Two Insurgencies

Unlike anti-establishment insurgency in neighbouring Mayanmar, Maoist militancy in India continues to suffer one setback after another in recent months. Very recently 14 Maoists or Naxals as they are popularly called in the media, including one of their top-ranking leaders were killed in an encounter in Dandakaranya’s Mainpur police station area along Chattisgarh and Odisha border. Earlier dozens of Naxalites were eliminated by the security forces in Chattisgarh’s Bijapur and Union Home Minister Amit Shah vowed to eradicate ‘Maoist menace’ completely in a year. This time forces from the Gariband Operation Group E-30, COBRA 207, CRPF battalions 65 and 211 and the Special Operations Group (SOG) from Odisha’s Nuapada succeeded in killing Jayram alias Chalapathi, a central committee member and one of the most wanted insurgents carrying a reward of Rs 1-crore over his head. In his earlier life Chalapathi was Pratap Reddy who after graduation in science from a Chittoor college reportedly served in a government department before joining the Maoist party. Despite tremendous sacrifices the Maoists are not winning; they are losing to security forces equipped with superior weapons and modern war gadgets. Their guns have failed to mobilise masses in their millions without which no revolution can triumph. After all “revolutions are about love”. The debate over whether gun is commanding politics or politics is commanding gun has been in the air for quite some time. The persons in power and their ideologues have created an enemy perception in the Maoist movement and it is one of the deciding factors in isolating them from the oppressed people who are under the sway of right-wing parties. Tragically enough those who are sacrificing their lives for the downtrodden and most vulnerable sections of society are being dubbed terrorists and enemies of people.

This is not really the case in Myanmar. For Myanmar’s people, Year four under military junta rule has only brought more death, displacement and despair, as their troubled homeland is torn further apart by a seemingly intractable civil war. The military, not the guerrilla army, is isolated from the masses. And it is the main strength of the rebels who have a correct Massline to follow.

In the capital Naypyidaw, the military–or Tatmadaw in local language–calls all the shots, but after a series of battlefield losses, the generals increasingly find themselves boxed in to the country’s central heartlands. With the world’s attention diverted by the Russia-Ukraine war, the carnage in the Middle East and the return of Donald Trump as one of the most arrogant authoritarian rulers on Earth, Myanmar’s ongoing resistance struggle by the Bamar People’s Liberation Army [BPLA] against the brutal junta, seems to be a forgotten issue. But it has the potential to influence a number of ethnic insurgencies in India’s northeast, particularly after its success in forcing the military to retreat and creating an atmosphere of dream and hope for the people. In the dense forests of the Irrawaddy River basin, the BPLA, armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, machine guns and M16 rifles seized from Tatmadaw bases, is fighting a decisive battle as the Junta doesn’t have effective control over much of Myanmar, ceding between 50 and 70 percent of the country’s territory to rebel groups and losing key areas along the borders after suffering serious defeats in Rakhine and Shan states last year.

Despite losing grounds, the Myanmar military still retains key advantages as they are being continually armed with weapons from Russia, China, North Korea and Israel. Myanmar’s civil war has forced millions to flee their homes. Young people are trying to escape mandatory conscription into the army’s depleted ranks. Despite hardships, people support the BPLA as it is the case for Hamas in Gaza. The scenario in India is completely different. Insurgency, Marxist insurgency to be precise, here never crossed the threshold limit. Here young people are too eager to join the army knowing full well that they would be used as cannon fodders. They would be ordered to kill their own brothers and sisters.

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 33, Feb 9 - 15, 2025