Activists such as Aruna Roy, Arundhati Roy, Prashant Bhushan, Jignesh Mevani and others came together at the Press Club on August 30, 2018 in New Delhi to protest against the Bhima Koregaon raids and arrests of five activists. (Photo by Sonu Mehta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

By Vivek Agnihotri

This week, two very remarkable events took place in the life of Naxalism in India.

An unprecedented, massive raid took place on ‘Urban Naxals’ and many were arrested. One tweet of mine made hundreds of misguided ‘Urban Naxals’ come out of the closet and sign up for a ‘Urban Naxals’ list’. Most of them were protesting against the raids and defending such hard-core Urban Naxals.

Why would anyone defend the enemy of India, you may ask. This question has been asked several times in the last thousand years of our history. But before we seek an answer, let’s understand the reason behind the raid and arrests.

The life of Naxalism runs over 50 years of unrest, murders, destruction, rapes, arson, loot and killings of innocent children. It was free India’s bad luck, lack of political acumen of our leaders, lazy intelligentsia, corrupt fourth pillar, a dysfunctional system or a combination of all these that kept feeding this monster called Naxalism and today it has emerged as India’s biggest internal security threat. Most dangerous. Lethal. And barbaric.

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For beginners, Naxalism, also known as Maoism, has always been celebrated, patronized and protected by the leftists and liberals. How else can a violent and barbaric movement survive for 50 years in a free, democratic country which is one of the most promising and peaceful players in a globalized world?

Leftists, by definition, are those who question the establishment. It’s another thing that today they themselves are a corrupt establishment and it is practically impossible to raise voice against oneself. Hence, they are cocooned in a regressive, violent ideology with no option but to play along their movement which has been totally taken over by disguised terrorists, Maoists and all separatist and anti-national forces.

A lot of these Leftists and liberals have succumbed to the Naxal pressure and work as their ‘front organisation’. What one doesn’t understand is why they like to call themselves liberals when they are engaged in humanity’s most illiberal acts?

When Saibaba, Asst. Professor of Delhi University, was arrested, certain strategic documents were found from his place. These documents very clearly and strongly state the objectives of ‘the central task of the Indian revolution is the seizure of political power. To accomplish this central task, the Indian people will have to be organised into a people’s army & will have to wipe out the armed forces of the Indian state through war & establish in its place the people’s democratic state.’

It doesn’t stop here. It goes on to state, ‘The very act of establishment of the state machinery of the people by destroying, through war, the state’s army, police & the bureaucratic machinery, is the central task of the people’s democratic revolution of India”.

How is this going to be achieved? They explain it in full detail by ‘establishing revolutionary base areas first in the countryside where the enemy (India) is weak & then to gradually encircle and capture the cities which are the bastions of the enemy forces.’

Naxals aren’t wild jihadis. Naxals are smart. They are educated, understand politics, war strategies, and the topography of the country.

They understand that the transport and communication facilities are very poor in jungles and the remote countryside is very far from military centres, making it difficult to reach them in the jungles. Therefore, they have made dense jungles their main bastion to wage a war against the enemy (India). They call it ‘liberated zone’. From here they plan to ‘attack the enemy (India) in the cities’ by using various groups of people, ranging from labourers to intellectuals to lawyers to professors and artists. Most importantly, students whose ‘volatile nature work as arms and ammunition’.

Now, anyone who has been raised in a city is going to laugh at such far-fetched planning. Because they have no idea. In fact, I fully sympathise with all those misguided people who lined up to sign for ‘Urban Naxals’ club for they do not know better.

They think ‘Urban Naxalism’ is some kind of a movement to dissent. No, it’s not.

The strategic document has a chapter on ‘Urban Naxalism’. Ironically, Chapter no 13. Besides explaining why Urban Naxalism is crucial to their war, this chapter emphasises on the need to work in an organised manner and slowly infiltrate police, army, bureaucracy, administration, legal system and education.

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