In May 2023, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis called upon youth organisations, particularly the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), to prevent infiltration of Urban Naxals into universities.
He said, “The appeal is not only for ABVP but all those who believe in nationalism and believe in nation first. In the recent past, we have exposed urban naxalism and realised how they disregard the Indian Constitution and harm our system. Intelligence inputs suggest that they are attempting to enter universities, and my appeal is to stop them.”
The above statement displayed the conviction of the State Government to fight all forms of Red terror even with civil participation, whether in the jungle or urban areas. Recently, the Maharashtra Government proposed a bill which aims to curb Naxalism in the urban areas, “Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill, 2024”. The Bill proposes strict penalties, including imprisonment, for individuals who may not be direct members of unlawful organisations but engage in activities such as contributing to, receiving or soliciting aid for, harbouring members of, or promoting or assisting in the meetings of such groups.
Contents of the Bill
This Bill proposes strict action to deal with the new and evolving techniques of Naxalism which aims to achieve their nefarious and ulterior motives in the urban areas to destabilise Bharat.
“Whoever is a member of an unlawful organisation or takes part in meetings or activities of any such organisation or contributes or receives or solicits any contribution for the purpose of any such organisation, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine up to Rs 3 lakh.”
“Whoever, not being a member of an unlawful organisation in any manner, contributes or receives or solicits any contribution or aid for such organisation or harbours any member of such organisation, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years and shall also be liable to fine up to Rs 2 lakh.”
“Whoever manages or assists in the management of an unlawful organisation or promotes or assists in promoting a meeting of any such organisation or any member thereof or in any way indulges in any unlawful activity of such organisation in any manner or through whatever medium or device, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine up to Rs 3 lakh.”
“Whoever commits or abets or attempts to commit or plans to commit any unlawful activity of such unlawful organisation shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years and also be liable to fine up to Rs 5 lakh.”
Countering Menace of Naxalism
Today Naxalism is not only present in the jungles but it has started to capture the spaces of urban areas. On December 12, 2012, Press Information Bureau (PIB) published an item titled “Naxalites Preparing War against Government” which states by referring to a document of CPI(Maoist) named “Strategies and Tactics of Indian Revolution.”
“The CPI (Maoist) is the largest Left Wing Extremist Organisation operating in India. It is responsible for almost 80 per cent of the total Naxal violence reported during the current year. The CPI (Maoist) vision for its so-called ‘protracted people’s war’ against the Indian State is elucidated in its strategy paper titled ‘Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution’. Briefly stated, this document contains a comprehensive plan of action to capture political power and usher in a so-called ‘New Democratic Revolution’ in India. The strategy for ‘New Democratic Revolution’ is a combination of military and political tactics involving the creation of ‘base areas’ (liberated areas) in the countryside and gradual encirclement and capture of the urban areas. This objective is sought to be achieved through armed warfare by the ‘People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army’ cadres of the CPI (Maoist), political mobilisation through its ‘front organisations’ and alliances with other insurgent outfits active in different parts of India, which in CPI (Maoist) parlance is called the ‘Strategic United Front’. The CPI (Maoist) seeks to organise a ‘joint front’ against the Indian State and in pursuance of this objective, it ideologically supports the secessionist movements in Jammu & Kashmir and North East. It has also developed close organisational ties with certain insurgent groups in the North-East for procurement of arms and ammunition.
This was stated by Shri RPN Singh, Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs, in a written reply to a question by Shri Parvez Hashmi in the Rajya Sabha.
New Maoist Strategies
A study conducted by the US State Department’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) ranked CPI (Maoist) to be one of the top five organisations responsible for the most coordinated terrorist attacks between 2000 and 2014. The study ranked the efficiency of CPI (Maoist) in perpetrating acts of terror to be at – par with the designs of ISIL, Boko Haram, Taliban and Al-Qaeda of Iraq. This study adequately establishes the ‘Terror Quotient’ of CPI (Maoist) and the menace it is for our country. In 2006, the then Union Home Minister had briefed the Parliament about Maoists planning to hit critical installations across urban areas in India. Thus, this can be essentially termed as the crucial moment in India’s history that witnessed the birth of a new pattern of terrorism under the Framework of ‘Urban Perspective’.
Two documents — “Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution” (STIR), which was released on September 21, 2004, and “Urban Perspective: Our Work in Urban Areas” (UPUA), 2007—give complete details about the Maoists’ plan of action in the urban areas.
In 2003-2004, former People’s War Group (PWG) and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) held a series of confabulations to work out their merger. Their Central Committee met five to six times to exhaustively discuss a seminal document, aimed to seize power in Bharat. This document was finalised in September 2004, coterminous with the merger of two front running Left extremist groups with CPI (M) and is called the “Strategies and Tactics of Indian Revolution” .
It is a riveting document that lays out a comprehensive road map for the Maoist design to overthrow the Indian State.
The STIR document consists of 13 chapters; the 13th titled “Work in Urban Areas”. The UPUA 2007 is an elaboration of the same and provides an insight and full perspective of the work. Believed to be the brainchild of Kobad Ghandy, the UPUA is an important document that provides basis for the functionality of Maoists and seeks new leadership in urban areas.
Ghandy and his wife, Anuradha Shanbag Ghandy, who was a Professor in Mumbai University, were active and high profile Maoists. Ghandy was the first Urban Naxal, who was arrested on September 20, 2009, in Delhi. The UPUA enunciates several pointers on how to spread its influence in the urban areas. One of the most important, and, perhaps the easiest, is to target the ghettos. The UPUA defines ghettos as slums or localities inhabited mostly or entirely by one community. Normally, we understand the community in terms of caste, creed, religion etc.
Let’s have a look at the strategies mentioned in the Urban Perspective document. Pages 10-11 of this document would be really useful to understand the implementation of the strategies mentioned in this document:
“As the Hindu fascists’ campaign spreads in other parts of the country, ghettoisation is bound to sharply intensify in most cities. Purely Muslim areas, suspicious of all others, and organised for self-defence will become essential for the survival of the community. Sharpening of divisions on a communal basis can become a serious barrier to building class unity. Our party in the urban areas has to seriously take the ghettoisation process into account in all plans. Sharp ghettoisation leads to lack of jobs for Muslims and pushes larger sections of them into the semi-proletariat. Thus, merely organising within industry will not enable us to enter this oppressed community. Unless we base ourselves in the middle of the ghetto, we will not be able to gain entry into organising the community; we will also not be able to build a united front against the Hindu fascists. Thus, in our planning, we have to clearly identify the ghettos of a city and draw up our plan for gaining entry into them. While doing this, we need to organise them on their basic needs and day-to-day problems too.”
Branding Muslims As Victims, Hindus as Fascists
A pattern is visible above; the Muslim community is continuously being referred to as a victim, while the Hindu community is termed as fascist. The mention of Dalits, Sikhs and Christians is also made strategically and all the three had been put against the whole of the Hindu community. This perspective document was later implemented and is being experimented as a strategy with the Dalits community in the Bhima-Koregaon violence, with Muslims in the anti-CAA protests and with Sikhs in the Khalistan Referendum-2020. Interestingly, this is exactly how the banned Muslim organisations like the PFI operate.
Urban Naxals : Uncivil Society
The term civil society goes back to Aristotle’s phrase koinōnía politikḗ, where it refers to a ‘political community’, commensurate with the Greek city-state (polis) characterised by a shared set of norms and ethos, in which free citizens on an equal footing lived under the rule of law.
But as on today among the many different and confusing meanings of the civil society, it was GWF Hegel’s definition which fits perfectly in the modern and so-called liberal context. He describes civil society as a form of non-political society as opposed to institutions of modern nation state. While in classical republicanism, civil society was synonymous with political society, Hegel distinguished political state and civil society, what was followed by french political philosopher Alexis Charles Tocqueville’s distinction between civil and political societies and associations, repeated by his successor Marx and Ferdinand Tonnies. Marxism having moved on from ‘Classical Marxism’ has now become ‘Cultural Marxism’. This new format is being used all over the world and is having deadly results which in return has super charged the related organisations.
