NAXAL MENACE : PROBLEM AND PERSPECTS

This is some part of my article which was published in Oct-Dec, 2009 in 'THE HINDUSTAN REVIEW'.Readers who want the whole article can contact me by person or by telephone.


Due to Naxal menace, democratic space is shrinking in about 170 of India’s 604 administrative districts causing “the greatest internal security threat”. The movement based on Maoism was started to emancipate the downtrodden, but its ideological moorings are diminishing yielding place to lumpen elements who find socio-political milieu created by dirty nexus of corrupt, stale and flabby politico-bureaucratic establishment as a fertile ground for their activities to flourish. In competition with local mafia, bureaucrats, politicians and police for accumulation of wealth, they are engrossed in a struggle to corner natural resources including land and minerals and funds earmarked for development. They are increasing their assault power by lips and bounds to strike difficult targets at their will. With the merger of MCC, PWG and Party Unity to form CPI (Maoist), the outfit has formed a ‘Red Corridor’ from Nepal border to Tamil Nadu, and established international links. They terrorise people by indiscriminate killing, jail-breaks and armoury loots, and camouflage themselves with the poor people who provide for them shelter. The Central Government prefers two-legged response – gearing up law-and-order machinery as well as accelerating the pace of development – to contain the menace. However, without involving the masses and civil society positively and tactfully, it is next to impossible to really achieve the goal.

GENESIS

Naxalism derives its nomenclature from Naxalbari, a small place in West Bengal (India) where a violent Maoist peasant upsurge was triggered off on May, 1967 under the leadership of Charu Majumdar, a then CPM leader, and his close associates – Kanu Sanyal. Majumdar admired Mao and advocated for the peasants and downtrodden to follow in his footsteps. He engendered Naxalism with his writings, the most famous being his Historic Eight Documents which formed its initial basis. In 1967 the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) was organized which later broke away from CPI (M). In 1969 AICCCR gave birth to CPI (M-L) to which all Naxal groups trace their origin. Unlike CPI (M), it left parliamentary politics to engineer violent mass upsurge on Maoist ideological moorings to emancipate the exploited and toiling masses by making them capable of capturing the citadel of political power. Differing with CPI and CPI (M) it thought that the time was ripe for waging violent people’s war to overthrow the bourgeois rule and capture state power to herald the new era of communism.

Naxalite is an informal name given to radical, often violent, revolutionary communist groups that were born out of the Sino–Soviet split in the Indian Communist movement. Ideologically, they belong to various trends of Maoism. Initially, the movement had its epicenter in West Bengal, but recently, it is spreading like wild fire. The spurt in Naxal violence is a gruesome reminder of the imperfection of the Indian polity. Despite using terror as one of its prime tools, it is not terrorism in the traditional sense of the term. It is indeed a new development of terrorism which has taken the shape of social insurgency that threatens the very existence of the Indian state and the space of democratic politics. The major Naxal groups including the People’s War Group (PWG), Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) and Party Unity besides some smaller ones merged to form the powerful CPI (Maoist) on October 14, 2004, which has been able to demonstrate its clout though its sudden guerilla operations in 170 districts of 14 states across the country and tactically set up parallel administration in many of them. Their attacking targets have been increasingly bolder and swifter to alarm the Indian Prime Minister to dub the Maoists “the biggest threat to India’s internal security”. These districts are periodically slipping out of State’s control to become ‘liberalized zones’ under the Naxalites who need to be treated as a high priority concern because this internal security challenge is the gravest ever faced by India. Based on intelligence output he further observed: “The ideological base of the movement has diminished and there are many lumpen elements now in the movement.”

TERRORIST SHADOW OF NAXALISM AND ITS INTERNATIONAL LINKS

This is an abstract published by me in National Conference sponsored by UGC in April 2008 on 'Paradigm Shift In Naxal Movement'. Naxal menace is a social problem and it has engulfed the whole country.


