"Revolutionary warfare is never confined within the bounds of military action. Because its purpose is to destroy an existing society and its institutions and to replace them with a completely new structure, any revolutionary war is a unity of which the constituent parts, in varying importance, are military, political, economic, social and psychological."
Mao Tse-Tung on 'Guerilla Warfare'
INTRODUCTION
Left Wing Extremism, popularly known as Naxalism in India has grown from an indigenous peasant movement to an elaborate network of well organised armed struggle spanning the entire country and spilling across international borders into Nepal and Sri Lanka. Naxals are today the next biggest challenge to internal security of the Indian Union. Naxal violence continues to pose a serious challenge to internal security in India.
Presently, 231 districts in 20 States are afflicted with Naxalism. Naxal outfits have laid special emphasis on militarization of their fighting formations by acquiring new technology, particularly relating to fabrication and firing mechanism for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and weapons. The Naxal outfits continue to augment their armed strength by embarking on extensive induction of misguided youth into their formation and forming alliances with foreign and regional terrorist organizations.
The Maoists movement has now entered a crucial phase. The unification of revolutionary forces has been a recent phenomenon in India. In addition there has been an expansion of the Maoists movement, bringing more areas under its fold. The re-unification has ushered in a paradigm shift in employment of strategies and tactics by the Maoists, which have direct bearing on the vast populace and on the security forces. The severity of violence has now increased many folds.
The Government finally woke up to the Naxal menace in India and said that their superior army style operations, coordination, trained cadres, and planned frontal attacks on large installations, and external links must be fought under a unified command. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the Chief Ministers of affected states and said that police action must be backed with attractive surrender and rehabilitation schemes fine-tuned by the Chief Ministers to suit local conditions for maximum impact. He also called for pre-emptive attacks on Naxal positions. He also called for joint and improved intelligence on the cadre strength, weapons, tactics, membership, locations, and links of various naxal groups in the 160 affected districts. He said that the "the Naxalite movement is generating some notion of empowerment" for some groups who feel marginalized. The Naxalite are furthering this myth by declaring areas as "liberated zones" where they are functioning as the Government. Singh said, "it is a matter of concern that civil administration and police are periodically absent in some of these areas." But he cautioned them not to "brutalize the Indian State" reminding them "we are dealing, after all, with our own people even though they may have strayed into the path of violence [1] ."
After a great deal of dissembling and indecisiveness, the security establishment, both at the Centre and in the 'affected' States, appears to have accepted, finally, that the Naxal threat is, in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's words, the country's "single biggest internal security challenge". The Government has adopted a multi-pronged strategy to tackle the problem of Naxal violence which includes modernisation and strengthening of State Police Forces, long-term deployment of Central Police Forces, intensified intelligence-based well-coordinated anti-Naxal operations, removal of socio-cultural alienation of the people, focused attention on development and public grievance redressal system and creation of local resistance groups at grass root levels. But there's still lot to be done in terms of strangling foreign financial aid and severing of internal, regional and international links of Left Wing Extremist groups.
Statement of the Problem
With the vast expanse of red corridor across India's hinterland and ever increasing compact revolutionary zone, Naxal menace is the greatest threat to India's internal security. The successive governments both at the centre and affected states have adopted various strategies to combat the menace. The two pronged strategy of socio-economic development to ameliorate the root cause of the problem simultaneously along with law and order approach to weed out the Naxals from their safe havens adopting the tactics of hold - clear - develop has gained much traction in the corridor of power. With decline in Naxal related incidents in last two years, is the two pronged strategy the only viable alternative to address the six decade old problem or the government will have to take a de novo look in evolving a strategy to combat the greatest threat to Indian state.
Hypothesis
The Left Wing Extremism with a spatial spread across 20 states affecting 28% districts in the country with the common aim of armed revolution is more than a heightened law and order problem which is a state subject. Left Wing Extremism is a national security problem and requires a common national strategy for its resolution.
