Naxals/Maoists Watch

[ajtr]

Mao vs. Gandhi in Chhattisgarh

A naïve admiration for the Maoists is emblematic of the tendency in some among the Indian intellectual class toward left-wing utopianism.
Maoist insurgents ambushed Indian security forces in the dense forest region of Chhattisgarh state in central India on Tuesday, killing over 70 troops of the Central Reserve Police Force. Analysts are calling it the worst single-day loss in fighting domestic insurgencies.

But despite such massacres, not everyone in India regards the Maoists with horror. One such apologist is the talented and articulate novelist Arundhati Roy who has, since her Booker Prize-winning 1997 novel "The God of Small Things," focused on bigger things, such as attacking Indian economic reforms, foreign investment, free markets, the United States and Israel.

In a rambling 19,500-word essay published a week ago in Outlook magazine in India and the Guardian newspaper, Ms. Roy writes of recent experiences following the Maoists in the Dandakaranya forest, near where the security forces were ambushed this week. The piece was headlined "Gandhi, but with guns."

The comparison is obscene. Not only does it suggest an amoral nihilism, it also represents a rewriting of history. A Gandhian with a gun is as absurd as a Maoist pacifist. India's founding father Mohandas Gandhi may not have been as perfect as some would make him out, but he did believe that only the right means could be used to reach an end, however noble. In 1922 he suspended a nationwide civil disobedience movement, when some Congress followers burned a police station in Chauri Chaura, killing over a dozen policemen and officers. Maoist ideology is precisely the opposite: The ends justify the means.

Ms. Roy herself notes that when she mentioned Mohandas Gandhi's non-violent struggle to the Maoists, they laughed hysterically. Despite her best efforts to portray a bucolic image of Maoists and tribals living harmoniously, their tranquility disturbed by forest officers, loggers, mining companies, and security forces, the truth still comes through. The Maoists show off an impressive arsenal of weapons, and their teenage recruits watch hours of reruns of violent ambush videos. The kids tell her they want to implement Mao's vision in India.

Ms. Roy's naïve admiration for the Maoists is emblematic of the tendency in some among the Indian intellectual class toward left-wing utopianism. In "Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers," Tom Wolfe lampooned the Park Avenue elite sucking up to the Black Panther terrorists who were killing cops in 1960s America. Is history repeating itself in India?

Nevertheless, just as in America three decades ago, the tide may be turning as ordinary voters become fed up with the violence. Maoists have been fighting the Indian state for over four decades under various names, including Naxalites, the name the movement got because of its origins in the town Naxalbari in West Bengal, where peasants revolted against landlords in the 1960s.

Like Maoists elsewhere, they are brutal. They conduct show-trials, sometimes executing the people they find guilty; they use improvised explosive devices and land mines; and they appear to use child soldiers. Since 2006, their attacks have become audacious, targeting police stations, power lines, schools and trains. They have not spared civilians and other "class enemies" who in their view collaborate with the state.

Even India's Communist Parties have distanced themselves from Maoists, and condemned their practices. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party strongly supports the government in its battle. For his part, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the Maoists' threat the gravest national security crisis the country faces.

To be sure, Indians living in forests have legitimate grievances. Their rights are routinely violated. Successive governments have failed them. Large companies, Indian and foreign, want the mineral wealth in those forests. The state hasn't built schools, nor equipped the few that are built. There are few primary health care centers, and the administration neglects remote areas. The rapidly modernizing and prospering parts of urban India ignores the region, its poverty, and its problems. But the Maoists offer no solution. Their collectivist authoritarianism is culturally alien in an India where spiritual acceptance of fate prevails, and where, despite feudal structures, inequities and rigidities, there is social and economic mobility. With all its flaws, it is a real democracy. Maoists know they would never win power through the ballot box.

They can only win through force, by shocking the state, by spreading terror, and by scaring away the administration so that they can reach their end. Which is power, not the removal of poverty.

Maoists want an articulate messenger, and Ms Roy fulfils that role. Her poetic eloquence clothes their naked ambition of power, offering it respectability. Her fame helps make their struggle known to audiences abroad, where people with limited knowledge of India accept the romanticized image of warriors in the jungle fighting for justice that she writes about. In early April, while the Maoists were preparing to ambush the troops in the forest, Ms Roy was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a public forum with Noam Chomsky.

Ms Roy has explained Maoist violence as a response to the repressive state, suggesting that the tribal groups are rising against the state, getting even—an eye for an eye. But as Gandhi said, an eye for an eye leaves the world blind.

 

[ajtr]

Where Does The Buck Stop?

The lives of 76 CRPF jawans were lost in the deadliest insurgent trap ever laid by Maoists in Chintalnar Tarmetla village in Chhattisgarh on April 6 morning. Reportedly, the CRPF patrol party, tired after four days of continuous operations, ran into an ambush laid by a force of Maoists believed to number between 200-300 and 800-1,000. The latter were deployed on the hills all around the police patrol as it moved on the basis of presumably false intelligence along a narrow path mined with inertial explosive devices on both sides. The patrol was mowed down. The buck in this case must stop with the home minister. For, it is obvious the jawans were not adequately trained, appropriately led or properly commanded.

This kind of situation was anticipated 10 years ago by the Kargil committee which recorded: "There is general agreement that in the light of the new situation of proxy war and largescale terrorism...the role and the task of the paramilitary forces have to be restructured particularly with reference to command and control and leadership functions. They need to be trained to much higher standards of performance and better equipped to deal with terrorist threats. The possibility of adopting an integrated manpower policy for the armed forces, paramilitary forces and the central police forces merits examination."

