Red rebellion crumbles: Pitted against a BJP administration that is determined to choke the Naxalites, sections of the CPI (Maoist) are saying what was deemed impossible: to end the almost five decades of armed struggle
Maoists have hit a dead end crumbling under unrelenting ideological, military offensive by government, offering them only one option: surrender or face annihilation
India’s Maoists, more popularly known as Naxalites, are now battling an existential crisis.
The Communist Party of India (Maoist) faces a grave turning point since the first seeds of revolution were sown back in 1967, with the only possible outcome can be a complete annihilation as a military force or an unenviable surrender.
Sticking to Maoist dictum
In a way, the bleak future staring at the Naxalites is the outcome of the Indian Maoists’ blind allegiance to a Maoist dictum that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Mao’s call may have succeeded in China and a couple of other places but it has never transformed into a triumph anywhere else.
The tragedy with the Naxalites is that they tried to implement a tactic that was rooted in China’s earlier feudal set-up in a country like India which has a thriving even if flawed democratic system.
However, the Naxalites managed to survive in their last stronghold, the sprawling Bastar region, all these decades because the might of the Indian State was never used against them as it is being done today with devastating consequences.
Also read: Battle for Bastar Part 4: What next for the Maoists?
This, combined with the global retreat of Marxism, has finally forced the Maoists holed up inside the seemingly secure Bastar to talk of “retreat” and call for an end to the nearly five decades of armed struggle.
BJP's strong offensive
When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took power nationally in 2014, the CPI (Maoist) naively believed that the BJP government would not last long and that the rebels only had to survive until the party loses electorally.
The understanding proved to be terribly off the mark. Not only the BJP has proved its electoral longevity but it did what successive Congress governments never did: unleash a fierce ideological offensive against Maoists making them look like a disease in a larger democratic canvas.
This was a major and unexpected blow. Until the advent of the BJP, even sections of the government along with a sympathetic intellectual crowd sought to give a justification for the continued existence of the Naxalites.
As long as India’s terrible inequalities and poverty remain, the Naxalites and their ideology, however archaic, will always have takers, they will never melt away. So went the argument, surprisingly echoed even by some of those who once fought them.
In other words, the Naxalites gained a social sanction that other insurgents could never hope to achieve, except within the narrow communities they claimed to represent.
Naxalism on the decline
The fact is that the Naxalites had stopped growing a long ago, ideologically and otherwise. The middle-class, once their base, had turned their back on the Maoists. Even the tribals across Bastar who were once considered the Maoist backbone find themselves sandwiched between the depleting Naxalite ranks and a state determined to crush them without mercy.
Also read: Govt crackdown leaves Indian Maoist movement on brink of collapse
The Naxalite leadership still in Bastar itself hails largely from erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, who moved into India’s backward heartland more than a quarter century ago, after suffering major setbacks in the Telangana region.
But although they miraculously survived for decades and at one point even ran a state within a state, the Maoists failed to realise that Congress governments were content to put up with the Maoist menace as long as it did not spread beyond a perimeter. The Maoists interpreted this to mean that they could not be crushed.
Despite the apparent success in Bastar, the Maoists could never make much headway anywhere else, just as the mainstream Indian communists could never grow qualitatively beyond West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala.
End the struggle
Today, pitted against a BJP administration that is determined to choke the Naxalites, sections of the CPI (Maoist) are saying what was deemed impossible: to end the almost five decades of armed struggle.
Yet, when other factions of Naxalites over the decades did precisely that and some even embraced a democratic path, the CPI (Maoist) denounced them as “reactionaries” and “counter-revolutionaries”.
History has come a full circle.
Mallojula Venugopal Rao alias Sonu has publicly called for a “cessation of armed struggle” to “save the party”. He has been at it for more than a year now despite being dubbed a “traitor” by those who do not want to give up.
“While issuing the statement for cessation of armed struggle, I apologise to the people who have served (Maoists) for so long,” the 70-year-old veteran has written from his underground base. “Let us change according to the changing circumstances,” he said.
A dead end
Venugopal Rao may or may not have the support of fellow comrades at the leadership level but his public admission is the clearest sign that the road ahead for the CPI (Maoist) is not just horribly bumpy but there is a dead end.
Also read: Karnataka | Despite Naxalite resurgence, Maoists face bleak future
Unlike earlier times, when Maoists would call for talks with the government while battling setbacks so as to recoup, the BJP is not likely to agree to any dialogue. As far as the BJP government is concerned, the Naxalites only need to surrender – or face destruction.
Looking back it is clear that India was never ready for a Maoist insurgency even in the late 1960s when the movement suddenly burst on to the political scene in a small village called Naxalbari in West Bengal.
Although the Naxalite movement spread far and wide at one point, it eventually lost steam, ideologically and organisationally, leaving behind splinter groups that began giving up their love for weapons one by one.
That the Naxalite movement caused enormous damage to the mainstream Indian Left is another story. It also claimed thousands of lives, including some of the brightest middle-class minds.
The vast forested region of Bastar remained the last Naxalite fortress. It is about to fall. Make no mistake, the Maoists are themselves responsible for the mess they are in.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal)
