THE front-page lead story in The Free Press Journal (March 6) was on Maoists who want to “oust Indian State by 2050”. Well, that will take some forty more years, but, according to Home Secretary GK Pillai, the Maoists are working on a plan in which the final assault would be to encircle cities and bring the Indian economy to its knees. Pillai was reading out from a secret document to a gathering of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis in Delhi. That was what the Chinese terrorist Mao Tse-tung planned in China and his Indian imitators think it is a great idea. They don’t realise that in the thirties of the 20th century China was in a mess and anything then was possible. The India of the 21st century is not the China of the 30s of the 20th century.
According to Pillai, the rebel cadres were so indoctrinated that during interrogations they expressed ignorance about any national leader, be it Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru or someone else. But these cadres had “effusive knowledge about Karl Marx and Lenin”! These Maoists are not just rebels. They are traitors and should be treated as such. The tragedy is that they allegedly have the support of intellectuals, especially in Bengal. One has to read what Sunanda K Datta-Ray has to say in the same issue of The Free Press Journal. According to Datta-Ray murderers the Maoists might be, “but no one in the West Bengal countryside regards the Maoists as untouchables” and there is an “interconnectivity that binds lawmakers and law-breakers”.
The leaders of law-breakers are not poor dalits or tribals, but “intellectuals” and young people from rich families often having foreign university degrees. Says Datta-Ray: “The Red Corridor is not a manifestation of the proletarian revolution (but) reflects and exploits adivasi and dalit resentment… and the Indian State’s inability effectively to address their festering grievances.” Obviously, what the country needs is someone like Nanaji Deshmukh, the distinguished RSS leader, who, at the age of 65 decided to give up politics and assume a new role, described by S Gurumurthy writing in The Indian Express (March 1) as one who sought to be a social worker to lift moral and spiritual values and promote the economic and social well-being of the “distanced people”. Nanaji started his work first in the most backward districts of Gonda in UP, and next in the equally drought-prone and poverty-ridden Bead district in Maharashtra. Later, he literally took over some 500 villages in Chitrakoot district. That was a positive way of taking care of dalits and tribals.
India’s arrogant Marxists believe not in hard work but in killing and looting. According to Hindustan Times (March 8) those carrying out Maoist strikes are hired goons. And who is a Maoist “leader”? The man arrested by the Kolkata police, Venkateswara Rao alias Deepak has a diploma in mechanical engineering. There is something sick about our “intellectuals” who think, like Arundhati Roy that they are rendering great service to the poor by killing.
Violence has now almost become a standard way of expressing dissent. Thus Maharashtra Navnirman Sena seems to be excelling in mindless violence. Its goons are photographed breaking glass panes of business houses as happened only in the second week of March and there are no reports of anyone being arrested. Do we have a government in Mumbai? What is the Congress government in power scared of? According to The Indian Express (March 10), there are as many as 73 cases filed against Raj Thackeray in courts all over Maharashtra. Apart from these he is also supposed to be facing similar legal battles in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Bihar. Mystified by his penchant for courting trouble both directly and through his followers, a Supreme Court bench comprising of no less than the Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan himself and Justice DS Chauhan apparently asked him why he was not stopping “this sort of thing”. Said The Indian Express: “His (Raj’s) entire political career revolves round the stirring up of animus against a targeted group based on provincial or religious factors so that he can pose as a champion of the locals.” A more pathetic character it is hard to conceive. They thrive on violence.
What comes as a shock is to learn that Maoists are not only training Indian cadres to wage war against the State, they are being trained by experts from, of all countries, the Philippines. The Telegraph (March 8) reports that members of New Peoples Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of Philippines, have been camping in dense forests near the Bengal/Jharkhand border for over a month. And who brought them? Khobad Ghandy, the CPI (Maoist) politburo member who was arrested last year. It seems the decision to seek the help of foreign outfits was taken by the CPI (Maoist) ninth party congress held in the Dandakaranya forest in Orissa in 2007! How did the foreigners manage to come to India? Did they have regular passports or did they sneak in, with the connivance of the Bengal police?
Violence is resorted to at the slightest provocation and the mischief-makers go scot-free. The Hindu (March 3) reported that the offices of two newspapers in Mangalore were attacked by masked men who forced their way into first the office of Kannada Prabha and later the office of Jayakirana; in the office of the first, the criminals set fire to the furniture in the lobby and damaged five computers, printers and glass panels. Much the same damage was done in the office of Jayakirana as well. The police were not only nowhere on the scene, no effort even was made to find out who the criminal trespassers were. This sort of thing will become standard practice if the guilty are not arrested and served with a minimum of five years RI. The message must be conveyed that deliberate attempts at arson will not be tolerated. But to the best of one’s knowledge, no one from among the Shiv Sena or MNS goons have so far been given a heavy sentence. It is a shame on the government of the day.
Meanwhile, notice must be taken of the passing away of a senior journalist and Resident Editor of The Hitavada at Raipur. Deen Dayal Purohit was a strong unionist and a member of the Tilak Patrakar Bhavan Trust and was known for his outstanding contribution to journalism in Vidarbha.
