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Chapter 5 Growth and Spread of Left Wing Terrorism

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Chapter 5 Growth and Spread of Left Wing Terrorism CHAPTER 5 GROWTH AND SPREAD OF LEFT WING TERRORISM 1975 ONWARDS For power and pulp within CPI (ML) there used to be squabbles among the top leaders of the movement like Satya Narayan Sinha, Vinod Mishra of Bihar, T Nagi Reddy and Kondapalli Seetharemaiah from Andhra Pradesh, Nagbhushan Patnaik from Orissa with the central leadership in the party which was dominated by leaders from Bengal. By 1972 the Central Government (of Congress Party) with the understanding of USSR was able to use CPI (Marxist) to crack down on CIPI (ML) in Bengal. The leaders in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa were also prosecuted for having waged war against the state of India. An ideological split took place in the movement between two factions which went in separate ways and directions to achieve success in their struggle. As a result one faction became CPI (ML) under Charu Majumdar while the other group established Maoist Communist Centre (MCC). The CPI (ML) almost became ineffective with the arrest and death of Charu Mujumdar (in 1972) and abandoning of armed struggle by Kanu Sanyal (in 1977). Naxalites During Emergency The party was revived in 1974 in Bihar under the name of CPI (ML), Liberation which took the shape of struggle against the Emergency. The promulgation of emergency in 1975 gave further set back to the Naxalite movement. Due to the strong action stepped up everywhere even those sympathizers who provided shelter earlier no longer did so now. Second, the increased usage of preventive detention under MISA put a lot of activists out of action. Further the implementation of twenty point programme which had its target group the same action of the society which the Naxalites aimed at 79 mobilizing, weaned them away from the movement. However, in some districts of Andhra Pradesh Naxalites activities continued unabated. Post Emergency Period With the lifting of emergency there was a steady revival of the Naxalite movement. A significant development which took place in the post-emergency period was the increase in the activities of the Civil Liberties Organisations namely Organisation for Protection of Democratic Rights (OPDR) and Civil Liberties Committee (CLC). This was also the period when front organizations of the Naxalities such as The Radical Students Union (RCS), etc. revived their activities to develop a wider base for the movement. The appointment of Shah Commission at National level and Bhargava Commission in AP to enquire into alleged police atrocities during the emergency put the police on the defence. The APCLC collected material to substantiate its allegations of false ‘encounter deaths’ and submitted to Bhargava Commission. A notable development in the post-emergency period was the birth and phenomenal growth of the People’s War Group (PWG) in Andhra Pradesh. The group ever since its inception has dominated the centre stage of Naxalite movement in AP and in its bordering States. The PWG combined its vigorous mass activity with increased militancy and converted north Telangana districts into hunting groups of Naxalites. The extremist violence in AP in 1980 accounted for 21 murders, 19 dacoities and 99 other offences as against 19 murders, 23 dacoities and 65 other offences in 1979.36 Due to the effect of continued indoctrination and inculcation of spirit of defiance of law and authority, Gond tribals gathered in large number of Indervalli (Adilabad) village and indulged in an orgy of violence necessitating 80 opening of fire by the police on 20th April 1991 resulting in the death of 13 tribals and injuring 11 to 22. The Government blamed the PWG for this incident. From 1979 to 1988, MCC focused on Bihar. A Bihar-Bengal Special Area Committee was established. The Preparatory Committee for Revolutionary Peasant Struggles was formed and soon Revolutionary Peasant Councils emerged. On 22 April 1980, Kondapalli Seetharamaiah formed the Peoples War Group (PWG) in Andhra Pradesh. He discarded total annihilation of ‘class enemies’ as the only form of struggle and stressed on floating mass organizations to protract the armed struggle till it is ripe for a ‘civil war’ like situation when seizure of power at the centre becomes easier during external aggression. Though, with the death of Charu Mazumdar in 1972 while in police custody the central leadership suffered a serious setback, but under provincial leadership many splinter groups were thriving in Punjab, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra. Until 1997, many front organizations to cover their clandestine underground activities were formed as a primary level for recruitment into the hard-core guerrilla fighters. The CPI (ML) Liberation, the CPI (ML) Red Flag, the CPI (ML) Unity Organisation, Mazdoor Kisan Sangram Samiti (MKSS) in Bihar, Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha, Radical Students’ Union (RSU) and Radical Youth League (RYL) in Andhra Pradesh, Indian People’s Front (IPF), All-India Dalit Conference held in Amravati (Maharashtra) in 1983, People’s Democratic Front in Assam which later became Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC), Jan Sanskriti Manch, National Women’s Convention in Calcutta in 1986, All India Central Council of Trade Union (AICCTU), All India Students Association (AISA), Janwadi Mazdoor Kisan Samiti in South Bihar as Jharkhand Mazdoor Kisan Samiti (Jhamkis), forum for Muslims called ‘Inquilabi Muslim Conference’ in Bihar, Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA) as an all-India organization of the radical youth, Tribal 81 People’s Front, Assam People’s Front, Indian Institute of Marxist Studies, the Progressive Organisation of People in AP were few of the over ground front organizations which were launched during 1987 till 1999 by the erstwhile CPI (ML) which though was never formally dissolved. The party was revived in 1974 in Bihar under the name of CPI (ML) Liberation which took the shape of struggle against the Emergency. There were further splits with Kondapalli Seetharamaiah (Andhra) and N. Prasad (Bihar) forming their own outfits. While Prasad formed CPI (ML) Unity, Seetharamaiah formed Peoples’ War Group (PWG) in 1980. PWG accused CPI (ML) Unity of imitating CPI (M) as “leftist revisionists”. CPI (ML) Liberation came over ground in securing electoral victory in Bihar in 1989 while PWG continued their armed struggle and gaining ground in Andhra, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. They were responsible for the killing of several public figures like TDP Minister Madhav Reddy, Congress legislator (Andhra) K. Narsa Reddy and Madhya Pradesh Minister Likhiram Kavre. They were also responsible for the attack on TDP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu in 2001 (Appexdix ). The merger of PWG with the Bihar-Jharkhand based MCC and re-christening itself as CPI Maoist in September/October 2004 has given it fierce striking power. At the same time several other splinter Naxalite movements are noticed. In Bihar State itself there were as many as 9 Groups masquerading as CPI (ML) each controlling certain areas, almost like warlord mafia. Details of these can be accessed at http:www.naxalwatch.blogspot.com Links with Neighbouring Countries Observers have noticed that this movement had established external links. Sufficient evidence was noticed on the contacts between the Nepali Maoists and 82 Indian counterparts. The incident in Madhuban (Bihar) on April 24, 2005 saw the participation of Nepalese cadres. Such reports came after some incidents in Chhattisgarh and Orissa too. The Union Home Ministry had long been reporting about the “Red Liberated Corridor”. There were indications that the PWG was successful in approaching sympathetic overseas supporters for funds. An outfit named Friends of Indian Revolution (FOIR) had been noticed. There have been talks of PWG-LTTE understanding. Similarly a South Asian organization named Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations (CCOMP) had been noticed since July 2001. It was reported that apart from the Nepalese Maoists and India PWG, there were 10 other organisations that form this group. Even today in 2015 the Naxalite-Maoists have links with the insurgent organizations active in North East and Myanmar, who have links with China. One cannot rule out the possibility of Naxalite-Maoist links with terrorist organizations, through mechanism of drug smuggling, weapon smuggling, hawala operations and so on. Period of Heightened Militancy (1987-1991) Left wing extremism had picked up momentum after 1986 both in terms of incidence of violence and also in the incremental growth in open activities aimed at mass mobilization. The Peoples War Group (PWG) in AP and Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in Bihar have been responsible not only for most of the extremist violence but also for the most sensational and gruesome incidents. Andhra Pradesh The PWG stepped up violence in a significant manner in 1987. The nation was shocked and vulnerability of the State Government exposed when the PWG 83 kidnapped seven IAS officers on December 27 1987 at Pulimetta village in the East Godavari district and obtained in exchange release of their eight comrades held in custody. Two of the abducted officers included a Principal Secretary of the Government and the district Magistrate of the East Godavari district. Not only did the incident gave national and international publicity to the Naxalites but it came to be viewed as a milestone in the chequered history of Naxalite movement. This period had also observed a qualitative change in the use of arms for annihilation.
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