When Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacks “urban Naxals”, it surprises many. For it was just this August – less than four months ago – that home minister Amit Shah had declared that the war on Naxalites was nearing its end and left-wing extremism in the country would be wiped out by March 2026.
If the war is in the mopping-up stage, why has Modi intensified his rant? Consider his relentless attacks on extremists and their presumed urban supporters in recent months. Campaigning for the Haryana assembly elections this year, he said: “The Congress wants to bring back the era when stones were pelted and bullets fired at our brave soldiers from Haryana. Our brave soldiers were martyred.”
Speaking in Maharashtra in September, before the assembly elections there and a month after Shah spoke, Modi said the Congress was being run by “urban Naxals” and the “tukde tukde gang”. Days later, he told a rally in Jammu that the Congress was under the control of “urban Naxals”.
The theme was repeated at another rally, at Washim in Maharashtra in October, where Modi again said the Congress was being run by “urban Naxals”. He also accused the party of “links with drug” cartels. A year ago, during the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, Modi told voters there that the Congress is run by “urban Naxals”. Back in 2022, Modi had claimed that the “urban Naxals” were even able to influence international bodies like the World Bank. He had also accused “urban Naxals” of having tried to stall the Narmada project.
Also read: 100 Years of Vaikom Satyagraha: Remembering Periyar’s Role in the Anti-caste Struggle
Last month, he said: “Urban Naxals target even those who say that you remain safe if you remain united… They want to send a wrong message to foreign investors by portraying a wrong image of India.” “These people are also targeting India’s armed forces and trying to divide the country on caste lines.”
Echoing the prime minister, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president J.P. Nadda said the Congress has become the spokesperson of the “urban Naxals”. Nadda claimed the Congress “is endorsing and encouraging a nexus of foreign forces aiming to derail India’s progress”.
The “urban Naxal” label has been hurled at other INDIA constituents too. Modi had lashed out at Arvind Kejriwal, who had reached Gujarat by a chartered plane to campaign for elections, saying: “Urban Naxals are trying to enter Gujarat by ‘flying from above’. But it will not succeed.” He also said the present Punjab leadership mirrored “urban Naxals”.
Hitting back at Modi, Kejriwal retorted: “After waking up every morning, he begins abusing others”.
When Rahul Gandhi held up a copy of the constitution at election meetings to highlight his party’s commitment to it, BJP leaders found fault with the red cover and Modi alleged that the book the Congress leader was displaying was blank. Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said the red cover proved that Rahul was colluding with “anarchists and urban Naxals” and Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma alleged that the Congress leader was actually carrying the Chinese Constitution.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge pointed out that the book with the red cover was the same pocketbook version of the constitution that Modi had himself presented to President Ram Nath Kovind in July 2017. And Rahul held open the book at public meetings to show it wasn’t blank.
But why does the Modi-Shah regime keep on whipping up this imaginary “urban Naxal” ghost over and over again? The idea appears to be to prepare the ground for introducing harsher legal provisions to hound members of civil society and liberal groups that have resisted the executive’s high-handedness.
The government is disturbed that their criticism is finding increasing resonance in the public mood. There is also considerable embarrassment at the courts releasing civil rights activists from jail one after the other. Among them were Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha and Sudha Bharadwaj.
The government has two options – either bring a harsher bill or introduce amendments to the existing acts such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Last year, during preliminary consultations, it was suggested that the definition of “unlawful activity” in the UAPA be expanded. News reports have spoken of “strict” moves being considered by the government against “urban Naxals”.
Unlike in the earlier Lok Sabha, however, the Modi government cannot push through bills at will as had happened in the case of the abolition of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under Article 370. This time, the BJP does not have its own majority. So, the government will have to respond to the sensibilities of the party’s allies who, in turn, will be influenced by the political mood prevailing in their respective states. The government would want to avoid a repeat of embarrassing situations such as when it had to scrap the lateral entry scheme into civil services because of Opposition from the allies.
The Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill, 2024, introduced by the state’s Mahayuti government last July is seen as an attempt to test waters. Critics argue that many of its provisions can be misused against activists, protesters and opponents. Some other states traditionally affected by Naxalite disturbances have their own laws to deal with left-wing extremism. But some of the provisions of this bill are such that fears have been raised that it has the potential to turn Maharashtra into a ‘police state’.
Although Modi and Shah have been relentlessly talking about “urban Naxals” for the past six years, the term does not exist anywhere in government records, not even in the files of the Shah-led home ministry. An RTI reply in March 2020 said the government did not have any information about either “urban Naxals” or “Tukde Tukde gang” – the duo’s favourite epithets.
Also read: Parbhani Violence: Police Accused of Beating up Dalit Youth, Carrying Out Combing Operations
Union minister G. Kishan Reddy told the Rajya Sabha in February 2022 that the government does not use the phrase “urban Naxals” in its records and that it uses the term “LWE” or “left-wing extremism”. Vigil was kept “in urban areas or other places and strict action initiated,” he added. Credited to a right-wing filmmaker, the phrase “urban Naxal” was quickly lapped up by the BJP top bosses in the same way that they had tried to appropriate many icons, including Congress veteran Sardar Patel and Babasaheb Ambedkar.
For the BJP, “urban Naxal” means almost everything anti-BJP. The term “anti-national” has a limited reach and application but “urban Naxal” can be used to target political parties, intellectuals, atheists, those who criticise patriarchy, feminist groups, trade unions, slum groups, lawyers, farmers’ movements, journalists and those NGOs that are championing the causes of the oppressed classes. It can cover anyone critical of the establishment.
Naxalites do have contacts in urban centres that they need especially to arrange medical treatment for their leaders or to keep in touch with friendly intellectuals. Naxalite leader Kobad Ghandy was arrested during one of his trips to Delhi for treatment. The left-wing extremist groups have over the years felt the need to establish units of intellectuals, students and youth.
In the late 1960s and the 1970s, when the Naxalite movement began taking root in the rural interiors, it also influenced sections of the urban youth. There was violence in Kolkata and in several universities. A parallel media popular among sections of youths and intellectuals emerged in English and the regional languages. Youth musical squads spiritedly sang songs like ‘Amar baadi, tomaar baadi, Maor baadi Naxal baadi (My house, your house, Mao’s house, Naxalbari)’.
Naxalism had almost become a fashion among the students. They gave us cyclostyled documents to read. But no one ever described them as “Urban Naxals”. This writer had seen a youth from Jawaharlal Nehru University at the Connaught Place coffee house passionately talking about Mao’s guerrilla strategies, such as: “Enemy attacks, we retreat. Enemy camps, we harass and tire them.” Years later, this writer happened to see him at the Gandhinagar secretariat as a joint secretary. The youth had passed the civil services exam at first chance. In six years, the old guerrilla had become a perfect bureaucrat expecting a new posting. Most of those passionate youths had a similar life trajectory.
P. Raman is a veteran journalist.
