The Red See-Saw

The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.

Mao Tse Tung 

Mao's dictum, ironically, as the example of the counter-insurgency (CI) response in Andhra Pradesh (AP) demonstrates, can apply equally to both 'revolutionary' andstate forces. 

AP has been a dominant locus of Left Wing Extremism (LWE, Naxalism or Maoism), for decades, well before the original'Naxalite' movement was sparked in 1967 at Naxalbari in West Bengal. It has, furthermore, been the principal source of the resurgence of the movement since the late 1970s, particularly after the formation of the Peoples War Group (PWG) in 1980, and the wellspring of ideological, strategic and tactical leadership of the movement since then, so much so that the Telengana region, the Naxalite'heartland' in northern Andhra, had become near-synonymous with the influence of the rebels. 

In the late 1990s, the PWG had ranged out of its North Telengana heartland to execute an ambitious strategy of expansion across the entirestate--and across state borders, into the neighbouring states of Orissa and (then) Madhya Pradesh. Every one ofAP's 23 districts is afflicted by Maoist activities, with 12 districts falling into the'highly affected' category, seven 'moderately affected' and the remaining 4 'marginallyaffected'. 

The state, with occasional politically engineered variations--as in the disastrous'peace talks' of 2004--has long accounted for a bulk of all LWE-related fatalities (civilian, securityforces and LWE cadres). As recently as 2006, the state accounted for 147 of a total of 463 (31.75 per cent) LWE-related fatalities in the country; in 2005, this number was 320 of 717 (44.63 per cent). The numbers were often much worse in earlier years, with 508 fatalities in thestate in 1998, and 483 in 1992, the worst years on record for LWE violence in AP. These numbers dropped to just 41 out of 463 in year 2007 (8.86 per cent, till September 13).

On their own admission, the Maoists have been forced into a phase of'tactical retreat' in AP, and Communist Party of India--Maoist (CPI-Maoist) Central Committee documents recovered in July-August 2007 note:

We began to suffer losses soon after the breakdown of talks in 2004. Fortification of all police stations, multilayered in many cases, in all our areas of armed struggle is making it difficult to inflict serious losses on our enemy. We did not adopt the correct tactics to counter the enemy offensive in time. We suffered the heaviest losses in Andhra Pradesh part [i.e., Rayalaseema, the extensive Nallamala forest and south Telangana] during the enemy's action plan since November 2005. This led to a gradual decline of the movement, finally resulting in a temporary setback in the state as a whole. 

The period after the breakdown of talks has been devastating for the Maoists in AP. Police sources indicate that the talks had created the opportunity for a radical expansion of the Maoist armed cadres in thestate, from an estimated 650 before the unilateral ceasefire declared by the stategovernment, rising to over 1100 by the time the talks collapsed. A little over two years later, these numbers have shriveled to under 400. 

Maoist fatalities over the 2005-2007 period have totaled 316 (2005: 167; 2006: 122; 2007: 27, till September 13), but it is the arrests and, crucially, the surrenders, that have been infinitely more devastating to insurgent morale. Partial data for year 2007 alone indicates as many as 428 Maoists arrested and 138 surrendered. Further, as a matter of deliberate policy, Police action has been focused on the rebel leadership and on active cadres, and not on the wider support base, or those who may be coerced into cooperation with the Maoists. 

Among those killed in 2007, for instance, is Sendhe Rajamouli aka Prasad/Krishna/Murali, a member of the CPI-Maoist Central Military Commission andState Secretary for Karnataka, who was killed on June 22, 2007, in Anantpur district. Rajamouli ranked second in the Maoist hierarchy, just below Party General Secretary, Muppala Lakshmana Rao aka Ganapathi. Similarly, Settiraju Papaiah aka Venkataramana/Somanna, a member of the North Telengana Special Zonal Committeee, was killed in the Medaram Forest of Warangaldistrict on July 1, 2007. 

These killings came in the wake of a slew of Police successes in 2006, which claimed Madhav aka Gurra Chenniah, APstate Committee Secretary; Chandramouli, member of the Central Committee; Telugu Pochaiah aka Venu, the Nallamala Area Committee member; Madhu, the Karimnagar (East Division) Committee Secretary and Cherukuri Rattaiah, a Committee member; among a large number of other dalam and local commanders. 

Among those arrested in 2007, there are at least three State Committee members and twodistrict Committee Secretaries. Most alarming for the Maoists has been the surrender of a number of top leaders, including Naganna and Thota Kumaraswamy aka'Tech Madhu', long-term and committed cadres whose contribution to the movement was well recognized.

