Can Starving People Go on a Hunger Strike? The Maoist Movement in India and the Global Revolution

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the relationship between the Maoist Movement in India and the multiple forms of revolt that have taken place across the globe since 2011. While the revolts since the Arab Spring have gained some international attention, it is unclear why the Maoist Movement in India, a militant revolt aimed at achieving social justice and radical change in India, is rarely included in revolutionary discourse. In this sense, my overall objective in this essay is to reconnect the insurrectionary movement that is taking place in the forests of Central/Eastern India to the global insurgency through a comparative critique of resistance discourses, and as a way of understanding the dialectic between insurgent ideology and militant revolt in the contemporary period. Through a rigorous critique of the intensification of unequal development in India and the subsequent reaction by the Maoists, I hope to draw close attention to the conditions of all workers who have suffered as a result of gross inequalities intrinsic to globalized capital and who have taken to the streets in massive protests.

KEYWORDS:

• India
• Maoism
• global revolution

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

John Maerhofer is an educator and activist based in New York City. He teaches English and Interdisciplinary studies at Queens College of the City University of New York. His first book Rethinking the Vanguard (New Castle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing) was published in 2009. He is currently writing a book on the history of anti-imperialism in Asia.

Notes

1 Harvey’s (2005a) analysis of the neo-liberal state and its devastation is crucial here.

2 For a detailed history of the Naxalites, see Banerjee (1984) and Dasgupta (1975).

3 For more on the political directives of the current phase of the Maoists’ struggle, see Mohanty (2006).

4 There are several recent articles that focus on the agrarian question in rural India. Among them see Lerche (2013), Guérin (2013), and Shah (2013).

5 Weil provides an excellent summary of the Maoists’ historical presence in India. Sources for this article were derived from two excellent books: Pandita (2011), and Chakravarti (2008). For daily coverage of the war between the Maoists and the state as well as documents and bulletins by the CPI (Maoist), see http://www.signalfire.org/?page_id=21823. Mukherji (2012) provides a liberal critique of the CPI (M), and the “plight” of the tribals caught in the crossfire of the war between the insurrectionary militia and the state forces, a view that evades a rigorous critique of the historical relationship between tribal populations and the Maoists.

6 Roy (2011, 1–37) has a sharp analysis of this issue. See also Thomas (2014).

7 See Crowley (2016) for an analysis of the student revolt and the ensuing repression.

8 For an analysis of neo-liberalism in India, see Prashad (2012). I refer here to the discourse of the “Asian Century,” which includes India and China among the biggest rivalries for dominance.

9 Roy also analyzes the role of the corporate media in perpetuating the state’s propaganda about the Maoists in the same text.

10 In her most recent book, Roy (2014, 69–75), who has written extensively about the occupation and its effects, puts the number of occupied troops at 600,000.

11 Times of India 2010. This is also the areas where the Maoists have the strongest support.

12 Harvey’s term “accumulation by dispossession” would be even more pertinent here. See Harvey (2005b), particularly pp. 137–83. For an analysis of India’s neo-liberal development from the 1980s to the present, see Prashad (2007, 207–24).

13 Among the various sources for an analysis of SEZs and wealth inequality, see Hariss (2012). For an analysis of the relationship between the Maoists and India’s political economy since the onset of neo-liberalism, see Basu and Das (2013).

14 For a comprehensive analysis of contemporary forms of caste-based oppression and social/economic inequality, see Thorat and Newman (2010).

15 See the link to the Global Slavery Index here: http://governmentresponse.globalslaveryindex.org/country.php?country=kN4fvVUUvZ0_EQ_.

16 For information on sex trafficking in Indian and South Asia, see Das (2014).

17 See Sainath (1996) and Shah (2013)’s analysis of agrarian poverty and Maoist strategy in rural India.

18 Weil also provides a concise analysis of the “Special Economic Zones” (SEZ), which are central to the process of primitive accumulation that has been occurring within India.

19 I discuss some of the critiques of Maoism from the Indian Left in the next section. For Roy, mechanisms within the system fighting for change have deviated from ideal justice to the mediated and watered-down focus on “human rights,” part of what Roy sees as the intrusive character of non-governmental organizations (Roy 2014, part I).

20 Founding documents of the party can be found here: http://www.bannedthought.net/India/CPI-Maoist-Docs/#Founding_Documents.

21 For an analysis of the varying Leftist parties in India, see Crowley (2014).

22 See Mukherji (2012, 29–55, 106–61). As a counter-argument, see Weil’s (2011, 52–61) comments on the failed parliamentary system in his essay.

23 I do not mean to minimize the valiant efforts on the part of many of the Marxist organizations who have radicalized millions of workers across India, especially in the recent fightback against the political Right.

24 See for example Haider’s (2017) analysis of the cultural appropriation of identity issues by the ruling class. Haider’s analysis could be easily applied to the current state of cultural politics in India, where the political Right has also appropriated identity issues in the consolidation of its political base.

25 Weil (2011, 34) suggests that the divisive nature of Indian society (language, culture, caste) also puts the Maoists at a disadvantage in their attempt to unify a base among the subaltern classes. While I agree with Weil’s assessment, I see the focus on national liberation problematic and limiting, as cited briefly in my conclusion.

26 This does not mean that the global capitalist class is not in the process of saving capital though “useful” mechanisms such as inter-imperialist war. For an analysis of the irreversible crisis in capital, see Harvey (2010). On the “new” language of insurgency, see Dabashi (2012, 59–88).

27 See Lukács (1971, 77). Lukács’s concept of immediacy outlined in the essay “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat” (Lukács 1971, 83–209) is particularly relevant to this discussion.

28 For a discussion of this point, see Young (2004, 53–61).