Why Maoists are Losing

Sumanta Banerjee

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has promised that he will eliminate the ‘Naxals’ (otherwise known as Maoists) within the next three years. He claims that his government has brought down the number of Maoist-affected districts from 96 to 45, and incidents of Naxal violence have gone down by 52% in the past ten years. At this rate of suppression and marginalisation of the Maoists, he estimates that they will disappear from India by 2027. (Re: The Times of India, January 22, 2024)

His claim seems to be supported by reports from the Maoist-affected districts during the recent assembly elections, which indicate a decline in popular support for the Maoists. Reports of the election campaign and the final results of the assembly elections in Chhattisgarh and Telangana indicate that the voters inhabiting constituencies there, which are officially designated as LWE (Left Wing Extremism) affected territories, have rejected the call of boycotting elections that was given by the LWE’s political party, CPI (Maoist). Neither its posters urging them to boycott the polls, nor its threats against the voters, could deter these people from casting their votes in favour of candidates of their own choice. People from the SC (Scheduled Caste) and ST (Scheduled Tribes) communities –who constitute the main base of the Maoist movement in these two states–overwhelmingly participated in the electoral process. 

In Chhattisgarh, in the seats reserved for them, 42% of the SCs and 43% of the STs voted for BJP. This indicates not only the weakening hold of the CPI(Maoist) on its followers in these constituencies, but also the much larger dangerous portent of these sections of the poor gravitating towards the BJP, which is alluring them with freebies and promises of integrating them into the fold of Hindutva. This shifting trend among their followers suggests that the Maoist leaders in their campaign never emphasized the wider ideological issue of the need for a long-standing struggle to change the basic socio-economic structure of the state, and instead motivated them by raising their immediate self-centred material problems only–which are now being addressed to by the BJP rulers who are satisfying them with freebies.

Similarly, in Telangana, in those areas which are designated as LWE-affected (i.e. controlled by Maoists), 48% of the SCs and STs participated in the elections. Bhadrachalam and Pinapaka in Bhadradri Kothagudem district recorded almost 80% voting. They voted for the Congress. This was a politically progressive option for them, unlike the pro-Hindutva choice of their counterparts in Chattisgarh who voted for BJP. The erstwhile followers of the Maoists in these areas of Telangana voted for the Congress, expecting that Revanth Reddy, would solve their land problems in a peaceful way instead of the violent internecine warfare and killings that the Maoists resort to.

Meanwhile, adding a feather to its cap of successful anti-Naxalite operations, the Union Home Ministry has ensured the unfurling of the Tricolour this Republic Day in those tribal villages in Bastar in Chhattisgarh and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, which were once regarded as Maoist strongholds where such government-sponsored national celebrations were discouraged by the Maoist guerilla squads. The police IG P. Sundarraj, claimed that the latest flag-hoisting ceremony in these Bastar villages was a sign of the death of the Maoist party’s hegemony over the villagers. Attributing its death to successful police operations, he said: “The fight against Left-wing extremism has reached its final and decisive phase. We are hopeful of establishing a positive and vibrant identity in the region.” (Times of India, January 28, 2024). So, are the sporadic acts like the killing of paramilitary forces in Dantewala in Chhattisgarh in April 2023, sound like the parting death rattle of the Maoist movement? 

Till about a decade or so ago, in the years of 2008-2010 the main base of the CPI(Maoist) was embedded among these very Adivasi poor in Bastar, and the forest area bordering Chhattisgarh and Telangana, some parts of it known as Dandakaranya. A large number of them joined the party-led armed struggle to resist state-sponsored plans to take over their forests to set up industries in the name of development, which threatened their dependence on forest resources. Instead of depending on elections (which invariably brought to power a political elite that collaborated with the private industries in the exploitation of forest resources), they preferred the option of armed resistance to protect their villages from such incursions.

In 2008, even the central government had to recognise the popularity of the Maoist-ruled janatanasarkarsamong the rural poor. An Expert Group was set up by the Planning Commission in 2006, consisting of some senior retired bureaucrats, academics and social activists as well as police officials, who visited the Red Corridor and interviewed the villagers there. They submitted an exhaustive report to the government in March 2008. In their report, the Expert Group acknowledged that “… it is a fact that in some cases the Naxalite movement has succeeded in helping the landless to occupy a substantial section of government land ….In Bihar all the Naxalite parties have attempted to assist…the landless Musahars, the lowest among the Dalits, to take possession of a sizeable extent of such land… …have intervened and determined fair wage rates…” The Expert Group went on to state: “…the (Naxalite) movement has given confidence to the oppressed to assert their equality and demand respect and dignity from the dominant castes and classes.” ((Re: Development issues to deal with Causes of Discontent, Unrest and Extremism. 2008). 

