The Government’s crackdown on certain well-connected Maoists sympathisers has led to howls of protests from their friends and supporters residing in the Left-liberal camp. But for the intervention of the Supreme Court, those rounded up by probing agencies a few days ago, would have been cooling their heels behind bars today; the court ordered that they be kept under house arrest until September 6, when hearing on the matter will come up before the apex judiciary.
Those under house arrest and also those who are screaming away against the Government’s action are the usual suspects. At least a couple of the activists had been held under the Congress-led UPA regime too, with one being convicted and having served time in jail. While these people come from disparate backgrounds, the common factor is their hatred for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and their desire to overthrow his regime — not through an electoral process but by mechanisms that can trigger violence and unrest. Ever since the Indian public gave its mandate overwhelmingly in favour of the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party four years ago, these troubled souls have been plotting one scheme after another to unseat the Government. The simple plan is: Create an environment of distrust and unrest, and unleash the resulting negatives out of it to discredit the Modi regime in the public eye.
The schemers are not ordinary men and women — they are not roadside, petty goons or anti-social characters. They are well-known lawyers, writers, human rights activists and academics. And they have the support of a political system which is inimical to Prime Minister Modi and which needs external troublemakers to stir the pot. The ones that have been placed under house arrest and the ones bleeding their hearts out for them are also the same people who had supported the gang which called for dismemberment of India and ‘freedom’ of Kashmir, and had come out in the streets in protest against the death sentence awarded to terrorists such as Yakub Memon and Afzal Guru. Their ideological lineage is, therefore, well known. These so-called rights activists shed copious tears for one Maoist who dies at the hands of an Indian security man doing his duty to the nation, but remain silent when dozens of security personnel lose their lives in violence plotted by the Maoists.
They have got away because of their influence in the nation’s ‘intellectual’ circuit — cultivated over the past many decades of Congress rule when the Leftists and even the ultra-Leftists had a field day, permeating their dangerous ideology in academic institutions and among the hundreds of non-Government organisations. A generation or two since independence has, thus, been poisoned by their dangerous thoughts. Having built support over the years, it is not surprising that today, when they are under the lens, perhaps for the first time in such a determined manner, under a Government which has no desire to mollycoddle it, their carefully cultivated army of high-profile intellectuals should come to their robust defence.
While the immediate reasons of the controversy leading to the house arrest of a bunch of activists are related to the recent Bhima-Koregaon violence and some communication between Maoist sympathisers hinting at physical elimination of Prime Minister Modi in a way similar to that which claimed Rajiv Gandhi’s life, it would be simplistic to assume that their fight is merely against Modi or his regime. These ‘urban Maoists’ have been campaigning for violence and against development for decades before. If large parts of the tribal belt in States such as Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and even West Bengal remained undeveloped for long years since independence, it is because the Maoists active there, thwarted such attempts through the use of force — kidnapping and killing those who participated in the effort. It’s true that the Maoists got a foothold in these region because of decades of neglect of the people since independence by successive Governments. But having done so, the Maoists began showing their true colours.
It must not be forgotten that senior Ministers in the UPA Government had termed Maoists as the greatest internal security threat to the nation. The Congress had lost its top local leadership in Chhattisgarh in one single Maoist attack. When the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress today speaks in favour of the pro-Maoist activists, it forgets that in doing so, it is only strengthening the hands of Maoists that are waiting for the next occasion to strike at innocent people. The Congress forgets that the Maoists who trigger landmines, blow up railway tracks and school buildings, behead people and terrorise hapless citizens, are represented in the rarefied circles in urban India by these very same people whom it today backs and who are at the receiving end of the authorities now.
The section of the intellectual class to which the ‘urban Maoists’ belong is adept at constructing debates to suit its purpose. Thus, we now have the ‘Modi Government versus dissent’, and, the ‘Modi Government versus democracy’ narrative. It helps to draw into this section’s fold all those elements that would ordinarily be hesitant to be seen near them. The urban Maoists’ power of intellectualism cannot be underrated: Look at how they have managed to draw support from the likes of Ramchandra Guha. Recently, noted economist and Modi-baiter Amartya Sen claimed that democracy was in danger under the Modi dispensation. There is no doubt that, given his inclination, he too is opposed to the detention of pro-Maoist activists.
The nationalists — especially the intellectual class among them — face an uphill task. They can no longer remain silent spectators to the well-planned strategies of those who are averse to the idea of a united, strong India. And they cannot let the impression gain ground that the pro-Maoist and pro-separatist elements are fighting for democracy and dissent.
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