Kolkata:
Even as an all-out war seems imminent between Naxals and the state forces, Naxal leaders, who've been underground for decades, are suddenly visible, at least in the media. It seems to be part of a deliberate strategy in a battle that's being fought on different fronts.
Ganapathi, the top man in the CPI(Maoist) outfit, has not been seen in public for thirty years. Yet, the man whose real name is Mupalla Laxman Rao, is now on YouTube. A video shows him addressing party cadres.
Ganapathi was a school teacher in Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh. He joined the leftwing extremist movement in the 70s and later succeeded Kondapalli Seetharamaiah as the top man in CPIML-People's war.
The police claims that the YouTube video is from 2007, and shows Ganapathi speaking at a CPI-Maoist meeting somewhere in Bihar. But Maoist sympathisers say the video dates further back to 2003, at a ceremony which finalised the merger of the CPI(ML) - People's War and Maoist Coordination Committee of India.
But who did release the video into the public domain? Those close to the Naxals say that the government benefits more from this. For one, it reveals the identity of a man who has spent half his life on the run. Also, the images of Ganapati surrounded by weapon-arrying followers, suggests a powerful enemy of the state.
Varavara Rao, who describes himself as a Maoist sympathizer, says the government may be inspired by how Sri Lanka handled the LTTE. The strategy there was that if the top leadership was eliminated, the movement would soon fall apart.
But lately, Naxals themselves seem to have been wooing the media, and through it, the public. Second-in-command Kishanji, who operates in the Lalgarh area of West Bengal, conducted various phone interviews with TV channels when he was holding a police officer hostage in Midnapore. That, and other recent Naxal attacks, seem engineered to catch eyeballs across the country, perhaps to signify a position of strength.