Perils of Indian Maoism

Stiff arms resistance of left extremist groups within the boundary of a strategically sound country like India manifests some noble pattern to deal with it in its own terms and conditions.
It would be worthwhile to recall here that Maoists are currently operate in 231 of 626 districts in the country with at least 20,000 ideologically determined armed activists whose assertions against state and civil society straightly reflects through violent method which indeed shaping their plights and demands far from proper materialization.

Infact,senseless use of violence by Maoists deterred the state authorities and entire civil society for a better deal with their plights; nonetheless, it’s required to see this grave problem in new light.
Confrontation with the Maoists has raged since 1967 just out of first Maoist rebellion, although it strongly consolidated in early years of present decade following the formation of the CPI (Maoist) in 2004 through the merger of two strong naxalite groups, the Peoples War Group (PWG) and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC).

After consolidation Maoists have been remain equivocal in their real intention as they largely failed to conceive the exact political nature of India; they still believing India as semi colonial country which radically altered them from mainstream and being a leading force of working class movement and mass mobilization.
Their relentless violent act basically emerged from their confused reckoning of modern and consolidated Indian state with the feeble Nepal or1950’s parochial China where their parent ideology had gain the momentum albeit the ground realities in India is entirely different as its democratic pillar and mainstream left movement is in very fine tune with the state and mass citizens; so, India as a Nation state very much exists in the mind of its citizens and all the institutions of democracy.

This is the major cause of failure for such radical movement in the country way back from Ekbari (Bihar) to Naxalbari (West Bengal) in 1960’s and ongoing battle from West Bengal to Karnataka.They all poised to fail because their central leadership started from Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal to Kobad Gandhi and his wife,Amitav Bagchi (Dada) etc couldn’t win the trust of common mass although they partially succeeded to win the sympathy of a chunk of radical intelligentsia and like minded university students but that alone may never be suffice to run successfully a mass movement.

What is imperative from the entire mass movement and not specifically of Maoism is to come across the entire length and width of larger reality and form a new insight to handle the prevailing discrimination and other inequitable practices which creates harbinger and belligerence among own peoples for basic rights.
Second practices that’s utmost imperative is to change the mindsets of brutality since it’s explicitly evident from the history that alone violence can never be triumphant and only dialogues have capacity to parley and resolve any specific issue; so, beheading policemen’s and methods of “Individual killing” of political opponents is nothing short than Talibani practices as they use same tactics to shunt their rivals.

Leaders of these movements have to keep in their mind that great growth stories of communism in U.S.S.R, China or Cuba haven’t woven by such hide and seek game instead they resolute and adopted the core ideology in the local conditions without following any sub nationality as tragically as Indian communists have been availing it’s on many critical junctures.
It’s equally important re-looking on the relevance of Maoism as an ideology in India since still two third of its population solely rely on fateful agricultural and allied occupation with very little saving in their hand.
so drawing a line after core theme of Marxist-Leninist ideology and its conditional adaptation in Indian socio-economic reality would be more rational as these integrated ideology of communism have entrusted with the universal applicability unlike the Maoism that’s completely a local phenomenon reliably shaped for China.

So, time is ripe now to hold some exhaustive debate on ideology and core of problems which creates impatience among the bottom of pyramids and high minded sympathetic's; for the state point of view any promotion of arms fraternity in civil society, like “Salwa Judum” or brutal retaliation against our own aggrieved citizens (Maoist Cadres) must be timely checked since they are creating big hurdles in peace process.
Being the largest democracy of the world, Indian state must have to ensure the equitable distribution of resources and opportunities because these left arms movement indeed reflects the lack of entitlement that emerged from the chronic scarcity of basic means of livelihood and rampant feudal, corporate and state atrocities in the name of development against the downtrodden who have been living in chaotic order even after the sixty two years of independence.

I think these are the reason of violence in state’s growth agenda; so it must be acknowledge that without streamlining the system as a whole, Indian growth story wouldn’t be complete, so state has to reward basic and dignified life for all.

Atul Kumar Thakur
November11th2009, New Delhi
atul_mdb@rediffmail.com