1.

Maoists in India

What began as a small revolt by a bunch of oppressed farmers in a place called Naxalbari
in West Bengal has now grown into the biggest armed insurrection that the State has
witnessed since its inception over sixty years ago. In the words of Home Minister, Mr P.C.
Chidambaram, the Maoist movement is the biggest threat to national stability and security,
even more so than the Kashmir insurgency. Encompassing eleven states across the breadth
of India, the Maoists have declared war on India. Lately, it seems they have shed their
earlier inhibitions of targeting civilians and are now targeting them with equal fervour.
They strike at will, seemingly immune to the massive amount of men and material that the
nation is pumping into the affected areas to contain and combat them.
The Home Ministry, belatedly recognising the total absence of civilian administration in
the affected areas, has devised a two pronged strategy to tackle Maoists. As per this, the
armed wing of the State first ‘flush’ the area clear of Maoists. This is then followed by the
civilian administration which tries to bring in some semblance of normalcy and
development into the region.
On face value, it seems to be a good strategy, similar to the ‘clear, build, hold’ strategy
followed by U.S. troops in their own war in Afghanistan. However, the strategy has clearly
failed here.. The reasons are of course different and need to be looked into.
Firstly, what needs to be seen is whether the same standards of development that we have
applied nationwide are applicable here. Do the tribals really want wide roads, industries,
McDonald’s restaurants and Big Bazaars? Are we not being extremely ethnocentric when
we assume that they crave for the same material culture that we work towards? Of course,
even if they do, the State has failed to provide them . We need to give the tribals a chance
at explaining exactly what they want, and then working towards fulfilling those demands.
Isn’t that what democracy is all about?
The nation stands divided on the question of dealing with the Maoists. Should we intensify
the war against them? Or should it be treated as a social issue and a total failure of the
State machinery to deliver? What we need is a symbiotic approach of the measures
suggested above. Yes, wrongs were done which need to be addressed and compensated for.
At the same time it needs to be understood, that violence will have to be resorted to quell
some of the more hardliner Maoists.
It is imperative that we resolve the Maoist issue as soon as possible. If the situation is
allowed to fester anymore we may soon be looking at an all out civil war between the State
and the Naxals. The nation needs to unite and end this issue once and for all. Then and
only then we can hold our heads up high and claim ourselves to be a true democratic
Country.

2. Maoists in India
As I pass through certain “red alert” areas of Jharkhand, I see signs and banners intimating
“People’s War”. Walking along, I wonder how this unethical and ridiculous claims of
those who themselves are involved in taking thousands of lives indicate that they are
“People’s Power”. This is the picture of the “Maoists” or more famously the “Naxalites”
who have been making strong headlines recently in our country.
Its not that the problem is new but there has been a recent resurgence in their acts which
has led to mass killing and they being termed as the most vivid “Internal Threat” to our
nation. Now there are people who contradict this by saying that there is never smoke
without fire, meaning there must have been circumstances which led them to lead such a
activities. Just looking at the history of Maoism, the term “People’s war” was a strategic
line developed by Mao Zedong during the phase of guerrilla warfare of the Communist
party of China. Maoism's political orientation emphasizes the "revolutionary struggle of
the vast majority of people against the exploiting classes and their state structures".
The guerrilla warfare tactics focused on surrounding the cities from the countryside, with a
heavy emphasis on political transformation through mass involvement of the lower classes
of society. The Communist Party of India (Maoists) is a Maoist political party in India
which aims to overthrow the government of India.
It was founded on September 21, 2004, through the merger of the Communist Party of
India (Marxist-Leninist) and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCC). The merger
was announced to the public on October 14 the same year. It is currently proscribed as a
Terrorist Organization by the Indian government for organizing mass killings in
furtherance of their ideology. The term “Naxalites”comes from Naxalbari, a small village
in West Bengal, where a section of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) led by
Charu Majumdar, initiated a violent uprising in 1967.
On May 18, 1967, the Siliguri Kishan Sabha, of which Jangal was the president, declared
their readiness to adopt armed struggle to redistribute land to the landless. The following
week, a share cropper near Naxalbari village was attacked by the landlord's men over a
land dispute. On May 24, when a police team arrived to arrest the peasant leaders, they
were ambushed by a group of tribals led by Jangal Santhal, and a police inspector was
killed in a hail of arrows. This event encouraged many Santhal tribals and other poor
people to join the movement and to start attacking local landlords. This way the movement
which was started for equal power of all sections had turned into a brutal killing spree. Just
in 2010,they have killed more than 300 people,

• June 29, 2010: At least 26 CRPF personnel were killed when the Maoists attacked a
road opening party in Narayanpur district.
• May 27, 2010: At least 145 people were killed after a train derailed in an apparent
Maoist attack in West Bengal.
• May 17, 2010: 35 killed after Maoist rebels blow up bus in the Dantewada district
• April 6, 2010 : At least 76 CRPF and district force personell killed in Mukrana forest
of Chattisgarh.
• February 20, 2010 : Maoists killed a village guard by slitting his throat.
• February 18, 2010 : Twelve villagers were killed and 9 injured in indiscriminate
firing by the Maoists in Jamui district of Bihar.

