Lal Salaam in corporate corridors?

 

 

Sitting on a computer, when the work load is less, a worker in a financial management BPO company secretively SMSes a code to the comrade leaking some vital financial detail of a bank’s main branch. He had come to know of the data from his present work at the BPO. The next step is to grab that account using cyber techniques and get the much valuable funds for buying AK 47s for comrades fighting in the jungles. This is a figment of imagination, and it never happened, at least not in Bengaluru’s BPO and IT heartland. But though this is not real today, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Karnataka (RCPK) has set out to some day achieve this very kind of urban intellectual support for its fighting forces in rural areas and the dense forests of the state.

Recent developments in Karnataka state unit of CPI (Maoist) has rung an alarm bell among the state police. The decision to invade into urban areas had created a rift in the Karnataka unit and one faction is rapidly building its network in cities. This new development started last November and has fuelled a heated discussion in the Naxal hit areas of Malnad region. But though the debate was initially confined to the Naxalite leaderships, a new blog, http://rcpkarnataka.blogspot.com brought to fore the schism in the party and the RCPK’s plans for urban expansion.

The blog reads, “Urban expansion work was planned during the 2001 All India Congress of the CPI (Maoist), and a sub-committee was formed to formulate guidelines for that. After that, around 2003, the document containing (plans of) urban work was forwarded to all the state committees.” In Karnataka, the state committee’s (SC) top leaders and some of the comrades were opposed to this and rejected it out right. But a minority group kept pressing the SC to clarify as to how the guidelines could be implemented in Karnataka. Yet, the Central Committee and SC decision makers rejected that. The blogger says, “No efforts were made to reorient our urban work in Karnataka. Instead, the flawed (mechanical and sectarian) thinking and practice that hitherto dogged us came into force even more aggressively.” An RCPK activist anonymously told TSI, “After that the party comrades split into two factions. Now the RCP is concentrating more on urban work and checking out for long-term possibilities, rather than short-term ones.” The faction has also discussed the importance of infiltrating the mass media, legal organisations, civic and student’s organisations and even the police and military. Workers in the urban unorganised sector are their immediate targets. These include IT and BPO employees who, the faction feels, lacks rights and suffer inhuman working conditions and have no job security. The RCPK has even discussed how to convert the inherent hatred against the dominant community into hatred against the system.

But spreading hard core communist ideology in upper class and upper caste dominated IT and BPO sector is not so easy. One BPO employee, Varun (name changed) told TSI, “In IT and BPO sector, today the majority are from upper class and caste and job security is not an issue in todays senario, where everyone is keen to change his jobs frequently. For this class, money is the main mantra. However, on the other hand, there are a few people also who have soft corners for Leftist ideology and could be targeted by the Maoists as future recruits.”

There is also another way in which these Maoists are trying to break the rural confines, though this is not about the corporate world. After the factiional split last November, there were some reports in the local media about the naxal activities traced in some of the Bengaluru slums. When TSI approached a senior officer of the state police intelligence wing, he said, “We are aware of the reports coming in the media, and the department is working on this. But as of now I am not in a position to disclose the matter.” And Bengaluru Police Commissioner Shankar Bidari told TSI, “As of now in Bengaluru there is no direct activity connected with Naxalism. But, we have not completely closed our eyes. We are in the alert mode.” This urbanising trend is not just limited to Karnataka. In June last year, Maoist rebels celebrated Jan Pituri Saptah (revolutionary week) in Chhattisgarh's forest area. On that occasion they had blown up power lines and disrupted communication links, targeting industries and power stations in the Abhujmar and Bastar regions, and plunged much of the state into darkness.

At that time, a senior state police officer had said, “They are now trying to move from the jungles to urban areas." And top Maoist central committee member Comrade Sonu, reacting to media queries had said, “If we fail to build our movement in the cities, the revolution will remain a dream,” This same thing is being witnessed in Karnataka “The RCPK wants to reorient and reorganise its urban network with a long-term strategic approach… to establish base in the urban areas through secret as well as open revolutionary mass organiations and legal and democratic organiations,” says the insider. So, are the days of corporate Lal Salaam coming?