The First Naxal

It seldom happens that the story of an individual becomes so intertwined with the cause she or he stands for that it becomes impossible to separate the one from the other. Kanu Sanyal’s is one such rare story: to read it is to relive the history of the Naxalite Movement, which the Indian establishments call the country’s biggest internal security threat. This book narrates the making of Kanu Sanyal right from his childhood to the days of the Naxalbari uprising and beyond. It delves deep into Sanyal’s evolution as a Communist rebel and throws light on the various stages of the Naxalite Movement with relevant background information. What is significant about this book is that this is the only authorised biography of Kanu Sanyal in any language—he personally read and cleared all its chapters but the last one, which deals with his aberrant demise.