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Judging by the tenor of political debate and the coverage of the media, most people think that in a fast-moving world, history has little or nothing to offer to a rational public discourse. Time and again, complex issues are placed before the public without adequate explanation of how they have come to assume their present shape, and without any hint of the possibilities that are disclosed by the record of the past. To know that the past can illuminate the contours of the present is to be better equipped to make intelligent decisions about difficult public issues. The purpose of this write up is to show how a widespread understanding of historical past of an issue or a problem might provide a starting point for a critical engagement between past and present. History is a critical resource for such an engagement for the active citizen in a representative democracy more so when s/he is a civil services aspirant. History offers two different forms of empowerment. On the one hand, it can be used to intensify the sense of belonging to a group (be it nation or community) by anchoring it securely in shared narratives of the past. On the other, it can enhance the intellectual resources available to the active citizen. It identifies the basic features of historical thinking and shows how it can be applied to contemporary concerns. The real value of history lies in equipping young people with a distinctive mode of thinking which can be critically applied to the present. Without such a perspective they will have a greatly impoverished sense of the possibilities inherent in the present; they will be unlikely able to distinguish between what is temporary and what is enduring in present circumstances; and the ongoing processes of change unfolding in our own time will be closed to them. The same applies to the issue of Naxalism which we are going to discuss in terms of its historical background.
Timeline of Leftist Ideologies, Communism and Naxalism in India
What is Naxalism or Left Wing Extremism (LWE)?
The term ‘Naxal’ derive its name from the village Naxalbari of Darjeeling district (West Bengal), as the Naxalite movement originated here in 1967 under the leadership of Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal. It refers to the use of violence to destabilize the state through various communist guerrilla groups. Naxalites are far-left radial communists who derive their political ideology from the teachings of Mao Zedong, a Chinese revolutionary leader. They have been operating in various parts of the country since the early seventies. At various points of time, different areas of the country have been seriously affected due to overt violence resorted to by Naxalite groups active in those areas. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described naxalism as the most significant threat to internal security being faced by the country today. The threat has existed since long though there have been many ups and downs.
Philosophical background of Naxalism or LWE
History has been witness to repeated occurrence of violence against the ruling elite mostly by the peasant class motivated by leftist ideologies. The ideological basis for these violent movements was provided by the writings of Marx and Engels. This ideology is community called Communism/Marxism. This was later supported by Lenin and Mao Zedong. Leftist ideologies believes that all existing social relations and state structures in an elitist/capitalist society are exploitative by nature and only a revolutionary change through violent means can end this exploitation. Marxism advocates removal of the capitalist bourgeois elements through a violent class struggle. Maoism is a doctrine that teaches to capture State power through a combination of armed insurgency, mass mobilization and strategic alliances. Mao called the process, the ‘Protracted Peoples War’. The Maoist ideology glorifies violence and, therefore, the ‘bearing of arms is non-negotiable’ as per the Moist insurgency doctrine. Maoism fundamentally considers the industrial-rural divide as a major division exploited by capitalism. Maoism can also refer to the egalitarianism that was seen during Mao’s era as opposed to the free-market ideology.
Maoism’s political orientation emphasizes the ‘revolutionary struggle of the vast majority of people against the exploiting classes and their state structure’. Its military strategies have involved guerrilla was tactics focused on surrounding the cities from the countryside, with heavy emphasis on surrounding the cities from the countryside, with heavy emphasis on political transformation through mass involvement of the lower classes of society. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’ is the key slogan of the Maoists. They mobilize large of the rural population to revolt against established institutions by engaging in guerrilla warfare. Maoism is no longer an ideological movement. Maoists are now creating a fear psychosis and denying democracy and development to tribals. Unlike the political mass movements with violent underpinnings in the border areas, Naxalites do not seek to secede from the Indian Union to establish a sovereign independent state of their own but their aim is to capture political power through armed struggle to install the so called ‘people’s government’.
The History of Naxalism
The general election of 1967, the fourth since independence, was a landmark in itself as it saw a big decline in the support for Indian National Congress. The Congress retained power at the centre but with a sizeable drop in its vote share (2-3 percentage points) as well as the number of Lok Sabha seats. It lost even more heavily in the states.
On 2nd March 1967, the first non-Congress United Front (UF) government came to power in West Bengal comprising the CPI, CPM and Bangla Congress, a breakaway group from Congress. It decided to expedite the implementation of land reforms. Harekrishna Konar, veteran CPM peasant leader, as land revenue minister announced a programme of quick distribution of surplus land among the landless and an end to eviction of sharecroppers. He also called for peasants’ initiative and organized force to assist the process of implementation. This raised expectations among the poor but also frightened many middle and small owners that their land would be given to sharecroppers. These were many problems with distribution of land; however, as much of it was under litigation, and once in office, the CPM could not ignore the legal constraints. Besides, verification of claims, adjusting of rival claims, grant of pattas, was a time-consuming process, which the party was only now about to learn. Some comrades, however, had other ideas, and had no desire to learn. Among these was the group in Naxalbari. The Naxalbari area of Darjeeling district in north Bengal had been organizing sharecroppers and tea estate labour, mostly to the Santhal, Oraon and Rajbansi tribal communities, since the 1950s. The sharecroppers worked for jotedars or landlords under the ‘adhiar’ system, in which the jotedars provided the ploughs, bullocks and seeds and got a share of the crop. Disputes over shares followed by evictions were commonplace and increased with the coming of the UF government because of the fear that sharecroppers would be given the land. Tea garden labour also often worked as sharecroppers on tea garden owners’ paddy lands, which were shown as tea gardens to escape the ceiling laws on paddy lands. Charu Mazumdar was a major leader of this area and it had been clear for some time, at least since 1965, that his ideas about agrarian revolution and armed struggle, apparently based on Mao Zedong’s thoughts, were different from the official CPM position. He not only did not believe that land reform was possible through legal methods, but argued this path only deadened the revolutionary urges of the peasants. To be politically meaningful land had to be seized and defended through violent means. To concretize their ideas, he and his associates, Kanu Sanyal and the tribal leader Jangal Santhal, organized a peasants’ conference under the auspices of the Siliguri subdivision of the CPM in Darjeeling district only sixteen days after the UF government had come to power. They gave a call for ending of landlords’ monopoly on land, land distribution through peasant committees and armed resistance to landlords, the UF government and the central government. According to some claims, all the villages were organised between April and May 1967. Around 15,000 to 20,000 peasants became full-time activities, it is said, and peasants’ committee formed in villages became the nuclei of armed guards, who occupied land, burnt land records, declared debts cancelled, delivered death sentences on hated landowners, and set up a parallel administration. Bows, arrows and spears were supplemented by whatever guns could be seized from landlords. Hatigisha, Buraganj, and Chowpukhuria under Naxalbari, Kharibari and Phansidewa police stations respectively were the reported rebel strongholds.
CPM leaders could easily see that the Naxalbari peasants were being led into a suicidal confrontation with the state, of which Communists were now a part. The CPM could not remain in the government and sanction the action of the Naxalbari comrades. Persuasion was tried first, and Harekrishna Konar went to Siliguri and, according to his version, got the leaders to agree to surrender all persons wanted by the police and to stop all unlawful activities and to cooperate in the legal distribution of land in consultation with local peasant organizations. The local leaders denied any agreement and, anticipating repression, began to incite the peasants against the police. After this, things took their predictable and inexorable course, with a vicious circle of attack on police, police reprisals, further clashes, and so on. The CPM was in an unenviable position, trying for some time to steer a middle course between support for rebels and police repression, and making further attempts further attempts at conciliation by sending a cabinet mission of the UF government. It appears from some sources that the peasants did want to negotiate, but were brushed aside by Charu Mazumdar. The CPM had to ultimately condemn and expel the dissident leaders or resign from the government. It chose the former and this triggered the process of the coming together of the Naxalbari peasants, and later in the CP (ML).
Meanwhile, repression had its effect, and by July the movement was over and most of its activists and leaders including Jangal Santhal in jail. The movement then remained only in the towns with students as its main force, and it was now increasingly characterized by street warfare between armed gangs of Naxalite and CPM or Congress youth supporters. Far cry from the romantic vision of a peasant revolution!
But in faraway Srikakulam, another group of romantic revolutionaries clamming to be inspired by Mao Zedong were about to lead another group of tribals into a suicidal confrontation with the Indian state. Srikakulam, the northernmost district in Andhra Pradesh, bordering on Orissa, was among the least developed. The local tribal population, comprising the Jatapu and Savara tribes, had been organised by Communists working in the Parvatipuram, Palakonda, Patapatnam and Kottur areas since the early 1950s. From 1957-58 to 1967, a movement that organised tribals into Girijan Sanghams and Mahila Sanghams had secured many gains, including restoration of land illegally taken over by non-tribal moneylenders and landlords, wage increases, better prices for forest produce, reduction of debts, and free access to forests for timber for construction of houses and other daily needs. Tribals had gained in self-confidence and participated in rallies in nearly towns with enthusiasm. There is no evidence that there was any push from within the tribals or Girijan (forest people) towards greater militancy or use of violence.
As in Naxalbari, extremist dissident CPM leaders, who were unhappy with the party line, decided to shift over to a line of armed struggle, guerrilla warfare, and later, much more than in Naxalbari, annihilation of individual ‘class enemies’. Inspired by Naxalbari, but ignoring its experience, the movement began well after Naxalbari had been suppressed. Beginning in November 1967, it reached an intense mass phase between November 1968 and February 1969. Girijans armed with bows and arrows and stones and sometimes crude country guns chased away police parties that came to arrest activists. Communist revolutionaries roamed the villages asking the people to form village defence squads (dalams) and get whatever arms they could. In April 1969, with the decision at the national level to form the CP (ML), a new party of extreme left activists, a fresh turn was taken with emphasis shifting from mass line to guerrilla action and individual annihilation. According to government sources, about forty-eight people were annihilated by the extremists; the rebels claimed about double that figure. These included landlords, moneylenders, and police and forest officials. Inevitably, repression too intensified from November 1969 and by January thirteen leaders were killed and several arrested. By mid-June 1970, a massive police operation was launched in which 1,400 were arrested. On 10 July 1970, V. Satyanarayana and Adibhatala Kailasam, the-two major leaders were killed, and that brought the movement to an end. Feeble attempts were made by some Maoist factions to revive the movement from 1971 onwards but, by 1975, these seem to have died out. Groups of Maoist youth continue even today in have died out. Groups of Maoist youth continue even today in remote, backward pockets, often inhabited by tribals or very poor low-caste cultivators and agricultural labourers, in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, trying to build their model of revolution. But now this effort appears to have violence as its sole motif.
The Naxalites or Maoists spread their ideology very systematically and in a systematic manner that includes the following phases:
The spread and growth of Naxalism in India can broadly be divided into three stages. The First Stage is the initial stage when the Naxalite movement began in May 1967 in the three police station areas, Naxalbari, Khoribari and Phansidewa of Darjeeling district in West Bengal. In November 1967, left wing extremists from the whole country founded the ‘All India Coordination Committee’ in Kolkata. In May 1968, the Committee was renamed as ‘All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries’. (AICCCR). It declared four ideological aims:
AICCCR founded the revolutionary party CPI Marxist-Leninist (ML) in 1969 that was based on Maoist ideology. Soon, the Naxalite movement spread to different parts of the country, especially West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. Their main followers were peasants and Adivasis, or tribals, who often experienced discrimination and exploitation from state authorities. Also, several young unemployed people and students got attracted to the Naxal ideology. The period 1970 to mid 1971 was the peak period of violent activities by Naxalites. A joint operation of people and army in 1971 in the worst affected areas in West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha led to the arrest and death of almost all top leaders of the movement. Charu Mazumdar was caught and died in 1972 in police custody. The movement faced a severe blow during emergency when around 40,000 cadres were imprisoned in 1975.
The Second Stage is the one when the movement arose again in a more violent form after the Emergency. It continued to widen it base as per the strategy of ‘protracted war’. Their base grew from West Bengal to Bihar to Odisha and also to Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. CPI (ML) was converted into People’s War Group (PWG) in 1980 which had its base in Andhra Pradesh and struck heavy causalities among police personnel. PWG was banned by Andhra Government in 1992 but it continued its activities. Simultaneously, Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) grew in strength in Bihar and carried out large scale attacks on landlords and other upper caste outfits. Naxal movement continued to grow at a steady pace across many parts of the country.
The Third Stage begins with a significant development in 2004, the People’s War Group (PWG), operating in Andhra Pradesh, and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI), operating in Bihar and adjoining areas, merged to form the CPI (Maoist). Over 13 left wing extremist (LWE) groups are currently operating in the country. The CPI (Maoist) is the major left wing extremist outfit responsible for most incidents of violence and killing of civilians and securities forces, and has been included in the Schedule of Terrorists Organizations along with all its formations and front organizations under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. After the formation of CPI (Maoist), Naxal violence has been on the rise since 2005, to the extent that in 2006, the Prime Minister had to declare Naxalism the single biggest internal security challenge being faced by India. Estimated to be 40,000 strong, the Naxalites have been a strain on the country’s security forces and a barrier to development in the vast mineral rich region in eastern India know as the ‘Red Corridor’. It is a narrow but contiguous strips passing through Jharkhand Chhattisgarh and Odisha. In fact, at the peak of Maoist movement in Nepal, influence was seen to spreading from ‘Tirupati to Pashupati’. Today, the Naxalites influence a third of the geographical spread of country. Presently, the movement has expanded its activities covering over 460 police stations in 223 districts across 20 states. But the worst affected areas of the Maoist influence include approximately 30 districts of 7 states namely Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. CPI (Maoist) has stationed some battalions in the Dandakaranya region which includes areas of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Local Panchayat leaders are often forced to resign and the Maoists hold regular Jan Adalats. They have been running a parallel government and judicial system in these areas.