Justification of the Study
Naxalism which started mainly as a peasant movement is not seriously following its ideology at present and is busy causing a dent in the established authority of the government for selfish political, economic and psychological reasons. The move is now manifesting itself though coercion, unlawful activities and heightened violence. The central and state governments have drastically fallen short of addressing this problem in totality and in a coordinated manner. This has resulted in the problem now becoming a virtual threat to the internal security of the country and needing immediate and total focus to wipe it out from existence. The external divisive forces although not in the forefront, are also taking their pound of flesh. A serious setback to the economic development, fear psychosis in the mind of the general public in the naxalite infested areas and diversion of attention of police from normal law and order duties to combating naxalism is the manifestation of the problem in its present form. Therefore, a serious and conscious study of present day naxalism is a must to know about its dangers, towards recommending institutional measures to halt its spread and complete annihilation. Simultaneously a detailed analysis of the Government multi-pronged strategy to tackle the problem of Naxal violence which includes modernisation and strengthening of State Police Forces, long-term deployment of Central Police Forces, intensified intelligence-based well-coordinated anti-Naxal operations, removal of socio-cultural alienation of the people, focused attention on development and public grievance redressal system and creation of local resistance groups at grass root levels needs to be studied in detail. But there's still lot to be done in terms of strangling foreign financial aid and severing of internal, regional and international links of Left Wing Extremist groups. So, to an individual involved in maintaining the security of the nation this study gains importance.
Scope
This paper will focus primarily on the Government's Two Pronged strategy of economic development and maintaining law and order. It will analyse the salient aspects of the strategy, consider the advantages of a two prong strategy to a multipronged strategy and analyse the efficacy of simultaneous implementation of the two prongs.
Method of Data Collection
The data for this dissertation has been gathered from various websites on the internet, a variety of books on the subject, an assortment of related articles on the subject published in various magazines & journals, newspaper reports, talk on the subject issue by senior officials and personal views of a research scholar. The bibliography of sources is appended at the end of dissertation.
Organisation of the Dissertation
It is proposed to study the subject in the following manner: -
(a) Chapter I. Genesis of Left Wing Extremism.
(b) Chapter II. Implications of LWE on Internal Security.
(c) Chapter III. Analysis of LWE Situation in Various States.
(d) Chapter IV. Analysis of the Two Pronged Strategy of Economic Development and Maintaining Law and Order Adopted by the Government..
(e) Chapter V. Recommendations for Improving the Two Pronged Strategy.
(f) Conclusion.
CHAPTER I
GENESIS OF LEFT WING EXTREMISM
"The revolutionary war is the war of masses. It can be waged only by mobilizing the masses and relying on them"
- Mao Tse Tung
Pre - Independence
In order to understand Left Wing Extremism in India, one must look at the evolution of communism in India. Even before Independence, it was reasoned that communism and socialism are preferably suitable for a society, which is separated along religion, caste and ethnic lines. It was believed that it was the only way to liberate the vast number of underprivileged people in India and create a classless and just society. This led to the formation of the Communist Party of India (CPI) on 26 December 1925.
However, due to ban on all communist actions by British establishment, the communists were not able to build a strong nationwide organisation. In 1946 'Tebhaga Movement' led by 'Kisan Sabha' (peasant's front of CPI) fought to increase the crop share of peasants and reduce the share of feudal landlords. However, the movement was brutally suppressed by the British. A similar campaign during the regime of Nizam in Telangana region was also brutally repressed. These two movements though not very successful, yet they helped the Communist to gain a stronghold in socially and
economically..backward..areas.
Post Independence
After Independence, the Communists Party of India emerged as the largest opposition party at the national level. In the initial years itself, a split in the Communist Party occurred on ideological issues of Revisionism, Socialist Imperialism and Sectarianism. During these turbulent years, Charu Majumdar, a freedom fighter, was born in Siliguri, West Bengal in 1918. He was deeply influenced by Mao Zedong and wanted to imitate the Chinese revolution in India. He wrote eight articles arguing that the situation in India was ripe for armed rebellion. These documents formed the basis of Naxalism and were called the "Historic Eight Documents" .
During the mid - 1960s, Charu Mujamdar realised that the time was ripe to launch the revolution, since the Government of India was struggling due to wars of 1962 and 1965 and worsening economic situation in the country.
The Naxalbari Incident
Naxalbari was gripped in the throes of violence when a tribal youth was ploughing his fields in Naxalbari under judicial orders as he had won a case in the court to own a small piece of land that was sequestered by local Zamindar. When he went to plough his land, he was attacked by goons sent by the Zamindar. On 03 Mar, three share croppers refused to give the share to the landlord whose land they were cultivating and removed whole crop. These incident provoked a rebel group lead by Charu Mazumdar, a hardcore Maoist and led to clashes between this rebel group and the Zamindars and police. The incident eventually left 13 tribals and a police sub-inspector dead [2] and gave birth to the terms of 'Naxals' or 'Naxalism' or 'Naxalite' after the village where these incidents took place. This identification of revolutionary politics with the name of a village, and not with the name of any leader, is unique in history, though it was neither bereft of any leaders nor any ideological commitments [3] . Naxalbari
became not only a national event but also assumed international significance, when Peking hailed this as "the front paw of revolutionary armed struggle launched by the Indian people under the guidance of Mao Tse-tung" and boldly prognosticating that the spark "will start a prairie fire and will certainly set the vast expanses of India ablaze" [4] .
