Perspectives, Current Status and the Remedies
I


--P.S.NATRAJAN

The Maoist Violence in India : its Historical and Marxian
 
The violence in the present context is any mode of threat or coercion which is likely
to or does result in any bodily or mental harm, disadvantage, injury or death individually or
collectively, and/or the destruction, disfigurement or loss of the private and/or or the
public property, and which is committed without the legal or legitimizing sanction of the
state in being a member of the United Nations or recognized by most of its members. The
erstwhile Tamil Tigers of Shri Lanka functioned as a fully-fledged state in the northern part of the
country, but in so far as they were never formally recognized by the other countries or admitted
as a member state in the U.N., they did not form a state in the present sense. Similarly, the
Taliban regime in Afghanistan, though recognized by only three Muslim countries, was
neither a member of the U.N., nor recognized by most of its members, and so would not
be treated as a state in the present context. No doubt, the legitimate state as internationally
recognized, whether fully or partially, may commit illegitimate violence, such as by Joseph Stalin
in the former Soviet Union or by Mao Tse-tung during the Cultural Revolution. But even a
communist state as defined here is accountable for its decisions and actions. For no state can
go in hiding like a criminal disappears after committing the crime, as it is always present and
visible to account for its decisions and actions. However, although state can commit violence,
both legitimate and illegitimate, through its individual functionaries or agencies, but the state as
an abstract personality cannot be punished in its sovereign righteousness, but only its individual
functionaries as private persons. However, a regime like that of the Talibans or of the
Tamil Tigers in the north Shri Lanka should be treated as an organized gang of criminals,
just like the drug mafias of the Latin America. (1)
The violence in this sense is of two types. First is the violence committed by individuals,
groups or organizations for the variously conceived private gain which can be justified or
unjustified on moral or legal grounds. The second type of violence can be committed by
individuals, non-state actors, groups or big organizations for some impersonally conceived goal
or ideal state which can be justified on the moral or ideological grounds. The Naxal movement
of the 1960’s, for example, belongs to the latter category, but the later Maoist phase of the
Marxian violence, mostly to the former category.

1

II

We may use the expression, “Naxal-Maoist,” in a specifically Indian context. By Naxals
we mean those who participated in the Marxian violent movement which started in
the mid-1960’s in the West Bengal and ended in the 1970’s. This Naxal phase was
ideologically motivated, and the present analysis does not apply to such Naxalism in so far
as this movement was generally free from the individual greed and corruption. However,
the ideological fervour, like the romantic love, is short-lived, and so this movement came
to an end well within a decade because of its ideological purity.
The second phase, termed here as the Maoist, began in the early 1980’s. It was less
ideological and more pragmatic as its top leaders were more guided by the money and
power considerations, and much less by ideology. While the ideologically-inspired Naxal
movement ended in less than a decade, the pure criminality of Maoist movement is
very well thriving for the last thirty years or so, and has enough inertia to go on ad-
infinitum. This is because the moral corruption is part of the human nature, and if given
free rein, it will thrive forever.

III

We must, however, closely examine the ideological roots of the Naxal-Maoist violence, for
even in the case of the morally corrupt Maoist, their corruption cannot flourish without
an ideological veneer.
The roots of the secular-ideological or revolutionary violence are not an original
contribution of Karl Marx or the offshoot of his left-wing ideology. On the contrary,
the ideology of the revolutionary violence is basically derived from Rousseau’s general
will as reflected in the ideologically inspired and justified collective violence organized
and committed by the bourgeois Robespierre and his Jacobin followers during the French
Revolution. (2) In fact, well within the bourgeois terminology of the French Revolution,
monarchists, such as Joseph de Maistre, were the original “reactionaries” who were to
be destroyed first. And Babeuf (3) and Blanqui (4) were the early catalyst of turning this
French bourgeois creed of abusive discourse and physical violence into a general socialist,
and later the so-called revolutionary or Marxian, praxis.
In other words, the left-wing or Marxian revolutionary violence is a distinctly bourgeois
phenomenon in its foundations and nature, and is one of the aberrations (such as the
colonialism, mass destruction and elimination of the native populations and their ethnicity,
and the current environmental destruction) of the bourgeois modernism as initiated by
the western civilizing forces in the post-Renaissance Europe, and of which both the
bourgeoisie and the Marxists of various hues are essential components.

2

A very important feature of the bourgeois-Marxian ideology of violence and dominance
is its emphasis on the gain and control of the political power. It means that the Marxian
version of the bourgeois modernism requires violence rather than persuasion as the
necessary basis for the implementation of its ideas. The Marxian rhetoric for the masses
is not to persuade, but primarily to create trouble by inciting collective hatred and
violence. Hence, the Marxian regimes often come to power through trickery, crime or
violence of this or that type, but hardly by the non-violently or persuasively gained
popular support. And since in the modern times the non-Marxist countries are ruled
by some kind of the legitimate or semi-legitimate governments, these can and should
be overthrown by the violent method. Where the violent methods are not possible or
practicable, only there the non-violent methods, such as participating in the parliamentary
elections, are employed as the second-best alternative by the Marxists. Ideologically or
otherwise, a true Marxist can never be committed to a non-violent method of gaining or
controlling political power as its primary ideological commitment, but at best only as an
expedient.

