Maoist ideologues more dangerous than Naxals, UPA regime had told SC

NEWDELHI: Maoist ideologues are more dangerous than armed Naxals, the previous Upa-led regime had declared before the Supreme Court five years ago.

The Union home ministry made the assertion in an affidavit filed in response to a public interest litigation seeking a direction to the then government and nine Maoist-affected states to formulate a policy to deal with Left-wing Extremism (LWE).

The affidavit gives a peek into the previous UPA regime’s line of thinking on these “ideologues” and its resolve to act against them.

The Narendra Modi-led NDA government appears to be following the same line, an instance of which was evident in the crackdown by Pune police on five academics and human rights activists suspected to be Maoist ideologues earlier this week.

“The ideologues and supporters of the CPI (Maoist) party in cities and towns have undertaken a concerted and systematic propaganda against the State to project the State in poor light and also malign it through disinformation,” the affidavit said.

“In fact, it is these ideologues who have kept the Maoist movement alive and are in many ways more dangerous than the cadres of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (the armed Maoist cadres),” it added.

According to the affidavit, as a strategy, the CPI (Maoist) targeted the urban population through its “mass organisations”, otherwise known as “front organisations”.

“The ‘mass organisations’, mostly operating under the garb of human rights NGOS, are organically linked to the CPI (Maoist) party but maintain separate identities in an attempt to avoid legal liabilities,” it said.

Further, these mass organisations are generally manned by ideologues that include academicians and activists fully committed to the “Party Line”, the affidavit added.