The Maoist Spread

Now that the CPI (Maoist) and the Manipur-based Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF), which is the political wing of the banned People’s Liberation Army (PLA), have signed a declaration for a joint struggle against the ‘‘capitalist regime’’ in the country, the Northeast will figure high in the Maoist agenda — clearly a security nightmare. The heady mix of indigenous militancy in the Northeast, which at times transforms to sheer terrorism, and Maoism exported from the Red Corridor is a portentous development, given that non-state actors are bound more by the inspiration to avenge their perceived common enemy — the state — than by any ideology. When that inspiration informs their ‘revolution’, the means do not matter, which in other words means they will not hesitate to cross the thin line that distinguishes insurgency from terrorism. In fact, the Maoists operating in central India have acted more like a terror group in recent times, and experts in the field opine that Maoism is not just doctrinaire but, more importantly, a lucrative business too — just as criminal terrorism is. The joint declaration signed by the CPI (Maoists) and RPF says ‘‘both sides will extend full moral and political support to each other in the liberation struggle to overthrow the common enemy, the reactionary and oppressive regime’’. The Manipuri outfit’s department of communication and publicity said that the joint declaration ‘‘is a step to strengthen both the CPI (Maoist) and the RPF for millions of exploited people’’. Given the changing colours of militancy which has non-state actors consolidate their position to concretize their business ventures based on extortion and arms and narcotics trade, the ‘‘millions of exploited people’’ will hardly matter except for the cause of sloganeering and romanticism. What will count is strategic partnership and exchange of terror expertise. In the instant case, the Maoists need a wider field to operate — either by appealing to organizations like the Asom-based All Adivasi National Liberation Army (AANLA) which is reported to have discovered its guide in the Maoist brigade, or by rediscovering friends like PLA which was initially based on Maoism and whose founder N Bisheswar Singh, along with 16 Manipuri rebels, got guerrilla warfare training in China before returning to Manipur in 1976 to form the PLA on September 25, 1978. While the security forces and intelligence agencies will now have a much tougher job to handle in this highly strategic part of the country, what cannot be overlooked is the China factor. Maoism is China’s violent export to the world where poverty is the recurring theme of socio-economic dialogue but where the same poverty is politicized and perpetuated to sustain nasty politics and business-driven militancy. China, an authoritarian state, is free of that burden, but its export of violent ideology has ragged the souls of countries like India and Nepal. Let it then be said here that if the network of Maoists and Northeast-based militant outfits were to seek Chinese help, moral or material or both, China would have reasons to behave like an ideological friend to them in need because instabilities in the Northeast are what will suit that country and its expansionist designs — as much as they come to the advantage of Bangladesh and the ISI’s blueprint of a greater Islamic state. Therefore, now is the time for a lateral security thinking, and China ought to figure prominently in the security discourse pertaining to the Northeast — after all, Beijing still lays claim on the whole of Arunachal Pradesh, not just Tawang.

Chomsky’s Take Noam Chomsky, once voted as the world’s most influential public intellectual and one of the most forceful critics of the US foreign policy, has told the German news magazine Der Spiegel that the US essentially has only one party — business party — and that all that is going on between Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain is nothing but ‘‘rhetoric’’. Chomsky says their differences are not ‘‘fundamental’’ and ‘‘nobody should have any illusions’’ about that fact of American life. On Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential runner, and the hype about her charm and womanhood, Chomsky is sarcastic enough: ‘‘This Sarah Palin phenomenon is very curious. I think somebody watching us from Mars, they would think the country has gone insane’’. He says the whole US election campaign is not being carried on ‘‘issues’’, but on sheer rhetoric — which intellectual giants as Chomsky will obviously deride. But what is most interesting is that Chomsky should bare the most disconcerting truth about the US: that it was ‘‘founded by religious fanatics’’ and that ‘‘if you pretend to be a religious fanatic, you can pick up a third of the vote right away’’. We for one, however, know that is the US reality — beyond its forceful secular pretence.

source: sentinel assam