It is always very exciting when you see left-liberals toss aside warnings meant in good faith and very often, national interest.
Vivek Agnihotri recently coined the phrase “Urban Naxals” referring to the intentional or unintentional messengers of the Maoist propaganda. Yet, with very little consideration to the heaps of evidence witnessed by the nation, many liberals were more than happy to jump the gun and rubbish the seriousness behind the claims.
An article in ThePrint says: “The vague ‘Urban Naxal’ was invented to avoid difficult questions on Modi’s vikaas”. While I absolutely oppose the sly way in which she downplays the issue, it is interesting to the way she backs that claim.
All the article does is provide the reader with the uni-dimensional notion, that all the declared “Urban Naxals” have a “common thread” of criticising the government. Firstly, criticism is not what leads to such a tag. I do realise that there are various anonymous handles on social media, merely throwing about the phrase wherever they please and that is of course wrong. What is upsetting though, is to see many left-liberals, using this as a way to discredit the perfectly sound movement of Urban-Naxalism: a movement that was undeniably ignored for a long, long time.
And let me also say, that what does lead to being called an ‘Urban-Naxal’, is following the prescribed path of carrying out
“revolutionary propaganda”. And the point at which one crosses that line of criticism to adhere to their ulterior motives, is the point at which the critical questions will occur.
Secondly, it is amusing to see how the article provides not a shred of evidence to back up the rather gutted declaration of all this just being a farce. It does not even want to provide the reader with a single acknowledgement of the fact that letters, manifestos, insider perspectives, and many such documented pieces of evidence have been put out, in proof of a dangerous conspiracy. When the purpose is to come up with obscure theories (like this being a way to “counter Vikaas questions”), to disrupt the voices highlighting a real danger, Miss Kaur must at least put up a fight!
As a matter of fact, this is not the first time the left has tossed aside appropriate tags and their respective insinuations. Back in 2016, when there were some vile protests in JNU, many of the protests (for which a ‘student’ was even expelled, as directed by the court) were termed as “sedition” and “anti-national”. When one raises slogans to break up the country into pieces and are aimed at perhaps starting a movement to do so, they can absolutely be termed seditious and anti-national. When slogans are raised supporting a terrorist who wanted to break up India and kill its civilians, it can very well be termed seditious and anti-national.
But till date, discourse on the left, sees these two terms being thrown about so randomly and trivially, that, in real cases of sedition or anti-national activities, the terms lose their importance. This is done to trivialize the intention to break the country up. More importantly, when one calls another act as say, anti-national, s/he is not taken seriously because of the terms being belittled in our discourse.
In the case of “Urban Naxals”, it is not surprising to see people like Dhruv Rathee brush it away, or a Kavita Krishnan use “#UrbanNazi” hashtags, or even sites like ThePrint and Scroll, pussyfoot the toxicity of those seeking an armed revolution: all of these, being attempts to undermine the vicious conspiracies that are realities in today’s India.
It is also extremely important for us to get an insight the real manifesto of Maoists in India. This is important not only because we realise how nonsensical, the suggestions of the cabal are, when they suggest that this is a means to crush dissent, but also because it shows us the methodical process by which the values of this country are to be broken, as the “utopian revolution” takes precedence in India.
The first question is, do they even have the need to exist in the urban areas?
While it is apparent that somebody like Kavita Krishnan would be happy to deny it and say that this is just to “crush dissent”, the official ‘rulebook’ of the Maoists gives them three objectives or reasons to carry out urban work (picture below). Therefore, their fundamental premise of this just being a way to “crush dissent” ceases to pass the smell test.
It is worth noting that, to the Urban Maoist, the target audience for revolutionary propaganda includes “students, middle-class employees, intellectuals, etc.”. They apparently have to deal with the problems of “special social groups like women, Dalits and religious minorities” only to “mobilise them for revolutionary movement” that stands against “Hindu fascism”. This is also reiterated as the “fundamental and primary task”, that matters more than everything else.
And so, is it really a surprise that the women, Dalits, minorities and so on, are the groups that are targeted the most in today’s discourse, to the hypocritical degree of ignoring the pains of other segments in society? It is, therefore, fairly obvious that the concept of an ‘Urban-Maoist’ is no “invention to avoid questions on vikaas”.
Let us, then, take this a step forward, to look at how the Urban Naxal is told to operate. Considering that their primary aim is to organise masses, they suggest different forms in which they approach the people for mobilisation.
The manifesto goes into great depth when addressing every type of mass organisation. But for a basic idea on what each one’s role is, below are:
1) Secret revolutionary mass organisations: “These organizations remain strictly underground and propagate the Party’s revolutionary line among the masses rousing them for armed struggle… In urban areas these secret organizations perform the important task of propagating the Party line among various sections of the masses. They are the main vehicles of revolutionary propaganda.”
2) Open revolutionary mass organisations: “They openly propagate the politics of New Democratic Revolution and prepare the people for armed struggle. These organizations make use of the available legal opportunities to carry on revolutionary propaganda and agitation openly and try to mobilize anti-imperialist, anti-feudal forces as widely as possible… As is clear from experience, this form of organization can only be used when the ruling classes, due to various reasons cannot or do not bring repression”
3) Legal Democratic Organisations: “These are the organizations formed on an explicit political basis with some or all aspects of an anti-imperialist, anti-feudal programme, and with a programme of action and forms of struggle that broadly fall within a legal framework… Actually thelegal democratic organizations serve as important means to the Party’s attempts at the political mobilization of the urban masses. This is because repression normally prevents the open revolutionary mass organizations from functioning. The legal democratic movement is thus the arena where the masses can participate in thousands and lakhs and gain political experience.”
Furthermore, in terms of party building, the Maoist ‘Urban Perspective’ suggests two ways- one more indoctrinating than the other-
a) Activist Groups: “The main basis for selection into the activist group is activity. All activist group members should be regular or prepared to be regular, in activity. Other criteria are broad sympathy to revolutionary politics and steadfastness to the cause and interests of the section of the masses who are being organized… An activist group is a transitory form of organization. Its purpose is to facilitate the consolidation of the advanced sections of the masses and build them into the vanguard. If it is conducted in a systematic and planned manner it can play a crucial role in the Party-building process.
b) Political Education: “Political education tasks in the city cannot be fulfilled without the active intervention of the higher committees. Courses, methods of conducting schools and taking classes, tech methods, training of teachers, plans for education at different levels – all require the personal attention of the higher committee members… A well planned decentralized political education system, with sufficient teachers and regular follow-up from the committee, is what every urban area requires.”
The Maoist manifesto is not something that is limited to one book. It is a dangerous ideology that is taking over the biggest cities in our country. If a person is adamant enough to deny this fact, the way in which various conspiracies and plots, have fallen in line with their written doctrines, speaks for itself. And if people like Kavita Krishnan and Harnidh Kaur, despite all these facts, refuse to accept the presence of “Urban Naxals” today, I would either assume that they are upholding the secrecy, prescribed in Maoist manifestos, or that they are far too naïve, to indulge in socio-political discourse.