Unfortunately, these recommendations did not receive the attention they deserved from the group of ministers (GoM) set up to study them. The Kargil committee recommended that the colour service of men in the armed forces be reduced to seven years. It also asked that well-trained men be transferred to the paramilitary forces once they completed the colour service. This would keep the army young, save on pensions and provide the paramilitary forces trained men seasoned in counter-insurgency. This would apply to officers as well. It is not known why the recommendations were not accepted by the GoM.

There has been a strongly held conviction among the leadership of the home ministry and police service that paramilitary forces should be non-military in culture, ethos and standard of training. Tuesday's massacre as also 26/11 is a wake-up call to re-evaluate whether that assumption is wholly correct. Objective evaluation of the comparative performance of the Rashtriya Rifles and the civil paramilitary forces will help in arriving at a conclusion.

Insurgency is a combat situation, not a law and order one. The police forces are meant to handle situations where the people to be controlled are not armed. In insurgencies, the adversary is fully armed and trained as a group in combat skills. Earlier, when the police forces successfully tackled the problem of terrorism in Punjab, they were dealing with single or small groups of terrorists. They were not dealing with groups trained to engage in combat. One report suggests the group of CRPF jawans that was attacked had received training from the army. It is one thing to have a few days' or weeks' training and a totally different thing to have had actual counter-insurgency experience as ex-servicemen would have.

If reports about this encounter and other engagements with the Maoists are correct, we are obviously dealing with well-trained, highly motivated and well-equipped groups. The home secretary mentioned in a talk at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses that there were grounds to believe the Maoists could be receiving training from some ex-servicemen. If that is true, it is necessary to consider training paramilitary forces as per military standards and also to mould their ethos and orientation accordingly.

There is a compelling need to keep the paramilitary as a civilian force under the home ministry. But that should not come in the way of it being trained to infantry standards. The logical, most economical and fastest way of reaching that goal is to adopt the integrated manpower policy recommended by the Kargil committee. This matter is not likely to receive the full attention it deserves as a single ministry issue. It needs to be discussed in the National Security Council (NSC), perhaps with the help of a multidisciplinary task force.

A civilian paramilitary force with men of military standard training as well as a central police force for law and order may need to be considered. The task force may have to examine whether the civil paramilitary force for counter-insurgency and counterterrorism should be independent of the Border Security Force or merged with it. Prima facie, there is a good case to separate them from the Indian Police Service cadres.

There have been demands and suggestions that the armed forces be brought in against insurgency. To their credit, the armed forces have opposed this move. In a democracy, they should be kept out of internal developments to the maximum extent possible. This task is part of homeland security and should be treated as such. It has been recognised that, in the coming years, maintenance of internal security will require a full-time cabinet minister and will occupy much of the NSC's attention. But the primary exe-cutive agency will have to be a ministry of internal security or whatever name it is given.

The writer is strategic affairs analyst.

 

[Sabir]

A poisonous weed

Who is our enemy? An invader who is trying to take away our freedom? If some foreign state tries to occupy our land we can easily term it as enemy. But why do we hesitate to do the same when someone among us rises to take away our freedom. With all odds, we have little freedom that is freedom to speech, freedom to live and freedom to rule ourselves through a democratic process. Now, if someone or some people stand up to take away that freedom from us why should not we declare them our enemy? If some people try to form government holding us up on their gun points should not we consider them our enemies? Some intellectuals are trying to give this red terror a moral support on the ground that it is an out burst of grievance of oppressed class. Dealing with it with an iron hand will be a wrong way. But they do not explain the path this so called oppressed class has taken is wrong too.

If it really were an outburst of anger of deprived people, it would have been sporadic incidents without much linkage with each other. But what we are seeing a highly coordinated uprising to overthrow the formal organizations that meant to govern us. Their swift operations, their extension in different states reveal the power hungry faces and sophisticated brains that are hiding behind the poor carrying guns.

Today we are thinking whether it is justified to take military action against them. Why? Is a bullet fired by a police man or a Para-military jawan is less painful? When we need to stop growth of a poisonous weed we have to uproot it as soon as possible. Do we wait till it grows up and suffocates whole garden? If we fail to crush this uprising today tomorrow how we will react when there will be a nation wide civil war? People who still fail to see the future should know that this cause of uprising is present in many other segments of our society- among farmers whose little lands can not assure a proper way of living, among the workers of the locked out factories, among urban youths who just have the degrees but no jobs. So prepare for a swelling uprising that will bring you down from your level of comfort.

India, as a developing country with a huge population and limited resources has its own challenges. The cause of deprived classes can not be addressed overnight. Even the Red Brigade has not proposed any solutions nor their intelligent supporters in the city other than attacking the present system. Surprisingly, the solutions of the problems of different deprived classes often contradict with each other. The educated urban youth who needs rapid industrialization and the peasant with small land who tries to resist acquisition of his tiny holding in the name of industrialization- tomorrow they will be in same boat. Because some brains are in constant work to bring them under same umbrella. And the solutions of their problem- there will be no need of that, because both of them will take on guns to attack the present system which they are made to believe responsible for their poor condition.

It is now up on us to decide which one is the first job in hand- destruction of this red movement or development of poorer areas or both can be done simultaneously. Because wasting time means having a tougher job tomorrow. Because your Army chief may again say that they will not fire on our own people even if that means handing over the power and demolition of present system. And remember hardliner communists do not have the record of allowing people’s voice.

 

[Oracle]

Yusuf a question right now how are you going to distinguish a maoist and tribal?Right now ther is no proper courier and intelligence network on the ground.My companions lost 73 men that shows our failure

I am not in favor of this, but yeah Collateral Damage can be accepted when securing the Nation is the bigger picture.
A lot of chances have been given to scums to abjure violence. If it's war they want, war they will have.

