Boycotting the Boycott: Masses, Maoists and Democracy

‘Indian democracy is one of the triumphs of the twentieth century, but a fragile one. The plant has to be nurtured or it can all too easily wither, with consequences that are sure to be grim.’

- Noam Chomsky

The first round of assembly election in 13 segments across six Maoist-hit districts of Jharkhand passed off peacefully on 25 November, setting the tone for the remaining four phases of polling in the state. The six districts recorded 61.92% voting, an increase by 3.07% and 5.89% over the Lok Sabha election 2014 and Assembly election 2009, respectively. In the LS election, the polling percentage was 57.8% and 56.03% in the last Assembly polls[1]. The response has been an encouraging one, especially when seen in backdrop of recent events in the so-called Maoist zone. The increasing support for democracy - an antithesis to ‘Maoism’ - needs to be invested in and utilised to the hilt - to steam off the Maoist movement.    

A democratic order hinges on election system. Other institutions are designed to deliver justice, dignity and welfare to otherwise un-empowered sections of the population, precisely because the election system endows these sections with opportunity to dismantle regimes. Elections make sure that regimes are compelled to care, even if grudgingly.

Incidentally, Maoists do not believe in the empowering functions of the election system, which is perhaps the only sustainable instrument of empowerment people have. Since dismantling India’s democracy is central to the Maoists’ doctrines and practices, in effect Maoists wish to deny people their only instrument of power. Such doctrines will begin to penetrate the popular imagination, in case the election system begins to lose its appeal.

Talking of ‘fragility’ that finds mention by Chomsky - it probably implies the weak underbelly of a democracy – a case wherein the electoral democracy is not able to ensure access of the people to the state power. Also, fragility manifests in rise of subversive players. Chomsky highlights following aspects vis-à-vis democracy[2]

• Weakening of state and creation  of empty space thereof;
• People’s inability to occupy that space;
• Emergence and ability of other elements to enter it.

In the neo liberal economic order, the electoral system has failed to generate a form of governance whose basic function is to construct and widen the scope of welfare institutions. As a result, the concept of welfare state serving interest of population is beginning to lose appeal, notwithstanding the continued faith of masses in the same. And despite the continuance of electoral system, it has been increasingly questionable whether the system, in fact empowers people. One can thus appreciate emergence of Maoists and other anti electoral doctrines of ‘direct control’ of the system of governance, of course in the name of people as claimed by the Maoists[3]. They have merely occupied the vacant space, wherein the masses have nothing to do with the publicised ideology. 

With ideological perceptions of their own - killing a handful of ‘class enemies’, clashing with the mining and steel companies, attacking police posts and jails, damaging vital infrastructures like roads, bridges, and railroads, blasting landmines to ‘wipe out the armed forces of the counter-revolutionary Indian state’ or establishing parallel governments of Janathan Sarkar in the ‘liberated zones’ of remote tribal pockets to encircle cities while being isolated from the majority of the people, are the extraordinary Maoist tactics to institute the People’s Democratic State. In the extremely complicated composition of a multi-national, multi-religious, and caste-divided Indian society, the Maoist proposition to shape the revolution by ‘seizure of political power through protracted People’s War’ sounds thrilling and romantic but is far away from the prevailing reality of contemporary India[4].

Misinterpreting Mao’s annihilation theory and embracing the people’s war theory of Lin Biao which the Chinese Communist Party discredited long ago, the Maoists turn into a real nuisance when they start forcing their erroneous doctrinarism on the masses to bear the brunt. Most of the victims of their so called ‘revolutionary tactics’ of crushing the heart of the enemy’s state machinery are always the poor and the ordinary. Their annihilation theory has also been extended toward rival Naxalite groups and members or supporters of mainstream Left parties. To fund their revolutionary operations, the Maoists extract levy from the landlords, the village rich and government contractors, get involved in racketeering of forest resources and force farmers to cultivate poppy crops to harvest opium that fetches lucrative price.

Answering the question as to why the CPI (Maoist) declines to fight elections and refuses to participate in the democratic process, Maoist leader Ganapathy remarked, “You think raising issues in the parliament is the democratic way whereas we believe that people are raising their issues in a democratic way through organized protests, supported by us”[5]. Terming parliamentary politics as a ‘dog-eat-dog world’ and the Parliament as a ‘talking shop’, Maoists blame all the mainstream Left parties like CPI (M), CPI and even the Naxalite CPI (ML) Liberation, for playing the ‘most dubious role in legitimizing the farce of parliamentary process’.

The political theory of the Maoists is more inclined towards Anarchism than Marxism. The Maoist viewpoint on shunning elections as a matter of strategy is surprisingly similar with the anarchist perspective. Anarchists believe, ‘utilising the state, standing in elections etc only prepares people to follow leaders – it does not encourage the self-activity, self-organisation, direct action and mass struggle required for a social revolution.’ Likewise, the Indian Maoists also believe, ‘participation in Parliament does not help in developing the subjective forces; rather it only drives people into legalism and divert them from intensifying revolutionary class struggle’.

Notwithstanding the above, the phenomenon of shrinking democratic space, though worrying, is not yet absolute; and is not yet a defining feature of our democratic fabric. The Maoists have to be replaced in this vacant space by effective governance i.e. bottom-upwards, wherein the locals at grassroots are stakeholders and decision makers. For example, when Gandhi talked of the ‘village’ as the ideal unit of social formation, he used the term as a metaphor for free local formations in cooperative engagement with each other. A democratic movement, supported by various players including the government, is warranted to establish such villages – ‘liberated zones’ – to counter the ones created by Maoists. This ideal has to be strived for, the seeds of which already exist in rural India, including the tribal society which has thrived as being ‘community centric’. We require replicating models of ‘Hiware Bazar(s)’[6] and ‘Mendha Lekha(s)’[7] villages that so far remain confined as islands of excellence. The ‘fragility’ of our democracy has to be diluted and ultimately removed, by enhancing social inclusion. The need is to go further than what already has been achieved; i.e. our model of free and fair elections which is in sharp contrast to openly manipulated elections in much of the developing world. 

The author is Senior Fellow at CLAWS. Views expressed are personal.