Maoists' Urban Network

In August 2008, there was a severe flood in Bihar. It was said that Nepal's Kusha Dam came due to the breakdown. This was the year when I was first introduced to the term Urban Naxal. Flood waters had receded in Bihar. One evening I received a call from Dinesh Kumar Mishra, the convenor of the 'Flood Liberation Campaign'. Sent the ticket, have to come to Patna. As per his order, I reached Patna.

It was a five-day journey with a dozen journalists from the country to understand the tragedy of Bihar floods. The fact finding team included several filmmakers and journalists such as Comrade Sankar Roy from Kolkata, Rakesh Bhatt and Himanshu Upadhyay from Delhi, Abhijeet Ghodpade from Pune, Nitin from Mumbai.

In this journey, a person entered our car as soon as he entered the border of Nepal. He was a representative of Nepal among us and a guide throughout the journey. During the journey, he introduced himself that he is a Maoist. In those days, the Prime Minister of Nepal was Maoist leader Pushp Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda.

The conversation with him lasted long. During this time, there was an opportunity to understand Maoism and Maoists. The Maoist leader said that the Maoist organization has a three-tier system. Maoist army men live in the forest. Practice there and plan an attack. Bringing money for them and providing information to the people providing funds in connection with the preparation is done by a small group. The group takes the news of the forest to the city and the news of the city to the forest.

He said this with great enthusiasm that- "Whenever we wave our flag at the Red Fort of Delhi, after that you will be shocked to see who and how many people are with us?"

One thing of that Maoist is remembered repeatedly after arrests in the country in the name of Urban Naxalites, "You will be shocked". In fact, the types of names that have came out are shocking. And frankly, they are not.

Those who are attentive about the events happening around them will not be surprised to hear those names at all because the people who have been arrested have a long history of connection with the Naxalites-Maoists.

Another point in my question was made by that Maoist leader, which seems to be important here. The question was, why are China helping you with weapons? Are you fulfilling China's purpose in India?

That Maoist admitted that he used China's weapons, but he said that he does not buy weapons from the government. The Chinese weapon they have is illegal and they buy that weapon.

My next question was- "Where does so much money come from to buy arms? He smiled, giving a brief answer - "From Delhi".

This was my first introduction to Maoism's metropolitan relationship. This meant that some people were present in Delhi who were not only providing funds to the Maoists of Nepal while sitting in the capital, but they also interfered in the ongoing Maoist activities in the jungles of Nepal.

This got more strength in Bastar, meeting the Congress leader of Chhattisgarh who had planned to root out the Naxalites-Maoists. He was Mahendra Karma.

Salwa Judum was also being successful, but neither Salwa Judum nor Mahendra Karma were able to achieve their objective due to the activation of the urban network of Naxalites-Maoists. The court banned Salwa Judum and Mahendra Karma was riddled with bullets by the Maoists.

Karma had said, "If there were so many flaws in the movement, then why were we in the top leadership, not a single complaint, not a single FIR came against me?"

The urban network of Naxalites became very active at the time of Salwa Judum. If the Manmohan Singh government had shown its strong will at that time, today this discussion would not have arisen in the entire country regarding the urban network. The names of Megha Patkar, Vinayak Sen, Soni Sodhi etc. were discussed at that time.

The late Mahendra Karma had said, "The strength of the Naxalites is not in the gun but in their networking. This era is of networking. The leader whose networking is as good as the leader. Is a successful leader. His network was becoming weaker through Salwa Judum. The man from his network was leaving them and coming into the mainstream. We could kill them only by weakening their network. During that time, the Urban Naxalite journalists raised the media in the same way as is happening in entire Bastar. And they succeeded."

As soon as the government takes any action regarding Naxalites, there is a large section in Delhi which becomes active. From Constituency Club to Jantar Mantar, the movement increases. There are many faces who express their sympathy for Maoists. Many times even express it on public forums.

Regarding news related to Naxalites-Maoists, from Arundhati Roy and Rahul Pandit to local journalists will agree that the news of Bastar does not travel from Bastar to Raipur like usual news. The news of Bastar first becomes the news of an international-national newspaper-radio. Then his followup is published in Raipur. Then finally the news is read in the Jagdalpur edition.

Is it possible without a wire that connects the Naxalites sitting in the metropolis to the Naxalites in the forest? It is not just about the wire, but also about the stake. Mr. Kalluri, former IG of Bastar explains this issue in detail.

SRP Kalluri states that - “Naxalites recover Rs 1100 crore annually from Bastar. This money is not available to those Maoists who are battling typhoon and malaria in the forest with weapons. This money reaches the urban network of Naxalites."

"This is a small group that exists in Bastar in the name of NGO and Human Rights, in the name of a scholar or researcher, that we are working there. The job of this urban network is to fight in court on the issues of Naxalites there."

Kalluri also says - "Urban Naxalites are very few but powerful. They have managed to create an image of Bastar all over the world on the basis of their lies. Therefore, instead of looking at Bastar from the perspective of these urban Naxalites, I suggest everyone to come to Bastar."

Naxalite-Maoists say that those people fight for the rights of the tribal society, whereas the reality is that 99% of the tribes in Bastar were murdered by Naxalites. With regard to the Naxalites of Bastar, it is necessary to know that the Naxalites there are not really Naxalites. They are all exploited. They are exploited by Naxalites in Hyderabad and Maharashtra.

The Naxalites of Bastar who are standing in the forest carrying weapons have been kept to do labor and to take CRPF bullet. They do not get any share in Bastar's recovery of 1100 crores as the bulk of that money goes to the urban network of Naxalites.

This article is originally written by Ashish kumar Anshu in Hindi. This translation work is done by The Narrative.