The failure of the Central and state governments to check Maoist violence ought to convince them that, side by side with defensive police action, the basic causes of this malady, such as, poverty, hunger, social injustice and land alienation need to be remedied urgently. This is not the time to quibble about how the threat is graded, but it is clear that the mounting violence needs to be taken seriously and tackled as such. The Prime Minister has, on several occasions, urged the states to pool their resources to crush the leftist rebellion that "threatens the very idea of India". He must also strongly warn the states against the unsavory consequences of delaying agrarian reforms, administrative apathy and social injustice, provide gainful employment to people dispossessed of their lands to make way for industrial projects and ensure equitable development.
The conclave of Chief Ministers whenever Maoists violence spurts has become a sort of ritual, with the participants indulging in the blame game, complaining of lack of resources and intelligence and of coordination while deciding on industrial projects and granting mining leases. These meetings often end up with the customary declaration reiterating their resolve to fight the menace with seriousness of purpose and the centre promising deployment of more of its police forces when needed and providing funds for increasing the strength of their police forces and giving them sophisticated arms to match those of the terrorists. Practically very little has been done on the ground to tackle the causes and to prevent aggrieved, frustrated and jobless people from swelling the ranks of the outlaws.
It is not that the causes of the terror strikes are not known to the authorities, but are conveniently brushed aside under pressure of vested interests among landowners and industrialists for whom prime agricultural and forest lands are acquired for setting up industries, without adequate compensation and by depriving the landless of their only source of living. The landless are left to fend for themselves, the tribals are displaced from areas where they have been foraging for forest produce for centuries and managed to survive. There is none to take care of them and administrative, as well as, political apathy makes them rebellious and drives them into the waiting arms of the Maoists, who provide food, money and weapons and urge them to take revenge on their tormentors.
The Government's response has been bureaucratic. The four layers of administration have proved ineffective in tackling the problem at the roots and now a fifth one too has been established - a task force to be chaired by the Cabinet Secretary to ensure consideration across a range of development and security activities to tackle the menace. It needs to be understood that if serious efforts are not made to address the problems facing the country's 84 million tribals, Maoists and religious organizations will get hold of them and indoctrinate them through teaching ideological and religious extremism and regional chauvinism. Often police action and administrative injustices give rise to rebellion and the state's immediate response is police action and repression. Actually, the response should be in the form of more schools, health care facilities, roads, rural credit job-creating schemes, market access and social welfare measures in areas which have no electricity, roads and safe drinking water facilities. Some innocent persons interrogated and tortured by the police now to take revenge and extremism is the only route they think of.
To cover up the lapses of the Navin Patnaik Government, which seems to have lost all touch with the people and their problems, the use of Air Force helicopters was ordered to track and gun down the fleeing rebels who, after killing 15 policemen had also run away with a huge cache of arms -- 1,000 weapons of various types including AK-47 rifles and assorted ammunition -- part of which they abandoned and was retrieved. The Chief Minister has yet to identify himself with the Orissa people, he is still in the process of learning his mother-tongue, and his attitude to governance has been superficial. He has been catering to the industrialist lobby rather than solving the problems of the people who also happen to be the voters. He has not attended to the requirements of infrastructure and expanding his police force for which the Centre has been willing to provide funds.
Around 7,000 hosts of constables, 750 sub-inspectors and dozens of senior positions are lying vacant. It is only now that he has announced that the police vacancies will be filled expeditiously and all the police stations and armories will be fortified. About 1,300 strong Armed Police Special Security Battalions will be created to guard the fortified police stations, the strength of the Special Operation Group will be increased and five India Reserve Battalions will be created after obtaining the Centre's sanction. But it will take a while to recruit the personnel and train them for counter-insurgency operations for which facilities are almost non-existent. The new recruits will thus not be available for deployment for at least another two years.
In the other Naxal-affected state of Jharkhand, the situation is even worse. Of the 45,000 policemen in the state, one-third are without weapons which is the reason for high casualties among them in encounters with the rebels. A communications system between the headquarters at the district level and the police station is non-existent. The Maoists get all the information about police movements through their antiquated wireless system. Since tribals constitute a substantial portion of the populations of Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh and since the problems of these people have been accumulating for long, their level of resentment is also high, leading to seeking redressal by direct and violent means which alone seem to register on unresponsive administrations.
In Andhra Pradesh, however, with constitution of "Grey Hounds", the Maoists have been on the defensive and have suffered heavy casualties in encounters with the police. It is presumed that the Naxalites are now trying to spread into other states from Andhra : hence the need for greater inter-state coordination in dealing with the challenge. The leadership of the Maoists remains in the experienced hands of comrades from Andhra Pradesh including Muppala Lakshman Rao alias Ganapathi who is the party general secretary. Even though the Maoist Politburo takes the main decisions on strategy and target identification, the regional, zonal, district and squad area committees managed the cadres on their own. The basic armed unit called delam, consists of about ten guerrillas trained in the use of landmines and is capable of launching sporadic and surprise attacks. The basic source of revenue is from extortions from contractors, miners, tendu leaf traders and other forest produce collectors which goes towards meeting expenses of the cadre and partly arms purchases.
But the bulk of the arms are obtained through synchronized and massive raids on police armories, such as, the one at Nayagarh which yielded a rich haul of over 1,000 weapons. According to the reported revelations made by Misir Basra, a top-rung Maoists leader, who was arrested in Jharkhand recently, the Maoists command of over Rs. 60 crores a year to finance their operations. But, this is a gross under-estimate and the actual collections are much higher. Basra has also indicated that the ten leaders keep shifting their bases from one location to another in the affected states. At their 9th Congress held in Bheemband in Bihar, it was decided to put one urban combat team specifically to identify targets in Delhi and Haryana. They also decided to intensify activities in Chhatisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.
Maoists stepped on their activities in Orissa after Subayasachi Panda launched the Kui, an organisation or Kui tribal youths in 1996. This is actually regarded as a front for the Andhra-based people's war. The State's geographical proximity to Andhra has helped spread of Naxalism in the southern districts Malkangiri, Ganjan and Deogarh. Another reason, officially admitted by the Home Ministry, has been the growing public resentment against SEZs and special zones which have led as displacement of large populations and rendered thousands jobless.
The Maoists are quick to take advantage of such emotionally-charged situations and build a support base among the displaced population, motivating them to take recourse to "direct action". Poor low-caste and tribal people, who have limited access to the administration and judiciary, or have been denied justice by both turn to kangaroo courts set up by the ultras who enforce their own brand of justice. The Government needs to tackle the problem comprehensively, instead of taking the easy recourse to police measures of repression alone.
MK Dhar, NPA
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