Naxalities have slowly but steadily increased their influence in the State's West Midnapore region, writes Malabika Bhattacharya.

On a hot April day, travelling by car to Jhargram in West Midnapore district, 165 km from Kolkata, Biman Bose, the CPI (M) politburo member, told this correspondent that the People's War (PW), the militant naxalite group, has no base in Bengal.

Sitting in his office in Belpahari, 45 km off Jhargram, Shubhashish Bej, the newly-appointed Block Development Officer (BDO), told The Hindu: "The People's War is trying to tap the villagers' long-standing grievances on development, health, education and so on. We all know there is a disparity in development between the plains and the hills.''

Mr. Bej, though an outsider, was quick to detect the support base the naxalites have slowly but steadily created in the villages in West Midnapore, bordering Bankura and Purulia districts, over the years. A quick survey of the forest-fringed hamlets reveals how bad things are round here.

Take Shashadhar Sardar and his wife Nirala of village Majugora, for instance. The Santhal couple live with four children in a mud hut, which is so dark that one can barely make out what's inside. The couple cultivates its tiny plot of land, measuring about a bigha, for a few months in a year. The rest of the time is spent selling wood, kendu leaves (which are used to make bidis, which are smoked widely in rural Bengal) and ropes made out of babui grass. "A few kilos of wood would fetch us a few kilos of rice. When we finish it, we go to the forests again to collect wood, kendu and babui,'' says Nirala.

Three years ago, their eldest daughter, Jamuna, then 13, left her parents to be with PW full time.

The Kisku family, his neighbours, have a similar story to tell. Young Jagari chose the PW over her parents a few years ago. She remains untraceable to this day. Many in the village think the two girls are now active members of the militant group. Against this backdrop, Mr. Bose's comment that the naxalites have no base in Bengal, would seem an understatement.

Land reforms have brought about a perceptible change in rural Bengal over two decades. Nearly all the villages have roads. A two-crop cultivation pattern has been launched in several areas; wells and tubewells have been provided to ease the acute water shortage in those areas. Primary schools and health centres dot the landscape.

However, the ruling front has perhaps not anticipated the rising expectations of the poor, who have been exposed to a higher quality of life in the plains. Intra-party bickering in the CPI (M) has also allowed the naxalites the space they wanted to propagate their message. The upshot? The PW, under the CPI(M)'s very nose, gradually captured the villagers' hearts.

According to Dahareshwar Sen, one of West Midnapore's key CPI (M) functionaries, the party became aware of the PW's existence only three years ago. Mr. Sen, who had just been entrusted with the job of overseeing party affairs in the region because of the CPI (M)'s internal strife, was hitching a ride in a jeep from Belpahari to Jhargram. To his utter amazement, he found the vehicle filled with young girls and boys singing paeans to Chairman Mao and discussing armed revolution. Keeping his identity under wraps, he learnt from them that the PW had been operating in the area for over eight years.

Mr. Sen lost no time in acting. The moment he reached Jhargram, he sent an SOS to the party leaders in Kolkata, apprising them of the situation and suggesting quick steps to redress the same.

The CPI (M) leaders at the party headquarters in Kolkata sat up and took notice. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee drew up an ambitious development programme for the region.

The projects were launched with a lot of fanfare but it will take time to show results.

By all accounts, the PW would not have been able to establish itself in Left-dominated Bengal had the ruling Communists paid a little more attention to easing the palpable misery of the people in these villages. In Lalgarh, for example, the villagers have to trek at least three km to reach the main road, where buses are few and far between.

Even if they are lucky to get one, travelling to Belpahari means covering a distance of another 15 km. "Think of the plight of a pregnant woman or someone suffering from diarrhoea or malignant malaria (which is common in the area)," urged Biswajit, a young man in his 20s.

Although the CPI (M) leaders maintain that the PW has no support base in the region, it is a fact that the group has identified the areas where these hapless villagers are suffering most.

For instance, it's the PW supporters who forced the middlemen to pay a decent price for the kendu leaves by forming the Krishak Sangram Samiti and the Kendupata Sangram Samiti.

Some observers believe that the problem of the PW cannot be wished away overnight. They fear that unless the Communists attend to it quickly, history may return in the form the violent Seventies, when home-grown naxalites had a free run of the State.

As things stand, the PW is a cause of worry for the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Government. The militants have unleashed a campaign of violence in the region, killing the police and CPI (M) upporters. They have also called for a boycott of the parliamentary elections.