The Maoists claim to be fighting for the rights of the tribes in the forest belt around central
India. That region contains deposits of minerals which are of interest to mining companies
like Tata and Essar. The funding for the Maoists come from abductions, extortion and by
setting up unofficial administrations to collect taxes in rural areas where official
government appears absent. Another major source of funding for Maoists allegedly comes
from poppy cultivation in the Ghagra area of Gumla district in Jharkhand and in parts of
 Gumla, Kishanganj and Purnia districts in Bihar. Security forces claim that opium fields
are screened and hidden behind peripheral maize cultivation. The Naxals are also believed
to be patronizing hemp cultivation to fund their activities as reported from Debagarh
district in Orissa.
At last I would say the government now must show greater resolve in controlling this rebel
otherwise soon it would blow up into an intangible problem and the ones who would suffer
the most would be the people of this country.

3. Maoists in India
Maoist in literal terms means the followers of Mao Je Dang, the most popular face of
Chinese communist movement that overthrew the monarchy in China few decades ago.
Maoists in India have a similar intention to defy the democratically elected government
and establish an autocratic state based on communist ideologies. Originally started a
popular peasant movement in the state of West Bengal during 1970’s, it gradually turned
into a violent struggle and spread to almost a third of country’s geographical area mainly
covering less developed, tribal dominant, inaccessible hilly and forested areas of West
Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Maharashtra.
Maoist movement is often argued as a reactionary rebellion of capitalist exploitation and
government apathy. After independence, India’s growth has not been able to alleviate the
regional disparities but eventually worsened it. The capitalist oriented industrial economy
couple with the inaccessibility of the hostile topography and lack of political will has left
the central part of India far behind its other parts. However many mining industries have
tried to make use of its huge reserves of mineral resources. These mining activities have
mostly encroached upon the social systems of the original inhabitants. Their lands have
been forcefully taken over in exchange of some inadequate compensation. The lifeline of
their economic and religious activity, the hilly forested areas, has been torn apart. In
addition, various social and economic program of the government fail to reach them due to
high level of redtapism, corruption and inefficiency. As a result, the deprived people turn
to using force against the state citing the reason of years of injustice and inefficient
grievance redress system. With the availability of arms and plenty of landmines mainly
used for mining activities in the area, this struggle takes the form of a violent armed revolt.
There is little doubt that the Maoist movement is one such mass struggle. But some also
argue it to be a foreign aided internal conflict to destabilize the country. Whatever may be
the cause of this movement, it is definitely fuelled by the industrial repression and
government inaction. Over the time, Maoists have somehow distracted from their ideology
and instead of fighting for the poor in a democratic manner, they are on a killing spree
eliminating anybody who they suspect to be against them.
Maoists have their base camps deep inside dense forests. They collect arms by attacking
local police arsenals and possibly through some foreign consignments. By blackmailing
and threatening the local wealthy property owners and industrialists, they gather their
finance. It is also reported that Maoists have taken off the food grains provided to schools,
situated in their controlled areas, under Midday Meal program. They often attack in
groups, most of the time outnumbering the personnel on the target, and leave posters with
their messages. Their prime target has been various communication networks like mobile
towers and state establishments like railway stations, railway tracks and police stations.
They declare the area of their influence as the so called “Liberated Zone”. They establish
an autocratic style of rule for the same. They justify the violent public killing of innocent
civilians by charges of police sympathy or exploitation of local people. The railway track
damages often lead to derailment like accidents killing many innocent lives. The Maoist
menace is now treated as single biggest internal threat to the security and integrity of India.
Government response to the Maoist movement has been that of double standard. On one
hand it declares to take on the armed revolt with force but on the other it backtracks due to
the protests by human right activists. Booker Prize winning writer Arundhanti Roy has
termed the forceful government suppression as a war raged against its own citizens. The
result has been a delay in military deployment. An operation named “Operation
Greenhunt” has been executed by the paramilitary forces like CRPF and CoBRA. However
this has met with marginal success and there has been many life losses of the security
personnel. The Dantewada Massacre of 72 policemen by around a thousand Maoists in
April this year is the worse ever setback faced. Security forces and sometimes civilians are
routinely getting killed by landmine blasts and collective attack by an overwhelmingly
large number of armed cadres. Reports of beheading of a government employee also speak
about the barbarism and fearlessness of Maoists. In states like Chhattisgarh, government
sponsored militant outfits like Salwa Judum are fighting the Maoists in their very own
way. But this has been severely criticized for its human right abuses and worsening state’s
credibility as a guardian of law and order. Andhra Pradesh has built a specialized
commando force named “Grey Hound” and has met with some success in tackling the
growing insurgency. Overall, the acute scarcity of policemen in comparison to the Maoists,
difficult terrain, lack of jungle warfare expertise and sometimes hostile local population
has limited the success rate heavily.
Some scholars advocate to look at the crisis from an ideological angle. Maoists follow
communism and its reflected in their organizing structure. All the cadres are treated as
equals and only the decision making lies with the cadre up the hierarchy. The head even
shares the same cigar with the fellow cadres. But our mainstream society is far from being
egalitarian with the caste ghosts and power hierarchy still looming large. A significant
social transformation is required to solve it ideologically. Maoist sympathizers have rightly
awakened the government to its inefficient regional policies and failure to integrate the
poor tribal populace with the mainstream. However the brutal and animistic killing of
innocent lives by Maoists in retaliation can never be justified. Government needs to step up
its police actions and if needed to take the military assistance to make the Maoists abjure
violence. At the same time it needs to guard against any human rights violation and
provide adequate social and economic incentives to all sections across the length and
breadth of the country.