The fiercest contest in the 2005-07 period occurred in the Nallamalla Forest area, spanning approximately 13,000 square kilometres across parts of fivedistricts in Central AP--Kurnool, Mahabubnagar, Nalgonda, Guntur, and Prakasam. Under sustained pressure in their Telengana heartland at the turn of the millennium, the then PWG leadership had begun to shift attention to this dense forest region as a safe haven and command centre, and by 2003, had secured a significant concentration in the area. The'peace talks' period, commencing May 2004, came as a boon for the Maoists across thestate, and an intensive effort of recruitment and political mobilisation ensued. 

The opportunities of this phase, however, also created extraordinary vulnerabilities, and the latter were assiduously exploited by the Police andstate intelligence apparatus. As many of the top Maoist leaders and cadres began to move overground, to mobilize support and to recruit cadres, anonymity was lost, and discipline and established constraints were eroded, augmenting opportunities for intelligence penetration. 

Significantly, the Police and intelligence apparatus remained highly active throughout the ceasefire period, trained continuously, consolidated the strengths and capacities ofdistrict forces, and passed on the operational lessons of successful campaigns in the Telengana region toforces operating in Nallamalla. The result was that, when the talks collapsed, thestate's response capacities were excellent, and information flows were high--though familiarity with the ground within the forest areas was poor and theoretical. 

Consequently, there were some initial setbacks, when it was found that available information and maps did not reflect ground situations in sufficient details, resulting in difficulties for the small units that were deployed to seek contact and engage with the Maoists. Within a year, however, every pocket within the Nallamalla Forest area had been covered, including some in the most difficult terrain, creating a comprehensive knowledge base for operations. 

More significantly, Police outreach programmes reinforced public disenchantment with the Maoists--who had successfully projected a'Robin Hood' image in early stages, but had progressively lost popular support--and information flows from the people enabled focused operations against hardcore targets. At the same time, a conscious decision was taken not to act against those who were on the periphery of the movement, providing food, safe haven or other services, which did not directly threaten public security or lives, often under threat from the Maoists. 

The result was a series of military successes, including large numbers of arrests and surrenders which yielded additional and crucial information flows, and encouraged further public cooperation as the general confidence in Police capabilities improved. The result was that the Nallamalla Forest, which accounted for well over a third of the total Maoist armed strength of 1,100 in AP in early 2005, now has no more than 60-70 armed cadres dispersed across the area, with the entire top leadership of the Party relocating outside thestate, particularly in the Andhra-Orissa Border (AOB) and Dandakaranya (DK) Special Zones, especially the Bastar Region, including the Abujhmadh Forest, of neighbouring Chhattisgarh. 

The gains in AP are the consequence of sustained and focused Police responses--which contrast dramatically with the floundering incompetence encountered in other Maoist afflictedstates--and of institutional capacities that have evolved systematically over the past decades, to crystallize into a model of decisive engagement with what isIndia's most strategically and tactically innovative anti-state movement. They have, moreover, been secured despite significant manpower constraints, and within exactly the same national policy environment on police management, modernization and upgradation, and the national policy vacuum on counter-insurgency (CI) and counter-terrorism (CT), that the otherstates operate under.

It is useful to note that the Andhra Pradesh Police-population ratio, like that of other Maoist-affectedstates, was well below the national average, at just 99 per 100,000 in 2004, slipping to 98 per 100,000 in 2005, as against a national average of 123 and 122, respectively, in these years. According to the Bureau of Police Research and Development data, significant recruitment has pushed this ratio up to 114 per 100,000, as against a national average of 143 per 100,000 in 2006--and while this is quite healthy in comparison to some of the other main Maoist-affectedstates [Bihar: 79; Orissa: 100] it lags well behind some of the worst responders [Chhattisgarh: 134; Jharkhand: 164 in 2006], and is also well below international norms, such as the UN recommended minimum ratio at 1:850 or 222 per 100,000 population. 

The difference has been imaginative leadership, a succession of Police commanders who have not allowed the experiences of past campaigns to be forgotten, or past gains to be dissipated, continuously building strategic and tactical capabilities against a coherent assessment of the Maoist threat and a detailed understanding of Maoist ideologies, strategies and tactics--once again, contrasting significantly with the patterns of denial, incomprehension, indeed, stupidity, that characterize the orientation, not only of other affectedstates, but substantially of the Centre as well.

It is not possible, here, to document in detail the various dimensions ofstate response that have contributed to the striking successes in AP, but the operationalisation of the largest possible component of availableforces, a high measure of efficiency in deployment and use, force modernization and the continuous upgradation of technical, technological and operational capabilities lie at the core of the process of sustained adaptation to the evolving Maoist challenge. 

The raising of the Greyhounds in 1989, and the subsequent performance of this elite counter-insurgent and jungle warfare Force has been widely noticed and rightly appreciated. What is less known is the enveloping environment of Policing within AP, within which the Greyhounds operate. The Greyhounds do not exist in a vacuum, or in the context of the kind of degraded Policing systems that prevail in otherstates, but in a system where capacities of response have been reinforced at every level--down to each Police Station and Police Post in thedistricts. 

In addition to the Greyhounds operating in response to specific information across thestate, each District Superintendent of Police maintains several Special Teams--ordinarily seven or eight, but up to twenty in some cases--for CI operations within thedistrict Police command structure. No Police Station or Post has been left vulnerable to attack, and it is noticeable that not a single such target has come under the pattern of'swarming attacks' by combinations of Maoist armed cadres and militia that are occurring with increasing frequency in otherstates since 2004 

The creation of widely dispersed, decentralized capacities of response in thedistricts has not only yielded significant operational successes within the districts, it has created a general environment in which the movement of Maoist armed cadre has become increasingly difficult, and large group attacks virtually impossible, across thestate. Indeed, at one time, every major Police success would meet immediate retaliatory operations by the Maoists. Continuous studies of the sources of such retaliation, as well as the general augmentation of Police capacities, have so completely eroded Maoist cadres and command structures that such retaliation has become rare and at least occasionally, counterproductive, as in the case of the killing of the mother of a Sub-Inspector of Police, which provoked mass public revulsion. 

Crucially, there has been tremendous cooperation between the district Police, thestate Intelligence Bureau, the Greyhounds, and the senior-most levels of the statePolice command, which has cut response time to a minimum, and maximized response impact.

Despite these several gains, however, the threat of the Maoists in Andhra Pradesh is far from over. The rebels retain significant operational capacities in fourdistricts of the state the AOB region, and these are reinforced by the soft stateborders and safe havens they enjoy in the neighbouring states. The AOB region occurs at the trijunction of threestates--AP, Orissa and Chhattisgarh, within a wide swathe of hilly jungles. Active cooperation with the Orissa Police, and some joint operations across the Andhra-Orissa Border, have made the operating environment difficult for the Maoists. 

However, there is a measure of impunity along the Chhattisgarh border, as thestate is yet to deploy an effective Force or strategy to engage with the Maoists, and offers little assistance to APforces against Naxalite operations across the state border. The AOB areas, moreover, have a harsh terrain and topography, with steep hills and dense forests, a very sparse population (many of the widely dispersed habitations consist of no more than four or five hutments), poor Police presence, and, currently, a very poor information and intelligence base. 

This is also malaria country, and illness fells more men--both among the Maoists and thestate forces--than actual conflict. Senior Police commanders, however, insist that, within a focused strategic context, these factors will work more to thestate's advantage than to that of the Maoists. As one officer noted, "Life is very difficult for both the Maoists and ourforces. But the forces have the entire machinery and infrastructure of the stateat their disposal, and we can overcome the difficulties. It is just a matter of time before we establish dominance. Already, the Maoists in the AOB region are able to execute no more than random and stray attacks. No concentrated design or calculation is visible in their operations."

The Maoists also retain significant residual capacities to inflict dramatic attacks on critical targets across AP--and the failed attack on former Chief Minister, Janardhan Reddy, on September 7, 2007, is proof of these capabilities. The seizure of vast quantities of explosives, missiles, communications equipment and other instruments of war from Maoist cadres and dumps is evidence of the vast arsenal at the disposal of the Naxalites. Moreover, theParty's continuing efforts to recruit and train armed cadres and mobilize political support are still in evidence across thestate, though these have been tremendously hampered by improved Police and intelligence penetration and dominance.

Rattled by the attack on Janardhan Reddy, as well as by the succession of Islamist terrorist bombings in thestate capital, Hyderabad, senior Police sources indicate that the state governmenthas approved the immediate recruitment of an additional 13,000 personnel into the Police--with a provision for further augmentation to 20,000, if the need is felt--principally to expand the Armed Reserves and the Intelligence capacities of the Police. At nearly 15 per cent of the existingforce of 91,000 (in 2006), and complemented by a range of administrative, technical and technological force multipliers, this will constitute a tremendous surge in response capabilities. 

Nevertheless, it is useful to recall that the AP Police has won many victories in the past, and has repeatedly cleared major areas of thestate, only to see the movement revive after a while, under the shadow of political and administrative neglect, or of active political mischief, particularly when elections are around the corner.