The 2nd world revolution from Nepal? Another threat to India? by Moin
Ansari
Another world revolution from Nepal threatens India?
The first world revolution came from Nepal around 600 BC. The first
one took over almost an entire Subcontinent but was reversed in the
land of its birth. This new one promises to transform the land of the
birthplace of Buddha, and the Naxalite belt from Mount Everest in
Nepal to Andhra Pradesh in India. The Nepalese however should be
keenly aware that Brahmanism destroyed Buddhism in South Asia, but
Buddhism does survive in China, Korea, Japan and South East Asia
It ought to be the ballot heard =92round the world. It ought to be
front page news. But chances are you haven=92t yet learned that the
Maoists of Nepal have apparently swept to power in an election that
international monitors acknowledge was free and fair. Gary Lupp Atimes
It=92s happening. A communist revolution, led by a party charting a
new path combining armed struggle and electoral politics, is sweeping
the Himalayas. World journalists, as though dizzied by the altitude,
seem unable to take up pen and re****t what they see. Maybe their
editors are withholding their copy, concerned lest they depict a
designated =93terrorist=94 group in a positive or merely rational
objective light. Gary Lupp Atimes
It seems that the ballot has helped the Maoists win the elections in
Nepal with an overwhelming majority. However this is not the first
time that a popularly voted political party which won the elections
was ket from taking power.
=93political power grows out of the barrel of a gun=94 Mao Ze Dung
It is a lesson learned from Chile=92s Allende and the ISF in Algeria.
Both popular movements won the elections but were prevented to take
power. There was much bloodshed, but that did not stop the opponents
from denying power to the popularly elected leaders.
Unless the Nepali Army (formerly the Nepal Royal Army and still led
by pro-monarchist and anti-communist generals), or external forces
move to prevent the Maoists=92 rise to power, Nepal will emerge as the
base-area of global revolution. That=92s something else the Maoists have
said.Gary Lupp Atimes
Maoist thoughts were born in China. Though not totally banished, bur
surely ignored in the land of its birth, Maoism now survives in Nepal
and about 100 Indian districts.
Nepal is the birthplace of Buddhism=96a movement that was banished
from its birthplace and now survives in China, Korea and South East
Asia. In Nepal and India the religion has been appropriated by
Brhamanism and Hinduism.
Red Star over Nepal: A ballot heard around the world
THE MAOIST/NAXALITES IN INDIA GET SUCCOR FROM THE VICTORY OF THE
NEPALESE MAOISTS
Subramaniam said the Centre was in full agreement with Chhattisgarh in
countering the naxal menace. All Naxal do***ents collected from the
affected areas suggested that their leader****p has exhorted the cadre
to annihilate all resistance to their undergound movement, he said.
=93Situation is of considerable concern both to the Centre and state.
Policemen are not ready to step into the forests. Though 17,000 posts
are sanctioned for anti-naxal force, the state government is finding
it very difficult to fill them
The Maoists of India (in particular, the Communist Party of
India [Maoist]) continue their People=92s War, creating the red corridor
that extends from Andra Pradesh up to the Nepali border. They have
expressed doubts about the Nepali comrades=92 strategy of participation
in elections, and emphasized their dedication to Mao=92s dictum that
=93political power grows out of the barrel of the gun.=94 But they will
take heart in the Nepali Maoists=92 victory.Gary Lupp Atimes
IN THE DHAULI FOREST, India (AP) - After the paved roads have ended
and the dirt roads have crumbled into winding footpaths, after the
last power line has vanished into the forest behind you, a tall, red
monument suddenly appears at the edge of a clearing.
It=92s 25 feet high and topped by a hammer and sickle, honoring a fallen
warrior. White letters scroll across the base: =93From the blood of a
martyr, new generations will bloom like flowers.=94
The monument is a memorial but also a signpost, a warning that you are
entering a =93Liberated Zone=94 _ a place where Mao is alive and Marx is
revered, where an army of leftist guerrillas known as the Naxalites
control a shadow state amid the dense forests, isolated villages and
shattering poverty of central India. Here, the Indian government is
just a distant, hated idea.
=93The capitalists and other exploiters of the m***** feel increasingly
vulnerable. And they should,=94 said a 33-year-old man known only as
Ramu, a regional commander of the Naxalites=92 People=92s Liberation
Guerrilla Army. He cradled an assault rifle as he sat on the dirt
floor of a small farmhouse, tem****ary base for two dozen fighters set
amid the forests of Chhattisgarh state. =93For them, the danger is
rising.=94
Initially formed in 1967, the Maoist army has taken root over the past
decade in places left behind =85 Outsiders rarely see their strongholds,
but a team from The Associated Press was invited last month into a
region they control.
=2E.the Naxalites _ officially called the Communist Party of India
(Maoist) _ have grown larger, feeding off the anger of the country=92s
poor. There are now 10,000-15,000 fighters in an archipelago of rebel
territory scattered across nearly half of the country=92s 28 states,
security officials say.
For years, the government here paid little attention. That began
changing two years ago. Today, Chhattisgarh state backs an anti-Naxal
militia called the Salwa Judum. And in 2006, India=92s prime minister
called the Naxalites the single largest threat to the country
Over the past two years, nearly 2,000 people _ police, militants and
civilians caught in the middle _ have been killed in Naxalite
violence. In March, 55 policemen and government-backed militiamen were
killed when up to 500 Naxalites descended on an isolated Chhattisgarh
police station.
The rebel patchwork reaches from deep inside India to the border with
Nepal, where the Naxalites are thought to have informal ties to the
Maoists .. the Katmandu government.