The so-called progressive outfits including the civil societies group in alliance with the ‘Radical Islamist organisations’ are the prominent ingredients in the new recipe of cultural Marxism. The decade of 1970’s saw a steep rise in Naxalism, conversion activities and furthering the faultlines within Indian society. The Communists, who were constantly patronised by the Congress Governments, strengthened their penetration in the field of education and research in India. Simultaneously, creating a faultline in society where it is non-existent or furthering it where it already exists. Many countries in the world are being targeted by their faultlines which are used by the practitioners of Cultural Marxism in the garb of activism of civil liberties. In a country like America, example of Progressive-Islamic alliance is also visible. Prominent radical Muslim organisations are debating the issue of ‘Feminism’. Ten years ago organisations like ‘Council on American-Islamic-relations’ which were found to be involved in the terror funding network by the federal prosecutors were also the champions in rallying for the‘Black lives matter’, campaigning for ‘Social-Justice reforms’ and ‘Minimum wages’.
New Ways of Neo-Communists to regain Control
The 9th Congress report of the CPI (2007), the Maoists prescribes the planning and potential of work in Urban areas which is mostly through the civil society groups. But if we analyse the chargesheet of the Bhima-Koregaon case it is quite visible that a lot has been done by the Maoist groups in terms of micro level planning, execution and as well as monitoring of the 2007 document.
Based on the journey from the 2007 document to the recent success through farmer agitation in 2021, via Shaheen Bagh CAA protest, it is visible that the anti-Bharat forces but also instigate them to make a policy shift in the strategy of protests and even more beyond what is prescribed in the 2007 document. It is clear that now the Maoist organisations will be focusing more on the overground functioning in the coming decade and the underground movement will become very limited and may be just limited for the symbolic purpose.
Most of the Left political parties have lost charm as well as their mobilisation capabilities and their funding channels have been dried up to maximum extent. The CPI Maoist organisation is also facing a similar kind of fund as well as cadre crisis for their PLGA operations.
In the near future, only those cadres exposed or having heavy criminal records will have the compulsion to remain underground, while all others will join the overground civil liberties movement. The foreign fundings will also be diverted to such action programmes which have a democratic face value.
Collaboration with Islamists & Missionaries
In the near future, the country will witness many more such protests on different issues in the same pattern. The civil societies will become a new active platform for implementation of their agendas as well as propagation of ideologies. To have a better and clear understanding of the organic relationship between the Maoists and Civil Liberties group, we must refer to the point no: 3.4.5 of the 2007 document of the 9th Congress of the CPI Maoist. The Maoist document named Urban Perspective: Our Work in Urban Areas (UPUA)”, 2007, mentions that: “The organisations that most consistently oppose state repression and black laws are the various civil liberties organisations active in different parts of the country. We can work to some extent through them. They however have a poor mass base and limited political programme. Thus, while we should work to broaden and strengthen such organisations, they cannot be the only forums for building the front against repression………….
When the Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval said that, “The new areas of warfare have shifted from territorial frontiers to civil societies. Wars are now fought with other means.” It contains a deep meaning. When the warfare methods has moved on to 5th generation warfare techniques, we must also need to move on to the same generation defence techniques. The 5GW is warfare that is conducted primarily through non-kinetic military action, such as social engineering, misinformation, cyberattacks, along with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and fully autonomous systems. The 5GW is basically a war of “information and perception”.
With the changing nature of technology, rapidly increasing globalisation process world is facing a change in different domains of its affairs. With this, we can also feel a generational change in the warfare tactics.
Deciphering Urban Naxals
The Journey from Unity Congress 2007 to Bhima-Korageon and the progression in the tactical shift by Cultural Marxism format can also be understood by a letter (mentioned in the 15,000 page chargesheet of Bhima Koregaon), written to Comrade Annad (Teltumbde) by Comrade Prakash. It mentions that, “The Central Committee leadership is pleased with the progress that you have made on the Dalit campaign. Many like minded activist groups have joined forces with us to further highlight the oppression of Dalits and other minorities across the country. The recent Supreme Court judgement will surely lead to an aggressive catalyst reaction. What started three months ago in one State, has now effectively spread across other States. However, we should also explore more opportunities to propagate this issue on the international front. The CC has agreed to allocate additional funds (10 L yearly) to organise international seminars and lectures on Dalit issues. We have also sent funds for your upcoming (April 9-10) Human Rights convention at Paris. International campaigns can give more traction to domestic chaos. Frequent protests and chaos will gradually lead to break down of law and order, and this will have significant political ramifications in the coming months.
