Background:
The year 2016 kept India occupied with shocking revelations on the campus of renowned Education Institutes. FTII, HCU, IIT Chennai, JNU, Osmania University, Jadhavpur University, Delhi University, Baghalpur University are just few names to highlight. The common thread in all these ‘Institutes turned Battlefields’ is protest against Indian Government in the name of Constitutional principles and Democratic Values. This was at students level. Few teachers too tried to escalate these protests through their active participation or supportive roles. Different Political parties, tried to exploit the situation. All this left the common man of this country wondering and guessing ‘How students turned anti India?’ ‘What is suddenly wrong with all these universities and institutes?’ A need is felt to analyse the factors that produced sporadic events which sustained or made to sustain discontent over a long period of time. There are different dimensions of these incidents. The objective of this document is to analyse the dimension of Left Wing Extremism, particularly Maoism and Urban strategy of Maoists which is affecting Educational Institutes and Urban Youth.
Left Wing Extremism (LWE) –The threat:
‘This is a classical model of Fourth Generation Warfare-(4GW) – a warfare where the enemy is invisible and the battle is for the control of civil society – through coercion, controlling the hearts and minds of the people or delivering results by redressing grievances of the people.’ says NSA Ajit Doval.[1] The threat to Indian democracy from the Maoist terror is large and very serious. The nation has witnessed attacks after attacks by Maoists who have claimed many number of innocent lives. The government deems Maoists to be the greatest threat to internal security. Time and again, various Govt representatives mentioned that ‘Left Wing Extremism is the war thrust upon us as a Nation ‘. The CPI (Maoist) Party, is the major Left Wing Extremist outfit responsible for majority of incidents of violence and killing of civilians and security forces and has been included in the Schedule of Terrorist Organisations along with all its formations and front organisations under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. ’ ‘Red flag on red Fort’ is their motto.
CPI(Maoist) ranks fifth in the Terrorist organisations globally, responsible for the most coordinated Terrorist attacks between 2000 and 2014, as per report by US State Department’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism(START).[2] In the year 2012[3], 2013[4], 2014[5] and 2015[6] the Communist Party of India (Maoists) has figured in the top five terror groups globally.
Maoism and Urban areas:
Urban Maoism & Govt of India
Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil told the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) on December 5, 2006, that Maoists were now planning to target important installations in major cities of India. Patil said “Like forests provide safe hideouts to Naxalites in tribal areas, the cities also provide them cover.[7] In Nov, 2013 MHA filed an affidavit[8] before the Supreme Court acknowledging that ‘The ‘frontal’ organisations of CPI (Maoist), operating under the garb of human rights NGOs, have kept the Maoist movement alive and are more dangerous than armed cadres. These ‘mass organisations’ (‘frontal’) are generally manned by ideologues, who include academicians and activists, fully committed to the party line. Such organisations ostensibly pursue human rights related issues and are also adept at using the legal processes of the Indian state to undermine and emasculate enforcement action by the security forces . They also attempt to malign the state institutions through propaganda and disinformation to further the cause of their ‘revolution’. The state governments are required to initiate legal action against the Maoist front organisations in towns and cities, which are the main source of recruitment of underground cadres and also disseminate the unconstitutional and violent Maoist ideology to vulnerable sections of the population. However, initiating legal proceedings against them has often resulted in negative publicity for the enforcement agencies due to the effective propaganda machinery of the CPI (Maoist).’
‘At a time when our forces are fighting an extensive battle against the Naxals and are achieving success to a large extent, a new form of LWE (Left Wing Extremism) has entered the civil society. They are appearing as a decent face, but through them a propaganda to vitiate people’s mind is being run. Many universities are getting inspired by the so-called civil society of the Left wing. I feel activities of such elements need a special attention’ was statement by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis on Feb 25, 2016.
CPI (ML) (People’s War) and the MCCI merged into a single party, the CPI (Maoist), on 21st Sept,2004. Post their merger they drafted five basic strategy Documents of CPI (Maoist). The Maoists, at their Unity Congress held in January 2007, decided to spread their movement to urban areas. In this wake, the Congress also created a five member sub-committee –– known as Urban Sub-Committee (USCO) — with Kobad Ghandy as its head, and tasked it with preparing a plan. Perhaps, this was submitted to the all-powerful Central Committee in September 2007[9]. This plan is known as the Urban Perspective Plan. Study of those Documents reveal the reasons why ‘Urban Areas’ are important for Maoists. Maoists have articulated a new strategy to target urban areas in their “Urban Perspective Document”[10] and chapter 13 i.e. ‘Our work in Urban areas’ of ‘Strategy and Tactics Document of Indian Revolution ‘[11]. These strategies draw up guidelines for ‘working in towns and cities’, and for the revival of a mobilization effort targeting students and the urban unemployed. As per their strategy, for gaining power, capturing cities is important. However, as the enemy i.e. Indian State, is strong in urban areas comparatively, that will not be feasible without mobilizing masses.
