[3] He was one of the earliest comrade of Naxal leader Charu Majumdar and member of undivided Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist).
It is claimed that at the time of arrest Narayan Sanyal was next only to CPI (Maoist) the then general secretary Muppala Lakshmana Rao alias Ganapathy.
[5] Sanyal was initially associated with the Man-Money-Gun group founded by Bengali revolutionary Ananta Singh, until the Naxalbari uprising erupted in 1967.
In 1971, Sanyal led pro-Majumdar unit of CPI(ML) in Bihar and organized members in the Jehanabad - Palamu belt.
[7] Sanyal was arrested again in December 2005 from Raipur, Chhattisgarh[1][2] but released from jail in 2014 due to ill health.