Understanding India’s Maoists Select Documents Understanding India’s Maoists Select Documents P V Ramana INSTITUTE FOR DEFENCE STUDIES & ANALYSES NEW DELHI PENTAGON PRESS The Cover shows the Peace Memorial, unveiled on July 30, 2005, in memory of victims of Naxalite/Maoist violence, in Beerpur Village, Karimnagar District, Telangana. Beerpur is the native place of Muppala Lakshman Rao alias Ganapathy, General Secretary of CPI (Maoist). Photograph courtesy: Mr K.M. Daya Shankar, Principal Correspondent, The Hindu. Understanding India’s Maoists: Select Documents / PV Ramana First Published in 2014 Copyright © Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi ISBN 978-81-8274-801-9 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without first obtaining written permission of the copyright owner. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, or the Government of India. Published by PENTAGON PRESS 206, Peacock Lane, Shahpur Jat New Delhi-110049 Phones: 011-64706243, 26491568 Telefax: 011-26490600 email: [email protected] website: www.pentagonpress.in Branch: Prime Arcade Office #11 1154 Saifee Street Opp. M.G.Road, Camp Pune-411001 Email: [email protected] In association with Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses No. 1, Development Enclave, New Delhi-110010 Phone: +91-11-26717983 Website: www.idsa.in Maps: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Lab, IDSA. Printed at Avantika Printers Private Limited. To Krishna, my father, and Krishna, my son CONTENTS Author’s Note ix INTRODUCTION India’s Maoists: Profile and Thought Process 3 DOCUMENTS Section I: Organisational Aspects 27 Constitution of the CPI (Maoist) 29 Strategy and Tactics 47 Urban Movement 161 People’s Government 226 Section II: Interviews with Top-Leadership 244 Interview with Ganapathy, General Secretary, CPI (Maoist) - I 244 Interview with Ganapathy, General Secretary, CPI (Maoist) - II 255 Interview with Azad, Spokesperson, Central Committee, CPI (Maoist) - I 269 Interview with Azad, Spokesperson, Central Committee, CPI (Maoist) - II 271 Interview with Kishenji, Politburo Member, CPI (Maoist) 273 Section III: Unity Congress/9th Congress 279 Press Release 279 Call of the Unity Congress 280 Resolution on Conflicts across the Globe 286 viii Understanding India’s Maoists Resolution on Death Sentence 287 Resolution on Farmers’ Suicides 288 Resolution on Khairlanji Dalit Massacre 290 Resolution on Hindu Fascism 291 Resolution on Political Prisoners 294 Resolution on Secessionist/Insurgent Movements 296 Section IV:Central Committee/Politburo Circulars/Statements 299 Basaguda Exchange of Fire 299 Agenda, Post-2009 Elections 303 Assessment of Political Conditions 322 Statement on the Expulsion of Lanka Papi Reddy 337 Section V: Synchronised/Large-Scale Attacks 340 Koraput Armoury Raid 340 Giridih Home Guards Armoury Raid 350 Jehanabad Jail Break 352 Nayagarh Armoury Raid 356 Balimela Attack 358 Section VI: Statements on other Organisations 361 Annexures 369 Index 391 Introduction ix Author’s Note The proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist), Maoists in short, also knownin India as Naxalites, is the most lethal and largest of all such groups. Its ultimate aim is to capture/seize political/state power through protracted people’s war (PPW), on the lines propounded by Mao Tse Tung. This volume is a modest attempt to understand the thought process of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). In this wake, some of the more important documents of the Maoists have been edited and compiled in this volume. These have been classified under various heads viz. Organisational Aspects; Interviews; Unity Congress; Central Committee/Politburo Circulars/Statements; Synchronised/Large Scale Attacks; and Statements on other Organisations. The Introduction presents a profile of the Maoists and attempts to summarise the outfit’s thought process. Thereafter, the Maoists’ documents are presented. Each of it is prefaced with a summary and a background to its preparation by the Maoists. These documents, unless otherwise stated, have been collected from a variety of sources during field-visits over the past nine years. However, it needs to be mentioned here that most, if not all, of these are available now on the Internet. Besides, I have used the spelling ‘Ganapathy’ while referring to the general secretary of the CPI (Maoist), while retaining the spellings ‘Ganapathy’ and ‘Ganapathi’ as mentioned variously in the original in different documents. I gratefully acknowledge the support and encouragement of Dr Arvind Gupta, Director General, IDSA, at whose suggestion this project has been undertaken. He was immensely patient