Why urban areas ? – Mao Tse Tung
The following statement by Mao Tse -Tung is the guiding principle for Maoist Urban strategy. ‘Thus it is clear that the armed struggle and the movement in the rural areas will play the primary role, and the work in the cities will play a secondary role, complementary to the rural work. However, while giving first priority to the rural work, we must also give due importance to the urban struggle. Without a strong urban revolutionary movement, the ongoing people’s war faces difficulties; further, without the participation of the urban masses, it is impossible to achieve countrywide victory. As Com. Mao says, “the final objective of the revolution is the capture of the cities, the enemy’s main bases, and this objective cannot be achieved without adequate work in the cities.” (Mao, Selected Works, Vol. II, Pg. 317).
Why urban areas ? – Strategy and Tactics of Indian Revolution
Maoists’ document ‘Strategy and Tactics of Indian revolution‘[12] describes the role of Urban areas in following manner: “Work in the urban areas has a special importance in our revolutionary work. in our revolution, which follows the line of protracted people’s war, the liberation of urban areas, will be possible only in the last stage of the revolution. However, this does not mean that there is no need to concentrate on the building of urban revolutionary movement from the beginning. From the beginning we will have to concentrate on the organisation of the working class, which being the leadership of our revolution has to directly participate and lead the agrarian revolution and the people’s war and on building a revolutionary workers movement. Moreover, on the basis of revolutionary workers movement we will be able to mobilize millions of urban oppressed masses and build struggles against imperialism and feudalism, struggles in support of the agrarian revolution and struggles for democratic rights. We will be able to create the subjective forces and conditions required for building a countrywide , broad, anti-imperialist, anti-feudal united front during this course only. The urban movement is one of the main sources, which provides cadres and leadership having various types of capabilities essential for the people’s war and for the establishment of liberated areas… We should not forget the dialectical relationship between the development of the urban movement and the development of the people’s war. In the absence of a strong revolutionary urban movement, the people’s war will face difficulties.
“However, we should not belittle the importance of the fact that the urban areas are the strong centers of the enemy (Indian Govt). Building up of a strong urban revolutionary movement means that our Party should build a struggle network capable of waging struggle consistently, by sustaining itself until the protracted people’s war reaches the stage of strategic offensive. With this long term perspective, we should develop a secret party, an united front and people’s armed elements; intensify the class struggle in the urban areas and mobilize the support of millions of urban masses for the people’s war.”
Three objectives of Urban work
The ‘Urban perspective’ Document clearly states that Urban work is important for Maoists for their Political as well as Military strategy. There are three objectives of Urban work[13] :
Out of the above three, Maoists give more importance to ‘ Mass Mobilisation ‘as it will consequently lead to ‘party Building ‘ for them which will be proletarian vanguard in the revolution and through which they can build ‘ United Front ‘ and perform Military tasks for the Guerilla warfare in the areas surrounding cities where they have established their base or which is also known as ‘ Liberated Zone’.
Maoists’ mass organisations
The following figure shows different types of Mass Organisations Maoists thought of for mass mobilisation in cities [14] . Maoists form own organisations such as Underground secret organisations which may not fit in the ambit of Democracy, Open Revolutionary Organisations and legal democratic mass organisations, which can work in the ambit of Democracy and are legal. They also intrude into existing mass organisations and try to get into leadership role to support their anti state ‘revolutionary’ role. They build several types of mass organisations simultaneously. From these mass organisations, individuals are selected, brainwashed for supporting and becoming member of Maoist party. Mass organisations is the fodder for party Building.
Fig 3: Types of Mass Organisation
United Front
In its ‘Strategy and Tactics of Indian Revolution ‘, the Maoists clearly defines CPI(Maoist) party (i.e. Leadership at different levels committed to ideology of Maoist), United Front and People’s Army (Armed cadre of Maoists at different levels) as three Magic Weapons [15]. It is important to note here that Maoists’ movement is a structured political movement with rigid command and control mechanism in place and they want to usurp power through the barrel of gun.
Mao explained that a correct understanding of the relationship between the Party, Army and the United Front is necessary for victory of the revolution:
Mao explained that a correct understanding of the relationship between the Party, Army and the United Front is necessary for victory of the revolution:
broader mass base and coordinated actions can be ensured against the Govt. Their Document says: ’ It is essential that we unite with such struggling organisations and build up broad struggles against the ruling classes. Thus a significant part of the party’s work in the urban areas concerns joint front activity.’ The following figure gives structure of ‘United Front’[17] as per Maoist Document ‘ Urban Perspective’.
Party structure and Party Building
The following figure gives details of party structure and process of party building by Maoists. It is journey of an Individual from a participant of Mass protests to Party member. The interesting part is not all participants would know that they are part of the Activist Groups or party Fractions. Many times the participants keep on working with the misconception that it is better Democracy they are fighting for.
Fig 3: Types of Mass Organisation
