Dialogue October-December, 2006 , Volume 8 No. 2
Naxalism: Trends and Govt. Response
Naxalites
of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) presently wield an influence ––
intense to marginal –– in over-160 districts across the country in 14
States. They are also making ardent attempts to bring in additional areas under
their hold and sway. A person of no less authority than the Prime Minister has
stated more than once in his speeches that the Naxalite problem ‘poses the
single-largest threat’ to the internal security of the country. In this wake,
this paper makes a modest attempt to discuss the significant, recent trends in
the Naxalite movement in the country and present an overview of the response of
the Union government.
Rising Tide
The presence and influence of the
Naxalites has steadily been on the rise since the past few years, especially
since 2001. In that year a total of 131 districts were affected by the Naxalite
movement, in varying intensity –– high, moderate, marginal and targeted. By
the end of 2004, the number of Naxalite affected districts rose to over 150. By
November 2006, according to well-informed official sources, at least 162
districts have been identified as affected by Naxalite activities to varying
degree –– high to targeted.
Curiously, for some inexplicable
reason, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), in 2006, for the first time,
introduced an altogether new unit of classification –– police stations. It
is not difficult to ponder over a plausible reason for this unexpected shift in
the unit of classification. A district as a unit of measurement gives the
impression of a larger swathe of territory being affected, while a police
station as a unit of measurement gives a vastly diminished impression of the
expanse
In the same breath, the influence
of the Naxalites has been spreading to more States of the country. While, even
as late as in 2004, eight States were said to be Naxalite affected, presently
the Naxalites have a reported presence in 14 States across the country. Indeed,
in West Bengal, from where the Naxalites were once completely ousted and
ejected, they have gained a fresh presence in many districts: at least three
districts were said to be moderately affected and 13 more marginally affected.
Besides, for instance, they have penetrated into virgin territories in
Uttaranchal such as Nainital, Almora, Champawat, Pittoragarh and Udham Singh
Nagar; districts such as Dharmapuri, Salem, Coimbatore and Madurai in Tamil Nadu;
and Bidar, Gulbarga, Raichur, Bellary, Shimoga, Udupi, Chikmagalur, Dakshin
Kannada and Kolar districts in Karnataka. Moreover, in pockets of Haryana, not
far away from the national capital Delhi, the activities of the Naxalites have
been reported lately. Also, it is believed that the Maoists might soon seek to
acquire a presence in the North east region of India, especially in Assam.
Besides, it has also been reported that Maoists have chalked out an elaborate
plan to penetrate parts of Gujarat and acquire an influence, especially in
industrial towns, as well as to launch an ‘urban movement’ in different
parts of the country.
The Naxalites already have a
sizable presence in many districts in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, and have, in fact, declared large
tracts of areas in these States as ‘Special Guerrilla Zones’ or ‘Special
Areas’. At the same time the group is making fervent attempts to bring in
additional areas under its hold and sway.
On the other hand, the cadre
strength of the Naxalites, too, has steadily been on the rise, over the past few
years. According to Annual Report, 2005-2006 of the MHA, it is estimated
that the armed-underground cadre strength of the CPI-Maoist is over 9,300 men
and women, holding some 6,500 regular weapons and a large number of country-made
arms. Quoting MHA officials, a media report of October 2005 held that the total
underground strength of the Naxalites in 2003 was over-6,300, while it rose to
over-7,100 in 2004. In the absence of authentic data it is difficult to estimate
the present underground strength of the Naxalites, but, it may not be wrong to
suggest that it could be approximately 10,000 cadres.
