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 | | Slain by the 'People': Coffins of the 17 cops killed by Naxals in Gadchiroli |
Naxal report says no talking, only shooting
By Anupam Dasgupta
For India’s Naxals, everything is going according to plan. The killing of three policemen in Mayurbhanj, Orissa, on October 13 and the beheading of Francis Induwar, intelligence official with Jharkhand Police, on October 6 were the latest in a string of bloody messages they sent to New Delhi. Protesting the Centre’s direct offensive, Naxals blew up railway tracks near Simultala, Bihar, during their two-day bandh in Bihar and Jharkhand. And on October 13, when Maharashtra went to the polls, they engaged security forces in Gadchiroli, aiming to disrupt the election process.
THE WEEK got a copy of their roadmap—a 14-page confidential report of the politburo of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Dated June 12 and titled Post-Election Situation—Our Tasks, the report was allegedly written by Kobad Ghandy, the Naxal ideologue currently under arrest. Skim through the report, and it becomes clear that the increased Naxal violence after the Lok Sabha polls in May 2009 is not spontaneous, but scripted. The first seven pages analyse the election results and what they hold for the Naxals. The report derides the Congress party’s claim as the single largest party with “29.67 per cent vote share”. It says: “To describe this as a positive vote for the performance of the Congress is as deceptive as saying the re-election of Narendra Modi in Gujarat was a positive vote for his development work….”
The Left parties, too, have been mauled. The report says, “The so-called Left parties were the biggest losers.” Highly critical of the Third Front, the report says, “The experiment by the bankrupt Left collapsed like a pack of cards.” It says the people did not vote for economic reform—else how did Mamata Banerjee win in West Bengal despite her stopping the Nano car factory project?
“The report is a revolutionary analysis and critique of the country’s democratic system. The Maoists have tried to prove that theirs is a political movement against the government of India,” says lecturer Rajat Kujur, an expert on the Naxalite movement.
The political part of the report closes with an observation that Naxals have more to fear from the resurgent UPA, as a victorious Congress will be “more authoritarian and repressive in its policies”. “The unfolding state terror and state-sponsored terror under the Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram combine will be far more brutal, deadly and savage…” it says.
Perhaps, the Naxals do have a point about the government’s confused approach. On October 11, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urged Naxals to give up arms and talk. He was hazy when he said the Centre would not set the Army on the Naxals. And he closed by saying Naxals posed the gravest internal security threat, and Operation Green Hunt, the recent police-paramilitary offensive against Naxals, would continue.
The question remains: to talk or to shoot? This fundamental confusion has been the crux of India’s Naxal policy. Some say an insurgency cannot be ‘out-developed’; it should be outgunned. Others say force alone is a “counterproductive half-measure”. Interestingly, the latter view has takers in M.L. Kumawat, former chairman of the home ministry’s anti-Naxal task force, and D. Bandopadhyay, head of the Planning Commission’s expert committee on Naxalism.
Bandopadhyay says: “New Delhi should ideally relinquish the security-centric view of tackling Naxals and address the causes of legitimate dissent. If it sticks to violent offensives, it might just end up fighting an escalating battle on the internal security front.”
The Maoists are deeply suspicious of the Centre’s intentions. It says: “The enemy will aim to isolate us from the broad masses by engaging us in continuous military engagements and then pin us down using his superior armed force… we have to foil this tactic by taking up the basic issues of the people, mobilising them into militant mass struggles, taking up wide propaganda and making serious attempts to build broad-based united fronts with forces who oppose the state’s brutal offensive.” The core focuses are clear—militant mass struggles, propaganda and alliances with other ultras; there is no space for talks with the Centre.
Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, says the report shows Naxals are prepared to fight the nation. Says Sahni: “To sustain a movement of this kind, you fight on the periphery. You scout for opportunities and then strike at the weaknesses of the state machinery.” He says it is as important to contain insurgents as to fight them. Andhra Pradesh’s failure to contain Naxals while fighting them led to them fleeing the state and setting up bases elsewhere. Today, 14 states are fighting them.
Outgoing Maharashtra additional director general of police Pankaj Gupta said, “The report condemns government’s success on socio-political fronts and its arguments seek to alienate the masses.” Gupta was in charge of the anti-Naxal operations in Maharashtra.
The last three pages of the report, subtitled Immediate Tasks, provide a clear view of what is to come. The first task set by the politburo is to “prepare the people, the Party and the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army politically to confront the brutal enemy onslaught. The manner is which we had defeated the Salwa Judum should be projected as a model to be emulated elsewhere.” It says daring counter-offensives will enthuse other struggling organisations.
It elaborates: “Prepare and mobilise people for carrying out tactical counter-offensives and inflict severe losses to the enemy forces; attacks should be organised against the state’s khaki and olive-clad terrorist forces, SPOs, police informants and other counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the people.” Experts estimate the Naxals’ cadre strength to be around 50,000, of whom 10,000-15,000 cadres could be trained fighters.
The second task seems very close to the recent correction exercise undertaken by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). “Purge the non-proletarian trends prevailing in our Party and the movement…” says the report. The third task is recruitment and counterespionage. “Avoid everything that is likely to expose [us] to the enemy through betrayers, arrested persons and Party records,” it says.
The Naxals correctly predict the Centre’s plans to hunt them down and they highlight formation of units like the Greyhounds and CoBRA. So the fourth task is a plan to weaken them: “Expand our guerilla war to new areas and intensify mass resistance so as to disperse the enemy over a wider area.” The fifth one—minimise innocent casualties or risk being branded “anti-people and terroristic”. “Cause no damage to people’s property… and apologise for our mistakes promptly,” the report says.
The report also compares the Naxals with other ultras fighting the “imperialists” and “Zionists”, read US and Israel. It warns against what led to the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam—“an underestimation of the enemy along with an overestimation of its own forces and capabilities.” The report warns that the US will mediate on issues between India and Pakistan, so that the armies of both countries will be free to fight internal ultras—the Taliban and Naxals.
Dandapani Mohanty, a senior Maoist leader from Orissa, says: “We have no faith in parliamentary institutions and wish to establish a people’s government through people’s war. We have never indulged in violence. On the contrary, Naxals have tried to protect society from state terror.”
Former Maoist emissary Varavara Rao said: “Social injustice is violence, too. It is structural violence. A section is deprived as a result of the state’s systematic subversion. Naxals have traditionally backed development projects in remote corners of the country. Whatever is happening now in Chhattisgarh and Lalgarh are examples of the state shying away from real development issues.”
With the Naxals not showing any signs of shunning violence, New Delhi’s current blitzkrieg may also fizzle out. The Centre’s new policy to delink development and the Naxal problem might just not be the right solution.
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