A flabbergasted work done by Rahul Pandita a well known journalist known for his appreciated research work which can be highly seen in his book ‘Hello Bastar’. The entire story runs upon a track on which this “Maoist Movement or Naxalism ”travels to different places with their passengers, who have their specific point to reach. The author has delineated the Maoist movement with help of facts and figures and happenings of events in small villages step by step. It required a lot of audacity to walk into the extremely treacherous places and live with the people who are considered as the “India’s gravest internal security threat” by none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself. Without going further while we talk about the front cover page of it manifests a storyline about what an individual is going to have on his /her table. Printing of ‘Hello Bastar’ indicates restrictions in the view of the fact that border fencing design is used on the text. In addition, there are two poor dirty legs, two fingers and near it, a rifle has been shown onto it, which can be imagined as someone is ready for his/ her fight for their rights.

 An individual is extremely unknown of Naxalism, and considering it as a terrorism act surely finds wrong after reading it. I was just having a normal conversation with my colleague about Naxalism but unfortunately, it was hard for him to differentiate between ‘Terrorism’ and ‘Naxalism’. He finds both aforementioned terms are the same for him. And the best part of this book is that it is factually presented, but it is shown as a fiction story. Although when we talk about language used in this book is casual English that we spoke in our day to day life, it won’t be hard for readers to go through. While reading this as a political science subject student and a future journalist it provides me a different kind of perspective about the Moaist movement. In terms of politics, there are much more courses of action left for both the parties. The ruling Political party should try to settle down this matter by asking about the actual needs of the tribal people rather than destroying the top leaders of CPI Maoist Members. The government and CPI Maoist both were using political tactics with a lot of bloodshed of innocent people. The government was using police forces as a tool to experiment, go and win for us, I simply called it cruel Politics. On the other hand, CPI Maoist was focusing on capturing the villages as much as possible by hook or crook.

On a personal note there is a mindset before going through it, things were looking different but after completing this, it provides me an understanding of why Naxalbari people revolted against the ruling system of the state. When I was reading this book, this story seemed to me to be a made-up story, but it is a praiseworthy work done by the author. Whenever he mentioned any past happenings, he had properly written about it well below with references. At that time Rahul Pandita was researching in Chhattisgarh ‘Bastar village’ he was considered as a ‘Maoist sympathizer’. He is a ‘Human Sufferings’ author who shows the hidden story of poor people who haven’t been recognized by society or the governments with the help of his books. ‘Our moon has blood clots’ a memoir of a lost home in Kashmir is a national bestseller book written by Rahul Pandita. It is based on the genocide of Kashmiri pandits, I haven’t read this book but heard a lot about this one, after reading ‘Hello bastar’ I am kind of connected with the author’s writing style and surely in future I am going to give it a try.

This book can effortlessly provide you a vision about 45 to 50 years of the occurrence of CPI (communist party of India) Maoist Movement. It all started in 1967 in Naxalbari village in West Bengal. Tribal labour living in this village is exhausted, specifically landless peasants, they do drudgery on the agriculture field for their landlords. In consideration of this kind of work, they do not even get proper wages which leads to famine. Tribal people were dying just because of not getting adequate food to have, there are other gut-wrenching activities were held, misbehaving with tribal women, and men were beaten for no reason by land owners, But in every story, there is a ‘Messiah’ Charu Majumder is considered as the creator of Maoist Movement who has inspired from the Chinese militant Mao Tse- tung, who believed war is not a thing but politics with bloodshed. Which suggested them, to work out their required desire with guerrillas warfare. Day by day Naxalism is spreading all over India. It started ruining the image of the ruling political party which resulted in the killing of both sides. But according to Rahul Pandita killing the Maoist top leaders will not resolve the issue, there are tribal people who are fighting for their rights and equality with the others, and killing is not an option to be optimised by the ruling political party. There are some instances where police were using their power in wrongdoing activities with the innocent tribal people, raping women, putting their residence on fire and without any evidence they have been accusing them a member of Maoist group.

A real story with a lot of bloodshed at every turning of pages, you will find someone got dead in firing or between encounters of top CRPF forces and top leaders of CPI Maoist, then to spend days there as a journalist counts you as a ‘finest reporter’ of an event. Students who seek a career in Journalism will surely find it a proper guide to a ‘masterpiece of journalism’. It is distinctly noticed in his book the conscientious effort by the author. While getting a glance of an interview of Rahul Pandita by News Laundry, He has specifically mentioned that today’s journalism is all about getting news from sources from their luxury apartment no one is really interested in getting in the field to know the actuality of events but the author has spent his days with Naxalites people to make this book a ‘Bestseller book’. As a reader, I must suggest that everyone should read this book to know about the grating reality of India’s Maoist Movement.

~ Ankit Pandey