“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.