Kanu Sanyal - Formation and Growth of CPI (ML)

Formation and Growth of CPI (ML)

He announced the formation of the original CPI (ML) on Vladimir Lenin's birthday in 1969 at a public rally in Calcutta. He came out with the seminal Terai report on revolution in India.

During this period, the communist-sympathetic media in West Bengal portrayed him as a "great revolutionary" and compared him to the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Jatin Das, largely because of his charisma and his public showmanship, such as his displays of "wealth-renunciation" and his publicity campaigns where he tried to identify with the proletariat. Massive propaganda campaigns in his favor were financed by the communist politburo to that effect. Information about the secret inner workings of Sanyal's organization have been difficult to obtain. Nonetheless, political analysts write that his political paradigm was based on the concept of "Jugantar" in opposition to the "Anushilan" paradigm implemented by the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Sanyal proposed that the Jugantar revolutionaries be a highly secretive and cabalistic group who would periodically surface to commit acts of terrorism such as political assassinations and armory raids. Sanyal actively solicited help from the communist regime in neighboring China to further his goals. Sanyal had publicly declared on several occasions that he was receiving some kind of support from the Chinese government. It was never established as to whether that support was moral, tactical or financial. The Indian home ministry has argued that Sanyal only managed to obtain ideological support from China.

After the failure of the Naxalite uprising, Sanyal went into hiding. The death of his colleague Charu Majumdar was followed by the breakup of the Naxalite movement, and Sanyal claimed to have abandoned violent means and accepted parliamentary practice as a form of revolutionary activity .