Unprincipled Peace

The dangers of incoherence in India's counter-insurgency policy are once again in evidence. As state governments - encouraged by thecentre - engage in a 'peace process' with particular groups in one state, thesame groups use the opportunities of the 'ceasefire' to extend operations to virgin territories, even as theyconsolidate activities in areas of current domination. This is a pattern witnessed again and again - but onethat fails to register in the minds of India's political leaders.

Immediately after assuming power in Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy's government announced an 'unofficial' suspension of operations against the Naxalites of the People's War Group (PWG), onMay 16, 2004, a move that was confirmed by an 'official ceasefire' on June 16, 2004. With the pressure off inAndhra Pradesh, the PWG has now shifted attention to neighbouring Karnataka, with a suddenly intensified focuson the 'socio-economic problems' of the tribals in the areas around the Kudremukh National Park (KNP).

As they expand into this virgin territory, the Western Ghats (hill areas) of Karnataka are fast emerging as anew base for Naxalites. Training camps and village meetings are being organized, unemployed youth are beingrecruited, and pamphlets protesting the eviction of tribals by the government have been widely distributedwithin a campaign for political mobilisation. With an adequate armoury of weapons including 8 mm rifles,single or double-barrel breech loading guns and hand grenades, besides a abundant supply of ammunition, their'influence' is becoming rapidly entrenched in the region. These developments were brought to light in June2004, when the Naxalites invited a group of journalists to highlight their demands. During this interaction,the 'Secretary' of the Karnataka Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI-ML) People's War (PW) state Committee, Prem, disclosed that the committee had decided to form armed squads in thestate in May 2002. Thisbecame 'necessary', he argued, as the state, through its Police Force, began a series of 'repressive measures'against the local people. The people - tribals, farmers and daily wage agriculturists - were targeted becausethey opposed the government's plans to evict them from the KNP.

The 'Secretary' of the Karnataka CPI-ML-PW state Committee also demanded that the government immediately endeviction of the tribals from the KNP in Chikamagalur district, put an end to combing operations by the Policeand disband the Rapid Action Force, which was formed to track down its cadres.

The PWG had earlier established an incipient presence in the eastern part of the state - in Raichur andGulbarga - but was shifting base from these areas because of their vulnerability, both from Karnataka andAndhra Pradesh, as these areas did not provide any natural cover to escape Police operations. On August 27,1999, the Raichur rural Police had killed PWG leader Bhaskar while three others managed to escape. In anotherincident, Naxalite leader Ramesh had been arrested in May 2001.

The PWG's thrust into the Western Ghats of Karnataka, once again, exploits the failures, indeed, follies, ofthe state. It is the continued neglect of the tribals in the KNP area by successive governments that havecreated the conditions for the easy entry of the Naxalites. Kudremukh was declared National Park under subsection (1) of section 35 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, on September 2, 1987, by the state governmentfor the protection of the highly endangered species in the forests, including the Malabar Civet, the kingcobra and the flying lizard.

In 1998, the state government started issuing notices to the tribals to quit the national park area withouteven providing an opportunity for public hearings. The Forest Department joined the efforts of the RevenueDepartment to evict farmers and tribals from the KNP area, imposing fines for 'encroaching' on government landand warning them that if they did not leave the Park, they would be treated on par with poachers.

This intensified the series of agitations which have, in fact, been initiated and sustained over the past 10years by young members of over 1,350 families that had dwellings in the newly earmarked KNP area inBelthangady taluk (administrative division), and who had been under sustained pressure as a result of theForest Department's moves to evict them. The discontent among the tribals is now being well exploited by theNaxalites.

The Naxalites have established four armed groups - Tunga, Bhadra, Netravathi and Hemavati - in the affectedMalnad Region, covering four districts. Each group or dalam has 15 to 16 members each, and these areoperating in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Chikmagalur, and Shimoga districts. Sources indicate that some 50 'hardcore' elements, owing allegiance to the PWG, are operating in Karnataka. In addition, reports available withthe state Home Department indicate that the PWG has established three tiers in the state - the People'sGuerilla Army (PGA), Local Guerrilla Army (LGA) andStriking Guerrilla Army (SGA), besides the dalams. The state Committee of the PWG has five members andfour District Committees (DCs) - Perspective Area DC, Bangalore DC, Shimoga DC and Uttara Kannada DC.

The movement of Naxalites in the Malnad areas had been noticed by the predecessor S.M. Krishna government,and, in response, a Rs. 600 million rehabilitation scheme had been announced in November 2003 to treat thesocio-economic problems arising out of poverty and lack of basic amenities for those living in the forestareas. In addition, as a direct counter-insurgency measure, the authorities had planned to involve villagersin combing operations through Grama Rakshana Samitis (Village Defense Committees, VDCs) but neither ofthese initiatives has materialized so far. Although the present Karnataka Chief Minister, N. Dharam Singh, hasruled out a cease-fire or cessation of Police operations against the Naxalites, he has expressed interest inpursuing a negotiated solution. He continues, nevertheless, to reiterate that the state government would dealwith Naxalite violence as a 'law and order problem' and act accordingly.

