The Naxal threat to India.
The Naxalite/Maoist
is India’s most violent insurgency
movement after Kashmir. It has continued
to defy the state for longer than any
other uprising in
India , the
insurgent strategy of the Naxalites can be compared to
that of the Maoists in China .

Naxal movement in India started on 25th May 1967 from Naxalbari village
of Siliguri sub-division of Darjeeling
district of west Bengal, as a violent
struggle of natives .At that time there was a world-
wide stance against capitalism.
Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism is the ideological
basis ,immediate aim
of the Communist Party was
to complete a new
democratic revolution in India as a part
of the world proletarian revolution by
overthrowing th e semi-colonial, semi-
feudal system under neo- colonial form
of indirect rule, exploitation and control
and the three targets were ;
—imperialism, feudalism and
big bourgeoisie.The elite rich was to be overthrown and there would be
an equal distribution of wealth.
The revolution would be carried
out and completed through armed
agrarian revolutionary war i.e. the
Protracted People’s War with area wise
seizure of power remaining as its
central task.
Encircling the cities from
the countryside and thereby finally
capturing them was the main strategy .
The Naxalbari upsurge was sparked by
the fact that land
reforms were still ineffectual. Its
sustenance was fuelled by class and
caste tensions and the sense of
desperation due to the prevailing
economic and social conditions.
The ideology gained
momentum in the seventies, among the
youth and the intellectual circles in
many parts of India.
Communism is not that popular any more , specially after the downfall
of the USSR . It has been somewhat modified and consumerism has now
been introduced in China where it was previously unheard of .
The Naxalites endorse Maoism /Leninism /Marxism , it still has to be
seen how they apply it wherever they are in control.
Since its inception its support fluctuated in each decade , its most
recent manifestation is the result of a
2004 decision by two Maoist groupings,
the People’s War Group and the Maoist
Communist Centre, to join forces to
form the Communist Party of India
(Maoist).
It has significant presence in
the states of Kerala, West Bengal
and Tripura. As of 2011, CPI(M) is
leading the state government in
Tripura. It leads the Left Front
coalition of leftist parties in other
states and the national parliament
of India,they have 543 seats .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post-2004 incarnation of
the Naxalite insurgency has been one of
the most sustained — and perhaps the
most lethal.
They are much more successful in their objectives now than in the past .
the present Maoist insurgents are
better equipped and properly trained to
wage guerilla warfare.

The present Maoist insurgents are
better equipped and properly trained to
wage guerilla warfare. They have learnt
from their past mistakes, which
were committed by their leaders.
According to guerilla
warfare principle, the leaders should
learn from mistakes and change the
strategy accordingly.

Until now, urban terrorism has
been avoided, the mistake and defeat of
the urban Maoist insurgency is
remembered by the new learners of the
revolution.

The Naxal,s prime weakness was lack of
weapons ,standardized
weapons are a key advantage for
organized militias , an advantage the Naxalites lack. Parts and ammunition
of a random assortment of weapons are not interchangeable, which is an
important tactical limitation.

Another factor was their primary focus on villages , concentrating on
the urban poor would have been more effective and speeded up the
revolution .
The Naxalite style of
killing asked for revenge and retribution which made the backlash
worse for them .
Many fake encounters occured with police forces in a vengeful mood
with so many policemen
being killed.
‘Bandh ‘ when the Maoists want a strike or want to close down anything
.Khatam line’ – is the policy of targeted
killing of individuals.
These two practices also caused unnecessary complications and gave the
whole movement a Mafia image .
When a bandh is declared
by the Naxalites, it has an
implied threat of violence to enforce
work stoppage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The new breed of Naxalites is far
better grounded in ideology. Their
weaponry is much better and
they are better equipped to take
advantage of the administration’s
failings.
Down the years the
whole movement has acquired a
predominantly rural or tribal character
where lower castes and marginal
groups in the social hierarchy now
form the core of its support base.
The movement is on the rise and
its influence among the poor and
downtrodden is growing. Despite
tremendous state repression
accompanied by martyrdoms and
killings, the flow of fresh cadres to its
ranks is not dwindling. Today it can claim to be
one of the strongest revolutionary left
movements in the world, those only
next to the Philippines, Peru and Nepal.

