Jyoti Mishra

13 September 2018


Urban Naxal and The


Other Names of Dissent
Introduction



In a Representative Democracy, the names of disagreement and assertion are
many. The rise in self-censorship, hate-campaigns, media-trials, and name-calling
have become an integral part of the every-day national debate. Mainstream
journalism has hit a new-low and the manifestation of all kinds of expression that
defy the nationalistic sentiment are subjected to serious measures. This article will
try to find a common denominator between the very recent #urbannaxal campaign
and the shape it has taken because of traditional and new media. 


Existing literature


The term was coined by a filmmaker, Vivek Agnihotri in his book, “Urban Naxals:
The making of Buddha in a Traffic Jam”. The book was published by Garuda Books
and here’s description on their website:




(source: https://www.garudabooks.com/urbannaxals/)






Much before that, the matter arose on January 2, 2018, on the day of 200 years of
the Battle of Bhima Koregaon, a large group was gathered to mark the importance
of the day, which mostly consisted of Dalits and the gathering was interfered by

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upper caste Marathas casting a reason that it's a celebration of the British over
Indians. It resulted to a death, 30 policemen were injured and over 300 people
were detained. The next day, Dalit groups called for a Maharashtra bandh.

A complaint was lodged

against Jignesh Mevani and
Umar Khalid for allegedly
speaking provocative
statements at the event.
Adding to this, two hindutva
leaders named Milind Ekbote
and Bhide as reported by a
Dalit activist, were involved in
the rampage. The other one
was never questioned and
Milind surely got a bail.

Later, a businessman from

Pune, named 6 activists who
have a connection because
they had arranged the event. Later as said, police investigation resulted in several
raids in different cities to unearth the alleged Maoist plot to assassinate Modi and
it resulted in the arrest of 10 activists.

On June 8, 2018, republic TV, released a letter which was retrieved from one of the
arrested activist’s laptop and as said by the channel it revealed the details of a
maoist plot. Quoting a line from the report which reads "Public prosecutor in
Bhima-Koregaon case has revealed that the Pune police have seized a sensational
letter that suggests a plan to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi in another
Rajiv Gandhi type incident. “


Coming to the defence of the activist, the executive direct0r of Institute of Conflict
Management, Ajai Sahni, said “Anyone familiar with the patterns of communication
adopted by the Maoists would immediately reject this letter as an obvious
fabrication.” 



Sudha Bhardwaj, a lawyer who was one of the ten activists who were arrested sent
a legal notice to Republic Tv when a letter on her name was released citing it as
false malicious and defamatory allegations.

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On August 28th, five activists were arrested who are: Arun Ferreira, Vernon
Gonsalves, Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bhardwaj, and Varavara Rao. Five who were
arrested before were Stan Swamy, K Satyanarayana, KV Kurmanath, Kranti Tekula,
and Anand Teltumbde. This made a total of 10 activists, human-rights lawyer,
educationalists, and writers the face of anti-fascist front or who has been popularly
called as “Urban Naxals”. 



I’ve created a timeline of all the events, with short notes and dates that led to
today’s national debate. It can be found here. 


Discussion of the case



Naxalism, dates back to the 70’s when peasants in Siliguri took an armed struggle
to overthrow an establishment. Even after its failure, the ideology is still continued
by the the extreme-left radical communists in India, who are also known as the
non-state actors of the country. Now, how an ideology was segmented according
to demography is a story more unsubstantiated than not. 



Here’s a Google trend report, which shows the rise in the use of the term on
particular dates, such as July 15, August 26 and later. From the series of event, as
mentioned in this article, justifies why the keyword works so.








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 The director who coined the term

Ebk
later took it to a Twitter war where
he asked to make people a list of
people. The democracy was
divided and the hate-campaign
had arrived.



Not to anyone’s surprise a list was floated that had the list of liberals’, lawyers’,
News channels’, and of activists’.







The made many intellectuals come forward and
speak how the system has always aimed at
targeting the ones who have questioned the
system and has a point of view of their own.
Arundhati Roy, writer and activist wrote a
column which read “In the India of today, to
belong to a minority is a crime. To be murdered
is a crime. To be lynched is a crime. To be poor
is a crime. To defend the poor is to plot to
overthrow the government.”

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Another noteworthy observation is, most

vjhe
of the alleged activists are related to PUCL.
Jayapraksh Narayan popularly known as JP
was jailed for asking the then prime
minister Indira Gandhi to resign for her
unconstitutional and immoral orders
during the emergency, after the release
from jail, he formed PUCL(People’s Union
for Civil Liberty) to oppose the suppression
of civil and political rights. Now, some
think tanks are definitively saying PUCL has
a connection with Maoists.

Prabhakar Sinha, an ex-PUCL veteran, says

“I am not an ‘urban Naxal’, they should end
this propaganda, but if they find I am really
a Naxal masquerading as a human rights
activist, they should proceed against me according to the law.”
He also describes naxals as “both victims and perpetrators”.






In 2014, G.N. Saibaba, an
English literature professor
at Ramlal Anand College
was arrested for his alleged
link with Maoists. He was
abducted on his way home
and was charged under the
a n t i - t e r r o r l a w U A PA
(Unlawful Activities
Prevention Act). In 2017, the
professor was sentenced to
life-time imprisonment. This
was another case of dissent
with the government. 



In an interview with Scroll, G.N
Saibaba says “In prison, I wondered: Why is the government afraid of me? I am 90%
disabled. The State knows that I cannot do much even with the Maoists. It is
impossible for me. But I think, I write. This State thinks a person who has the
courage to approach, see and describe the reality is a threat.”

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Conclusion

In the name of “investigative journalism”, media-trials swarm on screen, in the

name of ‘nationalism’ many were subjected to ‘lynching’, in the name of ‘unique
identification’, ‘Aadhar’ was mandated, in the name of a “participatory democracy”,
people who question an establishment of an almost-monarch, are termed “urban-
naxals”.

Nobody is even talking about the 300 Dalits, who were arrested by the Mumbai
police, some of whom were teen-agers. Now, eight months later, our I&B ministry
and media are muddled with the issue of to call or not to call a Dalit a Dalit, but the
government has chosen not to see that human rights is almost lost in the shuffle. 


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Bibliography


1. Gurung, Urban Naxals: How the term came about (August, 2018), Economic
Times


2. NL Interviews with Abhinadan Sekhri: Vivek Agnihotri in conversation with

an #UrbanNaxal (August, 2018), News Laundry


3. A New India by 2022 | Champions of Change 2017(September 2018, Niti Ayog


4. Roy, Listening to grasshoppers(2009)


5. Dhamija, SC meted out ‘differential treatment’ to activists arrested in Bhima

Koregaon case by granting them urgent hearing

(September, 2018), FirstPost


6. Johari, Dey, Mridula, Shone, From Pune to Paris: How a police investigation
turned a Dalit meeting into a Maoist plot (September, 2018), Scroll.in


7. Web Team, Bhima Koregaon Violence: Complaint against Jignesh Mevani,

Umar Khalid; FIR against Milind Ekbote, Sambhaji Bhide(January, 2018), DNA


8. Yadav, 'Why is the government afraid of me? I am 90% disabled... But I think, I
write': GN Saibaba (July, 2015), scroll.in


9. Modi, Participatory democracy is must for development of the country, DD

News

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