Statement
Deepest revolutionary respect to the
martyred comrade Basavraj.
The proletariat of the World Will Never
Forget You.
(29 May 2025)
In publication and circulation
Communist Party of East Bengal (Maoist)
Central Organizing Committee
Deepest revolutionary respect to the
martyred comrade Basavraj.
The proletariat of the World Will Never
Forget You.
On May 21, 2025, in a military operation conducted by the expansionist Indian
state and the genocidal fascist BJP regime led by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah,
27 revolutionaries, including Nambala Keshava Rao (Basavraj), the General
Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), were martyred. The
Communist Party of East Bengal (Maoist) pays deep respect to the revolutionary
lives of Comrade Basavraj and all the martyrs. At the same time, we are deeply
saddened by this immense loss suffered by the CPI (Maoist), the People’s
Liberation Guerrilla Army, and the oppressed workers, peasants, adivasis,
nationalities, and people of India. As part of our internationalist responsibility,
our Party sincerely expresses solidarity with the families, the Party, and the
comrades of Comrade Basavraj and other martyrs of the Indian revolution.
Comrade Basavraj fulfilled revolutionary responsibilities throughout his life—as a
leader of various mass struggles, the PLGA, and as a member of the Central
Committee, Politburo, and General Secretary of the Party. As a successful
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, he synthesized theory and practice. His valiant struggle
makes it clear that in today's era, Maoism is the only ideology of liberation for the
oppressed and exploited peoples across the globe, and that through protracted
people’s war and class struggle, imperialism-capitalism and their comprador
agents will be buried, and people’s democracy, socialism, and communism will be
established.
After the fall of the socialist camp, including the Soviet Union and China, U.S. led
imperialism has dominated the world. But beginning in the late 1970s, new
revolutionary movements inspired by Mao Zedong’s Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution have emerged and shaken this exploitative world order. Among them,
the CPI (Maoist)-led protracted people’s war in India holds tremendous
significance. It is not only the vanguard of the Indian masses but also an
important front in the international proletariat's struggle for liberation. The
sacrifices of General Secretary ‘BR’ and the martyrs are invaluable. Likewise, in
the Philippines, Turkey, Peru, and other countries, revolutionaries continue to
play vital roles in global liberation through their sacrifices.
Comrade Basavraj is the rightful successor of the red flag of the historic Naxalbari
uprising, led by revolutionaries like Comrade Charu Mazumdar. He played a
crucial role in expanding and advancing the people's struggle. In semi-colonial,
semi-feudal countries like India, Comrade Basavraj not only waged ideological
struggles against revisionism—including parliamentary cretinism, reformism,
urban insurrectionism, and post-modernist anarchism—but also fought directly
against class enemies and state repression alongside workers, peasants, adivasis,
and party members through protracted people’s war, setting an example of
genuine communist leadership.
The BJP, using fascist-Hindutva chauvinism, has further transformed the Indian
state into a repressive and counter-revolutionary ideological machine. At the
behest of imperialism and multinational corporations, the state is undergoing
massive militarization. To expand their empire of profit and plunder, they are
imposing military operations like ‘Operation Kagaar’ on the people. Supported by
U.S., Chinese, and Russian imperialism, the Indian expansionist state has now
become a common enemy of the working people, patriotic and democratic
masses, and adivasi-national minorities across South Asia. The revolutionary
movement in India is being attacked from multiple fronts—on the one hand, by
physically eliminating its leadership through military suppression, and on the
other, by launching counter-revolutionary programs aimed at disintegrating
people's struggles ideologically through religious propaganda, surrender schemes,
and recruitment of class-enemy militias.
A similar picture is seen in East Bengal. In recent years, the state has killed over a
thousand revolutionaries—including Comrade Mofakkhar Chowdhury, Comrade
Kamrul Master, Comrade Mizanur Rahman Tutu, and Comrade Tapan Mahmud—
under the guise of ‘crossfire’. The revolutionary movement and agrarian
revolution in East Bengal are being systematically uprooted. In an attempt to
destroy the path of protracted people’s war and area-wise seizure of power,
imperialism, Indian expansionism, and their comprador bureaucrat-capitalist and
semi-feudal allies are actively carrying out counter-revolutionary agendas in East
Bengal as well. Those with the blood of our martyrs—the vanguard soldiers of the
people’s liberation—on their hands, and those who exploit the people’s blood,
these class enemies and their state machinery, will be overthrown.
From the Indian agrarian revolution’s strategy of encircling the cities from the
countryside to the formation of an underground party after the setback in
Naxalbari, the formation of guerrilla squads from scratch, the gradual
development of the PLGA, the efforts to establish base areas, the governance of
revolutionary committees and revolutionary people’s governments, the
ideological development of the Party through two-line struggles, and the
unification of united front work with armed struggle—these revolutionary lessons
from Basavraj’s life must be studied by all revolutionaries.
From the blood of Comrade Basavraj will be born new revolutionaries. The
reactionary Indian state has no power to stop the revolutionary war of the
oppressed masses. Revolutionaries will not retreat from the lessons taught by the
martyrs—the proletarian perspective, class orientation, and unity with the poor
and landless peasants and the masses. The rise and fall of struggle is natural. Still,
the people will fight on until victory.
Comrade Basavraj— Red Salute!
Martyrs of the Indian Revolution— Red Salute!
Down with imperialism and Indian expansionism!
Long live— the teachings of Naxalbari!
Long live— Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Communist Party of East Bengal (Maoist)
Published and circulated by the Central Organizing Committee
29 may 2025