IV

Since violence can best be committed by a small group of individuals who are good
at their ideological commitment or in implementing the violent deeds, they must be
inspired and guided after the capture of the political power by what the Marxists call the
dictatorship of the proletariat. This is a euphemism for the absolute and unjust political
power acquired and exercised by a small number of individuals in the name of some
truth or ideology. In general such a political establishment can be called a truth regime,
for it always needs a beautiful veil in the name of a true ideology to cover its hideous
face.
The commission of the systematic, large-scale and streamlined violence requires skill,
ingenuity and a certain amount of mental discipline, which can best be carried out by
the specially talented or trained individuals, and not by the indifferent or emotionally
unpredictable riff-raff. While Marxist truth regimes are extremely loud in their relentless
populist rhetoric, but in reality they are very secretive and conspiratorial in their immoral
and violent activities.
To put it in its proper historical perspective, the Marxist truth regimes are a
continuation of the French Jacobinism, and while the bourgeois or the non-Marxian
regimes have largely cured themselves of the Jacobin cancer, but not all of the Marxists.
And what we witness as the capitalistically reformed or transformed Marxism such as
in China is simply the withering away of a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist truth regime, though
at a rather slow pace, but not at all represents the success of this decrepit ideology.
Such a transformation of a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist regime in China from its Jacobin
terrorism into an autocratic oligarchy, while keeping its economy firmly on the path of

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the bourgeois economic rationality, further confirms the basic modernistic identity of the
bourgeois capitalism and its Marxian offshoots. (5)

V

The Naxals were pure Jacobins, but not the present-day Maoists. They in fact have a
certain strain of the Maoist dialectics or what may be called the dialectical opportunism.
Here the idea is to survive and be happy by hook or crook in the name of an outdated
ideology, and grab as much money or power as possible from the prevailing political and
economic system. And accordingly while a few top Maoists are millionaires and even
billionaires with very high political and business connexions, the rest of the ordinary
cadre or workers are poorly paid and cared. Yet the latter are much more well-off than
the common people who are extremely poor in the regions where the Maoists operate.
Such Maoist movement has thus criminalized a very small section of the poor of the
region by offering them slightly better living conditions. Since the poor are largely
illiterate and politically innocent, they can easily be hoodwinked or indoctrinated by the
Marxian ideology of violence.
The Maoists in fact have so well-adjusted in the Indian polity as to be a part of the
political and economic mainstream. And when the Indian politician says that the Maoists
be brought in the national mainstream, he is either an hypocrite or an ignoramus. At
present, the Maoists are very much part of the national mainstream, both politically and
economically. What is required is to take them out of the national mainstream, and put
them in jail which is their only proper place to stay in a civilized society.
Who is a Maoist in the present context? The core Maoists are not the romantic
revolutionaries or ideologues, nor the ordinary cadre, but those who are directly planning
and organizing the terrorizing violence to gain massive political and economic advantages,
while careful to keep the revolutionary façade of serving the week and the poor as
conveyed in the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist clichés or slogans.
After this core, the first or the next outer circle of the Maoism is formed by the nexus
of the politician, bureaucrat, lower officials, government engineers and their subordinates,
and last but not the least, the contractors and real estate businessmen. The political
patronage and hard cash comes to the Maoist core from this circle.
The second outer circle is formed by the intelligentsia and media. Since the core
Maoist leaders have vast amounts of money at their disposal, the management of this
second circle in their favour is both ideologically and economically easy. For, apart
from the easy pecuniary gain, to be a leftist in the general socio-political discourse
has been transformed into a mindset which turns naturally soft towards any Marxian
or semi-Marxian transgression, even if very criminal or violent, against the bourgeois
establishment. This has also seriously affected the well-ensconced academia in the
centrally funded universities of which the classic example is the JNU at New Delhi. To

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differ or oppose any manifestation of such a Marxian unconscious would paint one either
an anti-people agent of the rich or at best a lumpenproletariat, if not a reactionary fool.
And since the current media is much more guided by what the public ( ie., mostly the
moderately educated urban middle class ) wants, rather than guide and provide for the
public some nourishing pabulum, it is all the more easy to spread confusion about the
true picture of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist violence in India. Hence, the Maoist criminals
are interviewed, their ideology and strategies analyzed and interpreted with great respect,
their terrorizing violent crimes given a very wide publicity to further radiate and magnify
their terrorizing effect and ideological purity, and at times their leaders treated as semi-
gods.
The third circle, the outermost, and perhaps the least important, consists of a very
small fragment of the rural poor, illiterate or semi-literate, who constitute the bulk of
the Maoist cadre. They are often forcibly recruited, and have no option but to comply
the dictates of a few Maoist thugs. Although this group, which in my view should not
be dubbed as Maoists at all because of their “forced conversions”, however, are the
most visible and the hateful face of the Maoist violence, and indeed suffer the most in
being killed, arrested or tortured by the police or the para-military forces. All the state-
sponsored action is nearly hundred percent directed against this least important segment,
who are employed by their Maoist masters at a pittance, and thereby grossly exploited
and abused.
The bulk of the Maoist cadre which forms their armed militia or their ancillaries are
an extremely small part of the total poor and downtrodden. Speaking in terms of the
Indian population of one billion-plus, they may not be more than ten thousand or slightly
more. And this amply proves that Maoism in India is not a mass movement, and given
the innate stupidity of its criminal ideology, it can never be.

VI

It is important to understand the nature of the Maoist violence. In the present context,
the violence is either terrorist or functional. The terrorist violence is intended to create
the general fear or insecurity without any specific objective other than creating the terror.
A bomb explosion in a busy Karachi street killing hundreds is an example of the terrorist
violence. By the functional violence we mean the necessary violence committed to achieve
a specific objective. In a bank robbery, the objective is to loot money, and not to kill
the bank employees, guard or the customers present in the bank, though some of them
may get killed during the robbery. The Maoist violence is a combination of the two in
so far as it causes terrorizing violence in order to create general fear and insecurity, but
all this in order to achieve its specific pecuniary objectives functionally. For example, a
local bully threatens the market shopkeepers in general, but only to extort money from
the specific shopkeepers. Here unless the general fear is created, the specific money

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collection would not be possible. The Maoist violence is of this third kind, and can be
called terrorist-functional violence.
The aim of the Maoist terrorist functionalism is to create the general atmosphere of the
fear and insecurity by indiscriminate violence which is on the surface more terrorizing
than functional. This violence is terroristic when there is no particular individual
identification of the victim or victims, or where the individual allegation, such as of
being a police spy, is obviously flimsy or unsubstantiated. But in terms of the social
pattern of such violence, it is very discriminatory or functional in being almost totally
directed against the rich and the powerful.
There are two reasons for such functional discrimination within the indiscriminate
terrorist violence. First, the rich and the powerful constitute the main clientele who
constitute the above-mentioned first circle, and are the fountainhead of the financial and
political support of the Maoist violence in India. This clientele is largely Indian than
foreign, and mostly thrives on the government money and other state-sponsored privileges.
Second, the violence against the poor and the week is very economical and convenient. If
a rich or powerful man is murdered or otherwise harmed, then the police administration
and media become very serious, and accordingly the Maoist must face stiffer action. On
the contrary, the dividend of such cheap and convenient violence against the poor and the
week is rich and long-lasting. This is because the entire poverty-stricken region which is
the natural habitat of the Maoist operations thus becomes thoroughly terrorized without
which the Maoist commercial activity of collecting extortion money from the various
sources is not possible.