Also, fatalities in
Naxalite-related violence, too, have been consistently and fairly high. The MHA
stated in its Annual Report, 2005-2006 (p.23) that, in 2002 the number of
fatalities (civilians, security force personnel and Naxalites) stood at 623,
while the figure rose to 721 in 2003. The Annual Report also noted that a
total of 623 lives have been lost in Naxalite-related violence in 2004; if the
now-failed peace process was not held in Andhra Pradesh for the greater part of
2004, arguably, fatalities would have been higher during that year. The total
number of fatalities in 2005 increased substantially over the previous year and
stood at 892. In 2006, according to provisional figures provided by the
authoritative South Asia Terrorism Portal (www.satp.org) of the Institute
for Conflict Management, as on November 12, 2006, a total of 677 lives have been
lost in Naxalite violence countrywide (259 civilians, 107 security force
personnel and 311 Naxalites).
Merger and consolidation
The Naxalite movement was earlier
marked by a series of splits beginning in the 1970s. As a result the movement
got highly fragmented, over the years. Eventually, the area of influence of each
of these splintered groups did not extend to more than isolated pockets limited,
sometimes, to a few villages in a district. Hardly, perhaps a couple of groups
such as the Janasakthi could claim an influence stretching beyond more than a
district and a State. However, within no time, the Janasakthi, too, which was
actually a conglomeration of seven Naxalite groups, splintered.
While the trend to splinter is
not altogether absent presently, in a somewhat clear reversal of the earlier
trend of splintering into tiny, inconsequent formations, the Naxalite groups are
joining forces during the present times. The most noteworthy example of this new
trend is the merger of the two most lethal Naxalite groups in the country ––
the Communist Party of India––Marxist-Leninist (People’s War), or the
CPI-ML (PW), popularly known as PW, and the Maoist Communist Center of India (MCCI),
earlier known as MCC. The two groups merged on September 21, 2004 to form the
Communist Party of India (Maoist), or CPI (Maoist), also being referred
presently as Maoists. The CPI (Maoist) is presently the single largest and most
lethal Naxalite group.
Some
of the other known mergers are summarized below:
l The Communist Party of United States of India (CPUSI)
–– a breakaway faction of the Janasakthi and,
thus, also known as Janasakthi
(Veeranna faction) –– had merged with CPI the (Maoist) in October
2005. The
group had pockets of influence in the North Telengana region.
l The erstwhile CPI-ML (PW) was an amalgam of the
People’s War Group and the then Bihar-based
Party Unity (PU). The merger
between the two groups occurred after years of negotiations in 1998.
l The Punjab-based Revolutionary Communist Center of India
(Maoist) merged with the then MCC and
the new group was christened as MCCI. The
merger was announced in a joint communiqué issued on
January 15, 2003.
l The CPI-ML Naxalabari, another Naxalite group which too
draws inspiration from Mao’s thoughts and
is opposed to parliamentary
democracy, is an amalgam of itself, the CPI (ML) Maoist Unity Center
(CPI-ML-MUC)
and the CPI-ML Red Flag. The CPI-ML-MUC itself was formed in April 1997 with
the
merger of Naxalite elements of the Kerala Communist Party and Maharashtra
Communist Party that
had emerged following the disbanding of the CPI (ML)
Central Reorganization Committee. The
CPI-ML-MUC merged with CPI (ML) Naxalbari in April 1999. Subsequently, sometime during or after
the year 2000, a splinter group of the CPI (ML) Red Flag led by Rauf merged with
CPI (ML) Naxalbari.
It is believed that Rauf currently leads the CPI-ML
Naxalbari.
Moreover,
it was indicated by a Janasakthi leader in mid-October that the Janasakthi might
merge with the CPI (Maoist) in future, even as he hastened to add that unity
talks between the two groups were
not taking place at that time. However, internal documents of the
CPI (Maoist) that this author later read clearly indicated that unity talks
were, in fact, taking place, and that there were stuck because of the attitude
of the Andhra Pradesh leaders of Janasakthi. Thus, one can not altogether rule
out the possibility of the Bihar segment of the Janasakthi merging with the CPI
(Maoist), in future, either en masse, or in hordes.
