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Indian Democracy and its revolutionary Maoists: Part Two

Six days before the polling for 2009 Lok Sabha elections began, the Maoists had attacked NALCOs bauxite

mines in Orissa and killed at least 8 Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) jawans and injuring scores of

others. On 16 April, during the first phase of the month long election schedule, at least 17 people were killed

by them in a string of attacks across the Red Corridor. To enforce their poll boycott strategy and disrupt

the election procedures through violence, armed Maoist peoples militia attacked on polling booths and

vehicles carrying the election officials. Five members of a polling team were killed by a landmine blast in

Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh. A bus carrying Border Security Force (BSF) personnel for election

duty was blown off by another landmine explosion in Jharkhands Latehar district; bullets were sprayed at

the bus killing seven BSF personnel, the bus driver and his assistant. In Bihars Gaya district, the Maoists

open fired at a polling station in Bankebazaar killing a policeman and a Home Guard on duty and looted the

electronic voting machines (EVM) and four rifles. Though termed as a spectacular success by sections of

the media, actually, the Maoists were successful to attack just 71 of the 76,000 vulnerable polling booths. In

the second and third phase of the elections, the intensity of Maoist attacks has dropped substantially.

When theAll India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries(AICCCR) was formed by the

Naxalites in May 1968, one of the first resolutions passed by the body was not to participate in elections.

While the CPI (Maoist) is still carrying this legacy, Naxalite factions like the CPI (M-L) Liberation has

corrected the mistake of completely rejecting parliamentary politics in 1982. Kanu Sanyal, one of the

founding leaders of the Naxalite movement has accepted parliamentary practice as one form of

revolutionary activity. Even their counterpart in Nepal, the CPN (Maoist) which had once pledged to fight

jointly with them have joined the mainstream political system and participated in elections.

Cocksure about their creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the CPI (Maoist) refuses to

recognize any necessity of participating in a bourgeois-democratic parliament. They are ideologically

motivated in their belief that in a country where bourgeois democratic revolution has not yet been

completed the rule of the masses cannot be achieved through normal political methods and so it is

absolutely necessity to propagate extensively and concretely to boycott the parliamentary elections. Based

on a personalized, narrow and distracted perception about the objective conditions of India, the group

believes that parliamentary institutions and systems are discredited to a large extent in the eyes of the

people and there is no objective basis for them to participate in this system just for exposing the

parliamentary system from within. Participation in election neither helps in developing revolutionary

class struggle, nor in enhancing democratic consciousness among the people. Instead, it only fosters

constitutional illusions and distract from intensifying revolutionary class struggle and armed struggle

against the state. According to them, promoting alternative institutions of peoples power is the only way

to enhance peoples consciousness and to wipe out their illusions about the present parliamentary system.

Answering to the question on why the CPI (Maoist) declines to fight elections and refuses to participate in

the democratic process, the Maoist leader Ganapathys has remarked, You think raising issues in the

parliament is the democratic way whereas we believe that people are raising their issues in a democratic

way through organized protests. (Source)Marxist-Leninist parties and groups who participate in elections

are accused for diverting revolutionary armed struggle into legal and peaceful channels. Terming

parliamentary politics as a dog-eat-dog world and the Parliament as a talking shop, a recent Maoist

http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/maoist/documents/papers/interview_ganapathy.htmhttp://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/maoist/documents/papers/interview_ganapathy.htmhttp://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/maoist/documents/papers/interview_ganapathy.htmhttp://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/maoist/documents/papers/interview_ganapathy.htm

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released squarely blames all the mainstream Left parties like CPI (M), CPI and even the Naxalite CPI (M-L)

Liberation, for playing the most dubious role in legitimizing the farce of parliamentary process. The

Maoists are particularly antagonized with the CPI (M) and have termed the largest communist party of

India as social fascists.