VII

The raison d’ etre of the Maoist violence in India is primarily economic, and
secondarily ideological, but not political. In the Marxian terms, politics consists of the
efforts to capture the state power and its subsequent retention by the legitimate or
illegitimate or the non-violent or violent means. Given the political reality of India, the
normal Marxist-Leninist or Maoist techniques of capturing the state power by trickery,
populist rhetoric or the violent coup or the so-called revolution are certain to fail here.
And since all hues of Marxists (including Maoists) claim to be strong realists and
pragmatists in such matters, it is unlikely that the Maoist violent activities are conducted
under such a grand illusion of replicating the Maoist success in China, which had
materialized under very special and exceptional circumstances rather than because of its
historical or revolutionary inevitability.
The Maoist economic loot, a kind of new Maoist Mercantilism, is distinct from the
bourgeois colonial or commercial rapine of the poor or backward regions of the world
which was inaugurated by Spain and Portugal in the early sixteenth century, and which
Marx called the primitive accumulation. Without such “mercantile primitive accumulation,”

6

the large scale capitalist economy could never emerge as it did in the Industrial
Revolution. In other words, the bourgeois primitive accumulation laid the foundations of
a great economic transformation of the world which was never visualized or anticipated
by the early Spanish or Portuguese buccaneer mercantilists.
Another important feature of such mercantilism was that the chief instrument of its
success lay in the political control of the foreign territories rather than merely extending
the national frontier through diplomatic trickery or war. Violence involved in such
mercantilist activity was generally functional, and not terrorist in relation to the foreign or
native populations. This was because the basic investment of the mercantilist activity was
money spent on the trade and the maintenance of the military to protect such trade which
generally necessitated the political control of the foreign regions.
The Maoist mercantilists, on the contrary, have no progressive social or economic
features. Rather they are extremely regressive, reactionary and the anti-poor in collusion
with the rich and the powerful out of which both benefit. Accordingly, the Maoists are
careful to stop or destroy any developmental facilities or activities which might improve
the lives of the poor and the downtrodden. And also from the Maoist mercantile point
of view, it is necessary to keep the region poor and backward, for otherwise the cost of
their violence against the relatively more well-off and powerful would rise to make their
commercial venture less profitable.
And what is the capital investment of the Maoist business of the terrorizing-cum-
functional violence ? The capital of the Maoist commercialism is simply the terror, and
which makes it a very unique type of business investment. The creation of terror or fear
by the local bully or criminal for money in exchange for the necessary “protection” for
the trader or shopkeeper is a well-known phenomenon. However, this remains by and
large a law and order problem to be dealt with by the local police.
But who ever thought of the Mafiosi, drug traffickers, smugglers, robbers and
professional murderers as having an ideology, political doctrine, and with their business
profits equivalent of the GDP of some of the small countries ? In this regard, apart from
the Maoists, the nineteenth century Indian thugs resemble Maoists as they had a religious
belief system which, while being totally internalized, also rationalized and justified their
crimes. However, the British rightly treated thugee as a law and order problem rather
than a cause for social and religious reform, and were brilliantly successful in that. And
the police all over the world also mostly treat the criminals the way the British treated
the thugs, namely as a law and order problem, and common man is generally happy
with this approach.
Hence, Maoism is a particular form of thugee irrespective of its ideological veneer, and
should be treated as a system of economic crime through use or threat of violence, and
not revolutionary or political crime. In short, the Maoists direct their violence against the
poor and the downtrodden in collusion with the rich and powerful, and further assisted
directly or indirectly by the certain sections of the intelligentsia and of the electronic and

7

press media. However, we must distinguish the Maoist core and its two outer peripheries
consisting of respectively the rich and powerful, and of the intelligentsia and the media
from the third outermost periphery having the poor hired by the Maoists to do all
the risky and menial tasks of their criminal violence against the rest of the poor and
downtrodden.

VIII

Here the commonly heard, but misleading, talk of the social and economic backwardness
and the dire poverty of the masses as the necessary, natural and justified cause of the
Maoist violence must be rebutted. This misleading, and even mischievous, discourse has
two implications. First, the Maoist violence is the natural symptom of a socio-economic
disease, and the second, that it is its remedy as well.
There is some truth of the Maoist violence as one possible consequence of the social
and economic backwardness. In fact, not only the Maoist crimes, the crime in general
to some extent can be attributed to the poverty or backwardness. But such natural crime
cannot assume gigantic proportions of running a parallel economy and even a kind
of parallel government unless rationally planned and conducted by the resourceful and
intelligent people. We may call such criminals as mafiosi who should be distinguished
from the rest of the professional criminals who operate on a very small scale or confined
to the specific localities.
If someone were to talk of reforming the normal criminals, then it makes some sense,
but the mafiosi are rational and very intelligent in being what they are for the sake of
the tremendous power and money they enjoy through their crimes. Why should a rational
person abandon a path, so full of money and power, to lead an ordinary man’s niggardly
life? Maoists belong to the mafiosi variety, and there is no good reason that they should
change their life style. In fact, the regional poverty and backwardness provide a suitable
environment for the Maoist criminality to flourish by further using and exploiting the
poor and weak to force or lure them into their crimes, and cruelly exploiting the rest of
the poor.
However, to think of the Maoist crimes or violence as a remedy of the poverty or
backwardness is total nonsense. In fact, the Maoists are very serious about keeping the
poor and backward as they are by preventing or subverting all developmental activity in
their areas. The Maoist claim of ameliorating the conditions of the poor can be tested
in the following manner. Many areas are declared “liberated” by the Maoists where
the normal government control is negligible or absent which is replaced by the Maoist
“administration”. However, the “liberated” people of these areas are as much poor and
backward as are the “non-liberated” populance, while the former are in addition subjected
to the rapes by the Maoists cadre as well as arbitrarily beaten and murdered for violating
their instructions. Here it is important to note that an overwhelming number of the

8

victims of the Maoist violence belong to the scheduled caste, scheduled tribe or the very
poor and backward castes, but rarely the rich and the powerful or the ones belonging to
the upper or the newly emerging rich backward castes.

