Wounded Tiger, Hidden Falcon
Marxism was never embraced like this. The media barons who are arch rivals of communism, like Malayala Manorama and Indian Express are moving earth and heaven pleading to Indian state to have a chat with the Maoists. Their broadsheets are laying down hundred many reasons for the Maoist insurgency and the heinous crimes which they practice ruthlessly. Where Marx was aspersed, Mao becomes the chant! What a twist! Many civil society intellectuals are joining this bandwagon, raising their voices for the historic causes of Maoism. The same folks are found fighting the mainstream left parties at every possible opportunity. This visible contradiction exposes the apolitical platform leveraged by Maoist outfit.
In this backdrop, we see Maoism looming large as a powerful phenomenon in the contemporary socio-political arena. Following their international trails, we can see that they have many links with International splinter groups of Maoism world wide and Revolutionary International Movement (RIM), Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) of Canada and it takes us to their connections with LTTE and Islamist terrorists operating in South Asia and South East Asia.
There are reports that they even have links with Hindutva fringe groups of RSS clan in India. This relation is unaffected by their love-hate relationship with BJP and VHP. A Maoist caught in Mumbai conceded that he was funded by Medha Patkar and Shiva Sena. Suspected Naxalite Arun Ferreira in his narco-analysis test has alleged that many political parties, including Shiv Sena and its chief Bal Thackeray, have been funding Maoist activities in Mumbai.
The narco-analysis report, a copy of which is available with PTI, quoted Ferreira as saying, “Bal Thackeray and his party Shiv Sena and the BJP student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) had given us funds regularly for Maoists activities in Mumbai.” This shocking revelation came when Ferreira, a city resident, was asked about the funding of the activities of the banned outfit CPI (Maoist) in the country’s financial capital.
[Source : http://darkindia.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/shiv-sena-abvp-funded-maoists-says-naxalite-during-narco-test/]
This combination seems impossible from a plain political perspective. And it leads us to think about the breeding grounding of these diverse forms of polity. Thus Maoist movement is transforming itself into a potent mixture for fringe groups of all kind. This is the new form of polity devised by Imperialism. Rather than striking an enemy from outside, create Trojan horses inside and make them proliferate using money, persuasion, ideology and what not. This was successful as against USSR. And the same Imperial polity is gaining ground in communist nations and developing countries world wide.
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| Maoist Affected States in India |
Seeing the Maoist love relationships with the Civil Society intellectuals like Arundhati Roy, BRP Bhaskar and Swami Agnivesh, we can see that Maoism is becoming the full fledged army for executing the praxis of NGOisation of Indian polity. NGOisation of Indian polity has been expanding in Indian soil since 1970’s. Indian Maoism has become the cutting edge tool in their hand. Maoist agenda of capturing the Indian state from the comprador bourgeoisie goes hand in hand with the Imperial agenda of fragmenting Indian nation state. The same agenda of fragmentation was preached in veils by various flavours of Identity politics like Dalit, Feminist kinds. By invoking the divisive identities of caste, tribe, religion and gender, Imperialism aims to fragment the national identity. This ideology has roots in the ethnographic works of Franz Fanon and Jacques Derrida.
Mao never formed a doctrine of Maoism. All that he had done was to form a theoretical praxis in context of revolutionizing the Chinese Economy of 1920’s. It was before the decolonization spree in Asia and Latin America. Thus the nature of nation state under Mao’s period was poles apart from that of today. Theory of Protracted Peoples War as developed by Mao was to be applied in semi-feudal, semi-colonial countries. Such a denomination does not suit the Indian Political Economy ruled by big bourgeoisie in lieu with the semi-feudal caste ridden social fabric.
Mao exhorted his comrades to work with people like a fish swimming in water. It was never a device to terrorise the people. According to the Institute of conflict management, Indian Maoists are partially funding their terrorist activities with profits from illicit opium, poppy and cannabis crops. It is reported that they have unlicensed opium fields in Jharkhand and Bihar. According to the 2008 Mohanty commission of inquiry, the CPI-Maoist and its front groups were behind extensive cannabis cultivation in Orissa. One group, People’s War, which later merged with the CPI-Maoist, was allegedly in charge of between 7,500 and 10,000 acres of sown with cannabis. This makes them apparent heir to the nick name ‘Red Taliban’.
