'1965: Key Events

• Second Indo-Pakistan War since Partition disputing the Kashmir borders. Pakistan invades Chhamb and the Rann of Kutch (1-23 September).

• Major language riots in South India over the adoption of Hindi as India’s national ‘link’ language. Demonstrations in Madras exceed those of the 1942 Quit India movement. M. Karunanidhi is among the arrested DMK agitators.

• Kerala declares a strike on 18 February. The CPI(M) emerges as the dominant political party in Kerala’s mid-term elections. However, its significant left wing concentrates increasingly on creating peasant organisations with an extra-parliamentary action programme.

• Charu Majumdar, leading the best known of these movements, declares: ‘The real fight against revisionism can never be begun unless the peasant starts it through revolutionary practice’.

• Television becomes a daily service of one hour, restricted to Delhi.

• The International Film Festival of India turns competitive.

• R. Kariat’s Chemmeen.