War in India’s heartland

ApniSatta, ApnaKanoon

The slogan by Maoist Communist Center (MCC) active in West Bengal perfectly portrays the ethos of Naxalism movement. The insurgent movement has become one of the major threats to the Indian state posing a threat to destabilize its democratic structure. The regular slaughter carried out by them, notably the infamous killing of 75 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnelsin a planned ambush in the deep jungles of Chhattisgarh elucidated the fact that Naxalism has evolved from a random violent movement to a sophisticated and refined organization with clear goals. They have major presence in states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Andhra Pradesh which almost constitutes a half of India. Recently they they were in news for abducting four soldiers near Saknapalli in Bijapur, killing them brutally and leaving them for dead on the roads. This violent siege against state mechanisms is bound to question their eventual motives. The problem finds its roots in the archaic caste/Dalit issues of Indian society where caste consciousness supplants the national consciousness.

The inception of maoist movement can be traced toTelangana region which was then under the dominion of Nizam. Nizam ruled with iron fist and workers suffered regular oppression and state machinery was feudal. Feudalism can be attributed as one of the major causes which lead to the rise of Naxalism in India. In Telangana, the peasants disgruntled from the policies of Nizam rebelled under the communist guidance and created a ‘free area’ comprising of Nalgonda, Warangal and Khamman which was directly under their control. By 1948, approximately one-sixth of the Telangana region came under the direct control of communist guerillas. But with the entry of Indian army to over throw Nizam, the rebels withdrew their movement and by 1951 they retreated to the forests of Godavari River, Karimanagar and the Nalagonda. The tribals dwelling in the forest joined the guerillas but paid a heavy price when army interned them in security camps due to their associations with rebels.

This became a standard modulus operandi for the army when the same idea was adopted in Mizoram and recently in Chhattisgarh.

In West Bengal, the movement started in the Naxalbari area which covers the area of Naxalbari, Kharibari and Phansidewa and was inhabited by the tribal communities such as Santhal, Oraon, Munda etc. They were mostly landless peasants working for zamindars on their lands and were heavily oppressed. Disputes regarding the distribution of cultivated crops were very common. In this scenario rose CharuMazumdar who was deeply motivated from the Mao revolution in China and began propagating his ideas in the villages of northern Bengal. The people who felt disillusioned from the lax ideologies of Communist Party of India (Marxist) were also drawn to the ideologies of CharuMazumdar.By 1967, this culminated into a bloodbattle which establishedNaxalbari as the founding place of the maoist movement in Independent India. China initially supported this movement and in 1968, even gave military and political training to KanuSanyal and JangalSanthal who were chief comrades of CharuMazumdar. In 1969, CharuMazumdarformed a new communist party called CPI (Marxist-Leninist) and started giving ground support to the rebels.

To curb the going strength of the maoist movement, the state police, paramilitary and military forces of West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa jointly launched an operation code named Steeplechase and within 3 months brought the situation under control by putting maximum of the rebel leaders in Jail. The revolution was then shifted to Midnapore district under the leadership of Santosh Rana who was a Dalit leader and began recruiting students from colleges of Kolkata. And around 1969, they executed a few well planned attacks on landlords but they too succumbed under the immense pressure from the forces as the losses sustained by them were too high.

The movement spread in similar ways in most of Andhra Pradesh, including Warangal, Adilabad, Karimnagar and Khamman. The four districts were merged into a guerilla zone to organize the movement of themasses in villages. Also on 22 April 1980, CPI-ML formed a new party called Peoples War Group (PWG) which later developed into the most violent guerilla force of the Naxalists, carrying out surgical attack and ambushes on state police. The Maoist movement slowly gained popularity by their actions such as forcibly occupying lands and distributing them among poor thereby alleviating their problem.

