Every time there is a Maoist orchestrated kidnap or a killing in India, we hear the same old arguments in the streets of Delhi and Mumbai. The rightwingers speak about getting rid of the menace through armed action. The leftwingers and the liberals speak about the state-sponsored violence and the state of development in the Maoist-infected areas of the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Of course, there will also be some who openly speak in favour of the Maoists. But it surprises and even shocks me that people of all ideological hues refuse to understand the true nature of this ‘movement’. People speak about the poverty, the deprivation, the state-led violence or even the corporate-led “stealing” of resources in these mineral-rich areas. But they fail to see that these are mere causes. The actual threat is from the ideology.
Finally, there is now a shift in the discourse of mainstream media on Maoism. Liberals often make the mistake of mixing up the Maoist movement with the tribal developmental cause. Popular middle class understanding fails to look at history. The Maoist movement in West Bengal in the 1960s had almost nothing to do with that of the tribals. It was a fight for land rights. In Bihar, the Maoist struggle came about because of caste conflict. In Andhra Pradesh again, it was land. It is in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh that the movement has taken up the tribal cause. However, if one looks at Jharkhand Maoists, at the moment there is a presence of a strong caste factor which is leading to factionalism.
The Maoist movement, wherever it has spread across India, has picked up the issues that are troubling the local population. We have even seen Maoist statements supporting separatism in Jammu and Kashmir and northeast India. Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao speaks about the “common enemy” of the Maoist and the separatist, i.e., the Indian state. Though there is still no evidence to show a direct link between Maoists and the terrorist groups operating in these regions, such statements only help create the image of bonhomie between forces who are fighting the Indian state.
The biggest setback to the idea of India came 65 years ago when the country was divided on communal lines. Over the next six decades, the leadership and the intelligentsia tried their best to keep this original idea intact — a secular free society where caste, creed, religion and region didn’t matter. It faced numerous challenges in the form of separatism, communalism and even regionalism. Yet the broader consensus about this Idea of India managed to survive. But in the last few years, the biggest threat to this idea of India has come from another idea — rather an ideology — Maoism.
Both the Left and Right and the Indian state fail to understand that you cannot treat an ideological movement as a law and order issue, nor can you deal with it just as a developmental problem. Violence — Maoist sponsored or state sponsored — and kidnapping are just methods used in an ideological game the two sides are playing. The tribals, ordinary policemen and paramilitary soldiers are mere pawns. Ideological games cannot be won by a military victory or by merely developing a region physically.
One must not confuse between an ideology and a fight against injustice, though often ideology takes up the fight to justify its survival. The conflicts in Jammu and Kashmir and in India’s northeast have weakened primarily because it’s been a fight without an ideology. The challenge for India in both these regions will be to ensure that any ideological group — such as the Taliban or the Maoists — stays far away from the fight on the ground.
Ideologies are creatures which know various survival tactics. That’s how Maoism spread across one-third of India. Look at al Qaeda’s ideology and how it is spreading in India’s immediate neighbourhood. For them, America is the enemy today, tomorrow it will be someone else. Ten years down the line, the Americans have failed to contain this idea. Why? Because it made the same mistakes as the Indian state is making at the moment.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 14th, 2012.
COMMENTS (19)
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LOL yeah, well said - why should the Hindustani Parliament have to waste its time debating drone strikes and NATO supply routes? Instead it has the pleasure of discussing crippling poverty, female infanticide and caste politics. Since all these issues seem to be Hindustan-specific, it's pretty clear that whatever debate that goes on around them isn't amounting to much.
In other words...God bless Partition.
Hasan
You should write this article in an Indian paper, where it needs to be read. Though they won't find much in it that they already didn't know.
@shouvik mukherjee
Well said.Very well.
"The biggest setback to the idea of India came 65 years ago when the country was divided on communal lines." Really?
This was the biggest boon to India not the biggest setback. Seriously.
You want the Indian Parliament discussing whether to re-open NATO supply routes in exchange for stopping drone attacks ?
I dint get the point
The author did not suggest any ideas how to contain Maoism which is disappointing.
@Hasan: maoist do not seek independence from union they seek independence from democracy and capitalism. they want communism like china and russia to be installed in India. the movement is similar to what happened to china in 1949 when democratic govt was toppled and communist gained power. the leftover democratic china is now taiwan. so what you mean by independence is converting democratic india which is highly resilient to get converted in to highly aggressive communist India.
@Sajida
This is off topic since population was not the topic of this article. But in answering your comment, let me say Indians are not ignorant of this problem. We have been conscious of this problem for about two decades now. If you look at the population growth patterns, it is not uniform across India. It is significantly higher in some of the most under-developed parts of the country (which you did mention in the global context). What is more interesting is, after gaining some confidence in our growth story - Indians have become more confident in tackling this issue. Now it is my american friends and mentors who tend to point this out. It may be more out of fear than genuine concern. . The saving grace for India will be that we know how to handle poverty without going nuts. We have been living it for 60 years without anybody giving a hoot. Now suddenly everybody is concerned about high population centers not being able to develop as the rest of the world. Thanks, but we will manage.
