Praful Bidwai: In defence of Maoists

Praful Bidwai in defence of Maoists writes

Opposing the king does not amount to strengthening the Maoists. Indeed, it can encourage long overdue reform, including land reform, and further decentralization. The Maoists’ methods can be criticised, but not their political platform — a representative, radicalized, democracy. Their violence fades into insignificance beside the excesses of the RNA, which is responsible for a majority of the 11,000 people killed since 1996. [India’s U-turn for a despot]

I was laughing at the statement describing the future that Maoists will bring to Nepal – “a representative, radicalized, democracy”. There are a bunch of them in India where they live in a democracy and what they don’t do is all of the above. If they believed in democracy, they would stand for elections and try to bring in their reforms. But instead they choose to murder people and destroy public property. Yesterday they raided a mining camp and abducted four officials.

“About 17 gangs, mainly of the PWG, equipped with sophisticated weapons like AK-47 rifles, wireless sets and remote control devices, were reportedly active in Bastar, Dantewada, Dandori, Kanker, Rajnandgaon, Balaghat, Kawardha and Mandla districts,” a police source said. Naxals raze Hindalco camp in Chhattisgarh; abduct 4

Now if these folks are for representative democracy, why do they need to carry AK-47s ? Why do they need to kill policemen and political leaders?. What about the comrades in Nepal ? Narayan Prasad Pokhrel, the chairman of World Hindu Federation-Nepal, was shot dead by the Maoists. If you look at the history of takeovers by Communists, they have always resorted to ethnic cleansing and mass murder. So even by the most lenient standards, one cannot give the Maoists of Nepal any benefit of doubt.
Sandeep has a detailed analysis of Praful Bidwai‘s Maoist cheerleeding.