Naxalism....

25 May 13, a black Saturday in the history of Congress party of Chhattisgarh, The entire top party leadership was wiped out. The party made a hue and cry, it called for a state Bandh and many leaders pledged to put an end to the Naxal menace. 28 people killed in the deadly attack by the Naxals at Jagdalpur, which included Congress leadership and CRPF personnel.

Who are these Maoists? Mostly these Maoist/Naxal groups function under the umbrella organization Communist Party of India (Maoist) that has been banned by the Home Ministry of India as the 34th terrorist organization under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. These Maoists organizations/groups have been found to be working as ‘partners’ at various times and locations with SIMI,ULFA, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Harkatul Mujahideen, Al Badr, Jamat-ul-Mujahid and Hizbul Mujahideen (HM).

 
The Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist) has published a secret red book 'Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution', which is said to be the Naxals' Bible. Talking about supporting anti-national movements the book says: “Lakhs of enemy's armed troops have been deployed since long in J&K and the north-eastern States. More and more nationalities may come into armed confrontation with the reactionary Indian State, so it will be difficult for the Indian ruling classes to mobilise all their armed forces against our revolutionary war.”

The ‘Red Corridor’ runs through the dense forest and tribal belt, from Nepal through Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and all the way to Andhra Pradesh and to the upper reaches of Maharashtra, and some parts of Karnataka. Inside their corridor, the Naxalites run a parallel government and vow to continue their fight against the state—a full-fledged war they call ‘people’s struggle’. 

All the Left-wing militant organisations, including the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the People’s War Group (PWG), after their merger are now operating under the flagship rebel party—CPI (Maoist).

The Central intelligence reports have also issued a warning that the Maoists are now in the process of identifying ‘new operational areas’ across the country. They are keenly looking at industrial belts, where big corporate houses are planning to set up the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), an easy target to launch violent agitation. 

The Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist) has published a secret red book ‘Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution’, which is said to be the Naxals’ Bible. The book says: “The central task of the revolution is seizure of political power through protracted People’s war.” Talking about supporting sub-national movements in India, the book says: “Lakhs of enemy’s armed troops have been deployed since long in J&K and the north-eastern States. More and more nationalities may come into armed confrontation with the reactionary Indian State, so it will be difficult for the Indian ruling classes to mobilise all their armed forces against our revolutionary war.” It further says the urban areas are one of the main sources which provide cadre and leadership having various types of capabilities essential for People’s war.

Birth of Naxalism

In the backdrop of organizational upheavals within the Indian Communist movement, an incident in a remote area transformed the history of left-wing extremism in India. In a remote village called Naxalbari in West Bengal, a tribal youth named Bimal Kissan, having obtained a judicial order, went to plough his land on March 2, 1967. The local landlords attacked him with the help of their goons. Tribal people of the area retaliated and started forcefully recapturing their lands. What followed was a rebellion, which left one police sub inspector and nine tribals dead. Within a short span of about two months, this incident acquired great visibility and tremendous support from cross sections of Communist revolutionaries belonging to the State units of the CPI(M) in West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Though the United Front Government of West Bengal, headed by the CPI(M) was able to contain the rebellion within 72 days using all repressive measures possible, these units had a formal meeting in November 1967, as a result of which the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) was formed in May 1968. ‘Allegiance to the armed struggle and non-participation in the elections’ were the two cardinal principles that the AICCR adopted for its operations.#

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Naxalite movement was immensely popular. There were reports of brilliant students, including from IITs, dropping out of college to join the struggle for the rights of the tribals and landless labourers. Over the years, as the principles diluted, Naxalite movement saw much of its membership waning away. Nevertheless, it has an endless supply of men and women, victims of State apathy to their condition joining its ranks, which shows that many still believe in the cause.