 

[bengalraider]

@ nil you talk of poverty as if it is only the problem of the government(which largely it is ) however what many of us here fail to realize is that it is also a weapon. Poverty is synonymous with Maoist affected districts sure , but what i ask you have the Maoists done to arrest that, have they threatened Mr Koda to release a thousand crores of his ill gotten wealth for the betterment of the people?have they asked sibu soren to open his illegal coffers to build hospitals?have they asked Didi to let loose her illegal funds to build schools? in all cases the answer is no ! while the government is guilty for letting these regions wallow in poverty for so long it is the Maoist leaders now that are using poverty with the blessings of corrupt politicos as an excuse for revolution. Honest police officers who try to bring organised crime in the badlands of India under control are transferred to "liberated zones" and subsequently they conveniently die in Maoist ambushes while corrupt Policemen wallow in luxury in the corridors of power in Ranchi, raipur and Kolkata.Maoism is now a vicious cycle designed to keep those in power in luxury while the aam junta faces a bleak existence.

 

[Phenom]

Never use a sledgehammer for a job that needs a screw driver,
Andhra's Grey Hounds successfully dealt with the Maoist without using airpower or the army, why can't other states do that?
The govt should set up more elite forces, train them well, send to into the jungle to fight the Maoist using their own tactics. As the Moaist go into the backfoot, bring in real development, give the tribals something that the moaist can't give like good health care and education. If the govt does that, the popular support for the moaist would slowly reduce and the govt can finally crush this dangerous movement once and for all.

 

[Sabir]

Never use a sledgehammer for a job that needs a screw driver,
Andhra's Grey Hounds successfully dealt with the Maoist without using airpower or the army, why can't other states do that?
The govt should set up more elite forces, train them well, send to into the jungle to fight the Maoist using their own tactics. As the Moaist go into the backfoot, bring in real development, give the tribals something that the moaist can't give like good health care and education. If the govt does that, the popular support for the moaist would slowly reduce and the govt can finally crush this dangerous movement once and for all.

Simply because Andhra used the screw driver when actually a screw driver was required, thus they prevented the situation where a sledgehammer would be sought for (read 1000+ maoists to deal with in a single offensive). Unfortunately other states were sleeping (are sleeping) when screw driver could do the job. Raising a special force (with sufficient number), equip them and train them for jungle warfare and handling modern devices (distributing AK-47 only does not make a force elite one though most of our strategists believe so) will need more than a year. By the time ...........no need to mention...

 

[notinlove]

@ nil you talk of poverty as if it is only the problem of the government(which largely it is ) however what many of us here fail to realize is that it is also a weapon. Poverty is synonymous with Maoist affected districts sure , but what i ask you have the Maoists done to arrest that, have they threatened Mr Koda to release a thousand crores of his ill gotten wealth for the betterment of the people?have they asked sibu soren to open his illegal coffers to build hospitals?have they asked Didi to let loose her illegal funds to build schools? in all cases the answer is no ! while the government is guilty for letting these regions wallow in poverty for so long it is the Maoist leaders now that are using poverty with the blessings of corrupt politicos as an excuse for revolution. Honest police officers who try to bring organised crime in the badlands of India under control are transferred to "liberated zones" and subsequently they conveniently die in Maoist ambushes while corrupt Policemen wallow in luxury in the corridors of power in Ranchi, raipur and Kolkata.Maoism is now a vicious cycle designed to keep those in power in luxury while the aam junta faces a bleak existence.

i agree with you , i did talk about poverty and poor infrastructure, and large scale corruption and furthering of personal agendas is one of the reasons of that, i just did not have the time to write a more detailed post

Edit : some of the smileys are a bit overboard , the : ) smiley should be a bit humbler

 

[tarunraju]

Never use a sledgehammer for a job that needs a screw driver,
Andhra's Grey Hounds successfully dealt with the Maoist without using airpower or the army, why can't other states do that?

Because they lack a vital ingredient: political will. AP government has genuine political will, has splurged heavily on internal security, every district HQ has a fort-like special police installation for training of the operatives, and lastly, they're fed and equipped well.

The so-called "Dalams" (strong naxal outfits) which were feared for decades were wiped off Nallamalla, Mavala, and Daghi forest belts in just a couple of years.

With the present central government, the writing is on the wall. There is zero political will, too much arm-twisting by UPA allies such as that Mamta didi bitch for political gains, and blatant reluctance. In the process it's the foot-soldiers who get killed.

 

[ajtr]

India is hunting for these Naxal leaders

Vicky Nanjappa
The brutal killing of 75 Central Reserve Police Force troopers and a Chhattisgarh head constable in the Naxalite-infested Dantewada district on Tuesday morning is a stark reminder of the murderous power that the Maoist terrorists wield today.

The Union home ministry has prepared a dossier with the help of police officers in Naxalite-affected states and the Intelligence Bureau, which identifies top Naxalite terrorists. While they have gathered some information about these dreaded outlaws, they are yet to put a face to most of them.

Mupalla Laxman Rao alias Ganapathy

General secretary of the Communist Party of India-Maoist.
Laxman Rao is said to have lived in the jungles for decades. According to security agencies, the 60-year-old Naxal terror leader is never stationary, and often changes hideouts in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal to avoid capture.

His tact, grasp of Maoist ideology and planning has earned him the rank of supreme commander of the movement and control of Naxal armies in over 15 states.

Born in Andhra Pradesh's Karimnagar district, Rao is a science graduate and has a degree in education as well.

After the death of Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, the founder of the Peoples' War Group, the main Naxal group in the 1980s, school teacher Rao took charge. Intelligence agencies say he has trains cadres in guerrilla warfare; he is also the final word on Naxal strategy.

Mallojula Koteswar Rao

Koteshwar Rao has given more media interviews in recent months than most ministers and movie stars have.

