South Asia Intelligence Review, vol.7, no.15, October 20, 2008
http://satp.org/satporgtp/sair/Archives/7_15.htm#assessment1
Shibu Soren, the Chief Minister of Jharkhand, one of the States worst affected by Maoist activities, declared, on October 13, that ‘Naxalism’ (the Maoist movement) was a "minor" problem that can be "solved" by addressing the problems of "humiliation, unemployment and hunger." It is not clear what magical strategy Soren offers for the resolution of the problems of "humiliation, unemployment and hunger" in one of the poorest States of a country where, according to the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, 77 per cent of the population (some 836 million) live on less than INR 20 per day (about USD 0.41), but the Chief Minister has called for a dialogue and ‘negotiated settlement’ with the Maoists, ignoring the disastrous consequences of past ‘peace processes’, including the one most recent, in Andhra Pradesh in 2004.
Soren is not alone in his delusions. In spite of a marginal increase in the total number of fatalities in Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) related violence, in the first eight months of 2008 (till August 31), as against the corresponding period of the previous year, and widespread reports of political mobilisation and consolidation by the Maoists across the country, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) would have us believe that its anti-LWE policy is paying dividends. In support, it offers data showing a 10 per cent dip in the number of violent incidents (from 1108 to 993), and a marginal diminution in fatalities among civilians and security forces (SFs). Further, LWE outfits, principally the Communist Party of India – Maoist (CPI-Maoist) have lost more cadres in encounters in the current year: The 23.6 per cent increase in extremist fatalities is the sole factor behind the rise in overall LWE related fatalities from 590 in 2007 to 622 in 2008.
In its latest "Status Paper on Internal Security Situation", the MHA discloses that Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand now account of 68.07 per cent of the total LWE incidents and 58.56 per cent of the total fatalities in the country. Chhattisgarh, considered the hotbed of LWE activities for several years now, has, in fact, recorded a significant decrease not just in the number of incidents, but also in fatalities in all three categories. Further, there has also been a marked decline in violent incidents in both Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, though both the States have recorded a marginal increase in total fatalities. The security situation in the eastern State of Orissa has, however, deteriorated significantly, with a 450 per cent rise in LWE related fatalities between 2007 and 2008. In the neighbouring Jharkhand – the State the sanguine Shibu Soren presides over – the rise has been over 100 per cent.
These assessments – which have a tendency to spread like a wild fire through the state’s establishment and agencies – are misleading, to say the least. The MHA has followed a long-standing policy of downplaying the threat of LWE – which it insists is limited to just 3.6 per cent of the total number of Police Stations in 76 Districts of seven States in the country. Intelligence sources, however, suggest that at least 220 Districts in 22 States are now afflicted by Maoist activities, at various intensities. There is little evidence, moreover, that the ‘improvements’ in levels of violence or fatalities, are, in any measure, the outcome of an augmentation of SF operations or the capacity of affected States to contain or neutralize LWE activities. With the exception of Andhra Pradesh and, lately, Maharashtra, where pro-active policing has been the factor behind the diminishing LWE activities, there is little the other affected States can boast of in terms of effective counter-insurgency operations or capacity building. The initiative continues to be held firmly by the extremists and any relative lull in violence is nothing more than a tactical decision by the CPI-Maoist to focus on political mobilisation, recruitment and consolidation, before re-launching a full-scale armed campaign in enormously widened theatres across India.
The growing threat of LWE, and its increasing primacy among conflicts in the country, is visible in fragments of available official data. The para-military Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), 33 battalions of which are currently engaged in operations against the LWE in eight States, during the first nine months of 2008, recovered over 7,000 kilograms of explosives across India, in all conflict theatres. Of these, 6,000 kilograms, were seized from LWE affected Bihar alone, followed by 893.5 kilograms in Jharkhand. The CRPF suffered its maximum casualties in LWE affected States: of the total of 49 fatalities reported in the Force, 37 were in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. Out of the total 189 shootouts the CRPF personnel engaged in, 106 were reported from Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand alone.
The inability of the States to secure dominance over their geographical expanse has remained the key to the Maoist ascendancy in vast areas across the country, and there is little improvement in this regard. A sizeable majority of the (modestly) estimated 12,000 Maoist cadres continue to be based in the safety of the dense forests of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar (along the Nepal border), Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Forest areas of Abujmadh in Chhattisgarh, the Saranda Forest range and the Palamu-Chatra belt in Jharkhand and the Dandakaranya areas of the north Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh, continue to offer safe haven from the state’s Forces, with SFs failing to supplement occasional raids in these regions with an enduring strategy to secure and hold these territories. As a result, these areas remain virtual ‘liberated zones’, except during the few hours or days of random and localised SF operations.
A vivid example of Maoist dominance in Chhattisgarh has been in full display since August this year. On August 3, a Bell-430 helicopter of the Ran Air Services hired from Andhra Pradesh by the Chhattisgarh Government, went missing on its way to Raipur, 30 minutes after taking off from Hyderabad, after entering Chhattisgarh’s territory. Four persons, including the pilot, co-pilot and two technicians, were on board when it lost contact with the Air Traffic Control in Raipur. While the Chhattisgarh Government was quick to dispel doubts regarding Maoist involvement in bringing down the chopper, nearly two and half months after the incident, there has been no trace of the chopper or its crew members. The Police apparently launched several search attempts in the Bastar region, all of which were tremendously limited in their scope due to the fear of the Maoists. The families of the pilots and other crew have, since, appealed to the Maoists to help find the missing men.
