Land Reform and to snatch the land from Zamindars to distribute the land among poor or landless people and he also opposed the private land ownership for that's why while he was the first Land Minister of India in West Bengal he made a law of limited private Land and the limitation was 70–90 bigha per family and this law was started from early 1968s and ended until 2011 while Left Front led in West Bengal. Many people thought comrade konar as an anti maoist comrade so what he says towards the Maoist ideology that:

I support the thought of Mao Zedong of China but the ideology of Mao is extreme violent and that can be harmful for indian Democracy

Actually comrade konar was the believer of Scientific socialism, so his process of land reform was also the formula of Socialism, he says that the differentiation of land between landless and landlord came in the eyes of Joseph Stalin, comrade konar says towards this agrarian revolution that:

If agrarian revolution in the villages is not carried forward, People’s Democratic Revolution would be a far cry, the core of People’s Democratic Revolution is agrarian revolution and the key to its success is People’sDemocratic Revolution

Comrade konar says, the main puzzled matter of Land Reform was to seizure land from big landlords of West bengal, it was hard because if it would be done forcefully then the landlords would become against the communist and marxist ideology and it would become bad impression on Communist Party of India (Marxist), so it should be done in a very diplomatic and tactful way and that was done under the leadership of Hare Krishna Konar, he always say that to occupy the land from landlords there are two process first way is by forcefully snatched the land and the second way is by Brainwashing of landlords and It must be explained in such a way, as the landless peoples are the family members of landlords because rather than brainwash if we occupy the land forcefully then that would be a bad impression on communist ideology. So, comrade konar done land reform with the help of brainwashing and with the principal of Marxism–Leninism ideology.[2]

Hare Krishna Konar died of cancer at the age of 58 on 23 July 1974 in Kolkata.[12] He was given a state funeral by the West Bengal state government. His funeral rally was the 4th largest funeral rally in India. It was attended by millions of people who had come from every part of India and national leaders such as Indira Gandhi, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, B. T. Ranadive, A. K. Gopalan, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, as well as an international delegation including representatives from North Korea, Vietnam, China and Soviet Union.[37]

Communist Party of India (Marxist)

The headquarters of Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s All India Kisan Sabha in West Bengal is named after him. A street in Kolkata, a road in Durgapur in West Bengal, and a bridge in Memari in West Bengal are named in his honor. A government sponsored rural library made in Hare Krishna Konar's birthplace in Kamargaria village in West Bengal is also named after him.[38]