New Delhi, Former Niti Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar was attracted to the Naxal ideology during his student days in the 1970s, hung posters of Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh in his hostel room and even stayed at a remote village in Bihar to experience the harsh realities of rural India and to prepare villagers “annihilation of predatory jotedar and zamindar”, a new book says.
Event Context
For the young economics student, it was a radical shift in his political beliefs, a complete change of heart brought on by his new intellectual gurus as while studying in Delhi’s Modern School, Hellen Wig, his favourite American teacher, among others, instilled in him a staunch support for the United States in the escalating Vietnam War.
His descent into this ideological extremism was far from over. He boarded a train to Katihar on a crisp December evening in 1970, followed by a bus ride to his final destination – Lakshmipur, an impoverished village in Bihar.
“The Lucknow boy, the son of an accountant and a college teacher, had officially crossed the Rubicon. He became a Naxalite, an Indian synonym for Maoist,” the book says.
Player Focus
“His name is Rajiv Kumar. After taking a turn from the red tide, he went on to become an economic adviser in India’s finance ministry, an economist in Asian Development Bank’s headquarters in Manila, secretary general of the industry body FICCI and then vice chairman of the government think-tank NITI Aayog,” the book says.
The senior student who indoctrinated Kumar into Naxalism was Arvind N. Das, once a prominent byline in The Times of India. And the psychology professor, a far-left iconoclast who inspired Kumar and other students to join the bandwagon, was Ajit Pal.
Team Analysis
Swept up in the radical winds of activism that swirled through elite campuses like Stephen’s and Presidency, Kuma’s path took a sharp U-turn towards the revolutionary faction.
“By his third year, he found lecture halls less compelling than picket lines. His newfound zeal was directed at securing the rights of workers in his university café and the nearby textile factories,” the book says.
Inside the hostel room, the young man hung two large posters – one of Che Guevara, the charismatic revolutionary immortalized by his epic motorcycle journey, and the other of Ho Chi Minh, a Marxist–Leninist.
As Kumar recalls in the book, ten to twelve Stephenians and many more from Presidency College in Calcutta “became UGs” .
Kumar lists some of them. They include Rabindra Ray ; Trinanjan Mitra, a fellow economics student who later moved to Luxembourg; Dilip Simeon, former history professor of Ramjas College; Ajay Bose, a journalist.
“The government of the day took a relatively forgiving approach towards such young people. Those having no crime dossier against them were allowed to move on in life,” the book says.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Match Outlook
The new Naxalite party, the Communist Party of India , formed in April 1969, assigned him and other inductees two well-defined tasks: one, “to experience the harsh realities of rural India”, echoing Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and two, “to prepare villagers for the next stage – the annihilation of predatory jotedar and zamindar”.
Accustomed to the comforts of city life, the “young Naxalite” quickly discovered the harsh reality of his new life.
Sleeping on a bed of straw in a farmer’s outhouse – a thatched hut in the fields – offered a stark contrast to his previous existence.
To make matters worse, the host farmer’s wife behaved in a fit of pique as she had to take on the burden of feeding an extra mouth.
A month later, he was instructed to move to a Santhal village, followed by another relocation to Munger. There, he found himself living in the hut of a landless farmer. Boiled rice, a simple stew of kaddu , and fiery green chillies fuelled his days. He also learnt the art of brick-making.
Soon, a target was chosen: a local landlord. A lethal plot took root as villagers, who were tempted to grab the wealthy man’s land, conspired to lace his footwear with poison when he would enter the village temple for his customary prayers.
The young man from St. Stephen’s read out CPI supremo Charu Mazumdar’s words on the choice of weapons for annihilating class enemies, which was, one, no use of firearms, and two, demonstrating the horrific outcome in full public view.
After listening to the logic, the villagers gave the young man an accusing stare, suspecting him of being either mentally unstable or a police agent. They feared it could be a trap to send them to jail. The die was cast. He was given his marching orders: leave the village, and fast.
The young man retraced his steps to Katihar to seek guidance from his seniors. But circumstances had conspired against him. Both his college comrades and the railway official sheltering new recruits were arrested.
With nowhere to turn, he drifted back to Lucknow in April 1971. For his parents, his return was a relief. A long, wild beard masked the child they loved.
What followed was a tearful embrace. Quitting Mao’s ideology was not easy, though.
Faced with a dead end, he returned to academia, enrolling in Lucknow University’s economics department, where he flourished, earning multiple degrees, culminating in a doctorate. He then pursued DPhil at the Oxford University under the Inlaks Scholarship, and economics became his permanent intellectual home.
source
According to the excerpts of the book, “Rebel Bastar: History, Maoism and the Search for Answers in India’s Heartland”, written by senior journalist and historian Shantanu Nandan Sharma, Kumar got attracted to the Communist Party of India when he was a student of Delhi’s prestigious St. Stephen’s College but now considers present day Naxalism as the “most pernicious and dishonest impact” on Indian youths which has perhaps “set back India’s political and economic development by years”.
“Thankfully, it is now nearly eliminated. And we should ensure that the ideology is also rooted out,” he told PTI on Friday.
Kumar was vice chairman of the Niti Aayog from 2017 to 2022. The prime minister is the chairman of the government think tank.
“Swayed by the arguments of a senior history student and an astute psychology professor, a young man from Lucknow started deifying Mao Zedong during his second year at St. Stephen’s College,” the books says.
