Urban Naxals and Decoding Urban naxals

‘Urban Naxals’ , a term which was derived long back but recently gaining popularity is the talk of the town. People claiming themselves to be social activists and stands against the government in support of isolated sections of people on various grounds are being labelled with this term. Government side argument is that these so called activists, in reality, are social terrorists creating chaotic situation among the society under the mask of activism. Both the arguments are needed to be analysed in detail, to arrive at a conclusion.

Decoding Urban naxals 

Literally, Naxals are the members of Communist Party of India (Maoist) following the radical ideology of Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung, emerged in the Naxalbari village of West Bengal, during the 1960s. Their emergence was based on the disparity on land holdings. Leaders like Charu Majumdar, Kanhu Sanyal etc took a violent strategy of seizing lands from landholders and distributing it to the landless, trying to fix equality. 

This Robin-hood style story is good as a story but not in reality. Many organizations sprouted on the foot lines of Naxalites. Eventually it led to the infiltration of anti social elements which became a serious threat for the sovereignty of the government. Many youngsters were aroused through mesmerising speeches and lucrative benefits. This ended up in the famous “Red Corridor” starting from the Nepal Maoists holdings, trailing through the west of India and leaning until the Sri Lankan region, representing the zone under terrorism.

Activism vs Naxalism:

The government was critical to save its sovereign power. Terrorists who proved dangerous not only to the government but also to the society were labelled as naxalites on the course and stringent measures were taken to suppress them. Terrorist organizations declared Jihad-the holy war claiming themselves to be the saviours of downtrodden while government tried both lenient and strict policies like offering power sharing and deploying special task forces to control them, respectively.

Of late, people who raised voice against the government policies or schemes were portrayed as anti nationals, where some cases even proved true. In a democratic country like India, where citizens have the right to speech are allowed to express their opinions in a formal way of protests, processions and debates. Among the genuine whistle blowers, certain paid elements got infused, under the mask of activism, trying to degrade the government and tends to create separatism among the people. This is where the activists got themselves labelled as Urban naxals.

Need of the hour:

Not all the people who are raising their voice against the government errors can be labelled as Urban naxals. At the same time, government has the tremendous responsibility to safeguard its prestige and the people of the country, is inclined to use its iron hands to curb the anti social evils. So the onus of responsibility lies on both the sides, where the activists should follow legal way of articulating their views because there are enough rules and laws to provide them their needed space to protest. How much the goal be noble but if the means are unethical then there is no point in achieving the goal.

Government has much more responsibility because they are equipped with high level intelligence and technical facilities using which they can easily trace out the anti social factions and destroy them at the very start. It should be bold enough to face the criticism and is the duty of the government to clarify the doubts of every single citizen. So valid arguments should be considered and activists should be given a secured platform to place their views because end of the day both the sides are missioned up to work for the welfare of the society.
WRITTERN BY SOCIAL AUTHOR: PRABHA KATHAMUTHU 

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