The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Maoists come into focus during election time News Analysis

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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Maoists come into focus during election time News Analysis

All political parties, save the Congress, go all out to woo them, writes K. Srinivas Reddy

HYDERABAD: It’s a peculiar situation indeed in Andhra Pradesh now.

Everyone would accept that the Maoists no more call the shots, save for a few mandals on the State borders and yet political parties, except the ruling Congress, go all out to woo them.

First to change the stand was the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), when its president N. Chandrababu Naidu announced that his party’s stand on Maoist issue is now changed.

The TDP would now consider the issue as a socio-economic problem and not merely a law and order one.

Friendly overtures

And now comes the Praja Rajyam (PR) party announcement that it is not averse to consider lifting of the ban on Maoists and even consider holding negotiations with them, if it came to power.

Barely a fortnight ago PR president K. Chiranjeevi had disapproved of the Maoist ideology and said the ballot should be preferred to a bullet in the democratic polity.

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) too had made friendly overtures towards the Maoists on many occasions. Irrespective of the political parties’ views on the issue, fact is that the Maoists in Andhra Pradesh have lost their capability to take up any organisational activity, while their presence is felt only because of the violence quotient.

Dwindled movement

That would mean that the Maoists may not be in a position to influence any section of the society in general which could reap electoral benefits for any political party.

Over a period of time, the Maoist movement dwindled in Andhra Pradesh for two reasons. If the overall development due to governmental interventions had brought about a societal change, the other most crucial reason is the societal rejection of the violence practised by the Maoist cadres.

That there has been development on social, economic and political fronts during last two decades was conceded by the Maoists in their study titled ‘Social Investigation in North Telangana’. It was because of this development factor, naxalites could not succeed in building a mass movement on people’s issues.

As a result, they relied heavily on use of violence which was resented by every section of society.

Tactic

Interestingly, the Congress too played the same game of wooing them before it wrested power from the Telugu Desam in 2004. It had later engaged the Maoists in talks soon after taking over the reins of power. But once the talks ended in mutual recrimination, it cracked down on the Maoists. That the Maoists had used the ‘talks’ only as a tactic while not compromising on their goal of capturing political power through Protracted People’s War (PPW) is an established fact now.

In fact, even before the talks process had commenced in 2004, the Maoist Central Committee (CC) and the Polit Bureau (PB) had discussed at length on when to pull out of the talks.

A Maoist document titled ‘United CC resolution on peace talks…’ states that the Maoist party had decided not to enter into talks in any other State, except Andhra Pradesh.

Minutes

The minutes of a Polit Bureau meeting held from September 24, 2004 documents the arguments of several top leaders on the appropriate time of breaking away from talks.

The minutes record Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Parimal as saying that the Government would certainly raise the issue of armed struggle and suggests that it should be a ‘non-negotiable issue’. He was sure that the Government would harp on this issue and “We need to throw blame on government and withdraw (from talks)”. He also talks on the need to “violate the ceasefire in a planned way. If they come inside our area or form informers…we should check them. But as far as possible we should mobilise people for these talks.” Ganapathy, secretary of the Maoists, is also recorded as saying that the MCC leaders were of the opinion that ‘we should come out of the talks at the earliest’.

And now there is an assertion that the PRP would not mind holding talks with the naxalites, if they came forward.

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