Maoist Warriors: More than foot soldiers

By Prakash Nanda

Issue Net Edition | Date : 05 Nov , 2010

Now, the so-called human rights activists challenge this set of laws. They argue that these laws are draconian and fascist, leading to the suppression of their freedom of speech and political rights. Therefore, these laws are threats to the civil society and must have no place in a democracy, they add.

In other words, the activists like our professor would like to make a distinction between the Maoists fighting violently on the ground and those who intellectually support them “for fighting and speaking for the rights of the marginalized, including landless peasants, tribal groups, and Dalits”.

Though these activists claim not to approve Maoists’ violence, their opposition is nothing but superficial. Because, at the same time they say that they understand the Maoists’ noble goal of ending exploitation and how their violence is with a cause.

This being the case, they totally underplay if the Maoists destroy schools and hospitals and indulge in extortion, torture and killings. They hardly bother to speak about the death of police personnel gunned down by the Maoists but make a lot of hue and cry if a Maoist is questioned or gunned down. These activists do not consider of any minimum but uniform standard to oppose all rights violations irrespective of who its victims are or who commits them.

All this leads to the question: where exactly should one draw a line between the Maoists on the ground and their intellectual supporters under the grab of human rights activists? The question is all the more relevant when the Maoists are literally fighting a war against the nation as a whole. Let us have no pretension that they are fighting for the poor and downtrodden; their leaders, most of whom incidentally come from the privileged backgrounds, are exploiting and recruiting the poor and downtrodden as foot soldiers.

The Maoists leaders’ ultimate aim is to capture political power, which they cannot attain under our parliamentary democracy. By any stretch of imagination, they will not grant us the rights and facilities which their intellectual supporters are claiming for them if they acquire political power through a violent revolution. They do not believe in the principle of reciprocal recognition and respect of rights that ensures that one’s own rights will be protected as much as that of one’s adversary.

The war that the Maoists are fighting is like any other typical “Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW)” in which the war is within, amongst, and sometimes even against, the people, and is not centered around the armed forces on a battlefield. Its objective is to foster a collapse of the enemy internally, rather than that of its armed forces physically.

Its warriors are not only foot soldiers but also supporters who facilitate their ideas in disseminating them fast though media, films, lectures and seminars. Here the battle is for the domination of the mind space. The 4G warrior is now extremely powerful because he or she has now got enough opportunities provided by a democracy like ours to manipulate the public opinion by magnifying minor tactical successes out of proportion.

In my humble opinion, any human right activist, howsoever celebrated he or she may be, has to be dealt under the laws legitimately framed in accordance with the country’s constitution. If he or she is supporting, irrespective of whether directly or indirectly, the ideas and activities of the Maoists, then he or she should be branded as a 4GW soldier and prosecuted accordingly. He or she cannot claim any special concessions in the name of human rights.

In any case, international law also recognises that human rights can be limited or even pushed aside during times of national crises. And Maoism today constitutes a national crisis in the country. The Maoists are hard core terrorists, not like ordinary criminals. They and their supporters need to be treated sternly by the State with all its might.