There has been speculation that Rao was injured in a recent police encounter in West Bengal, a state where he controls the Naxal terror forces, but the Naxals have denied this in an unusual faxed statement to the media.
Rao -- who is called Kishenji by his cadres -- is yet another Naxal leader who hails from Andhra Pradesh.

Born in Pedapalli village, Karimnagar district, the plight of farmers in his region is said to have driven him to Naxalism.

Rao -- who has a degree in science -- is believed to have worked in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh before he was sent to West Bengal where he revived the dying Naxalite movement. He is said to live in the jungles of Lalgarh, emerging usually to grant media interviews.

Katakam Sudarshan alias Anand

Sudarshan began fighting for Telangana's farmers before he gravitated to the Naxalite movement. Bureau secretary of the CPI-Maoist's central region he has been a Naxalite for nearly 30 years.

Intelligence Bureau sources believe he is in charge of Naxal operations in Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, two important Naxal states. Sudarshan is particularly influential in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada area and that is why security agencies believe Tuesday's massacre could not have occurred without his intervention.

Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad

Is the Naxalite spokesperson, one of the movement's senior-most leaders, in police custody?

His mother believes so as do Naxalite cadres who say Azad went missing some weeks ago en route to a meeting with other Naxal leaders.
An alumnus of the prestigious Regional Engineering College in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, Cherukuri did his master's in technology before leading the Radical Students Union during the Emergency.

He went underground thereafter, and is one of India's most wanted men. Or is Azad no longer most wanted?

Prashanth Bose alias Kajal alias Mahesh

Bose -- a rare Bengali in the Andhraite-dominated Naxal leadership -- is the Naxalites's international face.

Bose, whose name is said to have cropped up several times during the interrogation of Naxalite ideologue Kobad Ghandy, interacts with Nepal's Maoist leaders.

Nambala Keshavarao alias Ganganna alias Basavaraj

Not much information is available on this Naxal who is believed to be 54 years old and a native of Srikulam district in Andhra Pradesh.

Mallajula Venugopal alias Bhupathi

This native of Andhra Pradesh's Karimnagar district shuttles between Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and is Lalgarh Naxal M Koteswar Rao's younger brother.

Balraj alias BR

BR is in charge of the Naxal publications which are printed in Bihar.

 

[ajtr]

Who funds Maoists? The govt

New Delhi, April 8: Ironic and incredible though it may sound, a chunky portion of funds for Maoists comes from the government and its related agencies. The Maoist milch cow, especially in south Chhattisgarh, is the NREGS, the government’s pet mass welfare project.

There is no established estimate of the quantum of the Maoist heist on rural employment guarantee funds, but a top officer in Raipur guessed it could be as high as 70 per cent. “It’s simple,” he said, “NREGS funds flow directly to sarpanches and most of them in Bastar are either backed by Maoists or dominated by them, it’s ready cash for them.”

The NREGS is currently on an expanded budget — up a Rs 1,000 crore from the Rs 39,100 crore granted by the Centre last year — conservative estimates are that nearly 40 per cent of that kitty is flowing into Maoist-dominated areas, which also happen to be some of the country’s most backward and poverty-ridden.

The Union minister for rural development, C.P. Joshi, has often helplessly admitted to a Maoist paw on NREGS funds; his officials, though, have not tabulated the extent of its grab.

“It’s tough to do that,” said one, “we know that there are other sources of leak, such as local corruption, but it can safely be said that in states like Chhattisgarh, a substantial amount of NREGS funds are literally looted away by Maoists.”

Extortion, the officer held, remains a major provider to Maoist coffers, but increasingly they have come to rely on siphoning off development funds. “Look at the bitter twist of it from our point of view: development is prescribed as the essential antidote to Maoists, and yet funds meant for development are helping them expand.”

Asked if the government could do nothing to plug the leak, he retorted sardonically: “Stop development, that’s one way to starve the Maoists.”

Maoist leaders themselves are open about what they call “utilising” development funds. During several conversations over a week in the Dandakaranya jungles of south Bastar last year, middle-ranking Maoist military commanders justified to The Telegraph the idea of “controlling and channelling” welfare funds.

“This is public money and we are the public too, we live and work among them,” one of them said. “One of the reasons these areas have remained backward is that officials and contractors have eaten away whatever public money came, we are now utilising it for the benefit of the public.”

Asked how, she said: “We run mobile dispensaries, for instance, and feed the hungry, the government has not done that all these years.” She admitted, too, that part of the public funds they lay their hands on is meant for Maoist muscle. “Consolidating and strengthening the peoples’ movement and the peoples’ army,” is how she put it.

In areas that Maoists hold, or dominate, barely anything moves without them getting a cut from it. Timber and public works contractors must regularly pay them a cut, coal and iron ore transporters — government and private — must buy safe passage, industry, big and small, must cough up protection money.

One big industrial house is able to fast-belt raw materials from Orissa to processing units and ports in Andhra Pradesh right through the Maoist hotbed of Chhattisgarh. It’s an open secret that comes at a huge — though unnamed and unacknowledged — price.

Yet, the oft-held impression of the Maoists being a force flush with the surpluses of their loot could be misplaced.

A big part of their modern arsenal is made up of acquisitions in successful raids on government armouries; the rest comes either from commercial deals with insurgents in the Northeast and Nepal, or, often, as fraternal aid from revolutionary groups in the region.

But all of that does not add up to making them an armed-to-the-teeth blitz force.


A senior paramilitary officer, who has conducted anti-Maoist operations in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, said the Maoists’ military prowess needed to be demystified and put in the perspective of how they use what they have, speaking in near-laudatory terms of the Maoists’ frugality and fighting discipline.

“They have become better funded than before, surely,” he said. “But it is not as if they are prosperous bandits having a lavish picnic in the jungles. Their modern weapons — both looted and purchased — they use very judiciously, even when they suffer casualties, they make sure weapons and ammunition are not lost with the dead.

“Most of the cadres have only country weapons, their modern weaponry is in fewer hands and used to optimal purpose, as in the strike near Sukma. They live rudimentary lives, eating and dressing simply, almost at no cost. Commitment does not cost money.”

 

[GokuInd]

Tackling Naxalism: Post-Dantewada

K C Dixit

April 8, 2010

Indian Home Minister P. Chidambram has clearly stated that naxalism is the biggest challenge being faced by the nation. He has also stated that the naxal leadership is no mood to discuss their genuine grievances with the government. The naxal leadership has not responded to the government’s offer of talks. Instead, their violent activities have shown a sharp rise. Not only they have been targeting the police forces personnel but they are also resorting to abductions and killing of innocent civilians as well as the destruction of public assets like railway tracks/trains, public transport, government buildings/institutions. The Government’s soft approach to naxal activities is the main cause for their emboldened actions against the state machinery.

The latest incident in which more than 70 CRPF personnel were killed including a deputy commandant and an assistant commandant at Dantewada on 6 April 2010 should be critical enough to initiate stern steps to root out naxalism from Indian soil. This incident is much beyond the threshold of tolerance and leaves no further scope to continue with a soft approach towards naxalites. The situation has become grave enough and calls for an immediate and serious state response. If the government does not take concrete and stern steps even now, it should be prepared to accept more such incidents of even greater intensity.

Naxalism in India has crossed all limits of tolerance. The so-called naxalites are actually anti-national elements who also lack an agenda for public welfare. The on-going nexus between Naxals and miners in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and the huge extortion networks they run in areas under their control are a matter of deep concern and need to be addressed immediately. The Naxals are butchering innocent citizens and only pursuing their self interests through a strategy of terror. Killers of human beings have no right to claim themselves as saviours of the poor.

The time is ripe enough to focus on our internal security situation instead of devoting so much time to other issues. The most challenging task before the government today is the elimination of the naxal terror network in its entirety. These anti-national elements are the biggest stumbling blocks for the progress of the nation and hence cannot be allowed to flourish in a democracy.

If our police forces are unable to tackle the situation, they have to be made capable through well chalked out capacity building measure on priority. This is going to take significant time. However, till such time police forces become fit enough, other options may be exercised without any further delay, to ensure the safety of human lives and preventing damage to public assets. If Sri Lanka can eliminate a well trained and suitably equipped and armed LTTE, India can very well root out ill-equiped and poorly armed anti-national elements from its soil, provided the political leadership displays its will clearly.

While it is essential to have more and more police personnel trained in counter-insurgency operations, it is equally important to equip them suitably. The services of the Army leadership and personnel at all levels may be suitably requisitioned by the police, to fill the void temporarily, if considered appropriate. A well planned and clear cut strategy will definitely bring these anti-national elements to their knees. All their known leaders/sympathisers must be arrested immediately. Such an action might be considered as going too far by many. But it is necessary when lives are at stake in a civilized society. The mere issuing of statements or condemning naxal activities is not going to fetch results in the present context any more. Politicians and ministers should not find any more solace in blame games between central and state leadership. Prioritising vote bank requirements above that of human lives is not likely to yield any breakthrough.

If naxal activities have to be stopped, the government must act firmly even if they have to be neutralized by the selective use of the armed forces including the Indian Air Force. The intelligence network has to be strengthened significantly. Not only the training and equipping of the police forces but also the development of police leadership needs special focus. The supply lines of the Naxals have to be cut ruthlessly. It should not be forgotten that social issues like development of under developed/backward and remote areas, provision of employment opportunities, implementation of education policies, provision of quality health services and ensuring safety and security of human lives and public assets are priority obligations on the part of the government. There is also an immediate need to realistically book corrupt politicians, businessmen and government functionaries in order to restore the faith and confidence of masses in the credibility of the government in affected areas. Such steps must be taken in a time bound manner with a clear and implementable approach. Let us remember that now the threat is more from these anti-national elements as compared to hostile neighbouring countries. All available instruments of national power must now be exploited to eliminate these terror outfits from society.

 

[Sridhar]

Friday, 9 April 2010

Lessons from the Dantewada debacle: training, not threats


Brigadier BK Ponwar, who established and still heads the Jungle Warfare College in Kanker, Chhattisgarh. This photo is from his days at the army's Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School




by Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 9th Apr 10


It has been 44 years since that forgettable incident when New Delhi --- for the first and only time --- used its air force against its own citizens. With the Mizo National Front rampaging through Mizoram in 1966, the government warned that any Mizo who did not relocate to designated safe villages would be treated as a rebel. On the heels of that announcement came the Indian Air Force, bombing and machine-gunning stretches of jungle. Resentment against that indiscriminate killing, in which innocent Mizos died, sustained the insurgency for years thereafter.


Home Minister P Chidambaram’s warning, after the killing of 75 men of the 62nd Battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in a Naxal ambush on Tuesday was put into context by an alarmed IAF chief, who clarified quickly that air power was a blunt weapon ill-suited for discriminating between insurgent and innocent. Mr Chidambaram’s words, however, linger as a reminder that the Home Ministry still considers --- as it did after the terror strike on Parliament in 2001, and the Mumbai attack of 26/11 --- that bluster and threat are convenient tools for masking abysmal security failures.


The CRPF’s operational debacle has transformed Operation Green Hunt: the hunter now seems the hunted. In the first three months of this year, 42 naxal rebels had been killed in Bastar at the cost of 4 policemen’s lives. In innumerable small operations, the state police and central police organisations (CPOs) had engaged and bested Naxal dalams; after this disaster, Naxal morale will be revitalised.


The Naxals’ dwindling strength before this week was also evident from the statistics of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks mounted by them over the last three years. In 2007, Chhatisgarh experienced 76 IED attacks; the next year, it was down to just 58; in 2009, the Naxals could successfully detonate only 29 IEDs. But Tuesday’s fiasco has made this depleted organisation look powerful enough to have the Prime Minister threaten that all options remain on the table.


A key reason for the CRPF’s dismal response to the Naxal attack has been their lack of training. As CPO units poured into Chhattisgarh for Operation Green Hunt, 5 battalions of the Border Security Force (BSF), 5 battalions of the Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP) and 2 battalions of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) were all put through jungle warfare orientation courses at Chhattisgarh’s well-reputed Jungle Warfare College in Kanker. The CRPF, inexplicably, refused to undergo this training. Neither did CRPF HQ in New Delhi order them to do so; nor did the Home Ministry.


Training at the Jungle Warfare College, as every organisation except the CRPF seems to have known, has underpinned anti-naxal operations in Chhattisgarh since 2005, when the college was set up with the help of the Indian Army. Over the last five years, Chhattisgarh has trained 12,700 policemen (including 3700 from other states) at this institution. The college’s credo: fight the guerrilla like a guerrilla.


A senior official of the Chhattisgarh Police has pointed out to Business Standard that the CRPF has the worst record of all the police organisations that are conducting counter-Naxal operations in that state. “CRPF columns have often got caught in Naxal ambushes; many of the Naxals’ recent successes are against the CRPF.”


Instead of providing adequate training to each battalion that is sent into counter-insurgency operations, the CRPF has relied heavily for success on “elite” units, like its feared “Naga Battalion” which was based in Bastar for several years before being pulled out. In 2008, the Home Ministry authorised the CRPF to raise 10 COBRA (Commando Battalions for Resolute Action) units, for counter-naxal operations. But the regular battalions remain largely untrained, pushed at will from election duty, to counter-insurgency, to patrolling riot-affected areas, to anti-Naxal operations. The Home Ministry’s approach has always centred on getting the CRPF to the trouble-spot. After that, it is left to the harried battalion or company commander to deliver the goods.


The answer clearly lies in carefully training CPOs, especially before they go into counter-insurgency operations. The advantages are evident of stiffening the CPOs by laterally inducting retiring military jawans. Even without that boost forces like the CRPF are better equipped and armed than the Naxals that they confront. It is the Home Ministry’s job to ensure adequate training and then holding the force accountable for debacles like the recent one that sets back a campaign by years.

http://ajaishukla.blogspot.com/2010/04/lessons-from-dantewada-debacle-training.html

 

[Sridhar]

CRPF 'faulty planning' led to massacre, says Maoist expert

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Dantewada-massacre-PC-offers-to-resign-PM-rejects-offer/H1-Article3-529102.aspxHome Minister P Chidambaram on Friday offered to resign taking full responsibility of the Dantewada Naxal attack in which 76 CRPF jawans were killed. However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has rejected his offer.
Special coverage

Indo-Asian News Service
Kolkata, April 08, 2010
First Published: 16:51 IST(8/4/2010)
Last Updated: 16:52 IST(8/4/2010)

Faulty planning by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was a key factor that led to the massacre of over 70 men at the hands of Maoists in Chhattisgarh, according to a former intelligence chief of West Bengal Police.
Amiya Samanta also said in an interview that security forces needed to check the antecedents of everyone around them and their camps to prevent valuable intelligence from leaking to the Maoist guerrillas.
"It is an established practice that security forces move on foot in small groups on such terrain (as in Chhattisgarh)," Samanta told IANS. "Because then the losses can be minimised."
"(But) the CRPF party was moving in vehicles in Chhattisgarh. This was faulty planning. The rebels set booby traps, exploded landmines and lay in waiting," he said.
Maoist guerrillas carried out the worst massacre of security forces early Tuesday by slaughtering 75 CRPF personnel and one Chhattisgarh policeman in the dense forests of Bastar region. The outnumbered security forces were fired at and attacked with a variety of bombs for seven long hours.
Samanta, formerly the director general of intelligence in the West Bengal Police, was also a joint director in the Intelligence Bureau in New Delhi in the mid-1980s.
He said it was unfortunate the Maoists came to know in advance the route the security forces would take through the forests of Dantewada in Bastar region.
"On the one hand, intelligence collection of the forces was faulty. They had no idea so many Maoists had camped in the area. On the other hand, the ultras got vital tip-off about the route and timing of the convoy."
Samanta cautioned security forces about the need to maintain operational secrecy.
"They should know how to maintain security and must be made aware about the strategies the Maoists may employ to ferret out information," he said.
The authorities should sanitise people in the periphery of the security forces to ensure that Maoists do not have access to vital information that would help them to mount deadly attacks.
"People like drivers, sweepers and even local policemen have to be sanitised. Security forces must be briefed on how they should remain alert so that the Maoists do not get wind of police movements," he said.
Samanta pointed out that because of the federal character of the Indian system, it would not be possible for Home Minister P. Chidambaram to enforce his plan on all the states.
"The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) or the Left Front will not accept that. They would rather implement their own plan. So we (need to) have different plans in different states."
He felt there was no need to call in the military because the police and the paramilitary forces were capable of controlling the Maoist menace over time.
"When the military finds the condition tough, it does a tactical retreat. And then regroups and relaunches an assault. The security forces fighting the ultras also need to do the same."
Samanta was also one of the key police officers to have combated the Naxalites, as the Maoists are known, in the 1960s and 1970s.
Comparing the Naxalites of then and now, he said: "The former were intellectually much better. Have you seen their photos with arms in their hands? And look at these Maoists. They court the media with AK-56 and AK-47 rifles. What kind of revolutionaries are they?
"The earlier Naxalites' objective was to organise an agrarian revolution and ensure social justice. To finish off class enemies, they killed select targets using conventional weapons. They did not have mines.
"But today's Maoists are operating in the protection of jungles and hills.
They have no base among peasants."
"They have never targeted any big companies. They have only blown up police stations and railway stations. What they are doing is sophisticated banditry."

http://www.hindustantimes.com/kolka...-Maoist-expert/529102/H1-Article1-528705.aspx

 

[Sridhar]

By R Shankar, India Syndicate, 09/04/2010
Nine action points for Chidambaram

Three days after the massacre of 75 CRPF jawans and a policeman in Dantewada, Home Minister P Chidambaram on Friday accepted "full responsibility." The "buck stops at my desk," he said.

See: Where will the buck now stop, Mr Chidambaram.
"I have been asked directly or indirectly where the buck stops after the attack. The buck stops at my desk," he said at a CRPF function in New Delhi.
Sources said that Chidambaram had actually offered to resign owning moral responsibility for the Dhantewada massacre. He had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi putting his head on the block. His resignation was rightly rejected.
Earlier, a livid Home Minister had hauled up the intelligence arm of his ministry and tweaked at the ears of the paramilitary chiefs.
Chidambaram has shown courage and tenacity to accept responsibility and his offer to quit reflects his high commitment to his job. He need not quit, but here is what his ministry must do to avoid another Dantewada-type massacre:
I. Shore up intelligence
Intelligence gathering and analysis is very poor now. There is no use issuing general or vague alerts about a 'likely attack'. Three of such vague alerts and it will be like crying wolf. The agencies responsible for ground action will push such alerts to some dog-eared file for some news channel to fish out and make noise over.
The Home Ministry has to set up well networked intelligence gathering mechanism, especially in the heartland of the Red bastion. The Maoists have a well-oiled intelligence gathering set-up deep in the forests. They are regularly tipped off on movements of forces, future operational areas of the forces, the composition of the forces etc. The Home Ministry will have to be more sharp and accurate on this front.


>

II. Treat CRPF men as soldiers
Some of the CRPF camps deep in the forest in Maoists-infested areas are appalling. That would be an understatement. Have a look at the Chintagufa CRPF camp, located 45 km inside the deep forests from Dornapal junction on the National Highway 221 that connects Chhattisgarh with Andhra Pradesh. The CRPF men have no proper drinking water supply or source, no proper ration or food, no medicine or access to a doctor, no means to protect themselves from deadly diseases like malaria.
The DRDO has developed specific well-researched and terrain friendly kits for soldiers fighting on the frontiers. The kits include light nutritious food that can last for over two weeks, storage of drinking water in light cans, protection against diseases like malaria, special tents and light medical equipment in case an emergency.
What is preventing the Home Ministry from giving these kits to the CRPF men? Bottomline: Treat CRPF men as soldiers.
III. Focus on Training
While the CRPF men have some amount of training, it is in no way close to what the armymen or the National Security Guards get. There is a dire need to train and retrain the CRPF personnel especially on the local terrain, counter attack methods, use of more sophisticated weapons and use of appropriate technology suitable for the operational area.
Army Chief General V K Singh has gone on record to state that there were internal deficiencies in the training pattern of the personnel and remedial measures were being suggested to the Home Ministry.
In his first remarks on the Dantewada Maoist attack on CRPF personnel, Singh categorically stated that the 62nd Battalion that was targeted had not been trained by the Army.
Why? Hear Gen Singh: "There are certain problem areas in training. At times we don't get a homogenous entity for training. This means the entire company does not come for training. In the Army, we do it as a complete setup, right from officers to down below. That's why the performance is that much better." The Army has trained more than 39,000 police and paramilitary personnel. But if the training is not homogenous, it is at best a futile exercise.
Bottomline: Use the strength of the Army to give homogenous training to the CRPF personnel.


>

IV. Get more mine-sweepers
Home Minister P Chidambaram has admitted that the para-military forces either do not have enough mine sweepers or the mine sweepers are outdated. Since the Maoists are focusing on using landmines and pressure bombs, it is time to acquire mine sweepers from the global market.

Says a CRPF constable who was quoted in The Indian Express: The main threat is landmine blast. A few days ago, we had recovered a bomb that was stuffed in a gunny bag. Maoists mostly use landmine, pressure bomb and what in Naxal parlance is known as release bomb. While landmine blast is triggered by the rebels using electric wires, pressure bomb is made of injection syringe which gets pressed and explodes. The release bomb, which is made out of bamboo, is connected to any thread which is spread out on pathways or at places where the security forces regularly frequent. It explodes when the thread gets pulled.
"A few months ago, the rebels had placed such a bomb near the drinking water source. We had a miraculous escape as it exploded after the thread got entangled on a cow's leg," another constable said.
To overcome this, the CRPF all the personnel deployed in Maoists heartland have been told to trek through the forests. They are not supposed to use any vehicles in this hostile terrain. This decreases their operational efficiency and adds to the 'cold start' problem - a delayed response to attacking the rebels.
Bottomline: Making the CRPF men cover large area on foot is not a solution; getting mine sweepers would help. The CRPF will have to be many steps ahead in tackling the degree of sophistication of the enemy.
V. Use UAVs
At the height of Naxalite violence in the 90s in Andhra Pradesh, there were talks of using spy drones or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) for reconnaissance of Naxal hideouts. Today's wars are always `fought' in the sky. The US, UK, China, France and many nations use reconnaissance as a major tool to `prepare' ground forces for an assault. No attack is done without a proper map from the sky. Remember the famous U2 spy plane of the US that almost triggered a UK-USSR war? (U2- Infamous spy plane survives changed times)
Drones are increasingly been used in the Afghanistan war zone by the US both as a reconnaissance tool and for attack. India need not go that far, but spy drones can be a game-changer in the war against the Maoists.
Israel has already offered its latest drones that can pick up signatures of human presence and movements even in the night.
One of the latest UAVs from Israeli is likely to be tested next week in the Naxal-infested areas. If it is found useful, three or four drones would go up for air-surveillance over Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Maharashtra.
This process has to be speeded up.


