View Point (Spotlight Weekly)

India's Maoists on a growth spurt

By Ramtanu Maitra

The communist movement is long dead in India, and yet a large number of Maoists continue to thrive there. They have little hope of ever getting to the level where policies are made, and make no pretense of programmatic work; violence is their stock in trade.

According to a recent report by New Delhi's Institute for Conflict Management (ICM), violent incidents committed by the Maoists and related deaths have climbed steadily in the past two years. As before, India's Maoism is an international movement: the difference now is that the international connections are exclusively to violent Mafia-like outfits, including gun-running and drug-trafficking networks. What is behind this peculiar phenomenon, and what are its implications for Indian security?

The spawn of Naxalbari

The virulent form of the Marxist movement that earned the label Maoism was derived from the aggressive form of the communist movement pursued by Chinese leader Mao Zedong. In India, the Maoist movement was known as "Naxalism" because it was born as a radical split-off from existing mainstream communist parties in the village of Naxalbari in northern West Bengal state. Led by a second-string communist leader, the violent movement took off in the late 1960s under the banner of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) - CPI-ML. Absurd in concept and probably a handmaiden to many intelligence groups in those intense Cold War days, it remained largely underground and the movement became irrelevant within a few years. However, the party metamorphosed into many underground parties, all claiming to be "Maoists" committed to serve the poor and underprivileged.

It is anyone's guess exactly how many of these violent groups today roam India's rural areas of Bihar and the forests and tribal areas of Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. By one estimate, there are as many as 40 Naxalite groups in the country. Among these, People's War (PW) - its main constituent, the People's War Group (PWG), was formed in 1975 by Kondapalli Seetharamaiah - and the Maoist Communist Center (MCC) still project themselves as parties committed to annihilate "class enemies". To date, the PWG and MCC have been kept apart by mutual differences, but in moves that are bound to cause extreme concern to police agencies in several Indian states, the PWG and the MCC have begun to resolve their differences and work toward merging the parties.

Perhaps of greater concern are indications that these Maoist groups are now working hand-in-glove with international groups such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and various Islamic jihadi organizations linked to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist Azam Ghouri, for example, was arrested after his meeting with some important PWG leaders in the Warangal and Nizamabad districts of Andhra Pradesh in September 1999. According to media reports, the supply of arms and explosives to the "Naxalite" groups figured during this meeting.

The Maoists' links to the major domestic separatist groups. such as the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the Boro Liberation Tiger Force and other smaller indigenous groups have been reported regularly in the Indian media. These reports indicate that the Indian Maoists, particularly those functioning in Bihar and Jharkhand, have developed close connections with the Nepali Maoists, whose organization is now growing in leaps and bounds. Reports suggest that the separatists in Nagaland, such as those belonging to the National Socialist Council of Nagalim - Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) - also have a presence in Nepal dealing with guns and drugs with various separatists who assemble there from time to time. That means the Indian Maoists have developed links with the Nagas, who, like the LTTE, trade with Myanmar's heroin and Southeast Asian weapons.

A grim report

According to data compiled by the ICM of New Delhi, a total of 311 persons, including 57 security-force personnel, 133 civilians and 121 Naxalites, had already been killed during the current year up to July 15. The year 2002 saw a total of 1,465 incidents and 482 deaths, as compared with 1,208 incidents and 564 deaths in 2001. The ICM report says the PWG has its own standing army, called the People's Guerrilla Army, which arms local girls and boys with everything from World War I-era carbines to Chinese-made Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers and helps the PWG run its own taxation system. It has perhaps the most sophisticated village-level intelligence network in the country. And, in the areas where it is strong, the law of the land has been transferred into the hands of small local courts run by the PWG that are known for their quick and brutal justice.

Detailed data on the Indian Maoists' access to arms, as furnished by the ICM, show that these groups now have access to the AK series of rifles, landmines and improvised explosive devices among others. Groups such as the PWG and the MCC also have dedicated underground arms-production units. In addition, the looting of weapons from police personnel, civilians and private companies has always been a source of arms for the Maoists. On April 15, members of the MCC killed eight police personnel and looted six self-loading rifles, two other rifles, a revolver and several rounds of ammunition from them after setting off a landmine in the forests of the Nawada district of Bihar. On April 14, MCC cadres attacked a government railway police post at Chandrapura railway station in the Bokaro district of Jharkhand and looted 23 rifles and several hundred cartridges. On March 18, "Naxalites" of the MCC injured three police personnel and looted 15 rifles and 1,000 bullets in an attack on a police post in the Lodhipur village of Gaya district in Bihar. The list goes on.

In Andhra Pradesh, Naxalites receive ammunition, explosive materials and arms pilfered from ordnance factories. Empty cartridges, parts of rifles, and explosives manufactured just six months earlier at an ordnance factory were seized from a Naxalite dump in August 2000 in the Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh. Purchases from arms smugglers and gunrunners - particularly from Bihar - constitute another important source of arms. Some of these smugglers also supply weapons to militant groups operating in India's northeast. On July 2, 2002, security forces arrested a gang of four arms smugglers in Guwahati, the capital city of Assam.

According to the ICM report, there are more than 1,500 illegal arms-manufacturing units in Bihar - most of them in the Nalanda, Nawada, Gaya and Munger districts. The general breakdown of law and order, the proliferation of criminal gangs, the presence of Maoists and private armies of landowners such as the Ranvir Sena, the criminalization of politics, an ill-equipped police force and the existence of a collusive network among criminals, extremists and a section of politicians have all contributed to the massive growth of Bihar's illegal gun industry.

