Kimmu Singh was 17 years old when he picked up a gun in 1967.
Sonam Jintsen Wangdi was not yet born when his father, Inspector Sonam Wangdi, was killed.
Garen Roy grew up hearing stories of how his family’s granaries were looted and how they were driven from their village.
Six decades on, and almost three months after the government declared India free of left-wing extremism, the origins of the movement and the human cost remain etched in the lives of the three men. They never met, but each inherited the rebellion in a different way.
The three incidents occurred in the town of Naxalbari in West Bengal, about three hours away from the Darjeeling Hills, LWE’s birthplace. Today, except for nine red sandstone statues of Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, Charu Majumdar, and other icons of the left, there is little to suggest that this unassuming city gave birth to one of the country’s longest-running insurgencies. A nearby café is open until late at night, serving young customers, many of whom may not know that Naxalism derives its name from Naxalbari.
However, in the summer of 1967, a peasant uprising changed the course of Indian history. The insurgency that began in one corner of India will continue to spread across state borders, inspire generations of armed revolutionaries and, at its peak, roil 106 districts (2006 data; nearly a fifth of the districts at that time) until its end this year.
For Kemmu Singh, now 76, the mutiny remains a memory of idealism and togetherness.
This former rebel, living quietly in Naxalbari, seems indistinguishable from any other elderly resident – but in 1967 he was among the young peasants who helped launch the movement. Singh, who worked closely with the movement’s founding leaders, Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal, recalls a time when the peasants, angered by exploitative zamindars (landowners), believed revolution was at hand.
He said: “Long before the violence started, leaders like Kanu da and Charo da started visiting villages. The zamindars were oppressive. People like Kanu da were an inspiration. Their speeches lit a fire within us. Police action began on May 24, 1967, but incidents of villagers coming together to surround zamindars and loot their food began in March. We would carry a single red flag and walk through the village and shout. That was enough to mobilize the village. If the police tried to enter, they would One shout was enough to rally hundreds of villagers and my first comrades, all of whom died except Shanti Munda (who lived nearby), were charged and joined the movement.
Many villagers still tell stories of Singh traveling to China for weapons training in the 1970s, part of local folklore that he dismisses as an urban legend.
He claims that it was Kanu Sanyal and others who traveled to China twice and met Mao Zedong, while he spent years underground and in prison before returning to his homeland in the early 1980s. “Once, I was almost killed in an encounter with the police. An IB officer intervened and saved my life. Kanu da often said that Mao told him that the movement would be successful in India. I returned home only in 1982 when the Left Front government came to power and dropped the Naxal cases.”
Singh said the uprising was a collective effort of poor farmers who rose to powerful zamindars who soon realized that the balance of power had shifted. He recalls how some zamindars surrendered their licensed weapons before leaving homes. “In our village, we got 11 such weapons. We used them to hunt down other zamindars, plunder their farms and distribute grains equally to everyone. Our village was the first and true liberated area. This news spread like wildfire.”
While Singh remembers a revolution in the making, Garen Roy inherited memories of fear.
Inside a dilapidated house near Naxalbari Market Square, the 64-year-old talks about stories passed down through generations. His grandfather, Kundon Roy, was among the first zamindars to be targeted during the uprising. Their house was attacked, their granaries were looted twice, and family members were assaulted. “I was very young at that time and only heard horror stories. Peasants killed many zamindars here. Kaka (my uncle) Jitender Nath Roy was killed. They threw his body into the river.”
Roy heard stories of how wealthy Naxalites were forced from their homes and large tracts of land. Many of the elderly people who gather at Roy’s Café in the city talk about how wealthy the family was at that time.
“We had to shift to a rented house in Siliguri. My father told us that the Naxals would raid the house to get foodgrains. Many times, even when the cash demands were met, the Naxals would come and attack. They even took a double barrel of our weapon from our house,” he said, blaming the cadres on the ground who did not follow the peaceful way of socialism.
“Kano Da and others were sincere in their belief in empowering farmers, but it was the ground cadres who committed the atrocities. If the leaders sent them just to get money, the ground cadres would come and take even the ducks and chickens,” he said.
However, the violence that uprooted his family did not turn Roy away from socialism. If anything, it deepened his belief that the movement had deviated from its original ideals. Today, Roy remains one of the few committed socialists in a place that has moved from the left. As a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), he contested the recent assembly elections from Naxalbari but lost badly. Naksalbari chose the BJP candidate by getting 1,66,905 votes, while Garin got only 8,585 votes.
For Sonam Jintsen Wangdi, the 1967 rebellion was always personal.
Wangdi, a senior bureaucrat who briefly worked as a journalist in New Delhi during the early 1990s, has never met his father – Inspector Sonam Wangdi. On May 23, 1967, the inspector was killed by peasants in Naxalbari, making him the first police victim of the Naxal movement. Wangdi was still in his mother’s womb at that time.
According to the citation accompanying the President’s Award for Courage that was awarded posthumously in 1968, the officer chose to address the mob peacefully rather than retreat. He was hit by four arrows and died from his wounds.
Growing up, Wangdi learned about his father’s heroics through family stories and newspaper reports. The road outside their house is named after him. His mother, Ladom Bhutia, 86, now struggles to remember those events. “It’s painful and I don’t want to remember it,” she said quietly at her home in the town of Darjeeling.
She still receives a pension and cash allowance associated with the Gallantry Award. The source said that a crowd of 300/400 people armed with bows and arrows gathered to commit violence. To prevent bloodshed, Inspector Sonam Wangdi advanced towards the mob to calm them down. He was unarmed. “His sincere attempt to avoid bloodshed cost him his life,” she added.
The killing of the police officer remains one of the defining moments of the uprising.
For his son, it is a story preserved in an official quote. For Singh, this is the memory of the day the movement crossed boundaries.
“I remember it clearly,” Singh said. “There was a farmers’ meeting in Lalgati village. In the neighboring village of Borogurujot, women blocked the roads and were protesting. Someone came running to Lalgati and spread a rumor that the police were attacking women protesters. Then the armed mob went to Borogurujot and fired arrows. They killed Sonam Wangdi on the spot. Until then, the villagers had only targeted zamindars. This was the first time he had been killed. There is no officer there. Everything changed after that.”
The next day, police opened fire on villagers near Borogorugut, killing 11 people in what became one of the movement’s oldest and most important confrontations. Thousands of civilians, security personnel and Maoist cadres will ultimately lose their lives; Nearly 14,000 people, including security forces, have been killed in Naxal-related violence since 2006, according to government data. The action continued until 30 March 2026 when the government finally declared India free from Naxalism.
Looking back, Singh believes the movement lost its way.
“The case of Maoist guerrilla warfare in Bastar was correct,” he said. “But they abandoned the people and relied only on weapons. How can you win a people’s war when people lose confidence in you?”
Roy reaches a similar conclusion from the other side of the conflict. “Maybe the ideals were right,” he said. “But the violence destroyed everything.”
As for Wangdi, whose family paid the highest personal price, he speaks not of revenge but of reconciliation.
“People on both sides have lost a lot in this rebellion,” he said. “I do not wish evil on anyone. I forgive them. The movement is over. Let there be peace.”
India is now Naxal free. In Nexalbari, a group of red sandstone statues of left icons stand by the roadside, the few visible reminders of a history etched in blood. As cars pass by statues and young people gather at a nearby café late in the evening, the town that gave Naxalism its name moves forward.