Please coordinate with our friends in America and France. Com. Anupama Rao and Comrade Shailaja Paik have agreed to invite you for guest lectures and seminars at least twice a year, at their respective universities in Paris and Cincinnati. Both are very much interested in studying caste violence and discrimination on minorities in modern India. Some of the CC leaders will also consider interview requests of foreign activists such as Prof. Etienne Balibar. Lastly, we want to reiterate that all PM’s (Primary Members) and intellectual comrades must strive to keep the fire ablaze.”
Second Letter
A letter written to Comrade Prakash by Comrade Surendra (Gadling) dated: 05/11/2017 mentions about their relationship in the judiciary and also getting relief through their Comrades posted in the Judicial system.
Third Letter (Kill the PM)
In a letter to Comrade Prakash by Comrade R (Rona Wilson) dated: 18-04-2017 which also mentions the plan to kill the Prime Minister of India reads as; “We received your last letter (20/3). Regarding the current situation here Arun, Vernon and others are equally concerned about the two-line struggle that is slowly taking shape on the urban front. Followed by the very unfortunate demise of Bijoy Da. He was a strong leader with great vision and selfless devotion to the party and the Red revolution! His leadership was greatly needed in today’s critical times Things were far better before Prashant’s egoist agenda took over the larger interest of the Party and the pol prisoners Com. Saibaba had raised this issue with you back in 2013 when Prashant revolted against Saibaba. We think that in one way the Gadchiroli court’s judgement has helped by restraining Prashant in doing further harm to the Party. With that said, we are working tirelessly to put up a strong defence for Saibaba. Every possible legal help in favour of the jailed comrades is being sought. HB has been given all the responsibility to coordinate programs and protests to raise public opinion in our favour.
Targeting Modi’s Roadshow
Defeating Hindu fascism has been our core agenda and a major concern for the party. Several leaders from secret cells as well as open organisations have raised this issue very strongly. We are working to consolidate ties with like-minded organisations, political parties, representatives of minorities across the country Mod-led Hindu fascist regime is bulldozing its way into the lives of indigenous Adivasis. In spite of big defeats like Bihar and West Bengal, Modi has successfully established BJP Government in more than 15 States. If this pace continues then it would mean immense trouble for the party on all fronts. Greater suppression of dissent and a more brutal form of Mission 2016 (OGH). Com. Kisan and few other senior comrades have proposed concrete steps to end Modi Raj. We are thinking along the lines of another Rajiv Gandhi type incident. It sounds suicidal and there is a good chance that we might fall but we feel that the party PB/CC must deliberate over our proposal. Targeting his road-shows could be an effective strategy. We collectively believe that survival of the party is supreme to all sacrifices. Rest in the next Letter”.
In another letter to Comrade Prakash by Comrade R (Rona Wilson) mentions that; “In the last few days disturbing reports of fake encounters have emerged from Gadchiroli. I spoke with Surendra and Arun to constitute a FF team to gauge the truth about this incident. If possible try to confirm from your side or send authorised reports/books about these issues. From our side, we are currently in planning stages to finalise the members from Mumbai/Delhi Shoma will speak to our friends in Nagpur who may join the team.The Bhima Koregaon episode, which began with violence during a commemorative program at Bhima Koregaon village near Pune on January 1, 2018, revealed a sinister plot to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Initially perceived as a caste conflict, it soon uncovered a coordinated effort by various anti-India forces, with the CPI (Maoist) playing a significant role alongside other terrorist organisations like the Popular Front of India (PFI).
To fully understand the intention and reasoning behind the plot to assassinate the Prime Minister, a thorough analysis of the entire episode and the involved organisations is necessary. This investigation navigates the complex strategies and interwoven relationships between the Jungle comrades and their urban partners. The Bhima Koregaon case provided a compelling example of the modern-day functioning of the CPI (Maoist), highlighting their changing thought process and new patterns of execution, notably their alliances with new partners. It is evident that Naxalism has always had urban elements, but there is now a greater focus on urban operations under the current circumstances. The new Maharashtra Law is a timely and appropriate counter measure to combat this evolving form of terror.
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