Tide turning against Indian
Maoists By Jason Motlagh
HYDERABAD, India - An aggressive push by
Indian state security forces over the past two
years has blunted the Maoist insurgency in the
state of Andhra Pradesh, a long-time guerrilla
hotbed, but many have regrouped in remote parts of
neighboring states where police remain
ill-equipped to combat a surge in violence.
"There is a lull in Andhra Pradesh," said
K Srinavas Reddy, a Hyderabad-based expert on the
Maoist movement in India. "Police intrusion, the
use of informant networks and coordination with
locals have weakened the
Naxalites here." Maoist insurgents are also known
as Naxalites after the West Bengal town of
Naxalbari where a communist armed rebellion began
40 years ago.
At the heart of the state's
counter-insurgency strategy is increased
patrolling in areas the guerillas have typically
sought refuge in along the forested northern
border with Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. An
elite commando unit unique to Andhra Pradesh
called the Greyhounds prowls the backcountry,
supported by paid informants at the village level
whose intelligence has led to the arrest or
killing of several leaders.
The latest
report by the Asian Center for Human Rights
(ACHR), a Delhi-based thinktank that monitors
insurgent groups, said that Andhra Pradesh is now
far behind the central Indian state of
Chhattisgarh in terms of persons killed by
Naxalite-related violence. Out of a total of 384
deaths - civilians, security forces, and
insurgents - between January and September,
Chhattisgarh accounted for 208, or 54%; Andhra
Pradesh was a distant second with 59 deaths.
This is a sharp improvement from 2005,
when the state witnessed 535 incidents of violence
and 208 killings, according to government figures.
A top state intelligence official who
requested anonymity touted the success of the
Greyhounds in beating the Naxalites at their own
game. The force, which numbers around 2,000 in the
state, has been operational since 1990 in small
bands of 15-25 commandos that are specially
trained for deep forest pursuit and combat. Over
the past three years, Naxalites ranks have fallen
from around 1,000 hardcore members to some 400
today, according to the official.
"We had
to update our skills in forest operations," he
said, noting that for many years state police were
regular victims of insurgent ambushes. "[The
Naxalites] have been masters of the jungle, so now
we have started to dominate the jungle."
Still, the government is aware that gains
made in Andhra Pradesh may have contributed to an
influx of guerrilla activity across its borders,
particularly in Chhattisgarh. To counter this,
intelligence is being shared by state agencies to
coordinate tactics, and the Greyhound model is
being replicated in other Naxalite-affected states
such as Jharkand and Bihar where it will soon come
into force.
The government is also banking
on disadvantaged tribal communities on which the
Naxalites rely for shelter becoming wary of the
trouble they bring with them.
In July,
Naxalites in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh
banned farming to protest against "the
exploitation of the state's natural resources by
the government". Those who defied the ban were to
be given the death sentence and, according to
police, at least 11 farmers in one district were
killed by insurgents for working in their fields;
others had their property burned or looted.
Suhas Chakma, the director of the ACHR,
says that insecurity in the southernmost districts
of Chhattisgarh has been compounded by the state's
Salwa Judum "peace movement". Established with the
intent of uniting villagers against the Naxalites,
it has instead stoked violence in the region by
arming poorly trained special police officers and
giving them a free hand to fight. The tribals,
meanwhile, are stuck in the middle.
The
Andhra Pradesh intelligence official admitted he
was "not in favor" of the program from the start.
It should be the domain of seasoned police to
bring the fight to the Naxalites, he added, as his
state's successful strategy bears out.
Compared to fledgling police in
Chhattisgarh, state security forces have learned
from institutional experience that dates back to
the late 1960s when the rebel movement first took
to the Andhra Pradesh forests. There they found
fertile ground among a population fed up with the
vestiges of a feudal land system.
"We are
the longest suffering," the official said. "There
is a saying here: The oldest patient is half
doctor."
But state-sponsored programs have
produced unintended consequences that critics say
will gradually feed another groundswell of
Naxalite sympathies in Andhra Pradesh.
Greyhound personnel were reportedly behind
the August 20 rape of 11 tribal women in the
Visakhapatnam district. Victim testimonies
gathered by rights groups say that the policemen
raided their houses with charges that members of
their family had links with Naxalite fighters,
moving on to gang rape them. No action has yet
been taken by state authorities to identify and
prosecute those responsible.
Police are
also accused of orchestrating "fake encounters",
either killing insurgents on the pretense of
defensive action or classifying the deaths of
unverified criminals as Naxalites to inflate an
impression of success.
A top Naxalite
leader, known as Somanna, was reportedly killed in
a July gun battle with police in Warangal
district. However, Naxalite supporters allege he
was arrested and executed in a staged manner the
following day. In other affected states, Indian
media have documented additional incidents in
which security forces killed alleged militants who
villagers claim were innocent.
The state
government, for its part, rejects such allegations
as part of a disinformation effort by the
Naxalites to keep government forces out of
villages they wish to control. Officials add that
a rehabilitation program is always open to
insurgents who wish to surrender, and includes a
large cash sum, provided they renounce violence.
Revolutionary poet Varavara Rao, an ardent
supporter of the Maoist cause, acknowledges that
the Naxalite movement in Andhra Pradesh has faced
setbacks. But he insists that while fighters may
be depleted, grassroots support is "silent yet
strong" due to the continued marginalization of
tribal and lower-caste people in rural areas.
The Hyderabad native said the Naxalite
insurgency has swelled and contracted over the
years, likening the movement to a "phoenix bird
that when killed, comes to ashes, only to rise
again. In time, it will upsurge."
Reddy,
the Maoism expert, said that without a development
scheme that includes land reforms that favor the
tribals, the insurgency will not die away. He
cited a September 7 landmine attack by Naxalites
on former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Janardhana
Reddy and his wife during a village tour as
evidence that no amount of heavy-handed action can
eliminate the threat. Although the couple
survived, three members of their convoy were
killed.
"Ultimately, no government can get
rid of this movement through force," he said.
"Control it, yes, but they'll never get rid of
it."
Jason Motlagh is a
freelance journalist based in Delhi. This story
was reported with a grant from the Pulitzer Center
on Crisis Reporting.
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