The political theory of the Maoists seems to be more inclined towards anarchism than Marxism. The Maoist

viewpoint on shunning elections as a matter of strategy is surprisingly similar with the anarchist

perspective. Anarchists believe that, Utilizing the state, standing in elections, only prepares people for

following leaders it does not encourage the self-activity, self-organization, direct action and mass struggle

required for a social revolution. Likewise, the Indian Maoists also believe that participation in parliament

does not help in developing the subjective forces. Rather it will only drive them into legalism and divert

them from intensifying revolutionary class struggle. Anarchists argue for the need of creating

alternative, libertarian, forms of social organization which can become a force to resist the state, win

reforms and, ultimately, become the framework of a free society. The Indian Maoists believe in promoting

alternative institutions of peoples power as the only way to enhance peoples consciousness. Anarchists

reject the Leninist idea that standing for elections immensely helps to carry the agitation of the proletarian

party among the masses. The Indian Maoists reflect the same thought when it says that participation in

election will only sabotage the revolutionary movement.

Will the Maoists also echo the anarchist wisdom that all Marxists are not Leninists? While mechanically

theorizing their election boycott stand, the Maoists has carefully kept aside the indispensable polemics of

Lenin. Long ago, in one of his most important writingLeft-wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder,

Lenin has categorically pointed out that participating in a bourgeois-democratic parliament actually helps

the revolutionary party to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be done awaywith. Lenin had argued that far from causing harm, the parliamentary forum provides opportunities to

expose the system of capitalism and facilitates the successful dissolution of the institution. Taking part in

the election campaigning draws the masses into the election struggle to take the bourgeoisie at its word

and utilize the machinery it has set up. To extend his argument Lenin had pointed out that Communists

should constantly, unremittingly and unswervingly utilize parliamentary elections and all other fields,

spheres and aspects of public life, and work in all of them in a new way, in a communist way. Communists

must learn to create a new, uncustomary, non-opportunist and non-careerist parliamentarianism. Lenin

though did not forget to ring his warning about the pseudo-revolutionaries those who are incapable of

taking into account the rapid change of forms, become hypnotized by a definite form and are afraid to seethe break-up which objective conditions made inevitable.

*****

Sudeep Chakravarti, the author ofRed Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country has said in an interview that,

Indias Maoists dont really need to win; they just need to be there, to show us where we have gone wrong.

(Source)Chakravartis admiration towards the Maoists for their role as conscience keepers of the Indian

society is simplistic and soaked with romanticism. This flabby estimation might please the middle-class

conscience of the Maoist sympathizers of India but will definitely not help the Maoist movement to advance

any further from their present situate. Unless the Maoists learn to shed their flawed obsession with armed

activities, remove the dogmatic faith from their minds that guerilla warfare is the only path to liberation,

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/http://interjunction.org/interview/maoist-rebels-are-mirrors-of-our-own-failings-as-a-nation/http://interjunction.org/interview/maoist-rebels-are-mirrors-of-our-own-failings-as-a-nation/http://interjunction.org/interview/maoist-rebels-are-mirrors-of-our-own-failings-as-a-nation/http://interjunction.org/interview/maoist-rebels-are-mirrors-of-our-own-failings-as-a-nation/http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/

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realize the necessity of democratic struggle and mass-political programs, arrive on a common platform with

other Left parties and develop tactical alliances with them to settle on issues pertinent to the people, the

movement will continue to remain isolated and confined within the remote corners of the country and

subsequently become marginalized. If the Maoist leaders cannot give up their old adventurist line and

comprehend the major contradictions of Indian society, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for

them to make progress towards occupying the center-stage of Indian politics. By moving away from their

commitment to violent insurrection and joining the democratic process, the CPN (Maoist) in Nepal hasalready shown a way to their Indian counterpart. Whether the Indian Maoist leaders can go for a major

theoretical breakthrough and take into account the rapid changes of forms and respond to the break-up

which objective conditions made inevitable, whether they can develop the subjective forces in a true

Marxist way or remain blinded by misreading of the objective conditions will determine their future

significance in the Indian political sphere.

Internet Source:

1. Maoist Document:Strategy & Tactics of the Indian Revolution

2. CLSA Special Report:Indias Naxalities

3. Anil BiswasMaoism: An Exercise in Anarchism

4. Tilak D. Gupta:Recent Developments in the Naxalite Movement

5. Venkitesh Ramakrishnan:The road from Naxalbari

6. Ajai Sahni:The riot of Red flags

(Concluded)

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