Increasing militarization
A
critical aspect of the current trends in the Naxalite movement is the increasing
militarization of the CPI (Maoist) cadres; this related to the phenomenal
increase in fire-power, lethality and brutality of attacks, as well as a marked
shift in the nature of attacks. At the initiation of their armed struggle in the
1970s the Naxalites used tradiutional weapons such as farm implements and later
crude bombs. Now, the Maoist arsenal boasts of a wide variety of weapons, both
country-made and sophisticated. These include country-made guns, SBBLs, DBBLs,
SLRs, AK series rifles, and INSAS rifles.
Presently,
the Maoists have also gained access to the technology to fabricate rockets and
rocket launchers. In fact, rockets were seized from the Maoist rebels for the
first time in the country in the Malkangiri forests of Orissa in 2002.
Thereafter, on a number of occasions, rockets were seized from Maoist arms dumps
in Andhra Pradesh, as well as in Chhattisgarh, while the Maoists have fired
rockers with partial success on at lease a dozen occasions in Andhra Pradesh
alone. The last of these seizures was made in early September 2006 from two
places in Andhra Pradesh –– Vijayawada and Mahabubnagar –– in raids on
the warehouse of a private transport company. The sheer magnitude of the
seizures, 865 empty rocket shells, has created a sense of shock in the security
establishment across the country. Investigations into the seizures led to the
identification of an elaborate network extending from the Ambattur industrial
estate on the outskirts of Chennai to interior pockets of rural Andhra Pradesh,
and the arrest of the lynchpin of the entire episode. Further, of the 1,500
rocket shells that were fabricated in Amabattur it is believed that
approximately 450 rockets have reached the Maoists and have been stashed away in
safe locations. Also, a media report of May 17, 2006, said for the first time in
the country 50 shells of ‘pressure bombs’, too, were recovered from a Maoist
arms dump near Kumkumpudi village, in Visakhapatnam district.
Besides,
the Maoists have also gained substantial expertise in fabricating and detonating
Improvised Explosive Devices. As noted by a former Director of the Intelligence
Bureau, at a conference in January 2005:
The
Naxalites have perfected the art of setting-off land mine explosions. Unlike in
Jammu and Kashmir where landmines are detonated with remote-control devices, the
Naxalites use the wire-control method. Thus, it is comparatively more difficult
to neutralise these landmines, because they cannot be electronically
neutralised. It is estimated that the Naxalites cause approximately 100 land
mine explosions, every year. On numerous occasions policemen traveling in
vehicles have fallen victim to such attacks and their vehicles were blown-up
into smithereens.
The
lethality of the Naxalites’ attacks on the security forces, and the consequent
large number of fatalities, becomes evident from incidents such as the September
3, 2005-attack in which the Maoists blew up a Mine Protected Vehicle in
Dantewada district, Chhattisgarh, killing 24 policemen. Similarly, the brutality
of Maoist attacks could be gauged from the manner in which they have been
killing innocent, unarmed civilians during attacks on their ‘targets’.
During an attack on the Chilakaluripeta police station and police quarters in
Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, the Naxalites killed the mother of a police
inspector, on March 10, 2005. In another incident, on August 15, 2005, the
Maoists opened fire at a function organized to mark Independence Day
celebrations, where there was a large gathering of people, and killed a ruling
party legislator representing Mathkal, Ch Narsi Reddy, and eight others,
including the legislator’s son and a Municipal Commissioner, in Mahabubnagar
district, Andhra Pradesh.
A
further heightening of the militarization of the Maoists has come to play since
2004. Thus far, on five different occasions the Maoists launched attacks
involving a few hundred cadres and people’s militia members. Also, these
attacks involving large number of civilians assume significance because they
conducted synchronized, multiple attacks on various targets in a given area.