On their mission to gain more bases, the maoist movement now focused on the Dandakarnaya forest area comprising of Bastar, Gadichiroli in Maharashtra and Northern Telangana. This region consisted of tribals (adivasis) collecting tendu leaf (for making beedi) and bamboo sticks(for making paper)who faced exploitation from the contractors, government officials and forest service alike. Under these conditions, it was obvious that the peasants would be motivated by the ideologies and philosophies of the Naxals. The Naxals fought to increase the rates of tendu leaf and bamboo collection, forcibly occupied large tracts of land occupied by traders and re-distributed them among the tribals. The tribals saw the Naxals as a mean to assert their needs and demands to the officials. If some tribal girl was sexually violated by the forest guards, the Naxals would extract revenge for them by holding Jan-Adalats. Because of such acts, the tribals became sympathetic to the Naxal cause.

Same was the case in Gadchiroli where the tribalsformed associations under the guidance of the rebels and started their struggles against forest officials and money lenders for better wages and control over forest land. One special particular incident related to police brutality needs a special mention here. Bolstered by the increasing support of tribals, the activists decided to launch a rally in Indervalli village of Utnoor taluka in 20April 1981 and words were spread all the way up to Hyderabad through posters, pamphlet etc. However police sending danger brutally clamped the rally by firing on them and many tribals died.

The Inderavalli incident left a huge blot on the police system and the tribals lost all faith in the state judiciary, hence pushing them more towards Naxalism. Within a few short years, the Naxals now hold undisputed control over the Dandakaranya forests and the area turned in Guerilla zone. The movement spread from Gadchroli to Chandrapur and Bhandara districts; Bastar to Rajnandgaon and Balaghat and to the Koraput of Orissa. Same story was repeated in Bhojpur of Bihar and every other place where Naxals eventually spread. An oppressed class, an intoxicated upper class of traders and businessman, an insensitive and unresponsive official class and exploiting forest guards and officials and then Naxals enter the scene. Suddenly, the oppressed class has a face and a voice for their problems. It gives them a sense of empowerment against something which has long exploited them, abused them and in every sense enslaved them. The movement gave them a goal, a target which was different from their usual target which was to ‘survive the day’. This is one of the main reasons as how the Naxalism was able to spread so efficiently and deeply in only four decades.

In mid-80’s the people wars group (PWG) decided to take direct action against police forces which continues even to this day. The Naxal movement continued their propaganda and the bulk of their comrades came from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana who would act as next generation leaders. Sometimes, the Maoists would be manipulated by political parties for their own political agendas and same would later crush them. Such has already happen in Jharkhand, west Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. Around late 1980’s, PWG established contact with LTTE of Sri Lanka and received training in explosives changing the equation of war between state and Naxalites rebels. Now, Naxalites were able to inflict heavy causalities without major loss from their side.

Some considerable efforts were made in 1989 by state police forces as they built several units specially trained in Jungle warfare and Guerilla tactics to hunt down Naxalites. One such force was Greyhound force and they were quite successful in controlling the spread of Maoist. But against rumors of human right abuses and fake encounters still persisted. Also, several anti-Maoist militias were developed by police to curb the Naxalismmenace. Some examples of such forces are KranthiSena in Andhra, ShanthiSena in Maharashtra, Nagrik Suraksha Samiti in Jharkhand and SalwaJudum in Chhattisgarh. Attempts were also made to initiate talks with the rebels during the regime of YS Rajasekharareddy (Indian National Congress) but the negotiations failed as both the parties were obstinate in their demand. The latest guerilla force of Maoists which conducts attacks on police forces and soldiers is Peoples Liberation Guerilla army (PLGA) formed in 2 December 2000. They are responsible for conducting the recent ambushes in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.

The negligence by the government was the root causes of the spread of these Maoist andNaxalist movements. Developments of these regions were negligible and corruption was rampant which led to the disaffection. It can be debated that the Naxalism forced the government to focus on these areas and where government failed to deliver, rebels worked together with these peasants and tribals for their development. They established hospitals, constructed dams and water tanks, made education compulsory in the regions controlled by them, introduced fish culture etc. It can be also deliberated that Naxalism is hampering the growth of these areas as government is ready to uplift these areas. It depends on individual perception but one thing that is sure is that a war going in the India’s heartland in which innocent tribals are getting caught in the cross fire. This needs to be resolved quickly whether by developing these areas and bringing them close to economy or by flushing the rebels out by direct military actions: the options are infinite but only one is viable.

By Swaptik Chowdhury with Piyush Chaudhari