VI. Choke the arms supply market of Maoists
The Home Ministry has gone on record to state that the Naxalites are getting their arms from illegal arms bazaar. This supply has to be choked. It is a matter of grave concern that sophisticated arms are finding its way to the deep jungles of Dhantewada hoodwinking all the check posts - from the ports and border check points.
The Home Ministry has to identify these bazaars and choke the supply. If these bazaars are in India, they have to be targeted first. The middlemen and `salespersons' of these manufacturers have to be tracked down and severely dealt with.
VII. Do not carpet "bomb" the area
In the name of wiping out Maoists, the security forces are known to using harsh and `elimination' techniques against hapless villagers. Most times these villagers are caught in the `crossfire' between the Maoists and security forces. If the villagers are found talking to security forces, the Maoists would bump them off; it they are forced to harbour Maoists, the security forces whisk them off to undisclosed locations, never to return.
This is no way to deal with a crisis. The security forces should use more tact in gaining the confidence of the villagers and people trapped in the war zone. In many villages in the Dantewada region, there are no men - only women and kids. The men have either fled or may have been killed.
In the Maoists infested areas, there are no schools as the rebels have destroyed them. Why? Because the security forces were using them as dormitories.

Most villagers in these areas live in time warp. While talking of Reservation for Women in Parliament, Right to Education Bill or back-patting rural development schemes are good, the Maoist territory should receive special and sustained long-term developmental assistance with focus on improving their standard of living and right to basic amenities, including education and employment.


VIII. Answer whose baby is it?
The Home Minister has been consistently saying that the Maoists problem is a State issue. And this is what the Maoists have exploited. They have always established their camps in trijunctions of States - in the Dhantewada case, it is between Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. There is one in south too - between Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
The Maoists love such trijunctions because they can commit a massacre in one state and take flee to another. Since the coordination between state police force is lax, the Maoists manage to escape.
Since it is an issue concerning two or more states, it is time for the Centre to step in and play a role that is more than just issuing alerts on terror attacks or movements of rebels in the same frequency like the dry and dripping weather bulletins.
It is well established in the Constitution of India that law and order is a State subject. But when rebels are using this as a loophole, it is time for the centre to call the affected states and work out a formula that will see better coordination.
IX. Address core issues
This is an old issue often swept under the carpet. Naxalism is a symptom of deep-rooted malady in the harsh lands of poverty - of right to livelihood, employment, education, the existence of inequality and feudal set ups, inhuman living conditions, harsh and terrible living conditions. All these issues need to be addressed.
India lives not just in cities and villages; there are forgotten people in the forests and in the grip of the Maosits. They have to be brought to the mainstream.

The Red rebels work on one principle: We need to be lucky only once; the establishment has to be lucky always. It is not difficult to prove this principle woefully wrong.
Source: India Syndicate


http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3801711&page=5

 

[anoop_mig25]

well my question when we as a nation are going to respect common soldier why aren`t soldiers belonging to para-military are provided with same facility as that belonging to military.and today i was watching ndtv at 2.00 pm there was news about home minister offering to resign from the post and hell ndtv is foe fist time angry with moasit as operation is being run by congress if it would have been run by bjp then ndtv would have ran hell on bjpwaals(sorry my english is poor and i just want to communicate that NDTV is biased towards congrees )

 

[Sabir]

When time is tough, we should stay together-BJP, Cong, Leftists whoever we are...........It is good to see that BJP is backing the Cong gvt about this issue......Only 'socalled humanists and leader like our Mamata didi' should be taken care of.

 

[Iamanidiot]

Best option is add Dantewada to Andhra until the Maoist threat is over.They will be able to atleast contain the threat.In the mean time the Threat must be eleminated in Bihar and Bengal.Then developmet so that they don't become Robin hoods again.All thiis damage is self-inflicted.In the mean tme no separate state of Telangana please.If they get Telangana also you have a full blown insurgency on our face.

Comments of military officials welcome

 

[badguy2000]

well, When Maoism is popular in Nepal and India, it ironically has been abandoned by CCP government in homeland.

Anyhow, I find that rural India /Nepal today is really quite like rural CHina before the revolution in 1949 ------- either of them has/had extreme unfair rural land distribution system and lots of poverty ,which are the fertile soil of Maoism.

pls study why Mao could come into power in China with Maoism guerilla. it is very useful for You indian "mid-class" here to take a lesson,if you really want to prevent Maoism in India.

only two ways can cure Maosim:
1. land reform,which can give peasants a piece of land.
2.Industrializaiton ,which can lift peasants from poverty and agriculture section;

 

[nandu]

Only 300 cadres involved: Maoists

The ‘Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee’ of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PGLA), has in a statement, claimed that only 300 of its fighters took part in the ambush in Dantewada and not a thousand as believed.

The release signed by Ramanna, a member of the Committee, admitted that eight Naxals were killed in the gunfight. The release claimed the ambush was planned and executed to protest ‘Operation Green Hunt’. The Maoist release accused the Centre of “lying” about not involving defence forces in the fight against them, saying Army was already training police and para-military forces in the state in jungle warfare.

Strangely, the organisation expressed its sympathy for the families of the slain security personnel. “We convey our sympathies to the families of the fallen security men. We appeal to the jawans and lower-rung officers of paramilitary forces and the police not to fight the war against people....don’t be brutal,” it said

http://www.in.com/news/current-affa...90ca6c95fb532f183b4b4b5758de3dafaafa3b-1.html