Opinion Maoists,Naxalites or Terrorists?
The media seems confused about the heartland movement
The media seems confused about the heartland movement
While the rest of the mediawallahs were reading dark and nebulous meanings into the exit of Aruna Roy from the National Advisory Council (NAC),Nidhi Razdan of NDTV took an interview with Roy as an opportunity to shed some light,by simply running down a checklist of all the old charges against the NAC. That interview was convincing evidence that Roy has been working in the wrong professions. Tired of listening to stirring equivocators and grandstanders,the electorate is ready for someone who is likely to call a glass of water a glass of water,without vapid speculations on whether it is half-empty,half-full or brimming over with snake oil.
Meanwhile,Jairam Ramesh suffered an unusual paroxysm of free speech when he referred to Maoists as terrorists,but fortunately Tribal Affairs Minister KC Deo was at hand with NDTV to ask,with pacific calm,how the new classification helped. Indeed,invoking terrorism often confuses the issue. A gruesome killing in London was immediately given a terrorism slant by the UK media,perhaps on the grounds that David Cameron had reacted with a never buckle to terrorism speech and the inquiry was being led by the Counter Terrorism Command of the Metropolitan Police. However,the case failed the most basic test of terrorism. A military man was targeted while civilians who were equally vulnerable were not attacked. Governments draw a distinction with terrorists by pointing out that unlike the latter,they do not wilfully harm civilians. Actually,they do,but thats a different story.
By terrorist,perhaps Ramesh meant illegitimate. The various Maoist movements across the heartland do seem to lack the legitimacy that is conferred by ideology. But further down that route is the strange and terribly simple idyll presently populated by Praveen Swami. An incredible tweet from him: The cause of Maoist violence are violent Maoists. Not just dreadful thinking,but dreadful grammar too.
Sorry,didnt mean to get personal. But one does find a generational divide between the reporting of the original Naxalite rising and its extended presence in Bihar,and that of the present movements. The terms Naxalite and Maoist are interchanged indiscriminately and reporters and editors do not seem to know that the far left consists of multiple movements with different beliefs and strategies. Some even find electoral politics legitimate.
Partly,the Maoists themselves are to blame for illiterate coverage. In the absence of a well-argued ideology,a militant movement is reduced to a tactical project fit for warlords. You dont care to understand it because it looks like there is nothing to understand,and uncaring reporting follows. In fact,there is media attention only after an attack. Otherwise,we are very happy to follow the latest scams on the telly.
Two things appear to have changed in the last four decades. The original rising had attracted the children of the best homes in what are still the Maoist-dense regions. In West Bengal,some were killed during the movement while many more were bailed out by their families. Of them,some went on to become influential mediapersons,cultural figures,teachers and thinkers. Their movement generated a huge volume of publicly available literature.
The present movements clubbed loosely under the heads of Naxalite and Maoist do not seem to have a literature capable of explaining their position or winning hearts and minds. Naturally,urban elites are cold to them. And so are the media,which cannot place these movements in any political context,but must present them in the format of war reporting. Which means that they have nothing much to say in peacetime.
pratik.kanjilal@expressindia.com
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