India's Maoists are no rag-tag
rebels By Neeta Lal
NEW
DELHI - As India's Maoists continue to strike
terror in the hearts of civilians by looting and
kidnapping with impunity - they are now estimated
to control a staggering one-third of the country's
districts - more disquieting facts about their
modus operandi are surfacing.
According to the latest interrogations of
arrested top Maoist leaders by Indian
intelligence, the rebels have succeeded in raising
a army of their own right in the heart of the
country that is fortified with AK- 47 assault
rifles and an array of deadly weapons and arms.
The strategy that has been employed by the
terrorists in building their army paints them as a
much deadlier adversary than was previously
assumed. Conversant with the techniques of modern
warfare,this force is far
from a ragtag bunch of confused soldiers
inhabiting swathes of jungle.
The new
intelligence has found that the Maoist army has
three components: the main force, a secondary
force and a base force.
The main force -
armed with ammunition looted mostly from security
forces - has companies, platoons and special
action teams besides an intelligence unit. The
secondary force comprises special guerilla squads,
while the base force is made up of the jan
militia. The lower-most Maoist cadre use
double-barrel and single-barrel guns, homemade
weapons and claymore landmines to blow up
vehicles.
The government has now
officially pegged the figure of the armed cadres
at a staggering 46,600. Of these, the hardcore
Maoists number around 8,600 while the jan
militia numbers around 38,000, with the latter
carrying rudimentary arms and providing logistics
support to the core group of the People Liberation
Guerilla Army of the CPI (Maoist).
Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist
insurgency as "the biggest internal security
challenge since Independence", and there is
believed to be a "red corridor" stretching from
the southern state of Andhra Pradesh to the
central state of Chhattisgarh and into West
Bengal, bordering Nepal and Bhutan.
The
insurgents started their armed struggle in 1967
with a peasant revolt in Naxalbari village in West
Bengal, hence the oft-used moniker of the
"Naxals". Regrouping in the 1980s, the group
recruited thousands of poor villagers and armed
them with rifles snatched from police, with their
Maoist cause resonating among a poor population
who've felt little of the benefits of India's
socio-economic progress.
However, the Naxals have been
charged with running an extortion economy under
the garb of a popular revolution. They extract
enormous sums of money from mining companies,
police say. According to a Reuters report, the
rebels extort about US$300 million from companies
in India every year to fund their movement. Enlightening as the new facts
about the Maoists are, it is also intriguing why
the government has chosen now to release details
of the Maoist army and its militia in the public
domain. After all, doesn't the disclosure
underscore the Maoists' strength and their acumen
while highlighting the government's continued
failure to control them?
Many feel the
disclosures will help the agencies better
understand their puzzling adversary, as it seems
their appeal cannot be diminished by slogans of
development and governance alone. Also, as a
newspaper editorial put it, the information
reveals that the Maoists are working to ensure the
state cannot bring the benefits of democratic
governance to the vast tracts they control through
fear.
Ministry figures reveal that to
battle the Maoists, the government has had to
deploy 94,000 paramilitary personnel in nine
states. In addition, nearly 100,000 policemen are
tackling the Naxals in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand
- two of the worst-hit states. Over 78 battalions
of the Central Reserve Police Force, Border
Security Force, Sashastra Seema Bal and
Indo-Tibetan Border Police are stationed in other
states to fight the Naxal terror.
Despite
the heavy investment of financial and military
resources, the Naxals have succeeded in killing
483 security men while losing only 286 from their
own cadre since 2010. "The Maoists continue to
have an edge because of the topography of their
hideouts in deep forests," revealed Minister of
State in the Home Ministry Jitendra Singh in a
written reply to the Lok Sabha (lower house) this
week.
There is increasing concern in the
security establishment over the dramatic upward
spiral in the fatalities of the security forces at
the hands of the Maoists. Ultras killed 52
security personnel in the first three months of
this year until March 31. The CPI (Maoist) -
spearheading the Naxal violence across the country
- accounts for 95% of the incidents perpetrated by
the Maoists in the affected states.
Alarmingly, from traditional guerrilla
hit-and-run tactics, the Naxals have moved
seamlessly to terror tactics of kidnap and ransom.
Last month, a group of 15 extremists,
disguised as villagers, kidnapped a 32-year-old
official in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district. As his
pregnant wife pleaded for mercy and asked the
government to ensure his safe release, the Maoists
radioed to a reporter a list of five demands for
his freedom that included the release of many
Naxal leaders.
This incident was part of a
series of abductions that the Maoists have
engineered over the past two years in Chhattisgarh
and neighboring Orissa.
Their first major
success was Malkangiri district collector R Vineel
Krishna in Orissa in February last year, followed
by two Italians and politician Jhina Hikaka. The
tactic proved effective, with the Orissa
government accepting most of their 13 demands,
including halting combing operations in the state,
to secure Krishna's release. It had also
facilitated the bail of five Maoist leaders.
The kidnap ploy was not limited to two
states. After West Bengal Police officer
Attindranath Dutta was held hostage in 2009, the
state government released 22 imprisoned women with
alleged Maoist links for his freedom.
Then
chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya termed the
swap deal an "exception" and not all abducted
officials have been so lucky because the
government has no policy to deal with the
situation. Overall, according to the Home
Ministry, out of the 1,554 people abducted by
Maoists in the past four years, 328 were killed.
"There has definitely been a shift in
tactics. Since the abduction of Krishna last year,
the rebels have realized that it is a more
effective way of bringing the government to its
knees. We can expect more kidnappings. It's a
dangerous trend," former Orissa director general
of police Gopal Nanda told the media.
Union Home Ministry figures reveal that
the Maoists have consciously whittled down the
number of direct confrontations with security
forces over the past couple of years - from 309 in
2009 to 272 in 2010 and just 223 in 2011. As a
consequence, Naxalite casualties also plummeted
from 219 in 2009 to 99 last year.
The
government's continued failure to contain the
Maoists, resulted earlier this year in Delhi
handing over major incidents perpetrated by the
Naxals to the National Investigation Agency (NIA)
"for a swift probe and to bring the culprits to
book in time".
Union Home Minister P
Chidambaram has indicated that Naxal violence
could be treated on par with terror attacks and
the investigation of such cases may be given to
the NIA.
The move to hand over the Maoist
attack cases to the NIA, say experts, is a part of
the government's multi-pronged strategy to deal
with ultra-left extremism.
Political
analysts say the Maoists are able to leverage the
situation because of a policy vacuum in Delhi on
dealing with Naxalite kidnappings. The government
has been dealing with this kind of terror by
releasing captured Maoist cadre to get back
hostages, thinking they can arrest them again. But
clearly this tactic hasn't worked and a rethink is
in order.
However, many are optimistic
that the problem isn't intractable. "Though we are
fighting a mini-army, its strength is not so
daunting that it cannot be overwhelmed. It is
possible to disintegrate it if there is the
political will to do so," says an ex-Border
Security Force chief.
So far, however,
that "will" seems totally missing.
Neeta Lal is a widely published
writer/commentator who contributes to many reputed
national and international print and Internet
publications.
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