They are working in accordance with Mao’s “protracted
people’s war” strategy.
The method of t he Naxal/ Maoist movement is to
organize revolution on the pattern of
Maoist revolution of China through
armed and violent struggle. Their main
strategy is to control first rural then
urban area and finally capture political
authority. They do not have faith in
parliament and peaceful changes. The Naxalite organization
is a sophisticated one that relies not
only on militant tactics but also on
social unrest and political tactics to
increase its power.
Naxalites have
formed sympathetic student groups in
universities, and human-rights groups
This ideology has attracted not only peasants but urban educated
middleclass youth as well. Medical and engineering students are also
part of the rebellion dis-illusioned by the corrupt political system .
They seize
political power by initially transforming
rural areas into guerrilla zones
and subsequently into liberated zones.

It is a paradox that ‘Shining India ‘ finds itself in the throes of an
agrarian rebellion inspired by an ideology that is passé în most of
the world .
India is a fast
growing economy but does not
benefit the poor who are in overwhelming majority.
India houses one of the
largest poorest populations in the world.
India grows only sector-wise, it has been called the poorest nation in
the world according to a World Bank report this year .
Nehru´s policies of idolizing
heavy industries before developing
the man-power infrastructure have
harmed the Indian economy.
Despite liberalisation the benefits
of ‘India Shining’ do not reach 90 per
cent of Indians,economic growth in India has
not trickled down, a political liability
that the Naxalites have taken advantage of.

The fiery
ideologies work by
envisioning a spontaneous mass
upsurge all over India that would create
a ‘liberated zone’. The Naxalite movement came into
being as a result of prevailing social and
economic issues.
They were highly repressed, tortured and
their leaders were killed
today 14 out of the 28 States of India feel
the dangerous presence of these
Naxalites .

They want to topple the Indian state by force and intended to achieve
this by 1975 but have since compromised
and now aspire to control India by 2016.
Naxalite-Maoist insurgency
is establishing itself as the biggest threat
to the internal security of
India.

Naxals attacked a political
rally in state of Chattisgarh on
25th May , killing 28 ministers. The Maoists blamed chief
minister Raman Singh,
Manmohan Singh , Sonia
Gandhi and others for keeping mum
when innocent people were killed what
they termed as state sponsored
violence.
Nothing has exposed the inherent flaws
in India’s anti-Naxalite policy and
in its implementation on the ground
more vividly than this brutal massacre of
the top brass of
the Congress in Chhattisgarh.

The Indian security forces have begun a
major offensive against Naxalites. Using
satellite technology large areas of India
have been mapped . Altogether more
than 80000 security forces are
deployed to recapture Naxalite areas
Indian government has ordered number
of sophisticated UAVs from U.S to spearhead the
operation.
Two months ago Indian
security forces started a major
operation in West Bengal state to
recapture hundreds of villages
occupied by Communist Party (Maoist)
aka Naxalites. Previously dubious schemes such as the Salwa
Judum, an anti-Naxalite militia ,failed to get the security
agencies to work in tandem within an
institutionalised framework.
An ambush was carried out by the Communist
Party of India ,
in the Karmatiya forests in
Latehar District, Jharkhand in January
2013.
The new tactic of the Maoists is
implanting IEDs in dead bodies of their adversaries to cause more casualties .
This ‘Body trap’ strategy of the Maoists
has never been witnessed before in the
history of the Naxal Movement .
They keep employing new tactics constantly which makes them even more
unpredictable and dangerous , it has even been claimed they learn
tactics from Hollywood action movies and their mercenaries are given
CDs to watch and pick up methods from.
They employ a wide range of low-intensity
guerrilla tactics against government
institutions, officials, security forces
and paramilitary groups.
An average of almost 500-600 people are killed every year in the past
decade due to Naxal violent clashes , a good percentage of which is
always civilians.
The biggest Naxal attack up till now was in April , 2010,at least 75
personnel of CRPF were killed in an
ambush by Naxalites in
Chhattisgarh .
According to officials, the Naxalites
attacked a CRPF convoy in the
Tademetla forests. Waiting on hilltops,
they opened indiscriminate fire and
triggered an IED blast as the convoy
appeared. 1,000 Naxals were part of the
attack while the CRPF team had only
120 personnel.
Vietnamese and
Israeli help has been sought by the Indian government in the latest
counterinsurgency
operations against the Naxalites .
The Naxals are a big threat to business
and industry as some of the railways
and mining towns are in their
strongholds , they can close down railway lines and entire cities with
‘Bandh’ and ‘Khatam’ is used for exterminating enemies .Some of the
most
violent attacks conducted by the
Naxalites have been against freight and
police transport trains, killing dozens of
people at a time. Naxalites’ constantly sabotage roads by planting
improvised explosive
devices under road surfaces or
simply digging roads up.
Naxalites view roads as a means for the
government to send its forces into their
territory and does not let the Indian government start any development
projects.

Home minister has banned
Communist Party (Maoist) and called
Naxalites as the biggest threat to
Indian State.Indeed,
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
has labeled the Naxalites “the biggest
internal security challenge” to India.
It is the most topical and fastest-
growing movement in India , Naxalites are often referred to by the state as a
“virus”.
Now Naxalites are active in 40% of
India’s land area. They are active in
Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar
Pradesh, and West Bengal states. Out of
these states they control more than
40% of the land area in Chhattisgarh
and Jharkhand states and they spread fast .
They
have virtually spread to over 20 per cent
of the total districts in India.
The Maoists almost run a parallel government ,anyone who understands
Maoist tactics needs no
specific intelligence inputs to know that
anyone could be the target of an attack in
what is referred to as the Red Corridor.Most political parties survive
in Naxal areas by bribing them to stay safe.

Naxal rebellion also benefited from
the ongoing drought in India which
affected peasants drastically .
Difficulties like starvation and disease brought more farmers into the
folds of the Naxalite movement .
The government has not given peasants any relief ,270,000 farmers have
committed suicide since 1995 .
Naxalites claim support by the
poorest rural populations, especially
Adivasis.

On a grander geopolitical level, the
Naxalites can be viewed through the
prism of Chinese-Indian rivalry.
In the beginning there was mutual rhetorical
support between the Maoist regime in
China and the Naxalites in India.The advent and
growth of the Naxalite movement
certainly did serve China’s goal of
weakening its largest neighbor to the
south.
The Indians have always feared
outside powers would manipulate
grassroots rebel groups in India and further
destabilize an already regionalized
country.
In 2011, Indian police
accused the Chinese government of
providing sanctuary to the
movement’s leaders, and accused
Pakistani ISI of providing financial
support.
When the Naxalite movement
began in the 1960s, New Delhi feared
Beijing was trying to get a foothold in
India, and for the past 50 years India
has demonized Pakistan’s Inter-Services
Intelligence directorate (ISI) for
allegedly supporting militant operations
in India
.There is no evidence available to prove these allegations. Naxalite leaders in
India deny cooperating with Pakistan
but have very publicly pledged their
support for all separatist movements in
India.
Alarmist visions linking Naxalites to militant groups
supposedly backed by Pakistan, India’s main
geopolitical rival is the ultimate
“nightmare” scenario for India.
The Naxalite arsenal is vast and diverse,
consisting of weapons manufactured in
China, Russia, the United States,
Pakistan and India.
The lack of
weapons uniformity among Naxalite
groups indicates they have
no benefactor to bestow a reliable, standardized arsenal
and have had to build up their own from
scratch.
Naxals are making money from their various resources and are trying to
upgrade their weaponry though.
The present-day
Naxalites are no more confined to
traditional weapons and are better
equipped than state police forces and
use latest modern communication
gadgets to track police movements.
Gathering intelligence
Naxilites interact with Maoists from Nepal,
secessionists in India’s restive
northeast, Islamists from
Bangladesh, criminals from Myanmar
and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka.
The Naxalites are a low-
maintenance, self-sustaining
movement that will continue to
undermine Indian rule in the country’s
east .

“Naxalism” now affects
some 170 of India’s 602 districts—a
“red corridor” down a swathe of central
India from the border with Nepal in the
north to Karnataka in the south and
covering more than a quarter of India’s
land mass.
A vast portion of India, from
West Bengal in the northeast to Andhra
Pradesh in the south, has come under
the influence of the Naxalites — the
“Red Taliban” as they have been called.

