Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
On Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri asked Binoy Sony Joseph, a political science lecturer and former Network for Advanced Study of China (NASC) Fellow at the Takshashila Institution, how Chinese Maoist thought shaped Indian left politics.
Binoy traced Maoism’s break from classical Marxism, noting that the former centred the industrial working class while Mao made the peasantry the primary revolutionary force. He argued this shift suited less-industrialised societies like India. Binoy also described the 1967 Naxalbari uprising as a mix of genuine feudal-era land grievances and organisation by radical leftists inspired by Mao’s “protracted people’s war” strategy, and argued this was not a simple peasant revolt, nor a wholesale import of Mao’s model.
Sekhri argued left movements face a purity-versus-scale trade-off, contrasting this with the RSS keeping ideologues outside the party.
When asked whether the BJP’s use of “Urban Naxal” messaging lands with a generation with no real memory of Naxalism, author, podcaster, and cultural commentator Anurag Minus Verma argued that Gen Z has no real memory of it, thus making the BJP’s targeting of Umar Khalid as an “Urban Naxal" villain, he suggested, better aimed at millennials than younger audiences.
Tune in to NL Hafta: newslaundry.com/2026/08/22/hafta-603-bjps-instagram-problem-dimaagi-naxal-and-maoism-in-india
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On Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri asked Binoy Sony Joseph, a political science lecturer and former Network for Advanced Study of China (NASC) Fellow at the Takshashila Institution, how Chinese Maoist thought shaped Indian left politics.
Binoy traced Maoism’s break from classical Marxism, noting that the former centred the industrial working class while Mao made the peasantry the primary revolutionary force. He argued this shift suited less-industrialised societies like India. Binoy also described the 1967 Naxalbari uprising as a mix of genuine feudal-era land grievances and organisation by radical leftists inspired by Mao’s “protracted people’s war” strategy, and argued this was not a simple peasant revolt, nor a wholesale import of Mao’s model.
Sekhri argued left movements face a purity-versus-scale trade-off, contrasting this with the RSS keeping ideologues outside the party.
When asked whether the BJP’s use of “Urban Naxal” messaging lands with a generation with no real memory of Naxalism, author, podcaster, and cultural commentator Anurag Minus Verma argued that Gen Z has no real memory of it, thus making the BJP’s targeting of Umar Khalid as an “Urban Naxal" villain, he suggested, better aimed at millennials than younger audiences.
Tune in to NL Hafta: newslaundry.com/2026/08/22/hafta-603-bjps-instagram-problem-dimaagi-naxal-and-maoism-in-india
Get a 6 month subscription at ₹1947: rzp.io/rzp/nl-1947
Join the NL-TNM Book Club: newslaundry.com/book-club
Join us on WhatsApp: whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va61PEo0QeacOqU9vr2k
Download the accessible Newslaundry app: newslaundry.com/download-app
Follow and engage with us on social media:
Facebook: facebook.com/newslaundry
Twitter: twitter.com/newslaundry
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