How to tackle Maoists

The continuing inability of the government—whether at the Centre or in the States—to counter effectively the spread of the activities of the Maoist insurgents-cum-terrorists was once again demonstrated by the temporary control established by the CPI-Maoist and its front organisation called the People's Committee Against Police Atrocities in 17 villages spread across some 300 square kilometres in the Lalgarh area in West Bengal. 

The People's Committee, with the backing or at the instigation of the Maoists exploited local anger over alleged police excesses against the tribals following an alleged Maoist attempt to kill Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee through a landmine blast in November 2008. 

What started as a protest movement against police excesses was transformed by the Maoists into a violent political movement. The hesitation of the governments of West Bengal and India to act strongly against the Maoist-instigated committee at the very beginning was apparently due to electoral considerations arising from the recently-concluded elections to the Lok Sabha. This was exploited by the Maoists. 

Although the security forces have succeeded in ejecting the Maoists and their supporters from many of the villages earlier controlled by them, the fire is burning from inside. Since Dr Manmohan Singh came to power as the Prime Minister in 2004, he and his government have been projecting the Maoists as the greatest internal security threat faced by India and calling for and promising a special strategy to counter them through coordinated action involving the Centre and States in whose territory the Maoists are active. The Congress had appointed in 2004 a special task force of the party to go into the Maoist activities in Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh to come out with suitable recommendations for dealing with the Maoist activities.

Before evolving a strategy, however, one has to understand the basic differences between Maoist insurgency/terrorism and jihadi terrorism. Firstly, the Maoist terrorism is an almost totally rural phenomenon, whereas jihadi terrorism is a largely urban phenomenon. Secondly, Maoist terrorism is a totally indigenous phenomenon motivated by domestic grievances and a domestic political agenda.Jihadi terrorism is externally sponsored or aided by the intelligence agencies of Pakistan and Bangladesh and is motivated by their strategic agenda. Jihadi terrorism is a cross border threat to national security. Maoist terrorism is not. 

While the Maoist leaders are motivated largely by their desire to seek political power through a Maoist style People's War similar to the war waged by their counterparts in Nepal, their cadres and foot soldiers fighting for them are largely motivated by genuine grievances arising from the political, economic and social hardships. 

It is India’s long neglect to develop the tribal areas which has created large pockets of alienation against the government and these pockets have become the spawning ground of Maoist terrorism. The governments concerned have to take note of the genuine grievances of the tribals and deal with them in a sympathetic manner. There has to be a system for a prompt enquiry into all allegations of excess. 

Also, Maoist terrorism cannot be effectively countered without modernising and strengthening our rural policing and the rural presence of the intelligence agencies. The tribal areas, which have not yet been affected by the Maoist virus, have to be developed on a crash basis in order to prevent the spread of the virus to them. 

The capabilities of the security agencies deployed for countering Maoist activities also have to be different from those of the urban counter-terrorism agencies. The emphasis has to be on greater mobility in the rural areas and greater protection from land-mines used extensively by the Maoists. The failure to develop the road infrastructure in the rural areas has facilitated the spread of Maoist terrorism. 

Maoists mainly attack police stations, police lines, camps and arms storage depots of para-military forces in order to demoralise the security forces and capture their arms and ammunition. The repeated success of the Maoists in mounting large-scale surprise attacks on such hard targets speaks of the poor state of rural policing and intelligence set-up and the equally poor state of physical security. Unfortunately, instead of working out an appropriate strategy which will address these operational deficiencies and at the same time pay equal attention to the political handling of the problem, there is an unwise tendency to militarise the counter-Maoist insurgency management. 