Nepali Maoist-PWG bond

The unrestrained growth of the Indian Maoists has also posed a national-security threat in the form of international linkages with nefarious forces dedicated to violence and drug trafficking. How much control is exerted from abroad is moot. But it is a fact that the Workers Party of Belgium (WPB) organized a three-day conclave in Brussels in May 2002 in support of the Nepali Maoists. At the conclave, the WPB helped table a resolution to "condemn and oppose the malpractice of the fascist state of Nepal and demand life security for the disappeared". The resolution listed the names of several Maoist leaders and activists whose whereabouts are not known, and who were allegedly picked up by Nepal's security forces. No fewer than 42 groups ranging from South American to Southeast Asian organizations signed the resolution in early September, including the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (Janashakthi) group of "Naxalites".

There are other reports suggesting that the Maoists continue to receive political and moral support from their counterparts in other countries. It is widely acknowledged that the Nepali Maoists are supported by the Revolutionary International Movement (RIM). RIM's main offices are in the United Kingdom and the United States. Among the publicly announced members of the RIM are: the Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist), the Communist Party of Afghanistan, the Communist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist-Leninist) (BSD-ML), the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Communist Party of Peru, the Communist Party of Turkey (Marxist-Leninist) (TKP-ML), the Haitian Revolutionary Internationalist Group, the Maoist Communist Party (Italy), the Marxist-Leninist Communist Organization of Tunisia, the Proletarian Party of Purba Bangla (PBSP) (Bangladesh), the Revolutionary Communist Group of Colombia, the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, and the Union of Communists of Iran (Sarbedaran).

Reports indicate that the bond between the Nepali Maoists and PWG is strengthening with each passing day. The Maoists had sent a delegate to the PWG's Congress in 2001, and both are members of the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA). Within the CCOMPOSA, an India-Nepal Border Regional Committee exists to coordinate the activities of the two groups in the border districts of Bihar. There are also reports of the Nepali Maoists and the PWG training together in the jungles inside Nepal and along the Bihar-Nepal border.

After killing nine PWG leaders in gun battles last year, the Andhra Pradesh state government has been busy telling the media that the PWG is a waning outfit. But according to a researcher of the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the PWG is clearly expanding to newer areas, and the expansion follows a pattern. The guerrillas, says the ORF, first retreat to safer areas when counter-measures are intensified. Later, these areas are brought under their control as they gradually strengthen their physical presence. PWG's task has been made easier because of the prevailing social and economic conditions and insensitive government policies toward the people. In addition, the law-and-order devices in those areas were either unprepared to take on the guerrillas or lacked awareness to foresee the impending crisis. This is what happened in the north coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh, such as in Warangal district in north Telengana, during the early 1980s. A similar pattern has been followed by the PWG in many parts of Chhattisgarh and southern Orissa over the past several years.

The government-initiated ruse that the PWG is losing ground to the authorities came to an abrupt end when the Maoists stepped up violent action in recent months. In the month of June alone, PWG guerrillas killed a dozen activists of political parties and alleged police informers and looted weapons from police stations as well as money from banks.

Foreign input

The foreign input to the Maoist movement is no longer simply the ideological connection between the drug runners and promoters of a violent mode of social change. The Maoists of India have linked up with the Nepali Maoists to the north and the separatist ethnic movement in the northeast, and with the powerful LTTE in the south. The LTTE rules northern Sri Lanka, but continues to have a significant presence in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

On a map of the Indian subcontinent, Maoist activity thus occurs across a swath of land connecting Nepal to Sri Lanka running through eastern and central India - a north-south tract - where the terrorists belonging to various ethnic groups trade guns for drugs and kill those who they do not want to keep alive. On the east of this north-south land tract lies the Andaman Sea - a perfect route to bring in drugs from Myanmar and Thailand, and weapons from Southeast Asia. In this venture, the craggy coasts of the Andaman Islands provide perfect hideouts, despite the fact that the Indian navy has a significant presence in these islands. This breach of the nation's security is happening, and most of the Indian and Sri Lankan authorities are aware of it. Beyond the Andaman Sea, farther to the east, are the mostly unmonitored and the forest-covered long coasts of Myanmar and Thailand.

Because of its strategic importance, particularly for the physical security of India, one would expect that the Andaman Sea and its surrounds should be kept free of such unwanted and dangerous elements dealing with contraband items with the objective of creating chaos and differences among the people. Some individuals in New Delhi often cite the growing presence of the Chinese on the Myanmar coast as a threat to India, but they almost never speak out against the very real subversive threat to the nation that exists in the form of the Maoist guerrillas who are getting stronger every day and attracting more and more narcotics and weapons to the region.

The deeper ailment

It is widely acknowledged that the Maoists exist in India not only because of their success in attaching themselves to the drug-gun Mafia and various violent separatist groups within India, but because of the unending economic disparity and lack of opportunity for the poor and uneducated. Many social analysts have pointed out over the years that the violence in rural India exists due to uneven distribution of land and other resources. A large section of the farm workers have no land and work for wages that cannot feed their families. Landowners are oblivious of these realities, and often take recourse to caste superiority to commit violence on these farmers.

According to retired Major-General Afsir Karim of the Forum for Strategic and Security Studies, the growing turbulence and violence in India are instigated by a small segment of the population, driven by bigotry and chauvinism. Maoists flourish in specific areas and misuse the democratic system. Like all sectarian organizations in India that justify violence by echoing religious and casteist propaganda, Karim says in an article, the Indian Maoists in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, in particular, have begun to resort to the same tactic.

But, says Karim, their success is directly related to the degradation of governance, the alienation of various segments from the national mainstream due to denial of their rights at the governmental level, and the communalization of the society.

(The article had recently appeared in www.atimes.com )