Having created significant military hardware against the State in the hinterland, the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) has formulated a plan of action which integrates its activities into a pan-India framework.
The outfit has raised a number of front organisations for carrying out its subversive agenda in urban areas. The strategy of the outfit is documented in a paper titled Urban Perspective, which includes mobilisation and organisation of the working classes, building a united front of classes similarly placed to the working classes and military tactics involving sabotage actions and select assassinations by ‘action teams’ in urban areas of the country.
The CPI (Maoist) has been making efforts to expand activities in urban areas through a network of overground front organisations. The members of such overground oganisations masquerade as ‘activists’ espousing causes which mainly complement and supplement the activities of the overground cadres in direct and indirect ways, according to Union Home Ministry assessments. The front organisations provide safe hideouts to armed cadres and also facilitate procurement of supplies to the Maoist war machinery, says the Ministry.
Officials said the front organisation also initiates legal action on various issues to slow down the enforcement regime. They are also adept at dissemination of propaganda and disinformation to demonise the state and the security forces. Of late, it has also come to the notice of the Union Home Ministry that members of such front organisations are mentoring ‘professional revolutionaries’ to be inducted into the underground movement.
However, the Maoist efforts for its urban agenda has failed to make any significant headway in the urban areas, primarily on account of the revulsion of the urban population towards mindless violence, torture, beheadings and other atrocities perpetrated by them on the civilian population and the security forces in their strongholds in Central India, suggests the assessment.
The Maoist ideology, says the Ministry, has lost its appeal even among the marginalised sections of urban population since their aspirational matrix is at complete variance with the outdated Maoist worldview. The security agencies continue to monitor the activities of the CPI (Maoist) and its front organisations in urban areas and some high profile intellectuals, including Delhi University professor GN Saibaba are under the scanner.