Disentangling the relationship between the middle class and peasantry in the Naxalbari movement through the Lives of Others (2014)

This paper aims to explore the relationship between the middle class and the peasantry in the Naxalbari movement and thus demystify the romanticism around the association of the middle class with it. The Naxalbari movement (1965–1975) was the first peasant movement within twenty years of Indian Independence that erupted in a small village named Naxalbari in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India. The goal of the movement was to remove the class hierarchy prevalent in society. But this study explores how the class hierarchy developed within the movement with the ascendancy of the middle class to the leadership positions that led to the marginalisation of peasants. In the paper, I shall investigate the layers in the relationship between the middle class and the peasantry. For this purpose, I propose to use The Lives of Others (2014) by Neil Mukherjee to disentangle the layers within the superficially homogenous middle class and thereby identify a pattern in the relationship between the two classes. While most historical studies show how the middle-class hegemony was established in the movement, this paper subverts it by recognising the loopholes of the middle class’s leadership. This paper also seeks an alternative model of peasants’ protest free from the supervision of the middle class through the conclusion that briefly presents the success of the peasants in their independent attempt to unite. So, in this paper, the text is used to unpack the wider intricacies in the class relationship and the failure of any exterior force to lead a movement of the peasants.