Neither the 25th May
attack in Chhattisgarh’s Darbha nor the 2nd July killing of the Superintendent
of Police of Pakur district in Jharkhand by the Communist Party of India-Maoist
(CPI -Maoist) cadres
constituted momentous military victories for the outfit. None of these attacks
furthered the outfit’s purported objective of capturing state power in any
manner. Yet the 35 dead bodies of politicians, activists and security forces, left
behind by these attacks, significantly deepened the myth of an invincible adversary.
There are doubts whether the Indian state would be able to neutralise the
threat.
The 25th May attack was
described as a game changer and a landmark event. Within hours, leaders and
bureaucrats, propped by the agile media, promised decisive action to end the
conflict through joint operations, kinetic actions and hunting the rebels down.
Each of these claims, rooted in the sense of shock and outrage against the
first ever large scale attack on the political leaders, ended in a whimper a
vaguely worded resolution by political parties asking the central and state
governments to do all that is possible; and an assurance by the Prime Minister
that his office with the Cabinet Secretary and the Home Secretary will fine
tune the existing anti-Maoist strategy to strengthen the country’s defensive
and offensive capabilities.
How the fine tuned
strategy differs from the one that preceded it, still remains unknown, although
at least eight attacks leading to 20 deaths (until 2nd July) have followed the 25th
May attack. Extremists have killed security force personnel and civilians in
ambushes, destroyed road-building instruments, attacked a train, and killed a
vice president of a private steel manufacturing company. None of these, including
the most outrageous attack on a passenger train in Bihar , has evoked emotions or
been described as affronts on Indian democracy. The great Indian resilience, backed
by the belief in the invincibility of the Indian state, has returned.
A lot has been made out
of the achievements of the security force operations against the CPI -Maoist in the past
years. The outfit is described to have been weakened, lost areas under its
control and has been stripped of its ability to carry out sustained violence. The
noticeable decline in violence levels countrywide, both in terms of incidents
and fatalities, has been cited to support this claim. Extremism related
incidents in 2012 compared to the previous year declined by 19 percent. Fatalities
among security forces and civilians declined by 19 and 36 percent respectively.
While much of this is irrefutable, whether these gains are due to a clear
strategy or simply rewards that large deployment and operationalisation of
security forces accrue over time, is a relevant question.
It is also possible to
interpret each parameter of state success in the opposite manner, demonstrating
that it is in fact the CPI -Maoist which has
managed to achieve its objective of minimising its losses and holding on to its
areas of influence. Compared to an annual average of 174 cadre deaths between 2007
and 2011, only 72 cadres were killed in 2012. Absence of larger attacks by the
outfit were made up by 134 smaller attacks on security forces in 2012. Constituting
more than 11 attacks per month or an attack every third day, these kept up the
outfit’s violent profile, and its support among the tribal communities. Even in
a phase when the outfit’s influence was described to have shrunk rapidly, the CPI -Maoist managed to
organise 113 training camps and Jan Adalats (People’s Courts) in 2012, almost
at the same level as 2008 and 2009.
The group lost some
territories in Jharkhand, but managed to hold on to its strongholds in
Chhattisgarh, Bihar , and Odisha. Amid
claims that the paramilitary forces have wrested 5000 square kilometre area
from the Maoists in 2012, Abujhmaad, arguably the most crucial stronghold from
the outfit’s point of view, remained unscathed. The first ever and also the
lone security force foray into Abujhmaad forests was undertaken in March 2012. Personnel
interviewed by the media before the operation talked about their fears of
encountering hydra-headed monsters. Apart from media headlines that over 3000
security forces have shattered the impregnability of Abujhmaad, this
exploratory trip achieved little and has not been repeated ever since.
The attempt here is not
to paint the overall anti-Maoist strategy as mumpsimus. However, a sense that
the efforts constituting each affected state’s strategy to defeat left-wing extremism
is disjointed and aim only at temporary gains, is almost inescapable. The MHA (which
has conveniently passed on the responsibility of all failures to the state
governments), is yet to take the blame for letting the loopholes that hampered
the big war strategy of 2010, culminating in the launch of Operation Green Hunt,
persist. The deployment of insufficiently motivated forces prone to violating
standard operating procedures, the abysmal lack of ground level intelligence, and
absence of coordination between the central and the state police forces
continue to mar operations in various theatres. Forces continue to suffer from
leadership, and command and control crises.
The civil
administration’s lack of enthusiasm to step into the areas cleared of extremist
presence has often been cited as the greatest failure of the overall counter-Maoist
effort. However, big attack-induced alacrity notwithstanding, the lack of
enthusiasm to meet the extremist challenge is pervasive and perplexing. Here
are some examples. It took over a week for the Home Minister to return from the
United States of America
Novelist and Nobel
Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, “We do not err because truth is
difficult to see. We err because this is more comfortable.” The country would
have to wait for the governments, states as well as the Centre, to emerge from
their comfort zone and stop masquerading tactical convenience as a counter-Maoist
strategy that will secure victory, some day.
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