[10/11] Left Wing Extremism

Current Situation
As of February 2016, 106 districts in 10 States have been identified by the Government of India as Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected districts in the country and 35 Most affected LWE districts.


With established base areas in Dantewada and Bastar districts of Chhattisgarh, the movement has shown no signs of abating there.


12,000 firearms, and an unarmed cadre strength of nearly 200,000.


Govt. estimates of Maoist forces : 15000-20000 army, atleast 40% of them are women; avg. age in high teens and low twenties.
Various estimates suggest Maoist rebels could number up to 40,000. Of these, thousands may be armed with weapons ranging from AK-47s to light machine-guns raided from police stations or bought from dealers in Nepal. The cadre mostly comprises farmers, landless labourers, tribals and the extremely poor, including women and children.
Naxalites have been a strain on the country’s security forces and a barrier to development in the vast mineral rich region in Eastern India known as the ‘red corridor’. It is a narrow but contiguous strip passing through Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha.


Stated Purpose of Naxalite Movement
The Naxalites state their main political purpose as establishing an alternative state structure in India by creating a “red corridor” in Naxalite-affected states, stretching from the border of Nepal to central India to Karnataka in the south through violent struggle. This requires local support, Naxalite rebel leaders take up causes like protecting people’s rights of Jal, Jangal and Jamin (water, forest, and land) and providing justice through their committees/ kangaroo courts. Local support is crucial for the Naxalites for cadre recruitment, intelligence, logistics, and territorial control.


Strategy
Their Strategy as per writings of Mao Zedong should be –
1. Organization, consolidation, and preservation of regional base areas situated in isolated and difficult terrain.
2. Progressive expansion, which includes attacks on police stations, sabotage, terror tactics, elimination of persons with alternate viewpoints.
3. Destruction of the enemy through conventional battles and capture of power.


In initial phases they wage guerrilla warfare and inflict surprise attacks. This is to make enemy weaker and project their claim over an area. This is also used by them to make common people under their influence believe that state is not all mighty and it is possible to defeat the state. They keep a strict vigil on people under them and suspected detractors or people with different views are brutally killed or tortured.


This strategy is long one, and they believe that it will take decades to achieve their objective. Till they prefer to silently strengthen their network and build capacity. Some leaked official documents of CPI (M) suggest that they plan to bring down Indian State by 2050 or 2060. Obviously, this is outright impossible, but we’ll have to agree that they can inflict substantial damage and State’s responsibility and focus is to minimize this damage. Perhaps they know that under present designs and capacity they can’t withstand might of state, so any aggressive act can possibly uproot them.


It is said that, Indian forces has so far just faced 5% of Maoist cadres, that too of second rung. They possibly have more sophisticated, better armed and trained elite force, which they are yet to brandish. Further, it is suspected that they might be receiving some support from retired armed forces personnel or some foreign powers. This is apparent because many documents has been seized which assimilates procedures and practices adopted by professional state armed forces. One arrested Maoist commander also revealed that they have elaborate training programme in place which stretches from 4 to 6 years.


Worse is that they are amicable to any anti-India force which serve their purpose. Whether they are terrorist organization, organized crime mafias, Human/animal traffickers, smugglers or any foreign state enemy of India, all have some or other nexus with Maoists. They can make use of counterfeit notes, provide passage to illicit materials, give refuge to anti national elements and carry out contract killings to get what they want in return. This way they can arrange for money or modern weapons.


They have openly declared their support for Kashmir and North east separatists. Linkages between the Naxalites and the People’s Liberation Army in Manipur (PLA) came to light when PLA and Maoist cadres were arrested in Delhi in 2011 while making elaborate plans to form a “strategic united front” with the Naxalites in India. Following their arrest, it was also revealed that the PLA had trained and armed the Naxalites in Jharkhand and Orissa in 2009 and 2010 respectively. There were plans to train Naxalite cadres in the PLA camps in Myanmar in 2012.


In normal course they take up social and economic causes against the government, without being identified as naxalites. They try to obstruct every developmental project. Any mishappening and state negligence is big opportunity for them to provoke people. For e.g. recent tragedy with 13 women in sterilization camps in Chhattisgarh or poisoning through Mid-day meal food, will be used by them against state.


Special economic zone conceptualised to attract FDI and promote large scale manufacturing etc. Cause large scale protest by tribals because they consider foreign enclaves in India which are made to grab agri lands. Singur protests in West Bengal and Nandigram few years back is another example. Also, they are believed to have support of anti-dam protestors of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.


(The general concern of police sources is that the anti-talk faction of the ULFA may try to establish strong linkages with the Naxals and provide them with arms from its base in Myanmar and China. The small arms network is one of the strongest in the Northeast running all the way from Thailand, China, and Cambodia via Myanmar to Manipur and Nagaland.)


Having said this, they operate their own medical and education services under the areas controlled by them. Similar confidence building exercise by state is not liked by them, so they have in past attacked government schools and hospitals.


The CPI (Maoist) philosophy of armed insurgency to overthrow the Government is unacceptable under the Indian Constitution and the founding principles of the Indian State. The Government has given a call to the Left Wing Extremists to abjure violence and come for talks. This plea has been rejected by them, since they believe in violence as the means to capture State power. This has resulted in a spiralling cycle of violence in some parts of India. The poor and the marginalised sections like the tribals are bearing the brunt of this violence. Many well-meaning liberal intellectuals fall prey to the Maoist propaganda without understanding the true nature of Maoist insurgency doctrine which glorifies violence and believes in adopting the military line to capture power. Between 2010 to 2017 (upto 15.05.2017) around 2457 civilians and 930 security force personnel have been killed by the Maoists in different parts of India. The majority of the civilians killed are tribal’s, often branded as ‘Police informers’ before being brutally tortured and killed. In fact, the tribal and the economically underprivileged sections, whose cause the Maoists claim to espouse, have been the biggest victims of the so called ‘protracted peoples war’ of the CPI (Maoist) against the Indian state.


Conclusion
It is the belief of the Government of India that through a holistic approach focussing on development and security related interventions, the LWE problem can be successfully tackled. However, it is clear that the Maoists do not want root causes like underdevelopment to be addressed in a meaningful manner since they resort to targeting school buildings, roads, railways, bridges, health infrastructure, communication facilities etc in a major way. They wish to keep the population in their areas of influence marginalized to perpetuate their outdated ideology. Consequently, the process of development has been set back by decades in many parts of the country under LWE influence. This needs to be recognised by the civil society and the media to build pressure on the Maoists to eschew violence, join the mainstream and recognise the fact that the socio-economic and political dynamics and aspirations of 21st Century India are far removed from the Maoist world-view. Further, an ideology based on violence and annihilation is doomed to fail in a democracy which offers legitimate forums of grievance redressal.