IX

So far we have made no comments on the role of the governmental inefficiency and
corruption which has either failed to ameliorate the general conditions of the poor
and the backward or has even effectively stopped them from being better-off and self-
sufficient in the long run.
Post-independent India was modeled in imitation of the Soviet model of the economic
development with great emphasis on the public sector and heavy industry, but the rest of
the basic infrastructure for an healthy and balanced economic growth, such as the literacy
drive and the primary education, health, drinking water, roads, electricity, agriculture and
the rural sector in general, were badly neglected. This kept India extremely poor and
backward for nearly half a century, and even now that legacy survives in the various
forms of the left-wing mindsets. If India has achieved anything of substance in the last
one or two decades, the credit goes to the individual enterprise and initiative, and not to
the government or its political leadership. In other words, it is the distinctly leftist mould
of the governmental policies that has kept India poor, backward and corrupt.
And this has become a vicious circle. For the leftist economic policies keep the country
poor and backward, and which in turn keeps the perpetually aggrieved Marxist or the
semi-Marxist justified in condemning, and if possible, undermining or overpowering a
legitimate or democratically elected government.
Nevertheless, a democratically elected government, despite all its corruption, aberration
or inefficiency, is infinitely superior to a Marxist oligarchy or a so-called dictatorship
of the proletariat or any other type of a truth regime. A dictatorial oligarchy, whether
Marxist or theocratic, is bound to be more corrupt and inefficient than a worst
democracy, for the absence of public accountability and secrecy shall motivate the
powerful to commit much more wrong than if he were to act in full visibility and with
accountability.

X

In view of the above analysis, the present governmental measures against the Maoist
violence and crimes are not only inadequate, but misdirected. For there is no
comprehensive understanding and analysis of the general nature of the Marxist or the
Maoist praxis at the level of the highest decision-making, for the decision-makers
themselves are under the direct or indirect impact of the Marxist or Maoist rhetoric to
submit them to the various modes to the political correctness and hypocrisy.

9

The governmental initiative against the Maoist menace basically assumes three forms.
First is the normal reactive police or para-military action through the raids, encounters,
arrests, or the imprisonment of those who are directly or visibly involved in the Maoist
criminal and violent activities. The second consists of the protective or preventive ( but
rarely proactive ) measures against the Maoist activity, such as collecting and analyzing
the relevant intelligence, deployment of the police or para-military forces to conduct raids,
combing operations in the affected region, fixing pickets in the sensitive areas to guard
as well as to keep watch over the suspects and their criminal or violent activities, or
to conduct long range patrolling in the inaccessible or forest areas. A very important
aspect of the anti-Maoist measures is registering cases, investigation them, and get the
important Maoist thugs arrested and convicted. A fair and diligent investigation of the
Maoist crimes is a very important, perhaps the most important, and also the most
neglected, aspect of the anti-Maoist police action. The intelligence and investigation of
the Maoist criminal activities are also very badly handled by the generally demoralized or
incompetent police officers.
The third type of initiative consists of the various development measures in the Maoist-
affected regions to benefit the poor and downtrodden in order to wean them away from
the Maoist influence or ideology.
The first reactive police measures are generally misdirected. This is because the most of
the police effort is directed against the ordinary poor, illiterate or semi-literate cadre of
the above-mentioned third circle hired by the core Maoists. These are the “Maoist” riff-
raff, and the poorest of the lot, who are mostly arrested, injured, killed or imprisoned by
the police or para-military action, but who are of the least consequence in fighting the
Maoist menace.
The most serious defect of this approach is almost the total neglect of the economic
nature of the Maoist crimes. The Maoist financial turnover of its levies, extortions, and
the money-laundering runs in billions. Whence this money comes ? This money does not
come from the foreign intelligence agencies, and very little out of the earnings of the
common people; it mostly comes from the enormous government spending done in the
name of developing the Maoist-affected poor and backward regions. And the individuals
or groups who have commercial dealings with or pay money to the Maoists as “ levies”
are in fact directly or indirectly connected to or dependent on the government and its
money. Without this money, no Maoist crime or violence can be carried out, nor without
this money can there be any motivation or incentive to undertake such hazardous violent
and criminal activities. And the money must be of the huge proportions; and when this
comes mainly from the government coffers, this cannot be possible without the active
cooperation and collusion of the government officials and agencies as well as the related
nexus of the politicians, builders and contractors with the Maoists.
For example, the most attractive places of posting for the block development
officials lie precisely in the Maoist-affected areas, for here they need just distribute the

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development funds between them, their corrupt senior officials, and the Maoists, and need
not be bothered about the real development work as none is going to turn up for the
inspection and supervision of their performance in these remote and insecure areas. And
because of the Maoist scare, none is going to speak against the local official so long
as he keeps on paying the Maoists their levies. Hence, no block development official
of the Maoist-affected area complains about insecurity and is most rarely harmed by the
Maoists, while they beat and kill the ordinary poor people and rape or sexually exploit
their women routinely.
At times even the local police officers have a friendly understanding with the Maoists
in their common loot specially from the illegal coal mining, though in comparison with
the civilian local officials, it is much less. The corrupt senior police officials also benefit
indirectly from the Maoist violence. For example, there is a great rise of the government
expenditure on the police equipment and secret service funds under the official rubric
of the police modernization. The various items in the name of such modernization are
bought in a great hurry and rather indiscriminately. The concerned officials generally get
good commissions out of such reckless purchases. The highly discretionary secret service
fund is also simply deposited in the private bank accounts of the corrupt senior police
officials, or distributed among the civil servants, ministers or politicians to buy for them
their support and protection. Apart from this, the central government gives special funds
to the superintendents of police in the Maoist affected districts which make these posts
attractive and lucrative. On the contrary, the ordinary policemen, the para-military forces
or their junior officers who directly face the Maoist scourge often pay for it with their
lives or serious injuries, risks and hardships, but not the senior police officials. Apart
from the rural poor, these are the lower police ranks who are at the receiving end in the
“friendly contest” played between the government and the Maoists.

