| |
India, Nepal and the Maoist
maze
By Sanjay K Jha
A
succession of recent events along the India-Nepal
borders, particularly in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West
Bengal, has warranted a rethinking on India's security
frontiers with its tiny neighbor. There is an imminent
danger that the Maoist insurgency in Nepal may affect
the internal security scenario in India, with
inextricable and strengthening linkages between the
Nepalese Maoists and left-wing extremist groups -
generically referred to as Naxalites - active in
different parts of India.
Following the ongoing
crackdown in Nepal, Maoist insurgents are infiltrating
into India, mainly through the porous border in Bihar,
Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, West Bengal and Sikkim. The
745-kilometer border that Bihar shares with Nepal has
been particularly active in this connection, and the
Bihar police have, of late, arrested a number of Maoist
insurgents, including some prominent leaders, in the
Sitamarhi, East Champaran and West Champaran districts
bordering Nepal. Nine Maoist insurgents were arrested by
the Bihar police on September 18 and September 20.
Earlier, in July, three Maoist insurgents were arrested
in Madhubani district.
The arrested Maoists
disclosed to the police that several newly recruited
cadres were being given arms training in special
training camps in the forests of Bagha in the West
Champaran district, which have, of late, emerged as a
safe haven for the Nepalese insurgents.
The
Bihar police also suspect that one of the top ideologues
of the Nepalese Maoists, Baburam Bhattarai, is hiding in
Bihar. Bhattarai, a product of New Delhi's Jawaharlal
Nehru University, is believed to have close links with
the Maoist Communist Center (MCC) and the People's War
Group (PWG). Reports also suggested that the executive
head and chairman of the Maoists, Pushpa Kamal Dahal
Prachanda, had entered India and held a meeting with the
Naxalites at Patna in May 2002.
After the
Bihar's bifurcation, there was a feeling that most of
the left-wing extremism affected districts had gone to
Jharkhand and that the Naxalites had only a limited
sphere of influence in some areas of central Bihar.
Succeeding months, however, have witnessed increased
Naxalite activities in the northern parts of the state
bordering Nepal. The MCC, which was earlier confined to
south (now Jharkhand) and central Bihar, has extended
its activities in the Darbhanga, Madhubani, Sitamarhi,
Sheohar, East and West Champaran and Muzaffarpur
districts. All these districts either share their border
with Nepal or are very close to it. On September 22, a
huge quantity of arms and ammunition was recovered by
police in the Muzaffarpur district, following an
encounter with the MCC. Earlier, on September 18, police
arrested three MCC activists at Hayaghat railway
station, in Darbhanga district. The arrest led to the
recovery of a landmine. This was the first time that a
landmine had been recovered from extremists in north
Bihar.
Bihar police sources maintain that the
MCC has close links with the Maoists operating in Nepal,
and that the MCC moved from south and central Bihar to
the north to link up with the Maoists in Nepal, and
there are now indications of an exchange of men and
material.
That the Nepalese Maoists have
frequently been crossing over to Bihar and Jharkhand to
collaborate with their ideological counterparts in India
is not a recent development. In December 2001, the MCC
and the PWG, in their joint meetings, held at an
unspecified location in Jharkhand forests, resolved to
support the Moist insurgents in Nepal. In May 2001, a
report indicated that the union home ministry had
forwarded to the Bihar government Nepal's request to
flush extremists who were conducting training camps for
Nepali Maoists out from the state, and noted that there
had been a steady trickle of Nepali Maoists into Bihar's
Bhojpur and Aurangabad districts over the preceding two
years. These districts provide an ideal setting for such
camps, as the terrain is hilly and densely forested.
Apart from Bihar, the northern Indian state of
Uttar Pradesh (UP) is also fast emerging as a shelter
for the Maoists, particularly in the border districts of
Baharaich and Maharajganj. In January, Uttar Pradesh
police seized a truck carrying arms in Maharajganj on
the Indian-Nepal border. The arms, procured from
Naxalites in eastern UP, were intended for the Maoists'
campaign in Nepal. In April, UP police seized a huge
cache of arms in Siddarthnagar near the Indian border
and arrested the couriers, who confessed that the arms
were being sent to the Maoists, and that they had
already delivered three consignments. An increasing
number of injured Maoist soldiers are also sneaking
across the border into Uttar Pradesh for treatment. In
May, police arrested eight Maoists who had come for
medical treatment to Lucknow.
The Maoists are
also attempting to establish a network in north Bengal
and Sikkim. Available evidence suggests that the Maoists
have been able to penetrate deep into certain border
areas, particularly Darjeeling and Siliguri in north
Bengal, and have been instigating local Nepalese
settlers to assert their "right to self-determination"
in Nepali dominated areas. The more disturbing trend
relates to reports about Maoist linkages with the
Kamtapur Liberation Organization (KLO), which primarily
operates in parts of West Bengal and Assam. The KLO is
believed to provide sanctuary to Maoist cadres fleeing
Nepal.
The real significance of the
consolidation of linkages between left-wing extremists
in India and Nepal needs to be assessed within the
context of the larger strategy to set up a "Compact
Revolutionary Zone" extending from Nepal through Bihar
and the Dandakaranya region to Andhra Pradesh. For some
time now, these groups have been trying to work
together, and the Nepalese Maoists, the PWG and the MCC
were instrumental in setting up an umbrella organization
called the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and
Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA). The formation of
the CCOMPOSA came to light in a joint statement issued
by these organizations on July 1, 2001, which indicated
that nine left-wing groups of Nepal, India, Bangladesh
and Sri Lanka had joined hands to "unify and coordinate
the activities of the Maoist parties and organizations
in South Asia".
Coordinated action is now in
increasing evidence, and on January 25, the central
committee of the politburo of Maoist insurgents resolved
to launch a campaign against the proscription of the PWG
and the MCC under India's Prevention of Terrorism Act
(POTA). Earlier, they had sent a delegate to the PWG
congress held in Buzurmad village, in the Dandakaranya
forests of Madhya Pradesh, between March 3 and 22, 2001.
At the congress, the PWG reportedly resolved to jointly
conduct programs with the Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist), the Communist Party of the Philippines, the
Communist Party of Peru and the Communist Party of
Turkey-Marxist-Leninist. An India-Nepal border regional
committee has also been established to "coordinate" the
activities of the two groups in the border districts in
Bihar.
The Maoist insurgents also have the
support of a section of the substantial Nepalese
population living in India. The union government banned
the Akhil Bhartiya Nepali Ekta Samaj (ABNES) under the
POTA on July 1 for its alleged linkages with the Maoists
in Nepal. On September 6, the police arrested ABNES
secretary Bamdev Chhettri in New Delhi, for allegedly
supporting Maoist insurgents in Nepal.
The idea
of a "compact revolutionary zone" across a significant
swathe of South Asia may, at the present juncture, seem
somewhat fantastical, but the diffuse networks of
existing violence constitute a very serious challenge
for security planners in India and Nepal. Any effective
strategy to deal with the growing and increasingly
interlinked networks of Maoist extremism in the region
demands improved operational coordination between the
two countries to counter a subversive, complex and
immensely disruptive maze of individuals, groups and
ideologies.
Sanjay K Jha, research
associate, Institute for Conflict Management.
Published with permission from the South Asia
Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism
Portal
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