In 1968, due to ideological differences with Charu Majumdar, revolutionaries from Andhra Pradesh led by T.Nagi Reddy, D.V. Rao and Pulla Reddy were expelled from the party. Subsequently, the Andhra Group also underwent a split. In 1971, Pulla Reddy separated from T. Nagi Reddy and D.V. Rao and formed his own party. Pulla Reddy joined hands with Satya Narain Singh of CPI(ML) SNS group, though this alliance survived for a very short span. During the intervening period of 1969-72, fierce battles raged between Communist Party of India, Marxist Leninist (CPI - ML) and Government establishment ensuing in large scale violence and bloodshed.
In Bihar, Left Wing Extremism flourished due to its close links to caste difference, land related disputes and labour exploitations. Issues like distribution of land, minimum wages, working conditions became contentious issues between upper caste landlords and lower caste people who largely depended on an agrarian economy. Over the years, extreme suppression and injustice forced some of the landless poor to drift towards Left Wing Extremism to fight against oppression. Thus, in the year 1969, the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) was formed by Kanhai Chatterjee and Amulya Sen. Gradually, this group extended its influence by carrying out execution of landlords. MCC remained a predominant group unlike other similar organisations in several states. However, in 2003, MCC merged with the Revolutionary Communist Centre, India (Maoist) to form Maoist Communist Centre (India) or MCC (I).
On 28 Jul 1972, Charu Majumdar died in Lal Bazar police station which was a setback to the Naxalite movement across the country. Soon after the death of Charu not only the most violent phase of Naxal movement from 1967 to 1972 came to an end but the whole movement passed into a total state of collapse [5] . Hereafter centre of gravity of Naxalism gradually shifted from West Bengal to Bihar and then to Southern Part of the country . During the period 1972 - 2003, naxalite groups underwent series of splits and mergers. Vinod Mishra in 1974 created CPI (ML) Liberation Party. He was the first naxal leader to recognise futility of armed rebellion against the Indian Government. He adopted a new ideology which was aimed at rectifying shortcomings in armed rebellion. This ideology saw the transition of liberation movement into a movement of mass mobilisation and entry into electoral politics in 1982 through a organisation called the Indian Peoples Front (IPF).
In 1980, in Andhra Pradesh, another movement called the Peoples War Group (PWG) was formed by Mr Seetharamiah to fight the tribal cause. The group spread its tentacles in the masses by actions such as redistribution of land, holding peoples court, enforcement of minimum wages and social code. Popularity of the organisation increased multifold as it carried out social reforms and campaigns against liquor, prostitution and so on. Though, initially confined only to Andhra Pradesh, it soon spread to neighbouring states of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Armed guards were formed in each district to propagate the movement which extorted money from rich traders and industrialists and undertook civic action programmes like construction of roads, replacement of street lights and distribution of seeds and fertilizers to the tribals. The organisation was thus able to penetrate into grass root level because of its dedication to the cause and poor performance of the government. Gradually, PWG spread its influence to large parts of Telengana and districts bordering Madhya Pradesh.
In Bihar, Left Wing Extremism flourished due to its close links to caste difference, land related disputes and labour exploitations. Issues like distribution of land, minimum wages, working conditions became contentious issues between upper caste landlords and lower caste people who largely depended on an agrarian economy. Over the years, extreme suppression and injustice forced some of the landless poor to drift towards Left Wing Extremism to fight against repression. Thus, in the year 1969, the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) was formed by Kanhai Chatterjee and Amulya Sen. Gradually, this group extended its influence by carrying out execution of landlords. MCC remained a predominant group unlike other similar organisations in several states. However, in 2003, MCC merged with the Revolutionary Communist Centre, India (Maoist) to form Maoist Communist Centre (India) or MCC (I).
On 21 September 2004, the MCC (I) further merged with Communists Party of India (Marxist- Leninist) and People's War Group to form Communist Party of India (Maoist) or CPI (M) which emerged as the most powerful naxalite group in the country.
The naxalite leadership with number of mergers and splits continues to pursue its plan to wage a protracted people's war to capture political power. Their focus seems to be on armed struggle by organising into cohesive military groups. Today the naxalites have a very well-knit organisational structure and have a pan-India strategy which aims to control the political power as well as economic resources of the region.