Indeed, a number of senior Police officials – as well as many drawn from the rank and file – have refused postings in LWE affected areas of Chhattisgarh for fear of the Maoists. On October 16, the Chhattisgarh Government decided to suspend 18 Police officers after they failed to join their new postings in LWE affected areas. The officers include four Deputy Superintendents of Police (DSPs), six Inspectors and eight Sub-Inspectors (SIs). The four DSPs had been transferred to Bastar, the District worst hit by Maoist activities, in September. While the State Administration can now pat itself on its back for having ‘imposed discipline’ among its Forces, the milieu of utter insecurity in the southern Bastar region, where Maoists have been running a de facto administration since 1980s, remains unaffected and inescapable.
In Orissa, again, the Maoists enjoy almost a free run, not just in its worst affected western and southern Districts, but also in areas in the proximity of capital Bhubaneswar. At least three major attacks have been carried out by the CPI-Maoist in Orissa resulting in the death of 66 SF personnel in 2008. The February 15 attack at Nayagarh resulted in the largest single looting of weapons by the Maoists from the Police armoury, and the death of 15 Police personnel. On July 29, at least 35 elite Greyhounds personnel and one Orissa armed Policeman were killed, mostly by drowning, after Maoists fired at their boat in the Chitrakonda Reservoir in the Malkangiri District. On July 16, another 17 Special Operation Group (SOG) personnel were killed in a landmine blast in the same District.
What has, however, emerged as an extraordinary challenge to anti-LWE planners across the country is the involvement of the CPI-Maoist in the August 23 killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Swami Lakshamanananda Saraswati in Orissa’s Kandhamal District. The Maoist role in the killing was evident from the very outset, but a week after the killing, on August 30, CPI-Maoist spokesperson Azad confirmed that the Swami was killed for "his villainous role in Kandhamal", mostly in the December 2007 riots in the District. The claim has since been confirmed by the Orissa Police who disclosed that the Maoists had also provided arms training to a group of 60 youths, who participated in the attack. Further, an undated CPI-Maoist document, "Party Programme", outlines the outfit’s policy against what it perceives as the persecution of religious minorities. The document declares that the CPI-Maoist "will put an end to all social inequalities based on religion and to the persecution of religious minorities." Maoist sympathisers such as Varavara Rao have further pointed out that, during the Maoists’ 9th Congress in February 2007, the Party had identified ‘fundamentalism’ as the "second biggest threat", after globalisation, to the poor of the country.
The killing, which was followed by large-scale riots between Hindu and Christian communities in Kandhamal District, with some overflows into neighbouring Districts, demonstrates a Maoist intent to exploit existing religious faultlines in the country. Further, it demonstrates beyond doubt that, as the state focuses primarily on dealing with the Maoists’ guerrilla-style attacks, targeted killings of this nature, leading to communal disharmony, can be far more damaging to the authority and legitimacy of the state. Orissa’s vulnerabilities now stand utterly exposed after the 50- plus deaths in the communal riots, undermining state authority to a far greater extent than the three earlier major Maoist strikes.
There is accumulating evidence and even wider suspicion that Maoist Front Organisations and provocateurs have been behind a wide range of episodic violence rooted in caste, political and labour confrontations. This was particularly visible at Khairlanji, Nandigram and Singur, but is also suspected in a much larger number of minor incidents and confrontations, and is in keeping with the Maoist strategy of exploiting a range of ‘partial struggles’ to effect a campaign of mobilisation and recruitment that would advance the interests of their ‘people’s war’ over the long run.
Much of this is, however, neglected in the official approach to, and assessments of, LWE strategies and operations. Pessimism with regard to state responses deepens in view of the shifting strategies of various State regimes to deal with the challenge, and the perverse outcome of the MHA’s periodic assertion that "Force alone can’t solve (the) Naxal problem." In Jharkhand, for example, with the change of political dispensation in August 2008, the official approach towards LWE, represented by five LWE groups with an estimated combined strength of 3,000 cadres, has undergone an evident and dramatic shift, with Chief Minister Soren’s pronouncements on the LWE as a ‘minor problem’ and his proposed ‘strategy’ of response. The previous Madhu Koda Government, despite its many limitations, had initiated a series of security measures against the Maoists. As part of that policy, the State Police Department had drawn up a list of 60 hardcore Maoist cadres operating in its jurisdiction. A proposal to announce an overall reward of INR 1.5 million for the arrest of these hardcore Maoists, in the ranks of zonal commander, sub-zonal commander, area commander and others, was also mooted. The list and the proposal were submitted to the State Home Department in the second half of September. No action has since been reported on the proposal by the Department, which is now headed by the Chief Minister.
Forested areas such as Saranda remain Maoist bastions in Jharkhand. In the last week of September 2008, a team consisting of members of the Thirteenth Finance Commission conducted an aerial survey of the Saranda Forest to monitor the spurt in extremist activities and the manner in which this had hampered developmental activities in Jharkhand. In a recent incident, on October 15, CPI-Maoist cadres swooped on the McCluskieganj Railway Station under the Dhanbad Railway Division, barely 70 kilometres from State capital Ranchi and abducted four employees, including the Station Master and two Deputy Station Masters. Till the writing of the report, the abducted persons had not been traced. Despite his present posturing, Chief Minister Soren is eventually bound to discover that the Maoist problem in the State cannot be solved by mere rhetoric on the eradication of unemployment and hunger.
At root, state responses to what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has repeatedly deemed as India’s ‘biggest security challenge’, are undermined by divisive and incoherent assessments and the absence of a consensual national strategy. Some variations are noticeable across States – with Andhra Pradesh by far the tallest exception. By and large, however, state responses remain alarmingly amateurish and, worse, infinitely deluded.
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