Hey you, Urban Naxal

Are you a lawyer or an academician journalist or activist If your answer is yes then the right wing has just put you on a list of possible Urban Naxals Last week the RSS held a seminar on how to identify Urban Naxals and cited a factfinding report from Bastar Intellectuals working as academicians lawyers media persons act as sympathisers of Maoist activities and spearhead the movement by making it appear like an ideological war against caste and classThe term Urban Naxal has been at the centre of a burning national debate ever since the state police slapped five wellknown human rights activists with the same label and incarcerated them on August 29 in connection with the Elgaar Parishad and the following BhimaKoregaon violence They had spoken out in support of five other activists who had been arrested in June in the same caseVaravara Rao is all grins after the Supreme Courts order for the activists release sending them home for house arrest insteadIf youre asking why being an activist or an intellectual would automatically mark one out as a potential enemy of the state several eminent thinkers and scholars such as Arundhati Roy see quote have alleged that this is merely a sinister ploy by the state to gag anyone with the capacity to speak out against the status quoA policeman stops lawyers in Bengaluru protesting against the ongoing confinement of activists by Pune police on Friday File PicsGovt is scared of anybody who speaks against themNandini Sundar Sociology professor at Delhi University explains the power of catchphrases like Urban NaxalWhat do you think of the phrase Urban NaxalIt is stupid If Maoists were to spread to urban areas they wouldnt do so through people like Gautam Navlakha Sudha Bharadwaj who have been engaged in open democratic politics all their lives All of them have called for peace talks at some point The term is similar to antinational or Tukde Tukde gang It has no relationship to the Naxalite movement Why is the rightwing branding academicians journalists lawyers and activists Urban Naxals Did such branding lead up to the recent arrests This government is scared of anybody w ho speaks out against them Its obvious the Maharashtra police feel emboldened to arrest whoever they want whenever they want Nobody involved in lynching is arrested Nobody involved in rightwing terrorism is banned Instead of catching the people who were actually involved in violence against Dalits at Bhima Koregaon the police are arresting all sorts of people without evidence The government says it supports Dalit rights but brands those who speak out as antinationalSo there are sarkari Dalits and there are other Dalits they want to repress If youre not among the good Dalits who support the Hindutva agenda you are labelled antinational How can we battle this propaganda warThats the worrying part These are easy catchphrases Urban Naxal libtard sickularist that the masses can be mobilised upon We have to focus on real issues repression poverty and agrarian crises We cannot continue with this war on people we need a solution that goes beyond the governments binaries involving conversation and imagination This government is taking away any space for a creative solution Maoists have to realise that the movement is not going anywhere and get ready to negotiate Its the governments responsibility to initiate peace talksDr P V Ramana and Dr Ajai SahniSecurity experts are scepticalThe concept of Left revolutionaries building a network in urban areas isnt new Ask Dr P V Ramana research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses IDSA who wrote research papers in the urban arm of Maoists in 2005 But as Ramana says its hardly accurate to call this a spreading threat Maoists have admitted in their documents that they have not been able to make as much of an impact in urban areas as they had wanted Although their presence cannot be denied at this moment the urban network is not so huge that we need to worry he saidExplained the urban Maoist setup Ramana said In certain cities they have urban cells and these have been detected from time to time These urban cells extend logistical support to the Maoists supplying clothing medicines food These centres have also been detected while procuring arms or getting them manufactured The cells further serve as a place of rest and recuperation of for Maoist cadres and have also been used in attempts to mobilise youth and industrial workers in the movement In such urban centres you also have intellectuals who may extend ideological and moral support to MaoistsBut he said it would be erroneous to put a blanket label of Urban Naxal on intellectuals or anyone who speaks about the causes they are fighting for An Urban Naxal according to me is someone in urban centres working actively to help the Naxal movement To call everyone an urban naxalite would be erroneous he addedThe problem is that the term Urban Naxal is vague If a prominent urban intellectual were to write an article about the Naxal causes it would grant them legitimacy said Ramana But unless they are taking up arms or are provoking violence writing an article