The Rise of Naxalism in India

What happened recently? On the 3rd of April 22 Jawans of the CRPF were martyred in the line of fire in Chhattisgarh but Indians netizens and our ‘woke’ Indian youth turned a blind eye. I guess soldiers being martyred in India creates less havoc than some vain royal family controversy nowadays. The loss of life took place during an ambush with left-wing extremists who are popularly known as Naxals. Who are the 'Naxals'? These terrorists plead allegiance to the Communist Party of India (Maoist), an organization that follows the ideology of ‘Maoism’ or left-wing extremism. The central theme of Maoist ideology is the use of violence and armed insurrection to capture State Power. In simple words, they aim to overthrow the Government of India through a ‘people’s war’.

The Maoist insurgency dogma glorifies violence as the only means to gain influence over the existing socio-economic and political structures, which is not acceptable under the Indian constitution and the founding principles of the union of India. The Peoples Liberation Guerilla Army (PLGA), the armed wing of CPI (Maoist), has been created with this purpose in mind. Many Left-Wing extremist terrorist outfits have been operating in certain remote and poorly connected pockets of the country for a few decades now. They target areas that are secluded and are populated with least influential sections of the society. Another thing that these terrorists take advantage of is the government’s negligence in certain backward areas. When no one supports the farm laborers in some remote village in Chhattisgarh or the tribal people of Odisha, these terrorists are seen as a ray of hope by them. They think that someone will finally listen to their voices and act upon their concerns. But all they do is hand guns to children instead of books to achieve their ‘not so realistic’ goal. Violence, Violence and Violence Both the Congress and the BJP governments have asked these Naxals to abjure violence and come to talk. This plea has been rejected by them because they apparently believe they can be triumphant in a ‘coup d’état’ (overthrowing a government). This lack of communication has resulted in a spiraling cycle of violence in some parts of India. Many marginalized sections of the society are bearing the after-effects of this never ending and futile violence.

Many innocent ‘woke’ intellectuals fall for the ideology of these self-glorified terrorists due to lack of information. Another upward trend that has been noticed in the past few years is the presence of romantic illusions about these terrorists in the youth. I guess it is just ‘cool’ nowadays to overthrow governments and kill people for achieving an unrealistic goal. What these certain sections of society do not understand are the core values of left-wing extremism which are violence, violence, and violence. The Need of the Hour Just to give you an example of how brutal and ruthless these people are, they de-railed a train by removing a 1.5-inch piece of the track on which the Kolkata–Mumbai night train was wheeled up that night. That de-railment alone killed at least 150 people. This cycle of violence has killed thousands and thousands of people.

The thing that is more concerning is that even after the government being aware of this problem for two decades, no government has ever taken any solid steps. I hope the government handles this issue exactly the way they handled the Pulwama and the Uri attack, through response.