Tebhaga–Telangana to Naxalbari–CPI(ML)

Even as the Naxalbari uprising was quickly crushed, the revolutionary communists painstakingly spread the movement and founded the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries and the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist). Naxalbari differed from the Telangana uprising, which did not spread to other provinces and left no immediate trail after the setback mainly because no all-India party was built for the purpose. The movement–party dialectic is explored to better understand the radical communist movement in India.

Giving voice to a shared perception of all the participants of the Naxalbari movement, Charu Mazumdar (CM) wrote a few months after the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist)—CPI(ML):

We must always remember that the revolutionary people of India repeatedly participated in the communist movement, fought, made immense sacrifices and laid down their lives. We are the inheritors of the glorious tradition which the heroic martyrs of Punnapra-Vayalar, the heroic fighters of Telangana and the fighting peasants and workers of every province of India established by sacrificing innumerable lives; we must be true to them and carry forward their tradition. The heroes of Kayyur went to the gallows with the name of the Communist Party on their lips: it is that Communist Party which we represent. This Party has become today’s Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist).¹