A primitive peasant rebellion
based on an outmoded ideology is out
of keeping with the modern India of
soaring growth, Bollywood dreams and
call-centres.
Sheer injustice in Indian society has created insurgencies, eg. Dalits
make up for the most
part of Indian population yet they remained deprived of the benefits of
the current economic boom.
They are
forced into menial jobs, denied entry to
temples, cremation grounds and river
bathing points and cannot even share a
barber with the upper caste Hindu.
Punishments are severe when these
boundaries are transgressed.
In Tamil
Nadu, for instance, 45 special types of
‘untouchability’ practices are common.
A violent
insurgency in Indian-administered
Kashmir has claimed tens of thousands
of lives. Its north-eastern states are
wracked by dozens of secessionist
movements.
The seven states of northeastern India
also called the Seven Sisters are
significantly different, ethnically and
linguistically from the rest of India.
These states are rocked by numerous
armed and violent insurgencies,
seeking separate statehood, autonomy
or outright independence, mostly for
government neglect. These include
Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya,
Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and
Tripura. The Tamil struggle continues
till date and is gaining momentum each
passing day.
India has in all, an estimated 30 armed
insurgency movements are sweeping
across the country, reflecting an acute
sense of alienation on the part of the
people involved. Broadly, these can be
divided into movements for political
rights e.g. Assam, Kashmir and
Khalistan Punjab, movements for
social and economic justice e.g. Maoist
Naxalite and north-eastern states,
and religious grounds eg. Ladakh.
These causes overlap at times.
There are 16 belligerent groups
and 68 major organization as terrorist
groups in India, which include: nine in
the northeast Seven Sisters, four in
the center & the east including Maoist/
Naxalites, seventeen in the west Sikh
separatist groups, and 38 in the
northwest Kashmir.

India has an unjust system and no amount of face -saving can hide the
barbaric and primitive streak in its very ethos .
India has a bad experience of
army deployment in the past to
address domestic threats. In the 1980s,
use of the army to deal with Sikh
militancy was too
brutal and brought in a lot of criticism . Military action at the
Golden Temple in Amritsar, codenamed
Operation Blue Star, also fanned the
flames of Sikh militancy and sparked a
series of serious counter-attacks like the assassination of Indian
PM.
The Indian army is
currently fighting
separatist forces in
Kashmir , along the
disputed border with Pakistan, and is
dealing with multiple ethno-separatist
movements in the northeast region of
India surrounded by China and
Bangladesh.
The Naxalite problem is in certain
respects more serious than the Kashmir
problem.
India certainly needs to develop an effective strategy to deal with
the Naxal movement now ,it needed to be ‘nipped in the bud ‘ but
instead it was left to fester .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the same time this
year due to the delay in monsoon ,
drought is feared in many states. Only
40% of agricultural land is irrigated.
Drought coupled with
global recession will be a disaster to
Indian economy. These conditions will
only strengthen and exacerbate the Naxalite movement.

Naxalites have
been among the most principled of
terrorist groups in selecting their
targets. Their leaders are
thinking far into the future, taking a
20- to 25-year view of their struggle.
“Liberated” areas would be expanded until
they pose a threat even to India’s
cities.They talk boldly of expanding
Naxalite influence into new areas:
Kashmir, the north-east, and India’s
cities. The spread of Naxalism is
causing justifiable alarm.They dream of seeing the red flag fly
over the Red Fort in Delhi in their
lifetime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rise of insurgencies in India presents a
very disturbing scenario, Suhas Chakma, Director of
Asian Centre for Human Rights, New
Delhi, says that ‘India is at war with
itself’.

In the present globalized world where
terrorism and human rights are talked
about a lot, surprisingly Naxalite
movement is overlooked on both counts.
Neither terrorist acts by Naxalites nor
their deliberate oppression by the
Indian Government has attracted
international attention.
Thinktank Stratfor informed India a few years back that
irrespective of the Maoist
movement appearing to be fairly
contained in India, the rebel
group’s leaders could develop the
“tradecraft for urban terrorism”,’
The groups leader s and bomb-makers could develop the capability to
strike outside the ‘Red Corridor ‘.

Naxal corridor could
become a breeding ground for
terrorism, stakeholders
may be exporting terror from this
region to fulfill ambitions across borders
on all sides of India.
The Naxalite
challenge to the state could materialize
in other unpredictable ,unforeseen ways.

