Hidden civil war drains India's
energy By Jeremy Carl
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an
Oxford- and Cambridge-trained economist not given
to careless exaggeration, recently referred to a
domestic political crisis as "the single biggest
internal-security challenge ever faced by our
country".
Yet despite the longtime
prominence of this problem within India and its
potentially catastrophic effects on its energy
sector, many energy analysts outside the country
are unaware of its existence. The security
challenge in question is posed by the Naxalites, a
loosely organized group of Maoists who now have an
estimated 20,000 soldiers and are waging a war
against the Indian state, terrorizing and
destabilizing much of the countryside.
The
success or failure of their campaign against the
government will have profound consequences for
India's stability and, most
particularly, its energy
security. The Naxalite insurgency is strongest
precisely in the areas with the richest natural
resources, especially the coal that powers the
Indian economy.
Manmohan's blunt statement
brought rare foreign coverage (including a New
York Times article, which described the struggle
as "looking increasingly like a civil war") to the
Naxalite rebellion, which has festered for more
than three decades in India's countryside. While
the struggle is taking place far from Delhi's
glitzy new suburbs or Bangalore's booming
technology hub, its effects are increasingly being
felt across India.
The motivations behind
the Naxalite rebellion are complicated and are
influenced by many local factors - and many
"Naxalites" are merely criminals and mercenaries
who have adopted a revolutionary pose for
strategic reasons.
But in essence, the
core of the Naxalite rebellion can be seen as a
response by many of India's poor against a
perceived expropriation of their natural resources
by the state. India's "coal mafias" largely
control the industry, notorious for its poor
infrastructure and corruption, while union
leaders, mine managers and politicians routinely
skim substantial profits from the state-owned coal
companies. Meanwhile, the poor, largely tribal
communities that make up much of the heart of
India's coal country, see precious little of the
profits while suffering substantial environmental
destruction and feeling the effects of public
corruption.
The Naxalites have at least
some presence in almost half of India's 28 states,
and in some of the poorer and most heavily tribal
states, particularly Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh,
Orissa, Jharkand and West Bengal, they are a major
political force. These five states account for
about 85% of India's coal resources, and continued
disruption and deterioration of the political
environment could have profound consequences for
both India and its neighbors.
Coal
constitutes about 55% of India's current primary
energy supply and some 75% of its electricity
generation, and a prolonged or excessively costly
resource war in these states could cripple the
economy and alter the global import balance if
India has to look elsewhere for energy resources.
In other words, while the United States
worries about imported oil, which makes up roughly
a quarter of its primary energy supply, Naxalism
puts almost half of India's total energy supply at
serious political risk. Much of the problem lies
with the fact the federal government owns the
sub-surface rights to all minerals, including
coal, which infuriates the destitute tribal
communities. Organizations such as the South Asian
Intelligence Review have noted a high correlation
between those districts with high natural
resources, particularly coal and iron, and those
districts facing Naxalite violence.
In
recent months and years, there have been an
increasing number of direct attacks by Naxalite
rebels on the energy industry. Naxalites recently
killed coal-mine security officers in Chhattisgarh
and in December burned vehicles from a coal-survey
team, the Mineral Exploration Corp of India. In
the coal-rich region of Andhra Pradesh, Naxalites
destroyed vast quantities of mining equipment. In
February, an explosive depot (used for mining) in
Chhattisgarh, run by the National Mineral
Development Corp, was attacked by rebels, who
killed eight members of the security force while
making off with tons of ammunition.
And
the Naxalite energy-related violence is expanding.
India's Oil and Natural Gas Co has dramatically
beefed up security at its facilities in Jharkand
and Eastern Coalfields Ltd, Central Coalfields
Ltd, Singareni Coalfields Ltd and Neyveli Lignite
Corp in response to recent warnings from
government officials about Naxalite attacks.
Meanwhile, Chhattisgarh's government last
year signed almost US$3 billion in agreements to
build power plants and other energy-related
infrastructure. But such agreements will surely be
at risk (particularly those involving
multinationals) if the violence does not cease.
Naxalites frequently levy their own "taxes" on
resource extraction on districts they control, and
many more ideological Naxalites are opposed to the
development of additional coal mines and power
plants at any price.
I recently spent a
week in India's remote Chhattisgarh state,
described by the New York Times as "the deadliest
theater of the war", and while I attempted to see
coal-mining operations, my guide refused to take
me because of extreme danger in coal-mining and
production areas. While our surroundings were
outwardly placid, we could not travel at night,
and our overall itinerary and visit were
dramatically truncated because of the danger of
armed attacks.
It was clear that rebel
groups controlled much of the countryside, where
according to numerous accounts, they in essence
run a parallel government and administration. The
local newspapers were filled daily with accounts
of fatal battles between Naxalites and government
forces. In parts of many districts, government
officials have not visited for years, for fear of
their lives.
The intensifying civil war in
parts of India's countryside will have profound
effects not just for India's energy security, but
for the global economy as well. The growing
Naxalite insurgency will bear close scrutiny over
the coming months - and continued deterioration of
security in India's coal heartland could have a
significant impact on energy security in India and
beyond.
Jeremy Carl, a former
resident of New Delhi whose research focuses on
energy in India and China, is a PhD candidate in
the interdisciplinary program in environment and
resources, Stanford University.
(Copyright 2006 Institute for the
Analysis of Global Security
- IAGS.)
