Reflections

  This week, three of us visited the Prerna Educational Center in Salugara. The authorities were extremely troubled. On Sunday night, a couple of elephants had entered their grounds, breaking the gate and an adjacent wall. Having done that, they stayed for a long time as the students and staff cowered in the main building. After eating mangoes(!) and jackfruit from the trees in the garden behind the main building, they left as quietly as they had come. Not unnaturally, the authorities were worried. They are in charge of many visually handicapped children. While all the children that we met seemed to be thrilled at their experience, the people in charge of their wellbeing understandably found it frightening that such a thing could occur. And this was not the first time, apparently. Such incursions have been common over the past three years. They had not faced such problems earlier this even though their institution was one of the first in the area when all around them was either grass

    Naxalbari is the name that all Indians know. It is surprising really, because it is a small village in the Siliguri Subdivision of the Darjeeling District. It lies close to the Mecchi river and is just a hop, skip and jump away from Nepal. The population, Wikipedia informs me, was 1618 in 2011 when the last census was held. (We have dispensed with the census apparently together with many other things). The reason why everybody knows this name is that this was the place that started the famous Naxalite movement which was to be the Revolutionary Movement that would turn India red. Now it seems risible, but for those who lived through those days, especially in West Bengal still remember the panic created by the CPI (ML) cadres who fought the police, killed indiscriminately in the name of eliminating class enemies and were finally eliminated themselves in a paroxysm of state terror which remains a nightmarish memory and finished off so many young, bright, if misguided young men and w