XI

Contrary to the common view propagated by the government, politicians and the media,
the Maoism in India is more a phantom transmogrified into a spectre, and which is made
to appear a real spectre by the media and the vaguely leftist mindset. Of course, reality
has no objective status beyond what is thought to be real, but in the present case the
reality of the Maoist spectre can be easily exposed.
Is Maoism a mass-based revolutionary movement fired by a sincere belief and blind
passion, such as China’s Taiping or our own Revolt of 1857 ? In a country as vast
as India, and with the second largest population in the world, the Maoist cadre and
their sympathizers may be counted in a few thousands. How anyone would call it a
revolutionary mass movement or the most serious threat to the India’s very existence
is beyond comprehension. The Maoist riff-raff here are not at all self-sacrificing
revolutionaries, but in a very small number of tax farmers to collect levies for their

11

masters, and that too for a pittance by terrorizing, beating and killing the poor and
sexually abusing their women. In fact, they bear a close family resemblance with the
musclemen which the British-day zamindars employed to collect rent from their poor
ryots or tillers, and the atrocities which these musclemen committed on the poor peasants.
As the British Indian government was the source and support of this system of rent
collection, so is the present Indian government and its various state governments in
relation to the Maoist levies.

XII

The remedies to check or finish the Maoist scourge can be divided into three
groups. First group consists of the ideological remedies, the second, the legal and the
administrative, and third, the policing and investigative remedies.
What do we mean by the ideological remedies ? It means the various academic
institutions and the intelligentsia who love India and sympathize with her poor and
downtrodden in being the worst sufferers to the Maoist violence must carefully study
the fundamental ideology and praxis of Marxism, and reveal its defects as an extension
of the bourgeois modernism, and as well as the hollowness of its general ideology.
This is an extremely difficult task as the current folklorization of the Marxian clichés is
internalized in the Indian intelligentsia, academia, and the literature and arts, and strongly
reflected in the socio-political discourse of the politician, media and the middle classes. In
fact, despite the towering figure of Mahatma Gandhi, India lacks a non-Marxian rational
ideology which can function as a general critique of the bourgeois modernism, and
specially its Marxian offshoots, and can articulate itself meaningfully and forcefully in the
Indian environment. This is far too general a statement to be a specific remedy, but yet
this underlines ideological malady which subverts a comprehensive rational discourse in
the context of Maoist violence.
To begin with, all such speech, writing, publication, demonstration or political activity
which directly or indirectly eulogizes, highlights or facilitates the Maoist ideology and its
related violence must be condemned, opposed at all official levels, and in glaring cases
even banned. (7) At the same time, the government must expose the pure criminality and
the ideological lies and aberrations of the Maoists to the people by employing the latest
techniques of the mass communication. It may be called the counter-Maoist propaganda.
Apart from the misdeeds and crimes of the Indian Maoists, their icon Mao Tse-tung too
must be exposed, and the atrocities and crimes he committed against the Chinese people,
and the blood-thirsty Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge regime of Kampuchea which were
supported and guided by the Maoist China in the commission of the worst atrocities and
the killing of the millions of innocent Kampucheans.
This is only a rough guideline; how this is to be executed cannot be given in detail
within the scope of the present article. The purpose of such an ideological critique must

12

be address the hearts and minds of the people by propagating the naked truth of Maoism
with all its murders and atrocities by tearing off of its ideological mask.
As we know, the government, the well-meaning part of the media or even a right-
wing political party like the BJP, have never cared much about the ideological offensive
against the Maoists. On the contrary, they employ euphemisms about them like being
misguided, gone astray from the national mainstream, and instead of calling them of
what they are: the mass murderers of the innocent poor and the downtrodden, rapists
and the robbers and destroyers of the public and private property, and mostly with the
connivance of the corrupt government officials or the private agencies connected with the
official development programs.
The second group of remedies consisting of the legal and administrative remedies is
much easier and well within the reach of the government.
First we take the legal measures. There is a rather spurious debate between the ruling
UPA and the NDA opposition in which the latter want the more stringent laws against
both the Maoists and the Islamic terrorists, while the former are opposed to them. The
most important issue is not the lack of laws, but their defective implementation or no
implementation. Here we must admit that generally not only our police, but the entire
criminal justice system is professionally incompetent, inadequate and corrupt. There may
be individual performers in the system, they are in very small numbers.
Hence, if we introduce very hard laws, they are certain to be misused against the
innocent or the minor culprit rather than being used against the hard-core or the ring-
leaders. This type of legal action would aggravate the problem rather than solve it. And
any punitive measures against the innocent or even the peripheral or minor culprits who
are usually the poor and downtrodden have a multiplier counter-effect on solving the
problem. For this causes anger against the state which is easily turned by the Maoists in
their favour. In some of the states, the hard law of POTA ( The Prevention of Terrorism
Act ) was very much misused against the poor and the minor offenders with its disastrous
consequences for the law and order situation. What we need is the strict and selective
application of the existing laws against the hard-core leadership rather than waste our
energy on introducing the harder laws and then allowing them to be misused against the
innocents or minor offenders. In fact, the peripheral or minor Maoists should be treated
with leniency and even let off with a view to rehabilitate them in order to wean them
away from the Maoist influence, though they should be kept under strict surveillance till
they become fully reformed.
Such is not the case that the hard laws are totally irrelevant, but they are to be used
with maximum discretion and discrimination. Here is an example of how an hard law
like the POTA could be used to demolish the very edifice of the Maoist business, but
yet which was not at all used in that way. This law should have been used against the
top-level or hard-core Maoists only, but never against the ordinary cadre, who should
have been dealt with under ordinary laws. On the contrary, specially in a state like

