The Hindu : National / Elections 2004 : New naxalite strategy may spell trouble for BJP

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Friday, Apr 30, 2004

National

National - Elections 2004

New naxalite strategy may spell trouble for BJP

In the past, the scrupulous enforcement of the poll boycott indirectly benefited the BJP; this time, those who were scared away from the polling booths are likely to vote for the Congress or the Left.

Sandeep Dikshit

RANCHI

Though the police and the administration in the extremist-hit districts of Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh are congratulating themselves for a relatively peaceful poll, the reason for fewer instances of killing of polling personnel and assaults on voters could lie in the changed line of the CPI (ML) People's War and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC).

If claims of the extremists are to be believed, the new approach may spell trouble for the Bharatiya Janata Party. In the previous three elections, the BJP and its allies benefited from rigorous enforcement of the poll boycott. The MCC and PW men would beat up or even murder those who voted.

This time, the waning of instances of bloodletting, the hallmark of the extreme Left groups, poses several queries. Are the PW and the MCC softening in their attitude to the polls? Is it a precursor to their participation in the election process in the future? And the most important of them all: why did they do this?

"The fact that they have not punished people for voting marks the first major change in strategy since this movement gained ground in the 1980s," says `sympathiser' Nand Lal Singh. Till a year ago, the PW and the MCC treated all political parties equally. Some of their men were rumoured to have taken money to either enforce poll boycott or direct their sympathisers to vote for a particular political party. Scrupulous enforcement of poll boycott in the past went in the BJP's favour as the core supporters of the PW and MCC — the poorest of the poor — who would have voted for the Congress or the Left did not enter the polling booths. The money-for-votes approach tended to favour moneyed candidates, as was generally the case in Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. At the local level, they invited `outsiders' from the mainstream and the independent Left to address meetings of their mass organisations and did not mind their criticism of instances of brutality by MCC cadres.

But the genocide in Gujarat and the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh's inroads in the tribal areas prompted them to identify the RSS and the BJP as the bigger enemy. They began to be influenced by their ideological fellow travellers in other countries. The PW and the MCC gained membership of international Maoist organisations such as the Communist Revolutionary International Movement (CoRIM) and the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties in South Asia (CCOMPSA). They also began interacting regularly with other Maoist parties, especially from Nepal, Peru and the Philippines. In fact, the MCC adopted the suffix "I" after gaining international membership to distinguish itself in the international arena.

The influence of international movements ended their poaching on each other's bases. The MCC went to the foothills of Bihar and Jharkhand from the plains while the PW descended from the hills to the plains in Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The clashes in the area of their operations led to more cadres than political opponents being killed. Today the military wings of both organisations operate in tandem. This was demonstrated in the simultaneous attack in February on 10 police stations in Orissa's Koraput district. "Their banners are dissimilar but otherwise they are close to a merger," says Mr. Nand Lal Singh. They differ on the definition of a Communist party. While the MCC feels that conditions are not yet ripe to form a party, the CPI (ML) PW, as the name suggests, already has a well-defined structure and constitution.

The difference in the organisational ethos also explains the difference in their style of operations. The MCC (I) is more loosely organised at the central level and its area commanders at some places are a law unto themselves. Its sympathisers acknowledge their brutality in dealing with dissent in their area of operations but claim the organisation is reforming itself. They also point out that despite fewer incidents of violence, boycott of the elections remains the bedrock of their political philosophy.

Both organisations put their faith in a "militant upsurge" rather than giving votes to the "weak-kneed" Congress and the social democrats to beat back the "Hindu fascist offensive."

On a practical level, the PW and the MCC have realised that because of the RSS' attempt to enter their areas of operations, the BJP Governments have become single-minded in combating militancy through the police. But the shadowy nature of their operations and their distaste for civil society's norms means that only the voting pattern on May 13 will verify the genuineness of the claims of their sympathisers.

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