The red badge of discontent

 

Recent news reports on the naxal movement in India claim that the Naxalites are now equipped with high technology weaponry and have unleashed unprecedented terror in vast areas of the country. According to sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs, the strength of the maoists in India stands at approximately 10,000 underground armed cadres with 20,000 sophisticated weapons. This includes automatic rifles looted from security forces, besides country-made weapons.

 

The estimated strength of overground cadres is said to be 45,000. Much has been written about the violence by naxals in the last few months largely due to a series of violent incidents in Bihar, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. A favourite target in Bihar has been the railways. A recent high point of naxal violence in Bihar was the call for bandh on April 5 by the maoists to register their protest against the arrest of prominent local maoist leaders. The only visible impact was on the railways and road transport was suspended in some areas.

 

According to official sources naxals have expanded their influence in 165 out of 602 administrative districts and aspire to create a red corridor stretching from Kathmandu to Kerala in what has been euphemistically described as a compact revolutionary zone. A former chief of the Intelligence Bureau,  in a recent article, has said that Left wing extremism is now a bigger threat to the country than Islamic militancy in Kashmir  or separatist militancy in the North-East and unless some master strategic response is formulated and executed, the nation may find most of its rural hinterland overrun by an avalanche.

 

Certainly, the growing strength of the naxalites and widespread incidents of violence is a cause of great concern. Tactical measures in terms of beefing-up the security forces and long term strategic measures of socio-economic intervention in rural and tribal areas are necessary to reverse the tide. The maoist cadres are almost entirely drawn from the most exploited sections of the rural and tribal societies in the states. It is not that Mao-tse-tung or Lenin have inspired the naxalite cadres. It is anger and vengeance which has motivated them.

 

The irony is that the economic progress, accelerated pace of capitalist development and the growing divide between ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’ have helped in swelling the ranks of the naxals. Unimaginative expropriation of tribal lands for industrial development is a case in point. About 20 per cent or more of the population have been completely bypassed by whatever rural development has taken place since independence. In fact, a new exploitative class has emerged in rural areas in the wake of 'mandalisation' of the Indian polity and a wider spread of economic and political power in last decade thereby making the exploited feel more resentful.

 

Though there is much talk of ‘revolutionary ideology’ and the so-called ‘compact revolutionary zone’, there is little evidence that a ‘Long March’ or an ‘October Revolution’ will ever take place or is really intended. It is important to take note of what the father of naxal movement in India has to say about today's naxalites. Kanu Sanyal who alongwith Charu Majmudar fathered the naxalite movement in India dismisses the current naxal movement claiming that a revolutionary armed struggle must be dedicated to overcoming the system. Such a struggle must have the support of the masses, especially the peasants and the workers.

 

According to Sanyal one can hijack a train, loot a police station or kidnap a person but that does not constitute a revolutionary movement. There is no Che or Mao leading a united naxalite movement today. Notwithstanding, all the talk of compact revolutionary zone from Kathmandu to Kerala, even the charismatic leaders of the powerful maoist movement in Nepal are far removed from the maoist ideology of state and governance. What they seek is a pluralistic and a democratic polity shorn of the vestiges of feudalism.  

 

The naxal movement is primarily a vengeful voice of the exploited whose resentment has grown over the last few decades having been bypassed by the socio-economic changes in rural and tribal areas. The real remedy lies in good governance which is sensitive to the needs of the most exploited. In fact, if the naxal movement can trigger-off such a transformation— if not in full measure, at least partially— it would have served a purpose notwithstanding the unfortunate violence that it has engendered.