Looming threat of Maoists
Mohammad Jamil
Addressing the interstate during his first stint, Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh had said that biggest threat to India was the Maoists.
Recently, he is reported to have described Maoists as the biggest
security challenge since independence. It is true that that the Naxalite
movement is a growing threat, as 13 out of 28 states are now affected in
one way or another by the insurgency. But the situation is of India’s
own making, as the minorities in India are suffering at the hands of the
government and Hindu extremist organizations. Because of inept policies
of Indian government law and order situation in Chhattisgarh,
Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West
Bengal, western Orissa and Bihar is hopeless. India faces insurgencies
in Nagaland, Mizoram, Assam, Bodoland, Manipur and Tripura where it is
using heavy-handed methods and use of brutal force to quell the unrest,
which fact has been censured by human rights organizations including
Amnesty International.
Maosts had started an armed struggle with a peasant revolt in Naxalbari
village in West Bengal in 1967. They were initially crushed by the
Congress-led government but regrouped in the 1980s, and began recruiting
hundreds of poor villagers, arming them with bows and arrows and even
rifles snatched from police and government armouries. There is a
perception that after a resounding success in general election in May,
the Congress party-led government no longer needed communist parties in
its coalition. It therefore decided to take on an estimated 22,000
Maoist rebels who hold sway over swathes of countryside. Operation
“Green Hunt” reflects growing concerns in India that Maoists are
becoming too strong after decades-long insurgency. In fact, India’s
strong economic growth of the last few years has benefited only the
industrial and business class, and it has done nothing to bring millions
of poor villagers and tribals out of the poverty.
Asia Time Online has carried an article written by Sudha Ramachandran,
an independent journalist/researcher based in Banglore, which speaks
volumes about the plight of the poor in India: “Maoist violence is no
doubt brutal. However, it has laid bare the callousness of the Indian
state, its failure to deliver good governance and to respond to the
plight of the poorest and most marginalized sections of its population”.
Maloy Krishna Dhar, a former bureaucrat, police official who was later
inducted in Central Intelligence Bureau, in his treatise ‘Indian Fault
Lines: Perceptions and realities’ has given the detailed analysis of
perceptions of various problems in the country and the real situation on
the ground.
He writes: “India is perhaps the only country that has simultaneous
presence of ethnic insurgency, ideological terrorism and religious jihad
waged by foreign-based tanzeems and sponsored by foreign intelligence
agencies and great social divide”. He however conveniently forgot the
role of the RAW in stoking and fueling insurgencies in neighbouring
countries especially Pakistan. Though India had played ignominious role
in dismemberment of Pakistan yet he tried to justify the barbaric acts
by Hindutva organisations on the basis of misperceived danger from the
alleged accretion in Muslim demography, illegal Bangladeshi infiltration
and Muslim separatism as serious threats to India’s national integrity.
Like other Indian writers and intellectuals, he blamed Pakistan, China,
Myanmar and Bangladesh for fueling insurgencies in India - Naga
Territory, Assam, Tripura and Kamtapur movement in West Bengal, Manipur,
Mizoram and other areas, what the author described as ‘Outer India’.
Maoists are active right from West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand,
Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Between last two years
more areas in Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu and Kerala have
come under Maoist action”.
In June, Indian para-military forces stepped up operation against
insurgents in Lalgarh tribal region of West Bengal and the combing
operation in the nearby villages. In the wake of this insurgency, the
Central government of India on last Monday banned the Communist Party of
India (Maoist), terming it a terrorist organisation. It invoked Section
41 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against the extremist
outfit. Many States, including Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and
Chhattisgarh, had declared the CPI (Maoist) an unlawful association and
a terrorist organization. Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu had
done so under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. In these eastern
regions, Naxalites have established their writ running large in hundreds
of villages. The CPI (Maoist) is now clubbed with other banned terror
groups such as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba with its offices and
bank accounts sealed.
According to South Asia Terrorism Portal’s report 2007, “at least 231 of
the country’s 608 Districts were afflicted, at differing intensities, by
various insurgent and terrorist movements. Terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir
(12 of the States 14 Districts), in different States of the Northeast
(54 Districts) and Left Wing extremism (affecting at least 165 Districts
in 14 States) continued to pose serious challenges to the country’s
security framework. In addition, wide areas of the country appear to
have ‘fallen off the map’ of good governance, and are acutely
susceptible to violent political mobilization, lawlessness and organized
criminal activity”. In this backdrop one can conclude that India is
awash with home-grown terrorist organizations and can implode from
within without any outside effort.
In the past India had banned violent Hindu fronts such as the Ranvir
Sena and the Bajrang Dal, while there is a continuing debate about
taking action against right-wing Hindu political organizations such as
the Shiv Sena and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. It appears that India would
not take strict action against Hindu extremist organizations, as it
wants to keep these organizations in tact to create frenzy against
Pakistan. Though the Maoists have snatched the weapons from the India’s
security personnel, the Indian government has unleashed propaganda
campaign through its think tanks, analysts and columnists hinting that
they have links with Nepal and China, and in their wild imagination also
name, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. This means that India suspects
almost all of its neighbours for supporting the insurgents in India.
B Raman, who is perhaps running a subsidiary of the RAW. however says
that Jihadi terrorism is a cross-border threat to national security.
Maoist terrorism is not. But this is not true because except one odd
case, 26/11 terrorists’ act by non-state actors in collaboration with
local insurgents in Bombay there has never been a cross-border threat to
national security. B Raman adds: “The Maoists leaders are motivated
largely by their desire to seek political power through a Maoist style
People’s War similar to the war waged by their counterparts in Nepal,
their cadres and foot soldiers fighting for them are largely motivated
by genuine grievances arising from the political, economic and social
hardships”. But one cannot find even one writer, analyst or intellectual
who would acknowledge that people of Kashmir are motivated by genuine
grievances, and that they have the right to self-determination given by
United Security Council resolutions.
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