and always smilingly nudged me to increase the pace of work. I thank all members of the Internal Security Centre, past and present, for their kind support. I am also thankful to my colleagues Vivek Kaushik—for his support in the production process—and Vivek Dhankar for providing an excellent map. I am grateful to the two anonymous referees for their kind suggestions that helped improve the contents of this volume. I am grateful to my friend, Mr K Srinivas Reddy, Resident Editor, The Hindu, at Hyderabad, who has always been a source of inspiration, support and encouragement. I also thank my numerous friends in various States, who wish to remain anonymous, for their help whenever I approached them. x Understanding India’s Maoists I thank Mr Rajan Arya and Mr Virender Negi of Pentagon Press for publishing this volume. My parents, wife and son, and brother have been my strongest pillars of support in all my endeavours. New Delhi PV Ramana Introduction INDIA’S MAOISTS: PROFILE AND THOUGHT PROCESS SECTION I: PROFILE ORGANISATION1 The CPI (Maoist) is headed by its general secretary, Muppala Lakshmana Rao alias Ganapathy2. The outfit’s organisational structure is hierarchical. At the apex is the all-powerful Central Committee (CC). As in January 2014, it is believed that the CC consists of 17 members. A smaller core group of seven people constitute the Politburo (PB) that runs the affairs of the outfit on a day-to-day basis. The Regional Bureau (RB)—a conglomerate of areas in different States— reports to the CC. The State Committee (SC) and its equivalent Special Zone Committee (SZC) reports to the RB. Each State/SZC is responsible for all activities of the outfit within its jurisdiction. Each State is further divided into zones and sub-zones, below which are District/Division Committees (DC/DVC). Below the District/Division level, there are Squad Area Committees (SAC), which are responsible for activities within a cluster of villages in which the guerrilla squad operates. A village/town cell is at the bottom of the hierarchy. A seven-member Central Military Commission (CMC) is at the apex of the Maoist military machine, the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA). There exists a Military Commission corresponding to each of the committees mentioned above. Besides, there is an overlap between the political and military structures of the CPI (Maoist), i.e., while there are separate political and military structures, their membership is common in the largest measure. In other words, at each level a large number of members are common to both the various committees and commissions. The Maoist propaganda machinery is guided by the Central Propaganda Bureau (CPB), whose members are also members of the CC. The CPB is responsible for dissemination of all internal circulars of the CPI (Maoist), as well as distribution of its periodicals with varied publication schedules, such as monthly, half-yearly or annual. All the major decisions are taken by the CC after a careful assessment of their pros and cons. The CC then leaves it to the individual field-level commanders to plan and execute the decisions. After every major action––an attack on a police station, looting an armoury or killing of an important public person or a well- 4 Understanding India’s Maoists protected security official––a detailed de-briefing is conducted to assess strengths, mistakes and weaknesses and, thus, learn lessons for future tactics. The CPI (Maoist) gathers intelligence in pursuit of its activities, and has a dedicated intelliegence wing, which was once headed by Patel Sudhakar Reddy and later by Sakhamuri Appa Rao, both of whom were killed in separate encounters with the Andhra Pradesh police. Also, there is enough indication that, sooner than later, there are plans to institute a Disciplinary Committee.3 RECRUITEMENT AND CADRE STRENGTH According to Bimal, a Central Committee member, the Maoists have “a party controlled mechanism under which we receive proposals from the locals. After obtaining the consent of the parents of applicants, we forward the proposals to one of our committees. It vets them and takes a final call on whether or not to recruit, based on the person’s antecedents, class and disposition towards others in his or her village”.4 Last known, the armed, underground strength of the CPI (Maoist) was approximately 13,000 fighters, both men and women, as illustrated in Table 1 and Table 2. Besides, there are an estimated 50,000 over-ground supporters/ sympathisers.5 Table 1: Strength of the State Committees of CPI (Maoist) Sl. No. Party Committee Cadre strength (Approximately) 1 Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC)