No doubt for last two days, arrest of Kobad Ghandhi, a politburo member of the Maoist rebel group rocked the national media. Definitely what stirred the most is his sacrifice of career and Persian family fortune which he and his wife inherited during 1970. After he was baptized in Leninism in London, he continued to serve oppressed rural people of India and finally joined Maoist rebels during 1980's. One may think that rebels are just trigger happy gun master fighting against either Indian military force or Salua Julum but BBC interview of Kobad in 2008 clearly speaks volume for his work among the oppressed rural people in Madhya Pradesh.
https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8270583.stm
You will instantly fall in love with him after reading the interview. Here is a man came from England, sacrificed his family fortune and worked tirelessly among most backward section of Indian people. He toiled for them who have not tasted the sweet success of Rs 10 lakh salaried babus in global economy. Instead they was left to rot and worst the natural resources based on which they have survived generation after generation was encroached by greedy corporates who want to grab every possible inch of land in India if that is possible. So indeed he is a hero-champion of the common mass.
I am also sure millions of Indian youths who were disillusioned by wretched politicians now must breathe a fresh air that such a true lover of common people still exists even amidst such acute crisis of materialism. Like Nietzsche, all of us are searching for a true hero inside us from the childhood-for every sphere of life. And we found one in every sector-we have a Tendulkar for cricket, Mother Teresa for charity, Bacchan for acting-but who would fill the void in politics? Frankly there was none. Jay Prakash Narayan may be close but again VP Singh or his kind, at best proved their worth to be a politician and not a champion of common mass. We always lacked one who could match proverbial romantic appeal of Che Guevera. So called leftist like Jyoti Basu or Harkishen Singh Surajit will not even fit the bill of a decent socialist politician let alone a nonpareil hero.
But now you need to look critically at Kobad's life removing the veil of romanticism. Read his interview and you would immediately figure out he believes in a socialist heaven. A society without oppression, with respect and equality for all. Like Kobad, all of us are looking for a better world-magical political system. But Sir Karl Popper pointed out
"The belief in a political Utopia is especially dangerous. This is possibly connected with the fact that the search for a better world, like the investigation of our environment, is (if I am correct) one of the oldest and most important of all the instincts"
Because we know, attempts to establish communist heaven actually produced hell in which more than 100 millions of people sacrificed their life in political genocides in the last century-the largest in human history. And it is all because there was no democracy in heaven. It turned out a democratic hell of India is far better choice than undemocratic heaven of former Soviet Union.
Just take the example of Stalin. He too sacrificed his comfortable life and good career as meteorologist. Bur instead, he took to bank robbery to raise fund for Bolshevik revolution. He lost his first wife in poverty which he embraced to serve people. But what happened at the end? Once he captured absolute power in party congress of 1928, after which, he emerged as the greatest demonic figure of the 20th century only to match Hitler! And as much as I have gone through the details of his history, all the executions, genocides and forced labor camp of Gulag -every institution of prosecution was justified by his Utopian political system. And at the end, United States achieved far more for themselves and for the whole world. If you look today, every life saving medicine, every technology that we use-computer, Internet, TV, Radio were invented in America. Soviet Union could not discover a single life saving drug. They produced only missiles after missiles. This is despite the fact USSR at a point employed twice more scientists than than Americans.
What does that tell you? There is no alternative to multi-party democracy. There is no alternative to pluralist society. Yes you can create equality but you can not feed them because production system sinks under such Utopian political system.
It is nice to talk about people's revolution but it can not sustain on empty stomach. In all the socialist countries, production system completely collapsed in the absence of market. Quality of life of a Cuban or a North Korian is worse than a beggar in India. You imagine the rest.
Therefore sacrificing for Utopian political system, which we all admire, is also squarely a danger to our political system. It's a Trojan horse. You bring it inside with admiration and then you become a victim of it