These include:
l February 6, 2004: A few hundred Naxalites laid siege to
the district headquarters town of Koraput,
Orissa, brought it to a complete halt
for a few hours, attacked the district headquarters complex,
made an abortive
attempt to storm the jail, but successfully raided the district armoury looting
all
500 weapons and several thousand rounds of ammunition.
l June 23, 2005: Over 200 Maoists went on a rampage in
Madhuban, East Champaran district,
Bihar. They looted many arms, set a police
station on fire, killed three policemen, attacked the
Block Office looting arms
and killing two guards, and looted two banks.
l November 11, 2006: Armed Maoists and members of the people’s militia
numbering a few hundred
raided the Home Guards Training Center in Giridh,
Jharkhand, and looted 185 rifles and 25,000
rounds of ammunition.
l March 24, 2006: A few hundred Maoist rebels and
people’s militia members launched a raid on
Ramagiri Udayagiri (R Udayagiri)
town of Gajapati district, Orissa.
Among
the attacks, thus far, involving a few hundred armed, well-trained guerrillas
and people’s militia members, the November, 13, 2005 Jehanabad Raid, which the
Maoists call Operation Jail Break, is the most striking. During the raid the
rebels conducted synchronized attacks on the district jail, district court,
police lines, police quarters, district armoury, and police stations. The
Maoists looted several hundred rifles and a huge quantity of ammunition. The
focus of the raid was on the district jail and the Maoists set free 341
prisoners, including prominent Maoist leader Ajay Kanu, and a few other Maoist
cadres. Also, the rebels abducted an unspecified number of their class/caste
enemies belonging to the Ranveer Sena and later executed at least nine of them.
The
Jehanabad raid acquires significance for two important reasons. In terms of the
numbers involved in the raid, it is the largest-ever staged by the Naxalites in
the country. Two, among the approximately 1,000 people who reportedly conducted
the raid, an overwhelming number of common people, who the Maoists would term as
members of the ‘people’s militia’, were involved, along with
battle-hardened underground cadres. Clearly, in pockets of the country that are
under their stranglehold the Maoists have created and trained the third and
crucial component of their military wing––the people’s militia or ‘base
force’; the other two components are military platoons which constitute the
‘primary force’ and guerrilla squads which form the ‘secondary force’.
The existence of the people’s militia is, thus, a clear indicator of the
intensity of support that the Maoists have come to wield in the areas under
their control, similar to what has played out in Nepal in the past few years,
and how well entrenched they are in these areas.
Further,
the Jehanabad raid has acted as an immense morale booster for the Maoists and
they might, thus, plan to launch more similar attacks in future. Moreover, it
might, perhaps, not be difficult to imagine, and be prepared for, the
psychological impact it would create if the rebels were to launch attacks of
such magnitude simultaneously at, hypothetically, five or six different places
spread across the country.
External Linkages
Over time, the Naxalites have
formed a variety of linkages with both fraternal and non-fraternal,
ideologically incompatible groups. The range of the fraternal ties extends from
establishing bilateral ties and sending formal messages and ‘revolutionary’
greetings during conferences to acquiring membership in broad fronts and
exchanging skills and weapons, on the other. The fraternal ties, it might be
noted, extends beyond the country and the South Asian region, and stretches to
groups operating in other parts of the world. On the other hand, the
non-fraternal ties have been entirely opportunistic –– to secure weapons and
learn skills.
The CPI-Maoist, along with two
other Naxalite groups from India, is a member of a broad front known as the
Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations in South Asia (CCOMPOSA),
which that was founded in July 2001, and includes similar groups from
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Also, the erstwhile MCCI was a member
of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), while available reports
indicate that the CPI (Maoist) is not a member of RIM, but has decided to
maintain close links with it. Yet another international broad front of extreme
Left organizations is the World People’s Resistance Movement (WPRM), of which
there is also a South Asia chapter. Also, there has been wide media reportage,
while some scholars and analysts have written about, the wide range of linkages
between Naxalites of the CPI-Maoist and the CPN (Maoist).
Until now, in the context of the
CPI-Maoist’s non-fraternal links, there have been reports of its ties with the
United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). According to a senior police officer
from Andhra Pradesh, whom this author interviewed in 2001, a representative of
the then PW visited Dhaka to find out from some unnamed ULFA leaders based there
about the fate of the money they paid for acquiring sophisticated arms. In 2005,
a media report from Guwahati held that ULFA would provided logistics support for
an annual conference of CCOMPOSA, which was to be held somewhere along the
India-Bangladesh border. The Conference has since been held in mid-August 2006,
but there have been no further reports if ULFA provided assistance in organizing
the conference.