is not a crime he addedRubbishing police theoryDr Ajai Sahni author and expert on counterterrorism was even more critical of the polices theory that the arrested human rights activists are Urban Naxals All 10 five were arrested in June and the rest last month have been sympathetic with the Left They may be a nuisance for the government but it is stupid to say that they were plotting the murder of the prime minister Even if that is the case you would need hard evidence Even the socalled letter they are talking about which allegedly mentions the activists names does not reconcile with how the Maoists communicateMaoists constantly emphasise on secrecy the word is mentioned 35 times in their manual None of their past correspondence refers to operatives or targets by name or mentions things like we want 400 rounds of ammunition They use code words such as pencils and markers added Sahni who serves as the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi and the South Asia Terrorism PortalIts a slurHe further said The purpose of such branding is to create panic to create an atmosphere of fear that terrorists are going to overrun the nation so the state can justify taking more power Urban Naxal is not a description its a term of abuse They know the branding will cause offence that it will polarise people against themHe said of the policestheory Very frankly these kind of fabrications simply expose the utter and complete ignorance of those building the case Even if you and I try to plan our first crime we will not write our names and the names of the targets in a letter and leave it in plain viewBut catching real criminals doesnt seem to be the purpose of this exercise They state know they will never get a conviction but for the next few years they can make their activists lives difficult with the constant threat of arrest and appearances in court The judicial process in this country is so difficult and it can be used to punish people Those people are not necessarily Left or Right just inconvenient to a section of authorityVivek AgnihotriWhose line is it anywayAlthough the concept is not new the term Urban Naxal is said to have been coined by filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri and Twitter aficionado in a few essays and his book released in May Urban Naxals The Making Of Buddha In A Traffic Jam In fact hours after the detention of the five activists last month Agnihotri took to Twitter asking young minds to draw up a list of people defending Urban Naxals never mind what the list was forThe move backfired though as scores of people responded to his tweet with the hashtag MeTooUrbanNaxal asking to be put on the list in a show of solidarity with the activistsExcerpts of middays interview with AgnihotriWho would you say qualifies as an Urban NaxalAll those who directly or indirectly work for the network of Naxals which is funded by terror organisations and has an objective of taking over the state of India not governments of BJP or Congress but the state which belongs to all of us with armed revolution This objective shall be met by capturing cities Cities will be captured by creating a state of civil war by creating chaos conflict and stopping the growth storyWhat do you think about claims from many that this is just a bogey just a way for the right wing to label and dismiss the Left and dissidentsWhat has Left or Right got to do with this We are talking terrorism We are talking Indias internal security We are talking about a sinister plan to destroy the state of India based on Maos ideology The same Mao who killed over 60 million innocent peopleAnd who are these many Some gossip mongers in social media Have you spoken to any security expert Have you spoken to any intelligence agency Only what they say mattersWhat do you think about MeTooUrbanNaxalThey are stupid people using the hashtag Most of them dont even know ABCD of naxalism They just want to look smart in the eyes of their followers Ask tribals the real victims of naxalism what they think Ask a mother whose 4monthold baby was hammered to death by these barbariansIts a tired old trick An ideological war against class and caste sounds like a very good idea to me To call everybody who thinks along these lines a Naxal is an excuse to militarise the State An excuse to pass undemocratic laws like the UAPA To criminalise uncomfortable conversations To deal with everything as a law and order problem And also to divert attention away from other disasters that are unfolding the fallout of demonetisation GST the Rafale scandalThe list is long and sad Arundhati Roy authoractivist speaking to middayThe Congress started the Urban Naxal terminology This is not a new term and it was even in the Congress regime used to create a threat perception Now this term has been appropriated by the BJP which has perfected this to an art form The only way to stop being misled by dangerous catchphrases is to be informed and educated about history Then the public will see that the biggest victories have come through nonviolent satyagrahisFiroze Mithiborwala activistCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates