Ideological Terrorism: From Covert to Overt

The Union Home Minister, Mr. Amit Shah, has declared that India will be free of the Maoist menace by 31 March 2026. The Prime Minister, Mr. Modi, echoed the same assurance from the soil of Chhattisgarh, the epicenter or the impregnable bastion of Maoists in India. Recently, a doctor module of jihadi terror has been unraveled. There was the alarming dimension of Biological Warfare in it. But that did not prevent Maulana Mahmood Madani, head of a faction of Jamiat Ulema Hind (JUH), from threatening the Supreme Court for his perceived bias against Muslims. He threatened to wage jihad. Jihad against whom? Both the doctor module and Maulana Madani draw their ideological sustenance from Darul Uloom Deoband, the epicenter of Jihad in the subcontinent. Who will address this epicenter?

LIBERATED ZONE BUSTED

Mr. Modi said that 11 years before, 126 districts were reeling under Maoist terror; now it has shrunk to three districts. In Chhattisgarh, the international forces, anti-Indian forces that include mainstream political parties, some members of the judiciary, and members of the academia, converged physically, politically, and legally. The trial of Binayak Sen in 2010 and the assassination of Mahendra Karma and V. C. Shukla are grim reminders of the pernicious level of terror that operated through the Chhattisgarh region. The Maoists called the region the Liberated Zone.

IN THE NAME OF GANDHI

This Liberated Zone could not have been possible without the tacit support of the judiciary. Binayak Sen’s trial took place in the backdrop of the Maoist attack in Dantewada in April 2010, wherein 76 CRPF personnel were killed. The massacre hardly weighed on the minds of the judges while granting bail to Binayak Sen. While granting bail to Sen, the SC judge held forth: “We are a democratic country. He may be a Maoist sympathizer; that does not make him guilty of sedition. If Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography is found in somebody’s place, is he a Gandhian?” Fantastic! What a brilliant analogy! It did not bother the court that Binayak Sen, converted Christian, a paediatrician who never attended a patient in his life, was drawn to the Maoist stronghold in Chhattisgarh. That the Maoists had hired Ram Jethmalani as their counsel, who is known to charge astronomical fees, speaks about the deep financial and ideological clout that the Maoists enjoy.

In July 2011, Justice B. Sudarshan Reddy of the Supreme Court declared Salwa Judum as illegal. It was a local force comprising tribals to defend themselves against Maoist terror. The writ was filed by one Nandini Sundar, professor in Delhi School of Economics. She has also done her PhD from Columbia University, a den of ultra-leftists. Solely because of his Maoist credentials, Justice Reddy was the Vice-Presidential nominee of the India Alliance for the elections in 2025.

In hindsight, it appears that the attack in Dantewada by the Maoists, wherein 76 CRPF soldiers were killed, was staged to influence and intimidate the system to grant bail to Binayak Sen. Following this massacre, it was expected that the judges would display some sensitivity and empathy for the slain soldiers before rebranding Binayak Sen as some kind of Gandhian. After the attack, Arundhati Roy, a Naxal sympathizer with deep links to the Maoists, wrote an article describing Maoists as “Gandhians With Guns.” The tendency to use Gandhi as “one size that fits all” is nauseating. It is rather the greatest hypocrisy that bedevils nation building in India.

WHEN INDIAN STATE WAS AT WAR WITH INDIAN NATION

Also, had not the Supreme Court declared Salwa Judum as illegal, in all probability they would have weakened to the extent of being incapable of undertaking major offensives like the Darba Massacre in May 2013, wherein 26 Congress leaders, including former minister Mahendra Karma, Chhattisgarh Congress Chief Nand Kumar Patel, and V. C. Shukla, lost their lives. Allegedly, the main conspirator of the attack was also a Congressman who was later rewarded with the Industries portfolio. These episodes put together clearly establish the presence of Maoists at the apex level of Congress and the judiciary. Their combined objective is to facilitate the Maoists to take over the country by “barrel of the gun.” Towards the said objective, the physical, political, and legal safeguards of the Maoist epicenter in the Chhattisgarh region were critical. It is like waging war by a segment of the Indian State against the Indian Nation.

For a government that has come to power for protection of the Nation, and not merely the State, the Maoist menace can be uprooted only when the said segment of the State and their activists in civil society are comprehensively crushed. Together, they constitute a very sophisticated network comprising doctors, journalists, lawyers, judges, professors, activists, and international benefactors. Such are the loopholes and such is the latitude in the Constitution that these benefactors and associates, or urban Naxals as such, are not only unassailable, they enjoy respectability in our system. There are two reasons for this respectability, i.e., diabolical intellectualism couched in English language, and the Constitution which at the time of framing did not foresee an insurgency of the Maoist variety. It is this gang of urban Naxals who are the inspiration behind the killing of 14,000 Indians by the Maoists since 1967. The terror amplification of these killings contributed to the creation of the Red Corridor, wherein economic growth lay gasping all these years.

To assess the nexus between political forces and the Maoists, it is imperative to compare the casualty figures during the UPA and the NDA regime respectively. Between 2004 and 2014, under the UPA regime, there were 6,980 deaths attributed to Maoist terror, and between 2014 and 2023 under the NDA regime, there were 2,020, a sharp drop by 45%. At 1,005, the number of killings was all-time high in 2010. This was the time when the urban Naxals in the judiciary, polity, academia, and media worked in complete tandem to give fillip to Maoist terrorism after the script to label the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack as Hindu terror.

THE NATION AND STATE COME TOGETHER

The present dispensation embarked on a decisive campaign in 2024 and eliminated 295 Maoists. In 2025, so far 264 have been killed, 812 arrested, and 723 have surrendered. The CPI (Maoist) has admitted that in the last 11 months, 320 of its cadres have been killed. Amongst the killed are eight Central Committee members and 15 State Committee members. Two hundred forty cadres perished in the Dandakaranya Special Region, the long-time stronghold of the Maoists. The Red Corridor and its leadership lie in disarray. Mandvi Hidma, a top Maoist commander who led at least 26 major attacks, was killed in Andhra Pradesh. He was the mastermind of the 2010 Dantewada attack in which 76 CRPF personnel were killed, a tragedy for the country but a cause for celebration for the urban Naxal students of JNU. Hidma was the head of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA). He was the youngest member of the Central Committee of CPI (Maoist). He was the only tribal member in the committee.

URBAN NAXALS AT INDIA GATE

Hidma is dead, but the Maoist network in urban areas is sustained and is physically, financially, and ideologically still alive. On 23rd November, there was a protest at India Gate against air pollution. All of a sudden, the protesters started raising slogans in support of the slain leader of Maoist terrorists, Hidma. The slogans echoed those that were raised in the demonstrations in the aftermath of the hanging of Afzal Guru in February 2013. The slogans were to the effect: “Kitne Hidma maroge? Har ghar se Hidma paida hoga,” that is, “How many Hidmas will you kill? There will be a Hidma born in every house.” Some of these fake environment activists are the worst polluters in the nation-building process. Hidma too was a polluter. All these years, he and his comrades exerted overtime to wreck the Indian State from within. As mentioned earlier, he had masterminded 26 major attacks in his career as a Maoist guerrilla. Currently, apart from Gandhi, the new subterfuge for the Maoists is environment. On being prevented from raising anti-national slogans, the protesters used chilli spray against the policemen.

India Gate also has within its complex the new War Memorial. While the War Memorial pays homage to the martyrs who laid down their lives fighting the external and internal enemies, the protesters misused India Gate to condole the death of a slain Maoist terrorist. The irony and contrast is telling.

Can Indian nationhood survive this contrast? Twenty-two protesters have been apprehended by the police. It is a foregone conclusion that they will eventually be released, and the urban Naxal activities will survive for another day and the rest of their lives.

JIHADIS AT WAR WITH INDIAN NATION

The recent blasts in the vicinity of the Red Fort by the Doctor Module were not as much against the State as against a particular community, i.e., the Hindus, who are the soul of the Indian Nation. The jihadis, on the other hand, want to impose their own brand of nationhood, Dar-ulIslam (abode of Muslims). Such a nationhood has already been established in the Kashmir Valley. This nationhood in the Kashmir Valley spawned the Doctors Module with pan-India jihadi vision and mission.

The Ulemas seem to wholeheartedly support this jihad against the Indian Nation by intimidating the Indian State. Both the factions of Jamiat Ulema Hind (JUH), led by Maulana Arshad Madani and Maulana Mahmood Madani, remained unmoved about the Red Fort blasts. They, in many ways, justified the terror network of Muslim doctors operating from the Al-Falah University that served as the epicenter in the trajectory of the highly updated version of jihad. Madani maintains that the ongoing probe against Al-Falah is discrimination against Muslims. He drew a parallel between Al-Falah University and Azam Khan. The fact that Al-Falah University served as the epicenter of jihad did not smite his conscience. By contriving an outrageous binary, he has downplayed, rather justified, the Biological Warfare scheme of the Doctors Module against the Hindus. Instead of being abashed and worried about the level of hate for Hindus, who were the selected targets of mass poisoning through water supply schemes and prasadam in temples, instead of introspecting this new vicious and deadly inflection point of jihad in the subcontinent and its ramifications for India as a country and Nation, his concern is confined to his community, which he claims to lead. As per the tenets of Islam, he has equated his community with the country. Country for Muslims is purely incidental.

For a Muslim, there is no difference between India and Pakistan ideologically. To them, India is good as long as it serves their majhabi interest. Even after so many decades, to them Pakistan is still preferable over India, even if it does not contribute to their living and well-being in any way. Pakistan may be hell for Balochis, Pushtuns, and Sindhis, but for these Muslims in India, it is a calling. This, in a way, is the concept of Ummah which Arshad Madani has postulated. He invoked the names of the Mayor of New York and Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, to establish that Islam in India is a victim of Indian nationhood but is on the rise and not decline. He said that while Muslims could become Mayors in western countries, they could not become Vice-Chancellors in India. Typically, Maulana Madani has displayed Muslim amnesia in ignoring that India had three Muslim presidents, the last and not the least being A. P. J. Kalam.

APJ KALAM VERSUS HAMID ANSARI

A. P. J. Kalam was loathed by a majority of Indian Muslims for displaying his moorings and loyalty to this holy land. To them, Vice President Hamid Ansari was an embodiment of an Indian Muslim because he maintained an identity distinct from Hindus. There was a time when Muslims in India had the option between following the Indian variety of Islam, as embodied by A. P. J. Kalam, or accepting the fundamentalist variety of Arab Islam that Hamid Ansari represented. Sadly, the Indian Muslims chose the latter, even as Saudi Arabia moved towards a more liberal variety of Islam.

It may be mentioned that Saudi Arabia, under Prince Salman, has done away with many of the rigid stipulations with regard to burqa and opened most persuasions to women that are available to men. The Kingdom is investing heavily in tourism and the entertainment industry, the latter considered blasphemous by Islamic fundamentalists.

WHY DID THE ARAB WORLD CHANGE COURSE?

Why did Saudi Arabia change course? It did because of economic, geopolitical, and economic imperatives. The pre-oil era had structured the Middle East in a certain way. It changed in the oil era, which engendered the creation of nation-states. The nationhood was based on ethnicity and tribal loyalty. These two attributes decide the nature of nation-states like Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, etc. These two attributes weighed heavily on Islam. Nevertheless, for the sake of maintaining authority of the ruler and preventing internal conflicts, Islam was the only tool. Fundamentalist Islam was also used as an antidote to Communism in the Cold War era. The oil wealth and revenues were also conflated with Islam to spread the geopolitical influence of their Western benefactors. In return, the West undertook the responsibility of providing security to these countries, for which they had to defray the cost in dollars, thus creating the arrangement euphemistically called petro-dollars.

Now these countries are moving away from the oil era to the Rare Earth and Artificial Intelligence era, for which a new workforce has to be created — a gender-neutral workforce. This is not possible without revolutionary changes in the practice of Islam. If these changes are not ushered in, the Middle East, wrecked by internal conflicts, might perish with Islam. The Indian Muslims like Madani have no such compulsion. They do not consider the geopolitical imperatives, compulsions, and ambitions of India as their own. They perceive India through the anti-Hindu prism. The only thing that moors them to India, sans Bharat, is the Constitution, and they insist that the Constitution and all its institutions must serve them and not otherwise. Whenever they suspect any institution in dissonance with their Islamic agenda, they either debunk it or threaten it, not in individual capacity but collectively as Muslims at the subcontinent level and as Ummah at the global level.

On 15 November 2025, there was a Fida-eMilat Conference convened in Bangladesh. The participants in the conference included Maulana Fazlur Rahman (JUI Pakistan), Maulana Madani (JUI India), and hardcore Islamic leaders from Pakistan, Turkey, Europe, UK, and Nepal. Unanimously, they declared that the Ahmadiyya community should be banished from Islam. By making this demand, Maulana Madani has betrayed his total disregard for the Indian Constitution. The edifice of the Indian Constitution is based on respect for all religions, monotheistic and polytheistic faiths. Ahmadiyya is a branch of the Islamic faith.

A tree without branches is an ugly tree; moreover, it gives no shade to either human beings or animals. If the trunk of the tree is in Saudi Arabia, it is natural that with the spread of Islam it would have developed many branches. Therefore, there ought to be an Indian branch, which clerics like Maulana Madani constantly negate. He and the Muslims of his ilk have corroded it to an extent that the branch is on the verge of snapping. Darul Uloom Deoband is one such Islamic institution which has stifled the growth of this branch since its founding in 1866. It was actually created for that purpose.

CONCLUSION

Darul Uloom Deoband is the fountainhead of fundamentalism and extremism in South Asia. It has mothered terrorist organizations like Harkat-ul-Jihad-Islami (HUJI), Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and Taliban. It is the Deobandi ideology that created the doctor module in the Al-Falah University. That is why Madani has come to their defence. The soul of Islamic terrorism in India therefore lies in the subcontinent. The Madanis and their mother organization can be termed, together with Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia University, and Al-Falah University, as the urban jihadis. Both the urban jihadis and urban Naxals provide the covering fire. Who will take them on? They have declared war against India in the most threatening manner.