A posh rebel in India’s heart of darkness

A few years ago in Manhattan I ran into a casual acquaintance from Mumbai. He said he had come to the US to study and joined an investment bank; with his smart, clothes he fitted the part. I suggested we  catch up, but he seemed reluctant. It soon became obvious why — when I knew him he was a leader of the city’s most active leftist student body. He  was obviously not interested in raking up the past. Back home, I mentioned this to a friend who wryly said, “He must have seen the light.”

Memories of that dim past came back when I read about the arrest of Kobad Ghandy, the Maoist ideologue. Reports spoke about his rich family, the bungalow in a tony sea facing part of Mumbai, his education in Doon school and in London. The shock that such a person should give up all that to work for decades in the hinterland that too as an insurgent was palpable in the newsreports; one paper breathlessly told us that he “could have even been a MNC executive, leading a comfortable life.” Obviously Ghandy had not seen the light.

It is a reflection of the loss of generational memory in India, specially in media organisations, that the notion of youngsters from well-off families going into leftist politics seems so alien. In the 1960s and ‘70s this was almost de rigueur. Droves of young boys and girls from  well-heeled families dropped out and left home to become full-time Naxalites.

Bombay, as it was then, saw less of that compared to Calcutta and Delhi but there were enough who felt alienated from their materialistic life and wanted something more. Religion was definitely not an option, because unlike now, religion was kept firmly out of public life. The student riots in the US and France, the hippie movement, rock music, protest marches, the Vietnam war, all inspired youngsters around the world. It was cool to rebel; conformity was for squares. Turn on, tune in, drop out was the unofficial motto and many did as a mark of protest, even from the exalted IITs. The idea was to overthrow the system, not embrace it.

The media, academia and administrative services are littered with those who moved back into the system. Many were pushed abroad by their parents, never to come back. There are a few in the corporate sector too. Kobad and his wife Anuradha took their fervour to its logical conclusion and vanished in the jungles of Vidarbha. Last year when Anuradha, the dimunitive and sparkly former lecturer whose glasses almost hid her face, died it was almost as if an era had gone. Now her husband Kobad has been arrested.

His arrest comes at a time when the home ministry is launching a major counterstrike against Maoist groups. Rough estimates suggest perhaps even one-third of the country’s districts are in some form of control of armed Maoist groups. State governments have tried all kinds of tactics including arming villagers, but if anything the scourge has only grown. There are two radically opposite opinions about Maoists.

Their supporters, especially in urban areas, look upon them as over-enthusiastic social workers fighting for the rights of exploited villagers and tribals. The government largely thinks of them as armed insurgents who want to bring down the state and must be crushed. Both views are misguided. The first is simply naive; fighting an armed rebellion against a democratic state is treason, whatever the ideology. Maoists have no illusions about themselves; their fans should stop looking at them through rose-tinted glasses.

But the government too seems to have a very limited tactical and strategic perspective. Fighting guns with guns should be but one part of an overall plan. The state needs to understand why the Maoists have succeeded and study the underlying impulses that make men like Kobad dedicate their lives to a particular cause.

History is replete with instances of those who brought about seminal changes in the world armed with nothing more than ideas. A response that relies on the gun without understanding the context is bound to fail. Sure, many Maoists will be killed and some districts will also be “freed”, but will this be the end of the story? We have not managed to stamp it out in 40 years with that approach.

Urban India is celebrating its arrival on the world stage, but the Indian story will remain hollow if nearly half our population remains impoverished. The India they encounter is iniquitous, exploitative and cruel. Maoists thrive in such a climate. An urban guerilla’s arrest has once more brought these issues into the open. Today the Maoists are in the hinterland tomorrow they will gatecrash our party. We ignore that only at our own peril.