“Naxalites are honing their capacity to
construct and deploy IEDs, conduct
armed raids and maintain an extensive,
agile and responsive intelligence
network,” warned Stratfor.
Naxalites have expressed the intention
to drive multinational corporations
out of India and that they would
use violence to do so. This
threat is backed by a
proven tactical ability to strike
economic targets , which is a top
concern for the Indian government.
If India cannot provide security to multi-nationals and corporates its
economy could suffer a setback.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strong Maoist movement in India is a
threat to western capitalism as well , maybe that is why the corporate
owned Western media ignores this growing phenomenon ,it is probably
percieved as a threat to capitalist powers.
Moreover ,as the balance of power tilts towards China in the 21st
century , it is possible that a Communist or even semi -Communist
India would be more acceptable to the new world power .China does seem
to have a specific strategy concerning India as it has proceeded to
encircle it completely and the Ladakh incident seemed like an
experiment to test India .
The ideal would of course be a system which incorporates good points
of both communism and capitalism ,this would make it infinitely more
practical as both systems have well-exposed weak points .
It is very much possible that communism could become an even stronger
movement in the future in India.

At home , Indian media presents a censored version of the news aimed
at downplaying the Naxal crisis brewing at home .
It is highly unlikely that this ostrich in the sand attitude will wish
away the Naxalites .
It is becoming more and more obvious that India is struggling
unsuccessfully to control all these rebellions .
India has to do much more than
plan counter-insurgency operations or
support violent vigilante groups to
suppress the Naxalite movement.
Poor strategies and
inadequate studies of Naxal principles
account for a lack of an effective
counter terrorism action.
An effective
riposte to their violence was a judicious
mix of counterterror action and the
empowerment of the tribals
which would have reduced Naxalite influence.
It is clear that there is a wide chasm
between promises and their eventual
deliverance.Until the Indian government
implements employment, poverty
alleviation and land reform
programmes, counterinsurgency
measures cannot achieve much..
Using strong-arm tactics on
Naxalites is not advisable as they have
grassroots support of millions of
victimised Indians.
The Maoist insurgency is an
obstacle in the way of India’s
emergence as a world power.
, according to one estimate
40% of India’s territory is
under some form of Maoist influence.
India does not seem willing to combat the Naxals militarily yet
;whenever it decides to start an operation it would face a tough
fight against a well-entrenched
movement –

Further Reading

 

References 

http://www.google.com.pk/url?q=http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100707_closer_look_indias_naxalite_threat&sa=U&ei=-VKoUd2WEubU4QTR6ICIBw&ved=0CAcQFjAA&sig2=5nsmejUnKDBDuZmOuzrvfw&usg=AFQjCNH9OopfjXuoGMxpm6tecPydEnn7-g

http://www.google.com.pk/url?q=http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20101117_pakistan_and_naxalite_movement_india&sa=U&ei=-VKoUd2WEubU4QTR6ICIBw&ved=0CAoQFjAB&sig2=Qu7BLt1B_JrNxbzTQOXtBw&usg=AFQjCNFy6YdN9cahUGuuTDGLo_7TugWcaA

http://www.google.com.pk/url?q=http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-07-09/news/27609669_1_stratfor-naxal-problem-naxalite&sa=U&ei=-VKoUd2WEubU4QTR6ICIBw&ved=0CA0QFjAC&sig2=vGscdF_PXE4Wdcx-lN6Srw&usg=AFQjCNHD4TLasV2zdfrmwW20VeA__bJiaQ
http://www.google.com.pk/url?q=http://dawn.com/2011/02/13/rise-of-armed-insurgencies-in-india/&sa=U&ei=8IioUeuDBsjy4QT-_4DIDQ&ved=0CBEQFjAC&sig2=oWWPAGTx9hZbCc0U7KL-9g&usg=AFQjCNFOPEnqoSFStqVmm5IBeEO4kOUzzQ
http://www.google.com.pk/url?q=http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1793064/report-naxals-turn-to-hollywood-for-training&sa=U&ei=uYmoUeiRJuPX4ASKlYCgCQ&ved=0CAcQFjAA&sig2=esWTXxQtXn1-UEGuyg2v_A&usg=AFQjCNF5_orrFKK5ILq09zWLQ0Ls0l92IA
http://www.google.com.pk/url?q=http://www.ipcs.org/article/naxalite-violence/naxal-violence-the-latehar-carnage-and-the-forgotten-lessons-3808.html&sa=

 

Food For Thought: 

India’s Nuclear Weapons May Fall Into Naxal Communists Hands

 

For Terrorism Against US & NATO Nations