Naxal movement in India claims to have followed the Maoist path - 'Sinified Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought' as it was experimented in China, in an agrarian country like India, by applying peasants as the main force of revolution.Marxism is an internationalist ideology aiming at the state to wither away.With this perspective in mind if Naxalite/CPI(Maoist) develops closer and friendly relations with its fraternal organisations across the border, it is in consonance with its ideological explications.But if the Naxalites smuggle arms and ammunitions and are engaged in clandestine activities like drug trafficking and printing of counterfeit currency notes with the avowed objective of destabilizing the Indian political system as expressed on the occasion of the formation of CPI (Maoist) in 2004 in the jungles of Dandakaranya, such activities should be condemned and contained with iron hands.
Although from the very inception of the Naxal movement in 1967 in Naxalbari(WB),its ideologcal formulations were inspired by Mao and the Communist Party of China, the paradigm shift is especially visible in its fast turning into India's 'Fifth Columnist',more than willing to join the external forces that have been trying to undermine India's territorial integrity and rend its social fabric.It has developed its links with fraternal groups of Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar,Bhutan,Sri Lanka, Turkey, Peru and the Philippines besides the CPC. It has also involved itself as member of the left extrimist international organisations like CCOMPOSA, INRC and RIM. It has teamed up with Nepalese Maoists to create dissatisfaction among the people of Nepalese origin living in eastern WB - Darjeeling area and Sikkim to engineer a movement of 'self-determination' like violent Gorkhaland agitation. But more than the most serious and alarming are its clandestine connections with terrorist organisations like LTTE, Al Qaeda and some other Islamic fundamentalist groups besides the Pakistan's ISI which also involves it in 'narco-terrorism'. That is why not only the Government of India and the Governments of some affected states but even the US Government has listed it as a terrorist organisation. Moreover, it hasposed to be "the gravest internal security threat" because it has extended its clout in 170 districts of 14 states across the country and established a "Red Corridor" for free passage from the Nepal border in the north to Sri Lanka in the south.
However, though it applies terrorist methods to annhilate its "class enemies", it is not a terrorist in the traditional sense of the term, for it has an obvious support base among the downtrodden. Again, the above informations based on media and Government reports may be exaggerated Government projections and biased bourgeois observation. Hence, they are required to be delved deeper by neutral empirical investigation and scientific analysis.

युवा शक्ति

युवा वगॅ जो देश के कणॅधार हैं वे अपनी शक्ति को नज़रअंदाज कर रहे हैं। इन्हीं के कंधों पर देश का वतॅमान और भविष्य टिका हुआ है। परंतु आज यही वगॅ दमित, शपित और शोषित हूआ है। यह यही वगॅ है जो देश के गरीबों और लाचारों की आवाज़ बन सकता है। इसी को चरित्राथॅ करने में लगे हैं तीन युवा और रजनीश जी जैसे युवा जो इनकी आवाज़ बनने का प्रयास कर रहे हैं। रजनीश जी जो विपरीत परिस्थितियों में रहते हुए भी तकनीक का कारगर इस्तमाल करते हुए कई गरीबों की मदद कर चूके हैं वे धीरे-धीरे दुनिया की नज़रों में आ रहे हैं। अभी हाल ही में एक लेख में मैंने उनके बारे में पढ़ा तब ऐसा लगा कि वे सही मायने में एक शिछ्क का काम कर रहे हैं। फिर उन्होंने मुझे उन तीनों यूवाओं में से एक राकेश प्रकाश जी सेभेंट करवाई। मै राकेश जी के योजनाओं और विचारों से काफी प्रभावित हूआ। उनलोगों ने हर वगॅ के गरीबों को पढ़ाने के लिए सुपर ३० कि तजॅ पर व्यवस्था किया है। आज हमारे समाज को इन्हीं युवा की आवश्यकता है। युवाओं में जागरूकता लाने की आव्शयकता है।