Besides the links with ULFA,
there have also been reports of the Maoists’ links with the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka. The earliest of these date to 1991. While
serving as an Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament,
Bandaru Dattatreya, who was Minister of State for Railways, said, in the Lok
Sabha, on December 10, 1991, that the erstwhile PWG procured 60 AK-47s and 20
sten guns from the LTTE; in fact, he was quoting the then Home Minister of
Andhra Pradesh, M V Mysoora Reddy. Also, two videocassettes containing LTTE’s
training modules were recovered from an arms dump of the erstwhile PW in
Nelimaliga village, Visakhapatnam district, as reported in the vernacular media
in late-December 2001. Another vernacular media report of late-December 2002
claimed that the then PWG and the LTTE had some months earlier struck an arms
deal, but the pricing had to be finalised.
Speaking to the media following
the aborted assassination attempt on the then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N
Chandrababu Naidu on October 1, 2003, the then Deputy Prime Minister, L K Advani
said that the (erstwhile) PW has links with the LTTE, and had received expertise
in using Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) from them. Further, while Muppala
Lakshmana Rao alias Ganapathy –– general secretary of the CPI (Maoist) who
was earlier the head of the then PW –– made an unconvincing denial about the
LTTE links in a 1998-interview to a popular website. He also categorically
stated: “We have had no relations with the LTTE till now. But we are not
against having relations with them. We will certainly have links with them if an
opportunity arises. We feel that such a relation would be conducive to the
revolutionary movement.”
Negotiations as a ‘tactic’
For the first time in the history
of the Naxalite movement in the country, the rebels participated in direct talks
with an elected government in 2004. In the wake of the Congress-I securing a
landslide victory in the elections to the State Legislative Assembly in Andhra
Pradesh, keeping-up a pre-election promise the government held talks with
representatives of the CPI (Maoist) and the Janasakthi Naxalites, from October
15 to October 18, 2004, in Hyderabad. The peace process generated immense hope
among the people of the State, who were yearning for lasting peace, while the
entire country watched intently to draw lessons from the Andhra Pradesh
experience. But, the talks ended inconclusively. The Naxalites, eventually,
trashed the peace process on January 17, 2005.
The Naxalites were from the
beginning unambiguous in their stand that participating in the peace process was
a tactic and that “talks were war by other means.” In a press release
announcing the formation of the CPI (Maoist), which was issued on October 14,
2004, barely a few hours before they sat at the negotiating table Ganapathy and
Kishan, the two top leaders, said: “the immediate aim and programme of the
Maoist party is to carry on and complete the already ongoing and advancing New
Democratic Revolution... This revolution will be carried out and completed
through... protracted people’s war with the armed seizure of power remaining
as its central and principal task...” Thus, even before the talks were to
commence, this should have left no one in doubt about the agenda and objectives
of the CPI (Maoist), and the ultimate fate the peace process would have met.
Presently, the CPI (Maoist) is
engaged in an intense internal debate on the stand of the outfit vis-à-vis
peace process and talks. Differing opinions have been expressed on related
issues, including on whether the outfit could engage in a peace process in one
State while simultaneously waging protracted war in another; whether peace
initiatives should be pursued separately with each of the State governments, or
a single initiative should be undertaken at the all-India level. According to an
acknowledged authority on the Naxalites, neither the Polit Bureau of the CPI
(Maoist) nor the Central Committee could arrive at a conclusive decision and it
has, therefore, been decided to leave it for wider discussion at the Special
Congress of the CPI (Maoist) that could be held anytime during late-2006 or
early-2007.
