Naxals and their Hidden Agendas – Part 1
- In Current Affairs
- 11:41 AM, Jul 06, 2020
- Sagar Kinhekar
To understand India’s communist ecosystem we need to understand their ideology, which can be very different from a Marxist or Leninist ideology. Let’s begin with some core beliefs.
- Power comes out of barrel of gun: this political group believes in acquiring power by using any means, how soever violent it may be. They kill their opponents in broad day light wherever they can while still talking about democracy.
- Women can hold up half the sky: they talk about lofty ideals of women empowerment. Their speeches are full of feminist jargon. In practice they use women from very society they claim to be fighting for, as object to fulfill bodily urges of their own cadre. They propagate free sex within their cadre which turns out to be indiscriminate exploitation of women volunteers.
- Fight for downtrodden and oppressed masses: to fight for oppressed masses, the most important thing they need is ‘oppressed masses’. This political ideology ensures that target ‘masses’ are absorbed in perpetual sense of victimhood, a sense of being wronged. They go to any lengths to create the bogey of an oppressor so that ‘masses’ forever feel ‘oppressed’. Only this can keep this political ideology relevant.
These core beliefs and practices, however are not from Marxism or Leninism but are typical Maoist ideas. Indian communists may talk about Marx or Lenin but their real ideal is Mao. From white dhoti clad communist leaders in Bengal and Kerala to gun wielding rustic Naxals in tribal lands, follow Mao’s ideas fully.
Mao helped start Naxal terror which was brought upon tribals by Charu Mazumdar in the1960s. A faction of Communist party of India, led by Charu Mazumdar declared that Mao is The Chairman of India and started an armed rebellion. This armed rebellion grew from a micro scale to a big terrorist activity after (ill)famed meeting between Mao and Mazumdar’s lieutenant Kanu Sanyal in 1967. The Chinese government set up training camps along Nepalese and Bhutanese border. The Chinese army (People’s Liberation Army – PLA) trained the Indian Communists in guerrilla warfare, provided the fund and weapons from these terror corridors. That the Chinese government was helping Naxal terror was a well-known truth, however, there was something more sinister happening in the urban centres of India.
Around the same time when Sanyal was meeting Mao in Beijing, a UK economics professor called Joan Robinson was in Delhi on her way back to UK from Beijing. During that visit in a guest lecture in Delhi School of economics, she dubbed communist rule in China as a new ‘cultural revolution’. She painted a rosy picture of Chinese society under communists as a shared paradise where everyone was happy and contended. It didn’t matter that the truth behind that paradise was smeared with blood of millions who were killed by communists during so called rectification exercises. For the uninitiated, the rectification drives were regular cleaning up exercise by PLA, which killed all who were suspected of deviating from core ideas of Mao. A UK economics professor championing Mao’s cause left deep impression on young minds in that lecture. Obviously, Joan was not the first or last academician who visited an Indian college and spoke in favour of Maoism. This onslaught of Maoist ideas on Indian universities churned out overt and covert communist sympathisers in academia. This created the foundation of ‘Urban Naxal’ network which exists in academia even today. In an interview, ex-Naxal Dilip Simeon alluded that the communists of 60s were not influenced as much by Marx as by what was happening in China or Cuba. What happened in China and Cuba was violent power capture and this is what created the very foundation on which current communist ideas in India stand. Therefore, we can safely assume that all communists in India, urban or otherwise are Maoists or as we call them in India, Naxals.
Now that we know what ideals drives today’s communism, lets look at the activists these ideals drive on the ground. We shall first look at how Naxals today are using some of the India’s societal fault lines, to create perpetual victimhood for some social groups. The two major fault lines which they try to take benefit are, communal tension between Hindu and Muslims and second is caste fault lines within Hinduism.
It is well known how Muslim victimhood is fanned by political, media and academic Naxals. Muslim who were ruling many parts of India just 80 years back have been painted as a victims of so called Hindu oppression. From Kashmir issue to Ram Temple issue, from Bhagalpur to Gujarat riot, every single time Muslims were painted as victims and Hindus as oppressors. The truth in reality was much nuanced and aggressors and defenders were misidentified every single time. Same thing is now being repeated in Delhi Riots which happened in early 2020.
There are many FIRs filed by police with proofs of a planned attacks on Hindus in Delhi. These FIRs were called conspiracy against Muslims. Arrests of rioters were opposed by Naxal ecosystem. While all of this was being reported, one FIR which names some Hindus was not being discussed at all. After one month when discussion on FIRs quietened, media suddenly discovered this particular FIR. The ecosystem started to discuss this FIR wildly which talked about “Kattar Hindu WhatsApp group”. The reasons for this phased reporting were simple. They did not discuss FIRs against Hindus to show the central government conspiring against Muslims. FIR on Hindus did not fit the agenda then. After they were done with making Muslims feel victims, they trained the gun now to show Hindus killed Muslims by discussing the FIR which named Hindus. Another wave of victimhood feeling for Muslims was initiated.
Naxal ecosystem needs group with feeling of victimhood to create chaos in the name of fighting for these ‘victims’. The victims knowingly or unknowingly fall in this trap and help create chaos in country. This chaos harms not just the nation but also the ‘victims’ themselves. Other than Muslim-Victimhood narrative, Naxal ecosystem has openly tried to create fissures between various Hindu sub groups. They have been running subtle campaigns to take Buddhists and Tribals away from Hindu fold. More on this in next article.
(To be continued..)
Image Credits: The Statesman.
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