@Sinclair majority of population cannot reach majority of population. Just look at the drivers whicch can only be enjoyed by elite, which by the way is graying. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HE05Df01.html Doubts over India's 'teeming millions' advantage "The Indian example illustrates an important trend: that the challenge of soaring populations will increasingly be concentrated in the poorest countries, and in the poorest regions of nations such as India." http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/19/environment-population-forecasts-wrong What happens if the population forecasts are wrong? The assumption that global population will peak around 9-10bn may be overly optimistic — and if it is, population will continue to rise, placing enormous strains on the environment
And the biggest mistake self-styled experts and thinkers make is linking liberalism, democracy, development, and human rights with modern-day colonialism - i.e. Indian nationalism or American imperialism. But you've got it all figured out.
"a secular free society where caste, creed, religion and region didn’t matter"
Except they do, might not to the majority but they have the luxury of having their history, their narrative, their symbols etc enshrined in the fake construct that is a modern-day nation-state. The whole notion of being a region for someone else is abhorrent, why didn't india just stay a colony/region of the british empire since it already had secularism and democracy? Pluralism doesn't call for erasing the other and pretending that normal human nature ceases to exist. Humans aren't robots. The challenge is to make due with what you have, and try to make the need for likely conflicts irrelevant.
Absolutely Disagree with the author -- liberal sprinkling of the words 'ideology' and 'maoism' isn't going to correct the wrong premise of the article.
The people of these areas are poor, ignored, abused, their rights trampled and their sustenance - forests plundered by rich mining lobbies and interest groups. Forced against the wall, they will grab at any straw that promises them dignity and rights, or in failing to achieve that, revenge against the oppressors. They see the Indian State as the representative of their oppressors and will side with any ideology that promises them a better life. Period. Do you seriously think the poor illiterate tribal in a remote hamlet whose family is on the brink of starvation and is rendered homeless; picks up the gun because he has read the literature of Mao-Tse-Tung???
After it met it's natural death in it's birth place i.e. China, Maoism needed another place for it's rebirth.Having found that place in India, it now can only wait for it's natural death in course of time.
A very self-involved article, the gist of which is that no one, not the left, the right, the centre, the politicians, the intelligentsia or the media have grasped the elusive concept that Maoists are trying to implement - surprisingly the writer has it all figured out but could not communicate it in an article that covered everything but that. I am not arguing that Maoists do not present a threat - but the fact is that if we assume that it is not externally motivated (and is probably not), then there are genuine grievances that need to be addressed. Typically any rebellion is rooted in inequality, deprivation and lip-service to rights; this is also complicated by tribal displacement and vested interests. I have no solution, but am sure that one can be arrived at within the framework of the Indian constitution. @Hasan - the objectives of ensuring a society free of religious and caste based prejudice were enshrined in the constitution and thus were 'notions' that existed at the time of independence. Given the challenges that we faced and the distance covered since the starting point, I would say we have done fairly well. But keep your hopes of India disintegrating alive - I am sure they will help Pakistan solve its current problems.
Indian civilization was and is a most successful one. It is taking a long time for Inida to "become" a successful nation where the government understnds that it is constituted with certain powers to promote publics goods to the citizenry (law and order, social justice, national defense, health-care, education, transportation, etc) effectively. Thanks in part to the unremitting hostility from Pakistan and China, the consciousness of becoming a distinct nation, as opposed to an Indian civilization or culture, is process is moving along faster than it would have otherwise. If the governmental footprint keeps getting smaller as the national security infrastructure and the private sector keeps getting larger, things should work out. All the ingredients for a great nation are already in place for India. It is the mixing of the ingredients that has yet to proceed at a satisfactory pace. One can only hope and pray that India will be lucky enough to have the time to do so before being overwhelmed by enemies domestic (injustice; poverty; corruption) and foreign (communists and Islamists).
"The biggest setback to the idea of India came 65 years ago when the country was divided on communal lines. Over the next six decades, the leadership and the intelligentsia tried their best to keep this original idea intact — a secular free society where caste, creed, religion and region didn’t matter."
This is the point at which I stopped taking the writer seriously.
If Hindustanis can still convince themselves that notions of religious tolerance and caste equality were 'intact' in pre-Partition India, they are destined to blunder their way into yet another disaster like 1947, when Pakistanis rose to clain their own freedom in the face of increasingly brutual levels of ethno-religious sectarianism. It has been reported that up to 1/3 of Hindustan, under varying interpretations of Maoism, is desperate to attain the same kind of independence as Pakistan; unless Delhi takes a harsh, honest look at the kinds of policies which continue to widen the gap between an elite coterie of wealthy Brahmins and the rest of the nation, Hindustanis will soon have the kind of rude awakening which will make 1947 look like a picnic.
Hasan
Not at all, for the past ten years not even a single terrorist attack in the US, do you say this is a failure ? Pathetic article.
You started off promisingly but disappointed hugely towards the end. Throwing the word "ideology" in there multiple times does not get the point across. Do you even know what you are trying to say? Communism is an ideology too, and one which I think is against the idea of India. Yet it is represented in the political system. How come that is not a threat? Because they agree to play by the rules - in the case of CPI it is adhering to the elections and to the Indian Constitution. Ideology by itself is neither helpful or harmful. It is the ends to which that ideology is used, and the amount of popular support it can accrue in this endeavor - thats what determines its usefulness/danger to the state. . Maoism as you stated has been around for quite some time in India. The bottom line is this. If the majority of population (of India) tastes the fruits of development through economic boom - Maoism will die its natural death never to be resurrected.