Government Response
This paper limits itself to
presenting a bird’s eye view of the response of the Union government, thus
far, and, therefore, does not delve into the response of the individual
Naxalite-affected States. While the Maoists have been expanding to newer areas,
gaining ground, consolidating themselves and have steadily been enhancing their
military capabilities since 2001, largely because the Naxalite movement has no
“cross-border” overtones successive governments at the Centre, generally,
tended to ignore its rising tide and have left it to the individual States to
deal with the problem. The steps that were taken were, thus, half-hearted and
ineffective.
Moreover, thus far, the approach
to dealing with the Naxalite problem has been excessively tilted towards
putting-down the Naxalites militarily. As early as in 1998 the MHA created a
‘Coordination Center’ and a ‘Task Force on Naxalism’ presided over by
the Union Home Secretary was established in October 2004. Also, though not in an
institutionalized fashion, Chief Ministers of Naxalite-affected states used to
meet under the chairmanship of the Union Home Minister, periodically. The ad
hoc nature of this arrangement has since been replaced in 2005 by the
Standing Committee of Chief Ministers of Naxalite affected States, which is
headed by the Union Home Minister.
However, during the past few
months there have been preliminary indications of a change in the manner in
which the Union government has been addressing the Naxalite issue. The most
important of these is the announcement in the Lok Sabha on March 13, 2006, by
the Union Home Minister of a 14-policy –– encapsulated in a document
entitled Status Paper on the Naxal Problem –– to deal with issue
(earlier, the MHA maintained that it was the responsibility of the individual
affected States to deal with the issue of Naxalism).
Besides, realizing that the
various arrangements that have been instituted in the MHA have not been
effective enough to deal with the growing trend of Naxalism, an Anti-Naxalite
Cell headed by an Additional Secretary has just about been formed in the MHA,
but is yet to commence work in a systematic fashion. Besides, there has also
been a proposal to constitute an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) to provide
coordination between the various Ministries associated with addressing the
Naxalite issue in a comprehensive and holistic manner. There is no information
as yet if the EGoM has begun to function.
Further, the Union government has
made several recommendations to the affected States to initiate a slew of
measures to deal with the problem encompassing the security, development and
public perception fronts. The steps suggested include improving ground level
policing, filling-up vacancies in the State Police, fortification of police
stations; strengthening grassroots intelligence network; coordination among
Railway Protection Force, Government Railway Police and State Police to
strengthen security, safety and protection of trains, passengers and railway
properties; formulation of a comprehensive rehabilitation and resettlement
policy; and improving field-level implementation of various development schemes.
Also, the Union government has
asked the various affected States to evolve comprehensive Action Plans, a
suggestion that has recently been complied with by each of the affected States.
On the development front, some schemes have been initiated: National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme –– initiated by the incumbent United Progressive
Alliance government –– and Backward Districts Initiative and Prime
Minister’s Grameen Sadak Yojana by the earlier National Democratic Alliance
dispensation. Thus far, there have been no reports of any study being conducted
on the effectiveness of these schemes in dealing with Naxalism. On the other
hand, some analysts and commentators, who have their ear to the ground, have
expressed doubts about the manner in which plans were drawn to implement these
schemes, and their monitoring mechanism, as well as the effectiveness of the
schemes in reducing the influence of the Naxalites.
At the time of writing this
paper, two separate studies are in progress. One by the Planning Commission
constituted “Expert Panel on Naxalism” to make recommendations on how to
address the Naxalite issue and a second by the Hyderabad-based National
Institute of Rural Development (NIRD) that has been commissioned by the Ministry
of Rural Development to conduct a micro-level study in selected
Naxalite-affected villages.
Conclusion
Thus, in the wake of the trajectory of the Naxalite movement in the country, its present country-wide presence, increased militarization and strength, objectives, ideological bases, socio-economic factors, on the one hand, and the lack of a systematic, dedicated, comprehensive and integrated plan of action by the government, it would be naïve to expect that the Naxalite movement will wither away, or at least be contained to a considerable degree, within the next few years. On the other hand, because the Maoists are working in a determined fashion according to a well thought-out plan their presence and influence might further expand. It is, therefore, obvious that the government has little time to lose.
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