Left-Wing Extremism

Accounting for 27 per cent of the total fatalities in Indiaduring 2006, Left Wing extremism constitutes what Prime Minister Dr. ManmohanSingh rightly described as the "single biggest internal securitychallenge" confronting the country. The Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist),today, exercises dominance over a large swathe of the country’s territory, andcarries out attacks on security forces and symbols of governance at will.Chhattisgarh has now emerged as one of the principal centres of a co-ordinatedMaoist movement. Indeed, with 361 fatalities in 2006, Chhattisgarh is the mostviolent state after Jammu and Kashmir. While the number of Maoist-affected states in the country is currently pegged at 14, the movement has demonstratedthe intent and potential to spread across the length and breadth of the country.The Maoist threat has now overtaken all other insurgencies in the country – atleast from the perspective of geographical spread, with various levels of Maoistmobilisation and violence currently afflicting at least 165 districts in 14 states. Over the past years, moreover, while fatalities in various otherinsurgencies have tended to decline consistently, fatalities related to theMaoist conflict have continuously augmented.

A total of 742 persons died in Maoist-related violence acrossthe country in 2006, up from 717 in 2005. Chhattisgarh in 2006 emerged as theworst affected state – dramatically displacing Andhra Pradesh – and theDantewada district was by far the worst off within the state.

According to the Union Home Ministry’s Status Paper onInternal Security, the marginal increase in casualties of civilians is mainlydue to high violence levels in Chhattisgarh and to some extent in Jharkhand. Thepaper noted that, "Chhattisgarh alone accounts for 49.30 per cent of totalincidents and 59.80 per cent of total casualties in the current year."There is, however, no assessment of the reasons for the decline in violence inother states – other than Andhra Pradesh, where focused Police action hasresulted in a flight of the Maoists – and there is reason to believe that thedecline in violence is a Maoist decision, rather than any significant gain onthe part of the state Forces. Maoist efforts are evidently and increasinglyfocused on political mobilization and consolidation over wider areas.

It is useful to recognize, within this context, that thethreat of the Maoists is "not limited to the areas of immediate violence,nor does this threat vanish if violence is not manifested at a particularlocation for a specific period of time. It is in the complex processes ofpolitical activity, mass mobilisation, arms training and military consolidationthat the Maoist potential has to be estimated." Significantly, theCPI-Maoist has established "Regional Bureaus across a mass of nearlytwo-thirds of the country's territory, and these regions are further sub-dividedinto state, special zonal and special area committee jurisdictions, where theprocesses of mobilisation have been defined and allocated to local leaders. Thisstructure of organisation substantially reflects current Maoist plans, but doesnot exhaust their perspectives or ambitions. There is further evidence ofpreliminary activity for the extension of operations to new areas includingGujarat, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Meghalaya, beyondwhat is reflected in the scope of the regional, zonal and state committees." Maoists have also articulated a new strategy to target urbancentres in their "Urban Perspective Document", drawing up guidelinesfor "working in towns and cities", and for the revival of amobilization effort targeting students and the urban unemployed. Two principal'industrial belts' have been identified as targets for urban mobilisation:Bhilai-Ranchi-Dhanbad-Calcutta and Mumbai-Pune-Surat-Ahmedabad. Union HomeMinister Shivraj Patil told the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) onDecember 5, 2006, that Maoists were now planning to target importantinstallations in major cities of India. Patil said "Like forests providesafe hideouts to Naxalites in tribal areas, the cities also provide them cover.Taking advantage of this, they plan to target major installations incities."

The Maoist menace continues to expand, except where it hasbeen confronted by coherent use of force – as is presently and substantiallythe case in Andhra Pradesh, where area domination exercise under the leadershipof the local Police, backed by the armed reserve forces and the Grey Hounds, anda well-developed intelligence network, have succeeded in beating back theNaxalites to a large extent, and have forced their leadership into flight. TheAndhra Pradesh Police has long prepared for this confrontation and hasconsistently developed its capacities to engage with the Maoists in their‘strongholds’, though it has been repeatedly inhibited by politicalconstraints from effective action. These constraints appear, for the moment, tohave been lifted.

Other states, however, remain far from prepared. Indeed, aconsistent feature across all the major Maoist-affected states is that they haveextraordinarily poor policing capacities. As against a national average of 122police personnel per 100,000 population, and some peaceful states with ratios ashigh as 854/100,000 (Mizoram) and 609/100,000 (Sikkim), Bihar has just 57,Jharkhand – 85, Chhattisgarh – 103 and Orissa – 90, and even AndhraPradesh, just 98 per 100,000 population. Worse, there is ample evidence thatlarge proportions of the Central allocation for police modernisation andup-gradation remain unspent or are being diverted or mis-spent. Utilization offunds has been particularly poor over the years in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, MadhyaPradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.