There are also reports that some Magsaysay award winners funnel their money to help the Maoist movement in India. Interestingly, Magsaysay award is funded by Ford Foundation and Rockfeller Brothers Fund. As exposed by the leftist academic James Petras in 1970’s, Ford foundation has deep rooted ties with CIA. Thus the vicious circle framed by the Imperialist agenda find it comfortable to use the veneer of Maoism to reach the masses.
As explained by Comrade Baburam Bhattarai from Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [UCPN(M)] below, Maoist tactics of overthrowing the state ruled by a class through the use of barrel of a gun stems from the socio-political nature of the state.
“In the specific conditions of Nepal, though we are in the stage of transition from feudalism to capitalism, in our case the feudal system had been basically led by an autocratic monarchy for thousands of years. In most third world countries autocratic monarchy has already been abolished, and in those countries though the basic foundation of society is still semi-feudal, semi-colonial, the political superstructure was led by bourgeois democrats. But in our case even the political superstructure was dominated by the autocratic feudal monarchy, the national bourgeoisie was very weak and they could not carry forward the bourgeois democratic revolution. It was the proletarian party which had to take the lead to abolish the autocratic monarchy and introduce a bourgeois democracy, which could be again transformed through struggle into New Democracy, a proletarian democratic system”
[Source :http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/nepal-interview-with-bhattarai—fusing-peoples-war-and-insurrection/#more-4581]
In India such a historic necessity of violent means to overthrow the state does not arise when we have the democratic framework and a secular socialist constitution in hand. Neither the Maoists nor their think tanks are naïve enough to practice something which they do not believe. And there are reports that Maoists are aiming to capture the Indian state by 2035. This being their stated goal one may assume that they are the breeds who are fighting for the cause of tribal people by their own means. We are mistaken. They have targeted mines owned by National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC). Today, 40% of the top 50 mineral-rich districts in India are affected by Naxalite violence, with repeated attacks on any symbol of authority, both private and public, including mining sites. Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are the worst-affected states. But interestingly none of the private miners have come against the Maoists so far. The same corporate big wigs raise the alarm at the slightest initiation of strike by trade unions. When India is bleeding on its mineral rich states none of the corporate are seemingly worried about the deterioration of ‘investment climate’.
Brinda Karat, the Polit Bureau member of CPI(M) has alleged that Maoists have struck a deal with the MNC’s in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to hand over 10,000 acres of land in throw away prices. This does not surprise many vigilant observers as Indian Maoists are said to have more than 1500 crore at their disposal. Thus Maoists are creating a worm hole within the Indian state suitable for the MNC’s and imperialism. They use ultra modern cartographic devices to map the mineral resources in these lands. There are even reports that Maoists posses more advanced Geographic Positioning System ( GPS ) devices which can make the Indian army envious.
[Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-toi/special-report/The-Maoist-empire-Rs-1500cr-and-counting/articleshow/5783114.cms ]
On the bleak side of this issue, we see the mainstream politicians divided and undecided on how to tackle this gravest threat to the internal security of India. Some like P Chidambaram and Manmohan Singh are advocating the twin uses of army and development as a way-out from this imbroglio. Others like left parties and BJP are for facing the Maoists politically and ideologically without elaborating the means. Nevertheless their continuing debacles in elections and among the masses are stopping them from going further than rhetoric.
This sort of plight tells us a sorry tale. On one side we have a very potent mixture of Maoist terrorists and their imperial intelligentsia and on the other side we have a feeble state which has become a mere facilitator for US-European Union imperium. In between we have poor tribal people and fateful CRPF, BSF jawans sandwiched to the death-trap. The insurgency is going to accentuate with the growing clout of Jihadists in South Asia. The tie up between these terrorist groups is intensifying in the aftermath of US sponsored war on terror. And there are reports that Maoists are backing the regrouping of LTTE cadres in south India and Malaysia.
The relationship between Imperialism and terrorism is indeed dialectical as proved by this vicious circle. With the growing clout of imperialism in state and civil society, the terrorist outfits will proliferate into the dissident masses. Only if the nation states like India and others in South Asia take initiatives to halt the penetration of Imperialism into their state machinery and curb the money flow into the hands of terrorist outfits, there can be a peaceful climate to survive. With a government which is subservient to the imperial intentions, that is unlikely to happen in the near future. Yet there can be twists in every tale, as history is not always a tale told by an idiot!
Gokul B.Alex
14th International film festival of Kerala is my first film festival experience. I like and enjoyed it. This festival shares so many ideas and knowledge. 