Plan for Naxal-hit States: The Union Home Ministry has unveiled a new Rs 500-crore fully Centre-sponsored scheme which will be implemented by State governments—for Naxalism-hit States. Centre will give Rs 135-crore a year to the States under the scheme. The scheme has five important objectives: To provide mobility to the police by upgrading existing roads in inaccessible areas; to build camping grounds and helipads at strategic locations in remote areas; to strengthen police stations that have been identified as being at risk; to upgrade and strengthen approach roads to police stations and outposts where there is risk of IEDs and landmines, and to provide for critical needs, specific to the areas where holistic anti-naxal measures are being taken in a focused manner.
The States have been asked to prepare integrated action plans in the most affected districts to achieve the objectives. For this, the ministry has identified 15 action points that include preparation of a comprehensive connectivity plan for the 33 districts seriously affected by Left-wing extremism. 

Way Ahead

Naxalism is a result of the failure of governance in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas. Civil governance is almost absent and the police to population ratio is very low in LWE areas. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India seeks resolution on four terms. One, basic law and order needs improvement, therefore the number of forces has been raised. The police footfall on ground has been increased three times. The government is tackling this issue head on since the last decade, as a result, the naxals are responding with large scale violence. The government proposes to deploy 120 police battalions next year and revamp the police set up. Simultaneously, general welfare schemes are paid attention to and starting from now, it would need five years to reduce the problem significantly. Second, the focus would be on development of LWE affected areas. MHA has approved road development projects worth 7300 crore and Integrated action plan for 68 districts will be provided with internet connectivity. Considering popular grievances over land ownership, policies like the Tribal Land Act are being monitored by the MHA along with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. Policies like the Tribal Land Act and Minor Forest Produce have given land ownership to the tribals. Bamboo has been declared as an exclusive ownership of the tribals. As a result, income of inhabitants has sharply gone up. To illustrate, tribals auctioned their produce themselves, eliminating middle men and earned 30 million annually as against earlier half million. The Police, Revenue and Forest departments were exploitative departments from a point of view. Officials are unwilling to be posted in naxal affected areas and look at such postings as punishments. Thus they are not interested at all. It’s a challenge to post and retain the best officials. So far government has achieved only 30 per cent success rate in this regard. Besides, vacancies in schools and police postings remain, which is an impediment in improving civic administration in these areas. It is extremely necessary to improve basic infrastructure in these areas to sustain recruitment and postings. PISA is monitored by the MHA. However situation is improving in a way that marriages are taking place, buses are running, markets have opened, and contractors are willing to build roads in naxal affected areas. Trust in government is improving; local population has demanded presence of police troops for another five to ten years. So far, the government has recovered 4000 sq. km of area from naxal occupation. Third, efforts should be made to regain political space in the problem areas. Naxals do not desire popular tilt towards government and want to terrify people with their brutality. In 2011, out of 1100 persons killed by the naxals, 700 were tribals. In many areas affected by naxalism, political parties do not exist but it is important to put political presence. To understand the positive impact of political parties in arresting naxalism, the state of Uttar Pradesh is a classic example. LWE has not exceeded in Uttar Pradesh owing to Bahujan Samaj Party’s stronghold in villages. Similarly, in Andhra Pradesh former Chief Minister Y S Rajshekhar Reddy made efforts for political resurrection in naxal affected areas. A commonplace problem or limitation in such efforts lies in the different perceptions of naxal problem in different state governments and the limitations posed by slow movement of federal dialogue. Though political parties are realising the gravity of the issue and the need for political presence, much work needs to be done. LWE areas are mineral rich therefore we cannot afford to make any mistake. In a scenario built by the MHA, by taking control of resources, Naxals have the capabilities to cut off power supply to Delhi in three days. Government does not expect naxals to give up arms; rather give up on violence; to which naxals would never succumb as their ideology is founded on violence. They fear that people will not support them if they give up armed struggle. Naxals cannot be tamed or brought to talks unless put under pressure. It is crucial to show them that they are not at any advantage over the government. Last, the criminal justice system needs an overhaul. About 1.8 Lac offences are laid on tribals under the FRA. There is immense harassment due to procedural bureaucracy. Several cases were withdrawn and the MHA is pushing for the withdrawal of all cases with hope that the move would bring in some relief.