The Naxal movement is losing support from the very people who first started it college students

With the arrest of Kobad Ghandy, the breed of educated Naxalites seems to have come to an end.

Ghandy, a London educated CA, joins the ranks of Arun Ferreira, who was arrested in 2007 for his Naxal links. Ferreira was a BSc graduate from St Xavier's, and an activeu00a0 social worker through college (see box).

Thus, the Naxal movement that was born in college canteens, is slowly losing steam among the educated youth.

Fresh blood needed

A general secretary of a state committee had said in a get-together in 2000 at Dadar that the movement needed more educated people.

Said B D Ram, DGP, Jharkhand, "Yes, it is indeed true that the Naxalite movement is not attracting the educated.

ILLUSTRATION/SAMEER PAWAR

The last college-educated entrants to the movement were between 1980 and 1990, but it petered out after that. The educated Naxals are now old. Few have died and some are in jail."

A police officer from Chattisgarh, who has been a part of the team of Anti-Naxal movement, said, "Many youths joined the organisation in 1985, when there was a meeting of the All Indian Revolution Student Fede-ration.
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Over 25,000 college students in Hyderabad joined up all educated."

According to a cop from Anti-Naxalite operation team, there are around 12,000 to 15,000 thousand armed Naxalites in India, while another 20,000 are not armed.

Among them, just eight per cent are educated, 30 per cent are literate, while the rest are illiterate.

A Naxal, a MA in Geography, who had joined the organisation in 1979 and quit in 2007 said, "Till the 1990s, there were educated Naxals, but there was a lot of corruption thereafter.

I felt that the cause of the Naxal movement, to fight for the downtrodden has been fulfilled and the organisation is of no help to the common man any more."

Last Of The Educated
Like Ghandy, these men, who are all wanted by the police, belong to the now-rare breed of educated Naxals

Milind Teltumde (52)
Post: Maharastra state secretary
Resident: Chandrapur
Qualification: IT engineer from Andhra university.
He used to work as a technical engineer at the coalmines in Chandrapur. He joined the Naxals in 1985 and was as a part time worker. He went underground in 1992.
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Anjala Sontakke (in her 50s)
Post: Mumbai area committee secretary
Resident: Chandrapur
Qualification: MA and a teaching course
She was a college lecturer in Chandrapur and joined the Naxals in the 90s.
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Mupalla Laxmanrao Ganpathy (65)
Post: General secretary
Resident: Karimnagar in Andhra Pradesh
Qualification: MA
He was a known college lecturer in Hyderabad College for years. He had joined the organisation in 1980 and holds one of the top posts. He went underground in 1992. His brother is also a graduate and a Naxalite.
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Kodeshwar Rao alias Ramji alias Kishan (54)
Post: General secretary
Education: M Tech
Resident: West Bengal
He is said to be one of the richest Naxals. He is from the Lavdhar area of West Bengal where his family owns over 100 acres of land and a number of factories and stores. His brother Venu Gopal Rao, a graduate, is also a Naxalite. He operates in Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Kadri Satyanarayan Reddy alias Gopanath alias Kosau00a0(58)
Post: General secretaryu00a0
Qualification: Electrical engineer from ITI in Andhra Pradesh.
He joined the Naxals in 1977 and is among the senior most leaders.

About Arun Ferreira

Arun Ferreira, a Bandra resident, was arrested on charges of being the chief of communication and propaganda of the ultra Left wing of the Naxals.
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He, along with three others Murali alias Ashok Satya Reddy, Naresh Bansod and Dhanendra Bhurle were arrested in May 2007, and are currently lodged in Nagpur Central jail.

He is a graduate from St Xavier's College, Mumbai. His first brush with social activities came in the '90s after the infamous Elphinstone College rape case (a student was raped by her classmates during a garba festival.

The girl's father withdrew the complaint bowing to pressure). Ferreira led the protests launched by a students' union Vidyarthi Pragati Sanghatana.

Who is Kobad Ghandy?

Kobad Ghandy grew up in Mumbai in an upper middle class Parsi family. The Doon School and London-educated chartered accountant joined the Maoist movement in the 1970s.

He began his revolutionary career in the state's Gadhchiroli district.

The 63-year-old leader was in charge of the South Western Regional Bureau coordinating the naxalite activity in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra.