Naxals/Maoists Watch

[KS]

Bring in the RR to act as advance parties and wipe out these scums from the face of the earth.

and close the border with Nepal for a few years till this problem subsides.

 

[ALBY]

bringing RR wont be a right move coz it has a strength of just 64 battalions which are just adequate to contain insurgency in kashmir..if even some units are drawn from kashmir then the balance of peace in kashmir will affect..plus deploying army units in counter insurgency roles in excess will affect the ability in conventional battles....

 

[KS]

bringing RR wont be a right move coz it has a strength of just 64 battalions which are just adequate to contain insurgency in kashmir..if even some units are drawn from kashmir then the balance of peace in kashmir will affect..plus deploying army units in counter insurgency roles in excess will affect the ability in conventional battles....

That is why they have said new battalions will be raised and existing ones will not be touched.

IPS officers continue to resist any attempt at training with the military. As a result, sources said, the Army-paramilitary-police interface has not taken off

Well if you have to train with the Army boys you have to actually bend your body which their excess flab in the mid-section will not allow.

 

[ALBY]

if army has to get engageg in each and every insurgency scene then why the hell is para military forces are created?just only to be act as cannon fodder who dies ingloriously and makes news in courners of dailies which go unnoticed?
instead of creating rashtriya rifles from army we should take out some battallions from para military and give them the same level of training that is recieved by ct forces of army..make a training centre for young officers as in lines of ota..and please make sure those pot bellied idiots from state police and clowns from home ministry shouldnt have any connection with this force...defence ministry should supervise this force if necessary service of exerts from across border should be made available..sri lankan military had dealt with the same kind of menace successfully....
instead of considering parsmilitary incapable we should make hope in their minds that they can win this war...no army with a weak morale had never won a battle in history...

 

[KS]

^ I agree with you sentiments but when you have leaders like Mamata bringing in the Army si more than necessary not only because of their expertise but also they come with an assortment of powers that these leaders cant meddle with. Today itself that woman has released 52 political prisoners and two top leaders of the Maoists are among them.

BTW I dont agree with this line sri lankan military had dealt with the same kind of menace successfully.... .

If your military starts shelling the hell out of areas identified as hostile with heavy artillery and tanks with barbaric disregard for civilian life in those areas, not only Lankan Army but any army can defeat the insurgents. How you defeat them without causing humongous collateral damage and that too will fully shows your expertise which those Lankans lack. Perhaps they should have learned a lesson or two from IA conduct in Kashmir which though not saintly never descended to that level.

 

[Kunal Biswas]

The number itself states the emergency..

India is already fighting a war in Kashmir where Army is deployed, If we move 65000 out of a 2 million is lot, we are already stretched on borders..

 

[sayareakd]

IA is deploy for emergency only, for rest we have para military forces, Naxals can be handle with effective intell, at present we dont have much, on the other hand Naxals who are aware about the local region and have played with movement from one state to other there by countering any anti Naxal operation, plus they have better local intell about movement of security forces.

I think some one should be made single in charge of operation, who will get full help from local police with no questions ask all help given, with all the means at his disposal, thereafter with planned way go after the leaders of Naxals and take out foot soldiers at the end.

In the process dont mistreat the local population or else they will end up helping Naxals.

 

[Kunal Biswas]

IA is deploy for emergency only, for rest we have para military forces, Naxals can be handle with effective intell, at present we dont have much, on the other hand Naxals who are aware about the local region and have played with movement from one state to other there by countering any anti Naxal operation, plus they have better local intell about movement of security forces.

I think some one should be made single in charge of operation, who will get full help from local police with no questions ask all help given, with all the means at his disposal, thereafter with planned way go after the leaders of Naxals and take out foot soldiers at the end.

In the process dont mistreat the local population or else they will end up helping Naxals.

Just watch what happens sir, Army will stuck there, Paramilitary will be used not as spear or with army but will rest on fat belly where army will be doing all the work, See how things are in Kashmir, still Army presence is greater than Paramilitary there, one know why ?

Also, We all know where Naxals got political power, What happened in srilanka can be happen here..

This is a Big mistake, from every angle..
In other terms Para military are better equipped than Army there, They have local intel, they have training also SF like Cobra, Still not winning..

 

[LETHALFORCE]

A simpler idea maybe to arm the locals with weapons and offer rewards to bring in naxals dead or alive preferably the former.

 

[sayareakd]

Kunal sir, that is true, Army is trained to kill enemy, it is not for surgical strike , but to kill enemy at the other side. For enemy within, where lot of civilians are there with Naxals, we need para military which is half police and half army, that can understand situation and tackle it accordingly, we dont want to destroy whole of area in doing so.

Army is not remedy for all ills, IA is our last line of defence, lets not use it quite frequently, plus avoid it for domestic duties, as that will reduce our war fighting capabilities. I may also add that Army should not be use against our own people.

 

[shuvo@y2k10]

what we need right now is to set up another unit like rashtriya rifles containing about 1 lac troops.another option is to separate the crpf as counter insurgency force(cif) and crpf.the crpf at present is too large and too unproductive.the cif should be as mainly young enthusiatic soldiers among crpf and the crpf should be mandated as a modern batton wielding force who may be called for law and order,riot-control and election duty.the cif should be trained at par with rashtriya rifles better suited for jungle terrain.to begin with it could be led for a few years by current/retired army officers having experience in counter insurgency in j&k and north east.the advantage of having a large counter-insurgency force is that during wartime they can be used as reserve force to secure rear areas just like the role played by RR during kargil war.

 

[KS]

A simpler idea maybe to arm the locals with weapons and offer rewards to bring in naxals dead or alive preferably the former.

The Supreme Court has already put a spanner in that.

BTW even I don't approve of that idea.

The best the locals must be made to do is to act as embedded guides (one for each company or so) as they know the terrain,language and culture the best.

Not like the Lashkars in tribal Pakistan.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

Using the military for such a low level job because of the incompetence of the Government is a worst idea. In another country in the world the local police department would have handled this. If military is used are you going to allow an all out seek and destroy mission or are you going to tie their hands and demoralize them??

 

[sayareakd]

you dont need RR for Naxals, what you need is intell, good intell, people in the area dont give intell, because Naxals ruthlessly kills informers, they tie them up in front of their family then slit their throat, even beheaded people on just suspicion of being informer. People are terrified of Naxals, they know when people or paramilitary left that place,Naxals will take revenge.

It is also well known that Naxals have informers and sympathisers, dont underestimate Naxals or their capabilities, rocket and arms factories and IEDs are good example.

Concentrate on their leaders and take take them out or arrest them. Then go after headless demoralised foot soldiers. We have to play intelligent war not regular war.

 

[ALBY]

Arming more civilians just like salwa judum and SPOs who are doing there work efficintly?those fckin bastards are as evilish as naxals..civilians should be only used as local assets whose main aim should be intel gathering..
Now at this as time we are in a critical stage where we could never won battle against maoism by relying only on military might...the govt. should implement schemes that should reach out to the oppressed millions living in Naxal belts...govt should take strict actions against MNCs and local landloards who are oppressing these poor tribals and other oppressed classes..
construction of more schools,hospitals,small scale cottage industries aimed at upliftment of tribals,markets for their products will all turn the tide in favour of our nations fight against naxal menace....Also there should be mass propaganda against naxals which should spread among their supporters..about their atrocracies against common man...as the CIA and KGB had done during the prime of cold war...
We should be able to instill a strong belief among those poor people that the nation cares for them...ie we should battle naxals in the same way as they had strengthened their bases and started the battle...

 

[ALBY]

karthi i was not reffering to their idea of mass bombardment done by lankan army...i am in favour of other brilliant tactics of them like fighting guerillas like guerillas eg: during the final phase of war lankan army had altered the way of using their infantry..instead of mass infantry charges into unknown terrtory they send large numbers of section size deep penetration units who were very effective in finding and destroying LTTE ambush teams...these tactics will be effective against naxals as naxals are more like LTTE who knows the terrain very well and they have a special ability to mount surprice attacks over large numbered central forces and could successfully do hit and run tactic before the company sized paramilitary forces regain from initial hangover...

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Kunal, I wanted to ask you, as to how good are current mine protected vehicles being used by the Army and the CRPF ? Seeing, the condition of vehicles blown up Maoists landmines, it seems they hardly offer any protection.

Those IED can take out a T-72/90 up in air too, This Light Vehicle are merely use against small arm fire and cheaper alternative to MPVs..

 

[ejazr]

The local police and security forces should play the main role in a COIN operation. They are the locals and they can build local intelligence networks more quickly and easily. If you can't arm civilians, have a fast track program to fully hire locals as police and CRPF. The state govt. should have done this a long time back by increasing the strength of the local police and training them by military advisers and other trainers..

What do we know about how the Chattisgarh govt. is performing on the security front? They should be making this a high priority issue and trying to engage the locals as well as strengthening the security forces.

 

[ejazr]

www.outlookindia.com | Was There A Choice?

Known Entity?

A Maoist profile based on the accessed interrogation reports

Age

15-20 years: 22
21-25 years: 40
26-30 years: 30
31-35 years: 15
36-40 years: 11
Above 50 years: 4

Caste

Gond 43
Muria 14
Other Scheduled Tribes 12
Scheduled Castes 4
OBCs 17
Upper castes 7

Land Holdings

Landless 71
Less than 10 acres 18
More than 25 acres 3

Education

Illiterate 47
Primary or secondary education 65
Undergraduates 12
Graduates 7

Orphans

11 cadres out of this sample were orphans

Reasons For Joining

94 said they were motivated to join
23 say they were coerced

(Note: Of the coerced, two cadres rose to senior positions despite the threats before joining)

There is little to set apart Barse Lakhma, all of 25, a typical Muria tribal from Chintalnar in Chhattisgarh's Maoist-riven Dantewada district. In 2010, though, when the state police arrested him, they alleged he was a top Maoist cadre who took part in a April 2010 attack on the crpf which killed 75 jawans and a state police head constable. Lakhma, his interrogation report reveals, joined the Maoist movement a little over 10 years ago, a poor teenager with no prospects who joined the Bal Sangham. The Sangham is reportedly a Maoist organisation which acts as a breeding ground for future cadres. Lakhma was one such teen who was picked up, indoctrinated and then rose through the ranks to become one of its best fighters.

Interrogation reports (IR) are problematic documents in any conflict zone. They are usually prepared under torture or coercion and are clearly inadmissible in the courts. They also reveal only what the persons under interrogation reveal under stress. But hidden in the IRs are also socio-economic profiles of hundreds of Maoists who have been arrested by the security forces in the five major states combating Maoism—Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and Maharashtra.

So far these IRs have only been used for intelligence-gathering and prosecution of the arrested individuals. No effort was made to use the collective data to try and draw inferences on other elements of the cadre, like who they are and what reasons drive tribal youth to join an armed struggle against the Indian state.

Outlook accessed 173 IRs from Chhattisgarh, believed to be ground zero now for the Maoist movement in India, to get a glimpse into the world of these arrested rebels. Out of this set of IRs, we focused on 123, namely those cadres who had been identified as members of the fighting units such as the local guerrilla squad (LGS) or the Jan Militia.

The study threw up some interesting statistics. Clearly, chronic poverty works in favour of the rebels while recruiting more cadres. Out of the 123 individuals, 107 were below the age of 35, over 90 of them were landless or had less than 5 acres of land. This shows a clear correlation between chronic poverty and the movement, more so because land-holdings in the forest are mostly notional and mean very little. Many were like Ayatu Ursa, a 27-year-old Gond tribal from Bijapur who was orphaned at an early age and grew up living on the eggs of red ants and roots of bushes in the forest. At 15, he left his village and signed up with the Maoists. Sukhdev Vadda, a 24-year-old Gond, was also forced to join the Maoists due to the same grinding poverty, which even debarred school in his case.

So do the old, familiar fears on the correlation between poverty and rebellion hold water? Well, the results do show a majority were motivated by circumstances to oppose oppression. Most of them are from low-income groups. Most have had little education. In any programme aimed at conflict resolution, these aspects must be taken into account. E.A.S. Sarma, a former IAS man who spent years studying tribal movements and was one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court against the use of Salwa Judum cadres by the state, feels the IR data reiterates the findings of a Planning Commission report on Maoists which he helped prepare two years ago. Though he does add he "would hesitate to jump to conclusions" on the basis of a limited pool of data.

Some experts are more circumspect, like ex-IB director Ajit Doval. "We need to gather more data to correlate it with the levels of violence that these cadres are said to have committed," he says. According to him, it would be interesting to see if the levels of poverty, abysmal education and development have a correlation to greater violence and therefore can be used to nuance the current government approach in dealing with Maoists.

The IR data also reveals that many of the cadres were orphans or came from dysfunctional family structures. More than 12 were orphans or had a parent who moved away in early childhood. This created a situation for them to end up with the Maoists, who, by many accounts, looked out for such rootless tribals as a rich source for recruitment.

Interestingly, the women Maoist cadres also make a fascinating study. The IR data on those arrested reveal that they were far more motivated and far clearer on the reasons for joining the Maoists than the men. Perhaps, as the biggest victims of India's patriarchal society, they felt the need for social justice more acutely than their male counterparts.

Sociologist Nandini Sundar, who has done extensive fieldwork in Bastar, says the Maoists coming in and redistributing the land is a significant motivation that drives fresh cadres. "An impression I draw from the data is that chronic poverty, landlessness and the injustices contribute significantly. For many of them, the ideology is a means for countering these factors. In Bastar, the Maoists would help raise the price of tendu pattas, a significant means of income for the tribals, and also redistribute land by giving the rights to the cultivator."

In fact, the figures bear her out. Out of the 123 reports, an overwhelming majority of 94 cadres said they had been motivated to join the movement to fight poverty and use the armed struggle to get social justice. But a significant number of them also stated that the Maoists had coerced them to join the movement. This was by way of threats, kidnappings and torture. Also, it is unclear how these young men and women would have reacted had they got other credible avenues of growth, maybe even a chance of joining the government. The fact of the matter is that the poor are the footsoldiers of the Maoist movement as well as its worst victims.

So where does that leave the government and its usual methods of treating the Maoist movement as a "law and order problem" or a "grave security threat"? As Sarma puts it, "The option of adopting violence as an answer to violence only compounds the problem, rather than solving it. If the tribal problems in Dantewada are addressed frontally, why should the tribals join the extremist forces...why should they support them?" Why indeed.

 

[sant]

Instead of burdening army for every disturbances , should create strong internal security force combining IB , CRPF and other similar origination s and put all organized crimes (terr activity, maoest problems , separatist activity ) and put state polices under its control.