Naxal tentacles are reaching everywhere

Naxals are systematically infiltrating all systems, says Vishwa Ranjan

Dealing with a political ideology, which believes that the only way to gain political power is through a consistently waged prolonged armed struggle is very difficult. Firstly the practitioners and believers in a constitutional democratic polity find it difficult to accept that there can be a group of people who can actually believe that in the 21st century power could be achieved “through the barrel of the gun”.

Secondly a democratic psyche ‘ipso facto’ believes that most problems can be solved through rational negotiations, compromises and debates.  It finds it difficult to deal with a group which accepts violence as a “non-negotiable” part of its ideology.  It fails to realise that negotiations are seen by the Naxalites as “weakness of the enemy” to be exploited. The CPI (Maoist), which is the most violent and patent of the Naxalite groups operating in India, has a well-formulated strategy to achieve its goal of achieving political power through a “protracted People’s War”. 

A document called ‘Strategies and Tactics of the Indian Revolution’ prepared by the Central Committee of CPI (Maoist) states, “....it is possible to build up a new type of army, that is the red army, and to establish one after another advanced base areas in the backward rural areas, and it is entirely possible to carry forward the revolution towards its final victory by gradually consolidating and expanding the people’s army and the base areas....”. 

So the party believes that through a prolonged armed struggle and expansion of base areas i.e. areas in which the Maoist cadres are very strong the ‘enemy’ (i.e. those who believe in a democratic polity) can be defeated.  It gives great emphasis on penetrating and hijacking organisations and movements not linked with CPI (Maoist).  The organisations and movements are defined as “fractional organisations and movements” and need to be penetrated by such members of the party “who have not been exposed to the enemy”. 

Thus, Dalits movements, women empowerment movements, human rights movements, environment protection movements are all ‘fractional’ movements.  The document also talks of how ‘cover organisations’ should be set up in areas where “fractional organisations” do not exist and how legal-democratic organisations and institutions should be penetrated to expand the party’s support base. A force that believes that a violent armed struggle is the only way to gain power has to be fought back at all levels.  It has to be fought strongly through the law-enforcing agencies, but it is to be also fought back strongly at political levels. 

Vishwa Ranjan is DGP, Chhattisgarh