13

Jharkhand, it was primarily used against the Maoist cadre, and even innocents, which
only confirmed the Maoist propaganda of the Indian state being unjust and oppressive.
This revealed the basic incompetence of the senior police functionaries in not being able
to understand and appreciate the nature and scope an hard law in relation to the Maoists.
We have already suggested the economic foundations of the Maoist crimes, and how
the members of the first inner circle of the Maoism, namely the politicians, various
officials, business people and others have their nefarious money transactions with them.
In a hard law like POTA, to give money to any terrorist or Maoist outfit carried the
penalty of the life imprisonment, but if any such case was ever registered or successfully
prosecuted anywhere is not known. Reason is simple: the culprits here are either rich and
powerful or an essential component of the corrupt government machinery, and, therefore,
immune from the police action.
The Maoists have their income in billions which is systematically collected, a part of it
spent in the arms and ammunitions or in the maintenance of its cadre of “tax farmers” ,
but most of the money is certain to be deposited in the banks and then invested or
laundered in various businesses or the real estate. Has any investigative agency bothered
to know and take proper legal action whence these billions are coming and where going?
And since these billions mostly come from the government officials or the agencies
which are totally dependent on the government, it should be the easiest job for the
government to catch or punish them. And should it so happen, that is, if the money
sources of the Maoists dry up, there is no reason they would stick to their job for
more than five minutes. Of course, the official or semi-official money suppliers to the
Maoists would plead that they give money to the Maoists to save their jobs and lives.
Here obviously the police are to be blamed for not providing enough security to these
criminals ! The fact is that their money dealings are very profitable to themselves or else
they would not risk their lives. Therefore, compared with the policemen and the poor
people, the number of the officials and other private business people harmed or killed by
the Maoists is very small.
The second group consists of the administrative remedies. When the government allots
huge money for the development in the Maoist-infested areas, these are mostly distributed
amongst the officials, politicians and the Maoists, and only a small portion spent on
the development. The rationale for such extra government funds is that the increased
development of these areas would make the people less dissatisfied with the government,
and thus relatively less influenced by the Maoist rhetoric of the people being exploited
by the bourgeois state. Maoist-infested areas need as much development as the rest of
the poor and backward regions, but if the extra funds are given to the former, then the
government must assure that none of it goes to the Maoists or other corrupt officials and
politicians. So far the governmental check on the pilferage of such development funds in
the Maoist-infested areas appears to be zero.
The fact is that the lack of economic development has no direct or causal relationship

14

to the spread of Maoism, though undoubtedly it is one of the factors for the Maoist
successes. For example, lack of the roads and communication makes the anti-Maoist
police operations very difficult and hazardous. The further lack of education and poverty
of the people makes them vulnerable to the Maoist propaganda and exploitation. But none
should ever imagine that the Maoists are there to help solve the social and economic
problems of the tribal or the depressed people; they are there, on the contrary, solely to
torture, terrorize, kill and exploit them in order to gain power and make money.

XIII

The third group of remedial measures of the policing and investigative agencies is very
important in so far as we think the Maoist menace to be primarily a law and order issue
rather than a socio-economic problem. But here we must change the general mindset
about policing the Maoist-infested areas.
Generally speaking, policing the Maoist crimes in the difficult forest-covered
mountainous regions makes it nearly semi-military or counter-insurgent. The use of army
has been seriously considered, though fortunately not implemented. Although Maoists
pose a serious law and order problem largely due to the governmental inaction or
incompetence as well as the lack of political will power, but yet they are not sufficiently
numerous or powerful to pose a threat to the very existence of the Indian state. This
is because they are not at all backed by the rural or poor masses, and apart from their
small numbers in comparison with the immense resources of the state to commit violence,
have no significant foreign connexions to support them economically, diplomatically or
ideologically. The Sikh terrorism, even though supported by Pakistan as well as by some
of the Sikh diaspora in the western countries, was successfully dealt with by the Punjab
Police and the central para-military forces, and but for the Operation Bluestar, army was
not deployed. In fact, the police very brutally suppressed the Sikh terrorists with legal
short-cuts, largely because the Sikhs had no leftist backing, nor were connected with
the Muslim minorytism and its related political correctness. Unfortunately, Maoists have
a direct or indirect beneficiary of the leftist mindset which weakens the political will to
deal with them effectively at the bureaucratic, police and even at the judicial levels. (The
case of Dr. Binayak Sen illustrates this point at the judicial level.)
Now, it is a wrong practice of the government and the media to project the Maoism as
a great danger or challenge to the very existence of the Indian state. If a few thousand
rather well-organized Maoist criminals can pose a serious threat to a nation of a billion-
plus population, with more than a million of the standing army and other para-military
forces, and having a strong and fast growing economy with a well-established democratic
system, then such a state has no reason to exist. The fact is that our politicians, media
and the intelligence agencies paint the Maoist picture not only with very bright and
attractive colours, but also exaggerate its scale in relation to the portrayal of its real

