By KARTIK
LOKHANDE :
The elimination of the
armed operatives from
the forested areas could
well be the first major
step towards ridding
the country of the
destructive and violent
influence of the LWE.
For a country like India,
which is rising as a
global economic power
and witnessing rapid
urbanisation, the next
internal security
challenge lays in the
urban areas.
“LEFT Wing Extremism will
be completely eliminated in the
country before March 2026.”
This confident statement of Union
Home Minister Mr.
Amit Shah definitely comes as an assurance to the people of the country, especially to those affected due to Left Wing Extremism
(LWE), popularly referred to as
Naxalism or Maoism. Though
this looks like a definite
endgame for the Maoist terrorists, a pertinent question
keeps haunting the informed
minds -- what about the urban
spread of the LWE in various
deceptive forms?
Since its rise in Naxalbari in
West Bengal in 1967, the LWE
assumed the identity as
Naxalism. What initially started as an armed resistance to
the atrocities heaped upon the
hapless poor people by the big
land-owners, gradually degenerated into a violent terrorist
organisation riddled with personal leadership ambitions.
The cause that kept the people at the centrestage went
astray into supporting the
Chinese authoritarian version
of Communism. Through several splits and mergers, finally, the major ultra Left groups
came together and officially
adopted the identity of Maoists.
Since then, the Maoists have
become foot-soldiers of
Communist China, hell-bent
on creating disturbances in the
Indian society and scuttling
development of farflung areas.
This long wait for development of remote areas, mostly
tribal-dominated ones, had to
be ended. Hence, the
Government of India under
Prime Minister Mr. Narendra
Modi adopted two-pronged
strategy of giving a boost to
development in these areas
while cracking down on armed
Maoists operating from the
forested areas of the country.
This appears to have paid off
as industries are showing a
keen interest in areas that were
previously viewed as having
‘security risks’. The investment
has given a boost to economic activity, generation of livelihood opportunities, newer
avenues for higher education
opening up for the young men
and women in such areas, and
improvement in road and
healthcare infrastructure. All
this is matching the aspirations
of the people in such areas, and
they are moving away from
anti-development, anti-people, anti-growth, anti Constitution LWE.
In this context, quoting statistics one can
say that the LWE has definitely been on the wane especially in the forested areas.
However, it will be too naive
to think that LWE or Naxalism
or Maoism is only restricted to
remote tribal and forested
areas. The ultras have changed
their strategy long ago. They
have been concentrating on
urban areas, targeting educational campuses, infiltrating
into the academia, wielding
influence through so-called
rebellious storylines. A look at
some of the cases reveals that
they have been successful in
recruiting educated youngsters
from various educational campuses into the fighting force of
the banned CPI (Maoist). In a
way, the Maoists are like viruses embedded into certain
urban spheres of activity to
drive the society towards losing faith in the democratic and
Constitutional systems. They
are operating below the surface
to build anger against the
Government, irrespective of
the party in power. They have
started routing their finances
using advancement of technology, and have been passing
on messages to each other
through virtual private networks.
The end of LWE from
the country cannot be treated
as complete unless its deceptive avatars can be weeded out
even from the urban India.
Of course, it may be complicated objective to achieve
in the near future. But, for that
to happen, initiative will have
to be taken in social, cultural,
educational, legal, technological domains of activity. Social
faultlines will have to be
addressed in a manner that
does not sow the seeds of discontent. A keen attention will
have to be paid to cultural
affairs, so that the thin line
between dissent and sedition
does not get blurred due to the
fuel of propaganda unleashed
by the Maoist sympathisers.
In educational campuses,
more importance must be
restored to academic discipline
than political keenness birthed
in identity exhibitionism.
Those using the campuses for
political purposes must be
thrown out forthwith.
Also, the
youths must be given some
constructive causes. Else, they
will turn into ‘rebels without
cause’ or ‘rebels with violent
cause’. In legal sphere, all the
affected States must have in
place robust laws with provisions for punishment to the
overground workers and fronts
of extremist organisations. To
increase effectiveness of the
laws, a nation-wide study of
conviction in cases relating to
LWE should be taken up to
chart the course of action in
the direction of improving conviction rate.
The record has not
been very impressive so far.
Though it is very challenging,
monitoring will have to be
improved so that use of technology does not aid the operations of the LWE operatives The elimination of the armed
operatives from the forested
areas could well be the first
major step towards ridding the
country of the destructive and
violent influence of the LWE.
For a country like India, which
is rising as a global economic
power and witnessing rapid
urbanisation, the next internal
security challenge lays in the
urban areas. The Government
will have to treat the final decisive action against the Maoists
operating from remote forested areas only as the beginning
of the endgame for the Left
ultras.