General Awareness Series: NAXALISM / MAOIST INSURGENCY/ L.W.E.

Mao said “Power runs from the barrel of the Gun”. Maoists are influenced by this ideology.

Presently Naxalism is the biggest threat to the internal security of our country. It started in 1967 from Naxal Bari village in Darjeeling, West Bengal. The Left Wing Extremism believes in extreme form of Communist ideology.

Naxalism started in India in the form of class struggle. It was a people’s movement in the form of struggle between landlords and the landless labors and small farmers. Over a period of time it has grown into an ‘Armed Struggle’.

For a view of its expansion, in 1967, naxalism was in 1 village. Today more than 40% of the geographical area of India is affected by it. It is spread over nine states- A.P., Chhattisgarh, Bihar , Jharkhand, U.P. , Maharashtra , Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal ,Orissa.

Prior to 2004, there were many small naxal outfits acting independently. But they decided to merge together in 2004, which led to the formation of CPI (M). Post 2004, 90% of the naxal attacks has been caused by the CPI (M).

Factors responsible for Naxalism-

1.     Poor and Non-Implementation of Land Reforms- Though we abolish Zamindari but still it is there in the country. This created a class difference among people. Moreover the Land acquisition policies of government were not beneficial to all the farmers.
2.    Economic Development- All the developmental models have failed in the last six decades to ensure balanced regional development.
3.    Political Vacuum – There are certain regions which face lack of governance and are non-affected by the governmental policies.
4.     Castesism- Failure of the government and its policies to ensure social justice in India has also led to the spread of Naxalism.
5.      Lack of livelihood opportunities in the rural areas.
6.      Acute poverty.
7.      Low level of awareness, education.

How can we deal with Naxalism:

• Peace
• Development
• Environment

The problem of naxalism can be dealt with a multi-dimensional approach and development. In this approach four points will be very important-

1. Strong Police action against the violence component of the movement.
2. Intensifying the pace of Socio-economic infrastructural development in the naxal affected regions.
3. Development strategy should be People centric i.e. primarily to benefit the people.
4. A focus on good governance. A system where Rule of Law is supreme. Transparent, affective, efficient, accountable, people friendly, responsive system of government should be there.

All these things can be done if there is a political will. Beforehand we need to understand that naxals are our own people who are angry with the system. We all curse our system but they go a step further and pick up arms against it. So a systematic approach to win the hearts of common people can hit the root cause of this problem. We also need to understand that we the common people are also sometimes not happy with the governmental policies but the only difference between us and the naxals is that they are fighting for the irregularities in a illegal way while we might follow the legal approach or will shut our doors and accept what is happening with us. What are your vies on this being the youth who will decide the course of action of our country in the coming times. Gear up and comment. Share and follow and subscribe for email notification if you like what is posted in our blog.

About the Author: Aviral Singh is a Mechanical Engineer from AKGEC and a die heart defense aspirant. He loves dramatics, performing in street plays and doing miming. He has won many prizes through his performances at various levels. This article is a way to help defense aspirants to present his critical views on the topic, on the forum so that collective exchange of thoughts can take place.