The Maoist goal in India is nothing less than complete takeover.
=93There is only one solution to India=92s problems: Naxalism,=94 said
Ramu.=
The movement takes its name from Naxalbari, a village outside Calcutta
where the revolt began in 1967. Inspired by Mao Zedong, founding
father of the Chinese communist regime, they believe an army of
peasants can one day overthrow the government. The Naxals are
strongest in states such as Chhattisgarh that have large populations
of =93tribals,=94 the indigenous people at the bottom of India=92s rigid
social order.
More than ever, their once-marginal revolt seems like outright war,
particularly in the rebel strongholds of rural Chhattisgarh.
India deals with other insurgencies, from Kashmiri separatists to a
spectrum of ethnic militant groups in its remote northeast. But the
Naxalites have proven different. They have sup****t not just among the
poorest or a single ethnic group, and have survived for forty years.
In places like the Dhauli forest, a tangle of vegetation unmarked on
most maps _ 500 miles from Bangalore, 450 miles from Calcutta and 600
miles from New Delhi _ the Naxalites are more than surviving. They are
winning.
=93I won=92t lie to you. We=92re on the defensive here,=94 said a top
Chhattisgarh police official, speaking on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to speak to the media. =93We have the main
roads, but they have the hills and the small roads.=94
Here, government officials hold little power. Through much of the
countryside, nervous policemen barricade themselves at night inside
stations ringed by barbed wire. Politicians dismiss the Naxalites as
criminals, but those politicians go nowhere without armies of
bodyguards.
Victory, the Naxals insist, is coming.
=93We don=92t have the weapons. We don=92t have the army,=94 said a young
fighter named Soni. =93But slowly, slowly, sometime in the future, we
will succeed.=94
Most of the Naxalites=92 guns are old or handmade. Their land mines are
often made from pressure cookers, and bullets are doled out carefully.
Their sup****t in many villages has more to do with fear than genuine
belief.
Every day or so, another policeman is killed. Every few months,
another politician faces an assassination attempt _ sometimes
successful, sometimes not.
Inside their self-proclaimed Liberated Zones, the Naxals are,
effectively, the government. They collect taxes, control movement, and
trade in valuable hardwoods from the ever-thinning jungles. They
refuse entry not only to the government but also aid organizations,
arguing they are tools of an unjust state.
There is an informal Naxal bank, Naxal schools and Naxal courts to
settle village disputes and try suspected informants. For those found
guilty of helping police, the punishment is public beheading.
=93If they kill us, we also have to kill,=94 Ramu said. =93Innocent people
will get hurt in the process. But what can we do?=94
As for the long history of failed communist states, he was
unconcerned: =93We will learn from their mistakes.=94
Outside, a thunderstorm shook the sky, and rain pelted the straw roof.
Inside, a half-dozen fighters sat in the darkness of the mud house,
listening silently as Ramu spoke. One carried an AK-47 assault rifle,
but the rest were armed with ancient British-made Enfield rifles, some
dating to the 1940s, or homemade single-shot shotguns and rifles.
Few appeared to know much about the teachings of Marx or Mao, though
both men were spoken of reverently. Some fighters believed Mao, who
died in 1976, remains China=92s leader. Instead, their beliefs are
simple: The revolution will bring an idyllic jungle paradise for the
tribals.
=93One day we will get it back,=94 said Soni, the fighter, a tribal who
spends much of her time in villages performing songs about their
struggle. =93The forest is ours.=94
For now, until paradise comes, people live in mud homes on tiny farms.
They grow rice and tobacco and harvest what they can from the forests.
Better-off families have $12 shortwave radios or $45 Atlas bicycles.
In a village on the fringes of Naxalite territory, a teenager named
Meetu Ram _ he thinks he=92s about 17 _ talked about his life one recent
evening. His family, by local standards, does well: They have a well-
kept compound with three one-room buildings and a half-dozen cows.
Still, Ram has never been to a doctor, and has not even heard of
telephones. Asked to name India=92s prime minister, he shrugged.
Government officials =93never come here,=94 he said in Gondi, the area=92s
main tribal language. =93So we don=92t know who these government people
are, and who they aren=92t.=94
It is in places like this where the Naxalites=92 appeal is most
resonant.
India =85has vast _ and often growing _ rural poverty. In Chhattisgarh,
that has been magnified by conflicts over everything from forest
conservation to mining rights, with tribals often expelled from their
jungle homes.
=93The tribals make a good guerrilla base,=94 said Meghnad Desai, a
scholar at the London School of Economics. They =93are really poor, and
have a genuine feeling of being taken advantage of =85 The Naxalites are
exploiting that.=94
Much of Ramu=92s time is spent spreading the rebel message. On a recent
afternoon, he summoned hundreds of villagers to a rally to decry the
Salwa Judum.
While leaders of the government-sup****ted Salwa Judum insist they are
protecting villagers from Naxalite violence _ they have gathered some
50,000 tribals into dingy, guarded camps _ rights groups accuse them
of widespread abuses.
=93The Salwa Judum is killing people!=94 Ramu shouted at the villagers.
=93We are protecting the rights of the people!=94
Many, though, don=92t see heroes on either side.
Sanjana Bhaskar, 18, has spent more than a year in a Salwa Judum camp.
She hates the camp. =93There is nothing here,=94 she said, gesturing to
the one-road expanse. =93But where else can we go?=94
The other Indian insurgency in the 7 Northeast sisters.
http://rupeenews.com/2008/04/17/the-2nd-world-revolution-from-nepal-another-=
threat-to-india/
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