15

object. For a proper policing of the Maoism we need a realistic assessment of their
organization and activities. The fact is that they are virtually an informal or inadvertent
economic extension of the governmental activity in so far as they are totally dependent
on and sustained by the pilferage of the government funds, and therefore they are the
easiest to be dealt with as a criminal group. They are definitely not as strongly motivated
or internationally connected and funded as are the Islamic terrorists whose threat is
indeed of a much more serious nature.
Imagine how easy it would be for President Obama to finish off Al Qaida, only if
the latter were totally dependent on the US federal funds for its anti-US terrorist acts ! In
no time the FBI would find out and freeze their bank accounts, catch their local money
suppliers or the corrupt officials, and it is likely that many of them will be jailed or
executed after a brief trial. But the Indian government becomes virtually paralyzed to
act against its own organs or functionaries in direct or indirect collusion with the Maoist
thugs because of its politically correct leftist mindset which does not allow to act it
firmly against the “leftist” crimes of Maoism.
The very first part of the police action should be to collect economic intelligence about
the Maoist funding. Their money suppliers, whether officials or the private persons, as
well as the bank managers and financiers who deal with them, should be arrested and
prosecuted, and the police should as well see to it that they are speedily convicted. For
such Maoist cases special courts dealing with their economic crimes or money laundering
can be created so that trial is not indefinitely prolonged. Generally speaking, the Maoist
activity would be ninety percent curbed if such measures are speedily and efficiently
implemented.
Secondly, police should not too much directly involve itself in fighting the Maoists
on their terrain. This is hazardous, expensive, and in the long run not very efficient.
If the Maoism is not the mass movement or lacks the genuine mass support, then the
common people can easily be motivated to form private militias who would take up the
fight against the Maoists with much less expense, but with much greater success. This
experiment has been carried out in Chhattisgarh, but perhaps is not fully supported by
the anti-Maoist mass communication, so that all kinds of pro-Maoist and semi-Marxian
media are able to malign it. In some cases, the rural poor can be paid money out of the
Secret Service Fund or promised employment to capture alive or dead some of the well-
identified important Maoists, but the ordinary cadre should be kept out of such a scheme.
Apart from this, the special branch of the state police should be very actively involved
in the anti-Maoist operations not only for collecting intelligence which is at present
virtually good for nothing, but in creating the written material or pamphlets for educating
the rural masses about the misdeeds of the Maoists with the photographs of their
murders and massacres of the innocent civilians and the rural poor. Under the present
circumstances, this should perhaps be the most important task of the special branch to
propagate the ideological hollowness of the Maoist creed of violence in general as well

16

as the various crimes committed by their kindred in the foreign countries. The interviews
of the poor victims of the Maoist violence can be conducted and shown on the electronic
media for days and months. Similarly, full page advertisements can be displayed in the
newspapers which should vividly explain and describe the innate evil of the Maoist in
being anti-poor and anti-nation. Pamphlets of a similar nature can be pasted on the trees
or house walls in the interior rural areas or dropped from the air. For such tasks, the
intelligent and well motivated officers should be placed with the state special branch. It
would also be very desirable if a special wing in the special branch is created to conduct
only the anti-Maoist dissemination of information.
Finally we come to investigation of the Maoist crimes. Here the police performance is
dismal. This is because most of the police officers, and which include even the senior
ones, have virtually no idea of a proper or timely investigation. The supervision and
control of such cases is also nearly zero. While this adversely affects the general law and
order and crime situation, but it assumes serious proportions in connexion with the Maoist
crimes. The misuse of the POTA has already been mentioned, which happened largely
because of the lack of the supervision and control of the registration and investigation of
these cases. This brought infamy to the police, to this particular law and the loss of the
opportunity of benefitting from its provisions, but all this could be avoided only if it had
been used intelligently and with discretion.

XIV

In the end, it is the duty of those of us who love this country and its people, and
specially its poor and downtrodden, that they should create a general consensus and
political will to fight the Maoist menace. Without such a will, it would not be possible
to put an end to the anti-poor and government-funded Maoist crimes and violence.
The United States, for example, in contrast to the European countries, shows a
determined national consensus and willingness to fight the Islamic terrorism on her soil.
That is why even after a lapse of nearly a decade since the 9/11, there is no repeat in
the United States of even a minor Islamic terrorist act. And earlier the Indian state had
also been very tough against the Sikh terrorists to finish them off, but then these Sikhs
had no Marxist or leftist tag attached to their violence !

Notes and References

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(1) These preliminary remarks are made to clarify the much discussed issue of the state-sponsored
violence which often lead to the human right violations. A legitimate state, even in its legitimacy, is
primarily an infinite source of violence; that is , it has the innate right to commit violence on its citizens
as well as foreigners. Such exercise of violence, however, is tempered by law, conventions, common sense
or expediency, though perhaps never by the morality or sheer compassion. But where the resistance to
such violence is zero or negligible, then the state may cross all limits, may alternatively be described
as a method of depriving the state violence of all its legitimacy because of the protagonist’s non-violent
resistance. The extreme examples of such illegitimate state-sponsored violence are the Holocaust, Stalinist
purges and the proverbial mid-night knocks, Mao’s killings of his own countrymen which ran in millions,
and Pol Pot’s massacre of around three million Kampucheans. These are cases where the resistance to the
state-sponsored violence was absent or nominal, and that is why the state could cross the normal limits of
committing such violence. Human right violation can take place only where the state-sponsored violence has
lost all legitimacy in terms of its own temperance. If the pro-Pakistani separatists in Srinagar throw stones
or open fire on the Indian security forces, and if the latter open fire and kill a few of them, then there is
absolutely no human right violation on the part of the latter. However, when the British force opened fire
on an unarmed gathering in Amritsar in 1919, and thereby killed more than three hundred persons, then the
state-sponsored violence lacked legitimacy, and was clearly an human right violation.
As far as the human right theory is concerned, it is derived from the theory of natural law. Its first
manifestation was the post-war Nuremberg trials and the UN Charter. However, action against the human
right violations is subject to expediency even at the international level. Stalin and Mao were never
condemned or tried for their crimes even in absentia, and the action taken against Pol Pot or his followers
was negligible or half-hearted. Various human right forums or individuals, specially in India, often tend
to be politically motivated so that they would focus human right violations in India, but not in China.
However, where there is violent resistance to the state action, then the legitimacy of the state-sponsored
violence is strengthened. And if the opposition to the action is inspired by the forces which are in principle
inimical to the state power irrespective of its constitutional form, then the state has the innate right to
commit violence. This threat to the state may or may not be real or be exaggerated, but even if it implies
a threat to the state, then the state-sponsored violence can be legitimate. The individual transgressions of
the law involving the private violence are usually not a threat to the state, though the law dealing with
them implies state-regulated coercion or violence against such transgressors conceiving such violence as
deemed to be directed against the state.
The Maoist case is clear. The Maoist violence is a combination of the violent or extremist ideology
against the state, but in fact it acts only as a veneer for the private greed and its related crimes against the
poor and the downtrodden. In this process, Maoists show off their violent deeds mainly committed to harm
the state security forces. However, the state-sponsored violent suppression of the Maoists, though justified
and legitimate, is yet generally counter-productive, for what the state requires is more of an ideological
counter-offensive, people’s resistance, both violent and non-violent, and the good investigation of the Maoist
crimes.
(2) Here is a passionate defence of the bourgeois-terrorist Jacobinism by the Marxist-Leninist advocate
of the permanent revolution, the celebrated Leon Trotsky. He says, “But we defend Jacobinism against
the attacks, the calumny, and the stupid vituperations of anaemic, phlegmatic liberalism. The bourgeoisie
has shamefully betrayed all the traditions of its historical youth, and its present hirelings dishonour the
graves of its ancestors and scoff at the ashes of their ideals. The proletariat has taken the honour of the
revolutionary past of the bourgeoisie under its protection. The proletariat, however radically it may have, in
practice, broken with the revolutionary traditions of the bourgeoisie, nevertheless preserves them, as a sacred
heritage of great passions, heroism and initiative, and its heart beats in sympathy with the speeches and
acts of the Jacobin Convention…. And what other period did bourgeois democracy rise to such a height