But violence alone cannot be the yardstick to measure Maoist expansion. They are also expanding in terms of indoctrination and consolidation by spreading their ideology in the areas dominated by the Bhil and Gond tribes. They are trying to exploit new areas, various social groups and marginalized sections like Dalits and minorities through active association with their grievances against the state. Maoists are also making their presence felt in upper Assam and Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh. The movement’s capacity to challenge the state has also increased enormously considering the incidents of violence and causalities resulting from them. The biggest incident was ambushing of a CRPF Company in April 2010 in Dantewada district in which 76 armed CRPF personnel were killed. In 2013, they killed 27 people including high level politicians in Sukma district. The senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma, who played a crucial role in the strengthening of Salwa Judum, was also killed mercilessly in this incident.
Aims and Objectives and Modus Operandi of the Naxalites
CPI (Maoist) is the main party now after the merger of various Naxalite groups in 2004. M. Laxman Rao (Ganapati) is the Secretary General of the party. It operates through Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA). PLGA has three kinds of forces: Basic force (Gathering of intellectuals); Secondary force (Area committee plus guerrilla squads); Main force (Structured on battalion/ platoon format like the armed forces, and an intelligence unit). As of now, the strength of PLGA is around 8,000-9,000 while Jan Militia is around 38,000. Usually 40-50% of the total cadres consist of females.
The aim of the Naxalites is to destroy the legitimacy of the State and to create a mass base, with a certain degree of acceptability. The ultimate objective is to attain political power by violent means and establish what they envisage as ‘The India People’s Democratic Federal Republic’. The Naxalites predominantly attack the police and their establishments. They also attack certain types of infrastructure, like rail and road transport and power transmission, and also forcibly oppose execution of development works, like critical road construction. Naxalite activity is also manifesting itself through various civil society and front organizations on issues such as SEZ policy, land reforms, land acquisition, displacement etc., with the objective of expanding their mass base and acquiring support of some intellectual elite.
While impeding development works and challenging State authority, the Naxalites simultaneously try to derive benefit from the overall under under-development and sub-normal functioning of field institutions like police stations, tehsils, development blocks, schools primary health centres and anganwadi centres, which centres, which administer and provide serves at the ground level and also reflect the State presence and writ.
Synopsis
In 1969, the Communist Party Marxist-Leninist (ML) was formed under the leadership of Charu Majumdar. Similar parties and groups were formed in Andhra, Orissa, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Kerala. The CPI (ML) and other Naxalite groups argued that democracy in India was a sham; the Indian state was fascist and feudal. India was politically and economically dominated by US, British and Soviet imperialisms, Indian polity and economy were still colonial, the Indian revolution was still incomplete, and protracted guerrilla warfare was the form revolution would take in India. The Naxalite groups got political and ideological support from the Chinese government.
In Naxalbari village of West Bengal, CPI (ML) and other Naxalite groups succeeded in organizing armed peasant bands in some rural areas and in attacking policemen and rival communists as agents of the ruling classes. The government, however, succeeded in suppressing them and limiting their influence to a few pockets in the country. Not able to face state repression, the Naxalite soon split into several groups. But the real reason for their failure lay in their inability to root their radicalism in Indian reality, to grasp the character of Indian society and polity.
The major Naxal groups in India have been CPI, MCC, CPI (M-L) Liberation, CPI (M-L) unity organization and Peoples War Group. In 2004 PWG and MCC joined together to form Communist Party of India which is at present is main organization of all Naxalites in India. It should be noted that all Naxal groups are originated from CPI (M-L) formed in 1969. Besides violent struggle, the major characteristics of Naxal movement in India have been various splits, disintegration and reorganization and ideological backing. Many of the groups and leaders have accepted parliamentary path to social change, yet other countinues to uphold revolutionary ideology.
The Naxalites are wedded to the cult of the gun. Their worship of violence is extreme. They are a grave threat to democracy and democratic values. A democratically elected State government should tackle their challenge through a two-pronged strategy: (i) smart police work, identifying the areas where the Naxalites are active and isolating their leaders; (ii) sincerely implementing the constitutional provisions guaranteeing the land and tribal forest rights of the Adivasis and improving the delivery of health and education services to them. According to the Home Ministry of India at present there are 220 districts in 20 states affected by Naxal violence and force alone cannot solve the problem. What is needed is a two-pronged strategy as mentioned above.
By: Raghwendra Chauhan ProfileResourcesReport error
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