Naxal threat in India: A long & arduous battle lies ahead

"A long and arduous battle lies ahead. Success will depend not only on the dedication and devotion of the ground forces but also on the commitment of the political and professional classes leading the charge."
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By A. K. Verma

(December 02, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Internal security is an important dimension of national security, the maintenance of which is a fundamental duty of any government. A government’s claim to legitimacy and public loyalty arise from the satisfaction it can give to its citizens over issues of security. Judged from this criterion, public record has not been too good in India.

In 2004, Naxalism was officially identified by the Centre as the most dangerous internal threat, facing the country. In 2009, an exactly the same description was officially again given to this phenomenon. The conclusion seems inescapable that while the nature of the problem was understood, no practical solution could be devised to tackle it in the interregnum.

Naxalism grew from a miniscule movement of Charu Muzumdar of village Naxalbari in Darjeeling district of West Bengal, carved out by him in1967 after a split, from the ultra left sections of CPI (Marxists). The movement, basically anti landlord, acquired the nomenclature of CPI (Marxist Leninist) in 1969. A similar group calling itself Marxist Communist Centre (MCC) was operating in the South. CPI (M) and MCC merged in 2004 and became CPI (Maoist), accepting Maoist doctrine of revolutionary agrarian war of seeking power through armed violence, surrounding the urban centers from the countryside. Their activities soon accounted for 90% of revolutionary armed action in India. This brand of revolutionary activities came to be described broadly as Naxalism in recognition of the village Naxalbari from where the bugle of armed revolutionary agrarian revolt was first sounded.

The CPI (Maoist) stuck for long to the Maoist doctrine of waging a people’s war from the countryside and set about in a planned way to increase its influence and presence. According to Govt., as of today, 20 states of India and 223 districts, feel the heat of its progress in a big or small way. Its approach to its growth is quite methodical. It is setting up a state committee as it expands into a state. Two special area committees exist, one for UP, Uttarakhand and North Bihar, and the other for West Bengal, Jharkhand and rest of Bihar. The three most deeply impacted regions, Dandakaranya, North Telangana and Andhra Orissa border have each a special zonal committee to oversee the movement’s activities and growth in these areas. What all these committees together represent can be called the first well knit organizational structure and super structure for waging a war of revolution in India. If one looks at the land area where the Naxalists have their sway, it has to be conceded that Naxalism has come a long way in these forty plus years from the single village Naxalbari where it took birth, CPI (Maoist) has also widened its tactics. It is no longer an agrarian driven movement. For sometime it has been trying to make common cause with other centers of rural and urban dissatisfaction, tribal or non tribal. All sections of marginalized populations are being targeted for enlarging its base. Land for the tiller is not the only war cry. Attempts have been on to include all those in its bandwagon who regard themselves to be victims of globalization, privatization, unemployment, lay offs, displacements caused by project development etc. or those, who have been ignored or left behind in the socio economic progression. Industrialized areas appear to offer them special opportunities. The industrial cities and towns of Surat, Ahemdabad, Pune and Mumbai in Western India and Kolkata, Ranchi, Dhanbad and Bhilai on the Eastern side have been put on the Naxal radar for enhanced penetration.

Seeking disaffected groups as allies formed the classical pattern of united front tactics of the international communist movement in the last century. The Naxal leadership has now moved on to the same page. This has also brought a bonus... The urban centers of disaffection against the state are often led by educated leaders, usually coming from affluent or semi affluent backgrounds, who get deflected to an agitational agenda for ideological, moral, personal or societal reasons. Where united fronts have been successfully established, the leadership of the Naxals also lands into their lap. The beneficiary ultimately proves to be Naxalism. Mostly such associations remain and function at the covert level. Some intellectuals, human right workers and political or media activists seem to belong to this category. In other words, no class is being left out. Semi- proletariat, petty bourgeoisie and even national bourgeoisie are being probed for support and collaboration. The success achieved in making such inroads seems to suggest that some grounds for a revolution, howsoever embryonic, do exist in the country.

The Naxal united front tactics have resulted in exploitation of sentiments and of people involved or affected by issues like Singur agitation, Nandigram rising against SEZs, murder of members of a Dalit family at Khairlanji, and suicide of farmers in Vidarbha and elsewhere.

Naxalism and its threat to the state have been growing steadily in the past forty years. Their ideology appeals to the deprived and down trodden. They have a coherent organisation whose members are ready for sacrifice. They have visionary plans of seizing political power through armed violence. Their strength should not be counted by the number of those with arms or by incidents staged; their strength lies in the numbers who have been given military training. They display a robust will and determination of purpose.

As against this the Centre is only now waking up to the complexity of the problem and trying to devise a counter strategy. The Home Ministry of Govt. of India until P. Chidambaram took over as the new Home Minister, was inclined to play down the Naxal threat, treating it merely as a law and order problem which the bureaucrats and police would be able to tackle at their own level in their own time. The earlier less than enthusiastic approach of the Centre could have been caused by the constitutional scheme of division of labour and powers between the Centre and the states. If visualized as a law and order problem only, the states alone have a constitutional right to deal with it. The Centre could claim only a role for co-ordination which some states, ruled by those in opposition to the ruling coalition at the centre, could effectively ignore. The Salwa Judum experiment of arming self defense volunteers in Chhattisgarh to counter Naxalists, though proving somewhat successful, has been unacceptable in other states and earlier even to the Centre. The Chidambaram strategy combines strong armed action by central paramilitary forces with a heavy dose of development. The states have been invited to send their own police forces to join in the hunt for the Naxalites.

Under this pilot scheme, code named Operation Greenhunt, about 50000 men will be deployed in five of the most affected states in the near future. Most of them will have been put through some special training before action begins. In the tribal areas covered by CPI (Maoists)’s special zones there are large areas where the state has never been able to penetrate ever. Land where state authority fails to reach remains ungoverned. Naxals rule over there, calling them liberated areas. The government’s new strategy aims to drive out physically the Naxals from such areas and introduce governance by building roads and establishing schools, health clinics, markets, panchayats etc.

A long and arduous battle lies ahead. Success will depend not only on the dedication and devotion of the ground forces but also on the commitment of the political and professional classes leading the charge. A counter strategy is also required for the urban locations where sympathy for the Naxal cause has been gathering momentum for some time and finding some resonance.

A ‘red corridor’ from Pashupati to Tirupati remains just yet an empty dream for the Naxal ideologues. If the current plans of counter strategy fail, it could well become a reality. But some areas, included in the concept of red corridor, have the Naxals already ruling over them. It is also to be remembered that an uncontrolled internal security problem has the potential of destabilizing external security as well. Therefore, failure can exact an unacceptable cost.

CPI (Maoist) has ideological allies in similar groups in neighboring and some other countries of the world but there is little evidence to conclude that it has received material support from any one of them. Chinese small arms do manage to reach them through illegal agencies and as yet there is little evidence that any official agency is involved. As and when the Chinese and Indian rivalry enters a new plane of which there seem to be good chances, help to Maoists may prove to be a usable option to the former. It may be wise to look at the Naxal problem from this perspective as well.

(The author can be reached at e-mail: verma_anandkumar@yahoo.com)

-Sri Lanka Guardian