18

and kindle such a great flame in the hearts of the people as during the period of Jacobin, sansculotte,
terrorist, Robespierrian democracy of 1793.” See his The Permanent Revolution & Results and prospects,
Translated from the Russian by J. Fineberg, & Edited by Kunal Chattopadhyay, Aninda Banerjee and
Saurobijay Sarkar, Aakar Books, New Delhi, (1919) 2005, New Delhi, p.31
(3) Francois Noel Babeuf ( 1760-1797) was a communist figure during the French Revolution. In this
context, David McLellan has made the following comment on The Communist Manifesto, “None of the
ideas of The Communist Manifesto were new, and its ideas on revolution and history were obviously
influenced by French socialists such as Babeuf, Saint-Simon, and Considerant; and the concept of class,
with which The Communist Manifesto begins, was first used by the French bourgeois historians.” Karl
Marx, Selected Writings, Edited by David McLellan, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 245
(4) Louis-Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881), a prominent extreme leftist during the French disturbances of 1848.
(5) Gautam Mukherjee thus comments on the nature of the modern communist China, “Communism as the
most ambitious 20th century alternative has changed beyond recognition in practice. At the least in the
hands of its most successful practitioners, China today has acquired mercantilist, imperial, militarist and
arch-capitalist overtones. These are now menacing the world, let alone India.” Italics mine. (Pioneer, New
Delhi, 16th of September, 2009.) The “changed beyond recognition” in the communist China, however, is
more apparent than real if it is thought to be a move away from Maoism towards capitalism, for both are
the two sides of the same coin. The earlier Maoist or the “Jacobin” phase of the communist movement
emphasizes the domineering violence over the materialistic pleasures which remain confined to the politburo
members or those very close to them. Once power and dominance have been gained, and emphasis partly
shifts to the materialistic pleasures. The United States, the acme of the bourgeois modernism, represents
both these features prominently wherein the bourgeois state has perfected itself much more successfully than
its Marxist-Leninist-Maoist offshoots in both the spheres of the power and dominance, as well as sensuous
materialism.
(6) The idea of dialectics as introduced by Hegel was derived from the confusion and perhaps deliberate
misinterpretation by Hegel of the Kantian antinomies. (See Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies,
vol. ii, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, Fifth Edition, 1966, p. 38, and also his general critique of the
dialectics in Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge, London & New York, Fifth Edition, 1989, pp. 312-
335.) In the Marxian praxis, the Hegelian dialectics was further distorted to abolish the very idea of
objective truth so as to make it conform with the Marxian arbitrariness or what we may call the dialectical
opportunism. Although Marxists cannot claim to be the sole custodian of this type of the opportunism,
but yet they have been its prominent practitioners in the modern history. Inspired by such dialectical
opportunism, what the Russian Czar did in expanding his empire towards Vladivostok in the mid-19th
century was done by Stalin in relation to the small and helpless Baltic states in the 20th century and by
China in relation to Tibet. In India, the communists as dialectical opportunists acted as agents of the Soviet
Union, and accordingly collaborated with the British colonial regime in India, specially when the colonial
repression of the Indian people was at its height in the Quit India movement of 1942.
(7) This should not be understood as a general ban on the freedom of expression and speech, although in
view of the general intellectual bankruptcy of the media, the loss of such freedom should hardly matter.
For if you have nothing worthwhile to speak or express on account of being empty-headed, then what for
the freedom of expression and speech must exist ? Yet such a ban should be applied with great caution
and restraint. There are spokesmen and sympathizers of the Maoists who openly march in rallies, participate
in the live TV debates, and even fight elections, or the leading politicians and even important chief
ministers or the central or state ministers address Maoists very affectionately or openly hobnob with them,
then it demoralizes the rural poor and the rank and file of the police and the para-military organizations.
Sometimes apparently well-meaning, but naïve intellectuals also speak in favour of the Maoists, but they
can best be left alone.
Media, however, plays a sinister role in creating and exaggerating the fear and terror created by
the Maoist violence. A Maoist bandh banning all road and rail traffic movement is prominently published,

19

Maoist area commanders interviewed in an approving manner, their training camps video graphed, and often
their press statements on the political and economic issues splashed on the front pages all this indirectly
makes Maoists legitimate and even respectable. This criminal hypocrisy of the media should be stopped.
For example, how effective a Maoist bandh would be if it is not allowed to publicized in the print and the
electronic media ?
Not even the Islamic terrorists are advertized or eulogized the way the Maoist thugs are by the
media, although the former, though extremely misguided, are not hypocrites or motivated by the pecuniary
gain. While the Maoists can be safely identified as criminals of the most base order, but not the Islamists.

(Written in June, 2010 at Ranchi)

……………………………………..