Is Narendra Modi a Maoist?

There is not much room to believe that Narendra Modi has ever read Mao or Marx. Actually, he may or may not have read any book after acquiring his master’s degree in ‘Entire Political Science’. But then again, he may well have read both Mao and Marx while preparing for his final examination. As a long-time RSS Pracharak also, he may have been told to study Maoism and Marxism, if only to understand why the RSS believes both must be avoided like the Plague.

But we digress. On Wednesday a Pune court was told by the Prosecutor that the activists, including poets, professors and lawyers, arrested in June and this week, were part of an ‘anti-fascist’ front and were engaged in plotting the overthrow of the elected government.

While it is easier to believe that our police, prosecutors and judges have no time for Mao or Marx, I wonder what the activists would have communicated to each other to make the police believe that they are a threat to the elected Government. It is quite another matter that neither Narendra Modi nor Amit Shah believe there is even a remote threat to the Government. Hasn’t the BJP president been saying that the ruling party would improve on its Lok Sabha tally in the next election?

But clearly Pune police are not bothered about any electoral threat. They seem convinced that there is a plot to overthrow the Government, err ‘violently’. But the moot question is how these activists are different from Narendra Modi, who conducted a memorable, glitzy and expensive campaign to overthrow an elected government, not too long ago?

Nobody has yet explained the sources of the expensive campaign. But between 2011 and 2014, Narendra Modi was travelling across the country, spreading disaffection, cooking up figures, ridiculing the Government and openly calling upon people to overthrow the Government, which he undoubtedly believed had wrought havoc to the country.

Did that make Modi a Maoist? Why deny the same ‘Rights’ that Modi enjoyed to Varavara Rao or to Vernon Gonsalves? Even if they have communicated to each other their growing frustrations with the Modi Government or even if they have declared, ‘Enough is enough; this Government must go,” does the Constitution not allow them to have their say and mobilise people and address them?

There is no evidence to suggest that the activists have access to the kind of funds that Narendra Modi had when he launched a blistering campaign against the UPA. And as Mr. Modi no doubt knows, it costs a packet to mobilise people. So, why indeed would poor teachers, poets, lawyers who do not earn as much as Mr. Jaitley or his daughter, spend their own hard-earned money to criticise the Government, mobilise a handful of people and fulminate against the Government?

Policemen, used to value brawn over brain, have been unable to understand the great puzzle why journalists, lawyers, researchers, writers and activists must interact with underground Maoists! Policemen can of course be excused for not seeing the irony in such people interacting with both policemen and the underworld.

Even sections of the judiciary seem to subscribe to the idea that knowing, meeting, ‘harbouring’ or helping Maoists amount to a violation of the law. Of course, quite on the contrary, such interactions are necessary for writers, scholars, researchers, journalists and activists to understand what is happening on the ground.

Had policemen been endowed with a little more intelligence, they would have profitably spent hours with Maoists themselves, pending which it would have been worth their while to spend some time listening to the ‘half-Maoists’ or ‘urban Naxals’ to enlighten themselves.

They can hope for no enlightenment by asking scholars why they must read so many books! Or by asking activists why they do not have photographs of gods on their wall.

But the trouble with policemen and judges is that they are also scared of the present Government. They believe that since the Government pays for their salary, even when it is paid from public funds, their loyalty should be to their master. This colonial mindset does not seem to have changed much, judging by how little they are questioned.

So, Narendra Modi is not a Maoist. But anyone who wants to overthrow his Government is one?