Ex-Army captain calls for destroying network of urban Maoists

Former Indian Army Captain and an expert on Maoism Smita Gaikwad

Delivering a thought-provoking lecture on “Challenges of Urban Naxalism” here on Saturday at Suresh Bhat Auditorium, she said that the Maoists were ranked at par with the deadly terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda and Taliban.

She said that the Maoists did not allow any development in remote areas of Bastar in Chhattisgarh and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra and to ensure development a three-pronged strategy of encounter, development and surrender should be implemented in these areas, she advocated.

Captain Smita Gaikwad who is also associated with Forum for Integrated National Security (FINS) in Mumbai, stated that Urban Naxalism was not an imaginary concept. It has been in existence over the years. From the CPI (Maoist) leader Anuradha Ghandy in 1980s to Prof G N Saibaba all Maoist think tanks have worked extensively in cities as an urban front of the Maoists who operated from the Jungles.

These urban Naxals work through various names and organisations like Kabir Kala Manch, Revolutionary Democratic Front, Indian Association of People’s Lawyers, Elgar Parishad and so on. Their primary targets are Dalits, women, and other oppressed classes.

The FINS think tank also highlighted the role of Delhi University’s Prof G N Saibaba in spreading this ideology in Delhi. After his arrest his job was entrusted to Rona Wilson but he was also arrested recently in the Bhima – Koregaon violence along with IAPL’s advocate Surendra Gadling and Prof Shoma Sen of Nagpur University.

She described urban naxalism as fourth generation warfare wherein the enemy was invisible and the battle was for the control of civil society through controlling hearts and minds of the people. Maoists concentrate on urban areas to provide medical aid to their comrades, generate overseas contacts, develop own intelligence network grab media attention and create discontent against the government.

Making a power-point presentation she showed many photographs of ex-maoists who parted ways with the violent ideology due to injustice heaped on them and their family members.

In current scenario, Capt Gaikwad said, urban Maoists are trying to hijack Ambedkarite movements and Bhima-Koregaon incident is the latest example of this. Unemployed youth, students, tribals and project-affected persons are their main targets in urban areas to strengthen their party ideology. Hence, as a citizen of this country, every individual should be aware of their false propaganda, she said.