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Mercury Rising: India's Looming Red Corridor

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Mercury Rising: India's Looming Red Corridor Number 123 October 03, 2008 Mercury Rising: India’s Looming Red Corridor Sukanya Banerjee Sukanya Banerjee is a former research intern with the South Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C In 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cited terrorism and the Naxalite insurgency as the single greatest threats to India’s security. Rebels from the 40-year-old Naxal movement have established themselves in a swath of territory stretching from the eastern state of Chhattisgarh down to the jungles of Kerala, in an attempt to create a Maoist-controlled corridor of power. The government is trying to raise an elite force to supplement state forces and combat a growing insurgency that threatens economic investment, energy supplies, and the lives of civilians and law enforcement officials. Taking No Prisoners: In July 2008, Naxalite insurgents ambushed and killed 34 members of an elite paramilitary force from Andhra Pradesh, pushing the insurgency into the forefront of India’s national news. Earlier this year, militants raided a police post at Noigarh in Orissa, killed 13 policemen and fled with a huge cache of arms, including AK-47s and light machine-guns. Police forces also confiscated nearly 2,076 rounds of ammunition, 80 detonators and other weaponry in a jungle in Karnataka at the end of July. The past two years have been bloody ones. According to a report issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, 696 deaths were reported in 1,565 incidents in 2007. The states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa together accounted for 80 per cent of total incidents and over 75 percent of the deaths. Most of the attacks were aimed at police officers and local administrators, and bombs targeted and weakened critical infrastructure projects. Their most dramatic assassination attempts were aimed at former Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu, and Janardhan Reddy in 2003 and 2007, respectively. They failed, but the attacks symbolized the growing danger posed by the movement. From Naxalbari to terrorist outfit: This insurgency traces its origins back to 1967, when a group of rebels lead by Charu Mazumdar staged an uprising to protest the seizure of peasant land by local landlords in Naxalbari in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. The state government responded brutally by crushing any sympathizers to the cause. Mazumdar died in police custody, and the loss of his leadership left the movement fragmented. The action shifted from West Bengal to its neighboring states, and splinter movements in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Assam began to gain steam after 1977. The base of Naxalite support came from the tribal and rural poor who were fighting for equitable land rights and land reform policies. Uniting Behind a Cause: In 2004 the two biggest sections of the movement, the People’s War Group (PWG) and the Maoist Communist Center (MCC), combined to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Their goal was to create a Compact Revolutionary Zone stretching from Nepal to Andhra Pradesh that would ease Naxal movements throughout the country and create a separate zone of governance. The Maoists do not believe the political process can forward their cause, and instead choose to use hit-and-run attacks to undermine local and state institutions. The group has no affiliation with CPI (Marxist), the largest Communist political party in India. The rebels reject participation in elections or involvement with any established government, as the state is seen as ineffectual and ignorant to the needs of the poor. Land use is a particular issue. Poverty Factor: Naxalite movements are now active in more than 150 districts across 13 states that include Orissa, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Uttar Pradesh, with smaller operations in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. According to 2004-2005 figures from the Government of India, in at least four of these states, more than 40 percent of the rural population lives below the poverty line, while the national average stands at approximately 28 percent. Most of the support for Naxalism is provided by dalits (former “untouchables”) and tribal people, known as adivasis. Dalits have been discriminated against for centuries due to their lower status in the caste system, and despite laws to counteract injustice, they lack access to quality education and opportunities for upward social mobility. Many of the 84 million adivasis, or tribal people, in India (according to 2001 census) also feel isolated from the mainstream populace. Most live in rural parts of the country, especially in states where the Naxalite movement is strong. The rates of illiteracy and infant mortality are far higher than the national percentages calculated for other castes. Losing land and homes: One of the central slogans for the Naxalite movement centers on the right of the tiller to own his land. According to government figures, 64 percent of the scheduled castes participate in agriculture, but 40 percent either do not own land or control less than an acre of land. While land reform has been attempted by the government on several occasions, it has had little impact on large landowners. Instead, as Naxalites establish parallel government structures, they enforce land redistribution policies and promote village projects that strengthen infrastructure. In addition, Naxalites blame corporate and government development in forest areas and the establishment of special economic zones for the displacement of millions of tribal families from their long-standing homes. One scholar is cited in a report to the Indian Home Ministry as estimating that 60 million have been displaced since India became independent. According to a recent study, tribals represent only 8 percent of the total population, but constitute 40 percent of the people displaced by investment projects. Mining and irrigation plans in Orissa, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh may threaten the very existence of these tribes. Heavily Armed: Combating the Naxalite movement has not been easy. According to a report by the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, the Naxalites have collected more than 20,000 weapons, primarily in the form of rifles and rocket launchers. They have used improvised explosive devices in some of their attacks, and use underground arms networks to buy Kalashnikovs and M-16s. They are believed to have underground arms manufacturing plants in the jungles in Bihar, Jharkhand, and Orissa. Most of the arms collected by the Naxalites are looted from security forces. The organizations may also use external arms networks and gain training from extremist outfits such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka and the United Liberation Force of Assam (ULFA). Sriprakash Jaiswal, Minister of State for Home Affairs, said in a report to Parliament in March that the Naxalites have built up a 600 million rupee, or $15 million, war chest over the course of the past two years to purchase weapons and explosives. They raise money through extortion of government- contracted workers, politicians, and investment project developers. The most money is raised by levying taxes on tendu pata, the leaves used to roll unfiltered Indian cigarettes known as beedis. An uneven law enforcement response: So far, the most effective group fighting the guerillas has been the Greyhound paramilitary force in Andhra Pradesh, the group whose members were ambushed in July 2008. Established in 1989 and trained in counterinsurgency tactics, this elite force of 8,000 to 10,000 troops participates in interstate activities to aid and train state police forces in jungle combat operations. 2 Local police forces in other Naxalite-affected areas have been ineffective at facing guerilla tactics and lack the necessary familiarity with the hinterlands. In some areas, they are outgunned. In a 2005 survey, 235 of the 395 constables appointed and trained at the Jharkhand Armed Police Training Centre were unable to fire their weapons accurately during routine exercises. According to a Stratford report, local police do not have established ties to villagers or tribals and rarely venture into Naxalite controlled areas. The 2007 India Assessment conducted by the Institute for Conflict Management concluded that much of the money distributed by the central government to states to increase local law enforcement efforts is misspent or diverted, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. A Civil War Erupts: The state of Chhattisgarh has seen a sharp rise in violence. The lack of positive economic development for tribal people and the destruction of the natural environment have sown seeds of discontent in the state for decades. Health, education and infrastructure have also been neglected. In May, the Maoists declared a parallel government in the state, including ministries of education and agriculture. They administer retributive justice in the areas they control through jan adalat, or people’s courts, that empower local people to decide on violent punishments for crimes. The state supports the Salwa Judum, a paramilitary force that attempts to reestablish control, but its responses have only served to increase bloodshed. According to the Asian Centre for Human Rights, the group has perpetrated violent crimes against civilians and Naxalites alike, and the clashes between state forces and Naxalites have uprooted more than 45,000 tribal people. Civilians have been marched to government camps where conditions are described to be “deplorable,” lacking access to adequate shelter, food, or clean water. In March, the Indian Supreme Court declared its disapproval of the Salwa Judum and called for an independent investigation into the formation and actions of the group. Comprehensive Strategy Needed: Government officials have constantly argued that using armed force alone against the rebels is not enough. A more holistic development-based approach must be taken to address the grievances and economic insecurities faced by peasants and dalits supporting the movement.
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