It is significant that the socio economic conditions prevailing in the Malnad region are not quite as seriousas the PWG projects them to be. In fact, the PWG had conducted a survey called 'SOCOMA' (social conditions inMalnad) in the early 1990's to assess whether conditions in the Western Ghats were conducive to the expansionof the Naxalites' base in the region. The survey, however, found that there was no acute poverty in theregion, though class divisions did exist. Nevertheless, the PWG leadership decided to expand its operationinto the area for 'strategic' reasons, and began to highlight the eviction issue in order to secure thesympathy of the local tribals. This is, in fact, the only issue available for exploitation in the region.

It is useful to recall, in this context, that when the Chandrababu Naidu government initiated peace talks withthe extremists in Andhra Pradesh in 2002, Jharkhand had witnessed a dramatic rise in violence. This time, itappears that the opportunities of peace are to be exploited in Karnataka.

The infirmity of a policy of selective negotiations with the Naxalites is demonstrated elsewhere as well. InJharkhand, while the PWG has evinced interest in peace talks with the government, its ally, the MaoistCommunist Centre (MCC) - with whom the PWG isengaged in 'unification talks' - has opposed any such move. To demonstrate its displeasure at the peaceinitiatives in Jharkhand, MCC activists killed six Jharkhand Armed Police personnel, including an assistantsub-inspector, in a landmine explosion near Rania in the Ranchi district on June 22. The MCC is alsoconducting intensive training programmes and efforts to cement their base in the West and East SinghbhumDistricts in the state.

Violence and consolidation activities by Naxalites in other states have also continued uninterrupted. Mostrecently, in Bihar, two persons were gunned down and seven kidnapped by the MCC in the Gaya district on July9; and a police picket was attacked at Simrahni in Champaran district on July 14. In Chhattisgarh, MCC cadreskilled and dismembered the body of a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Sarguja district onJuly 12. In Uttar Pradesh, the MCC killed two guards at a stone crushing company in Chahawan on June 30.

In Andhra Pradesh itself, while the government considers lifting the nine-year ban on the PWG, the group hasintensified its mobilization drive after the withdrawal of state para-military forces from operational duties.Torchlight rallies, recruitment parades and praja darbars (people's courts) have been held across wideareas, including villages such as Bellamkonda, Dachepalli, Veidurthy, and Bollapalli. The PWG has explicitlyrejected Chief Minister Reddy's appeal that its armed cadres should confine themselves to forest areas,asserting that the organization has 'every right to propagate its ideology'.

It should be evident that the Naxalite problem - which has seen a galloping expansion over the past decade -cannot be solved through piecemeal talks in individual states. Apart from the fundamental difficulty that theNaxalites have systematically exploited negotiations as a tactic for consolidation and expansion, and even ona presumption of good faith on their part, holding peace talks in one state, while combing operations arecarried out in another, can hardly produce positive results against a movement that shows extraordinary unityof ideology and purpose across the entire span of its influence. This has at least been acknowledged byJharkhand Chief Minister, Arjun Munda, who noted that "the affected states should come together toaddress the issues of Left Wing extremism… talking to a single group will not solve the problem."

Regrettably, no such unified effort is in evidence. The Central Coordination Committee (CCC) of Naxaliteaffected states headed by the Union Home Ministry has met twice to discuss the Naxalite problem, but has notbeen able to evolve any comprehensive strategy to tackle the Naxalite threat in various theaters.

Worse, utter confusion currently appears to prevail in the perspectives of the various state governments, witha clear division between those who support a ceasefire and negotiations, and those who have predicated such aprocess on a cessation of criminal activities by the PWG. While Jharkhand's Munda and Chhattisgarh's Dr. RamanSingh have welcomed the peace talks in Andhra Pradesh and evinced interest in replicating the experiment intheir states, Karnataka's Dharam Singh has ruled out any cessation of police operations. Naveen Patnaik ofOrissa, on the other hand, has maintained a position of studied ambiguity, while Bihar, Madhya Pradesh,Maharashtra, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh have remained completely silent on the matter. The CPI-ML has nowindicated that it is "not averse to" negotiations with other state governments, provided "theygive up their repressive measures. "

Security and intelligence sources, however, believe that this is just another turn of the wheel in acontinuous and ruinous policy cycle, which squanders the operational gains of years of struggle by securityforces, and creates opportunities for Naxalite consolidation and expansion. This has been substantiallyconfirmed by Buchanna, a recently surrendered PWG guerrilla squad leader, who asserted "Obviously the (PWG's)demands will not be acceptable to any government and the talks are bound to fail," and that the talkswere only intended to 'buy time to regroup'. Nevertheless, this devastating cycle has been repeated by governmentafter government in the affected states, inevitably with the same outcome, and is based on acomplete misunderstanding of the ideological coherence of the Naxalite movement, which has never displayedsigns of dilution or revision that could make what is rejected as 'petty bourgeois democracy' an acceptableoption.