Some two years later, the internationally acclaimed writer Arundhati Roy visited Bastar in the forest area of Chhattisgarh in the Red Corridor, and narrated her experiences in an article entitled: Walking with the Comrades (2010). She spent several days and nights in the villages that were then controlled by the Naxalites. To her surprise, she found that some 45% of the Naxalite armed outfit PLGA (Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army) were women, who joined the movement after having suffered brutal attacks by the police. She also gave an eye-witness account of the functioning of the janatanasarkarsand how they provided economic and social security to the rural poor. 

In January in the same year of 2010, Gautam Navlakha, a well-known journalist and civil liberties activist, spent a fortnight in the guerrilla zones of Bastar. He went into the heart of the conflict–examining every nuance in the functioning of the janatanasarkars, and the guerrilla squads. He came out with a meticulously documented account of his experiences in an invaluable book entitled Days and Nights in the Heartland of Rebellion (Penguin Books. 2012). Navlakha was accompanied by the 83-year old Jan Myrdal, a famous Swedish author who gave a separate account about his own experiences in the Maoist guerrilla zones in a book entitled Red Star Over India that was brought out by Setu Prakashani of Kolkata in the same year. These books constitute the most exhaustive history and prognostic analysis of the Indian Maoist movement. They narrate the achievements of the CPI(Maoist) administration, both in terms of agrarian benefits and social welfare for the rural poor, which are confirmed through extensive interviews with the villagers, both men and women. 

But signs of a bleak future were also looming over the movement even in those days of its popularity. Gautam Navlakha ended his book with a note of warning. He referred to ‘heinous crimes committed by (Maoist) squad members’ like beheading of a trade union leader who belonged to an opposite Left party, and several other such killings of opponents carried out by kangaroo courts in the guerilla zones. He drew attention to similar acts of criminality by the Maoist cadres in Jangalmahal (forest region) in eastern India which eroded its mass base. He made a very significant comment while observing the contemporary situation there: “Today if Maoists have been virtually vanquished in Jangalmahal it is not only due to the superior war machinery of the State but in no small measure due to their own conduct which alienated sections of people with some turning against them”.

It is surprising that the popularity enjoyed by the Naxalites in certain parts of Bihar and Jharkhand that the Planning Commission Expert Group observed during 2006-2008, totally evaporated over the next two years, as evident from the ‘virtual vanquishing’ of the movement in the Jangalmahal area.

Some six years later after Gautam Navlakha’s book was published, another perceptive observer of the Maoist movement, Bernard D’Mello came out with his book India after Naxalbari: Unfinished History(2018). After a sympathetic account of the movement, at the end, Bernard came to the sad conclusion: “The movement has witnessed many setbacks, and many mistakes have been made by the revolutionaries…The Maoists are nowhere near winning over the majority of the oppressed and the exploited in rural India.”

Today, looking back at the track record of the Maoist movement in India during the last two decades, one finds that the premonitions and warnings voiced by Gautam Navlakha and Bernard D’Mello have come out to be true. The tragic happenings today in what was once known as the Red Corridor (spread across the forest areas bordering the states of Chhattisgarh and Telangana in the south, and running through Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand in the east) are a far cry from the achievements that the Maoists made there more than a decade ago.

Some three years later, describing the situation in the party’s base area in Chhattisgarh, the central committee of the CPI(Maoist) had to admit that “the intensity and expanse of the resistance of the PLGA (People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army) and people decreased; non-proletarian trends increased in party and the PLGA, recruitment decreased; [the] number of people leaving the party and PLGA increased.” (Re: The Hindia, March 12, 2014).  

But at the same time, Ashutosh Bharadwaj noted that by imposing on them the party’s discipline, the tribal cadre was “forced to shun his family, gods and ghotuls (community centres),” leave his home and join the underground. 

The only major anti-state operation carried out recently by the Maoists, which perhaps could earn some support from the oppressed tribals, was their offensive in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewala in April 2023, where they killed ten personnel of a paramilitary unit which had earned notoriety among the inhabitants of the area for their oppressive behaviour. As for the rest of their acts, they amount to personal vindictiveness against their local neighbours. Their leaders and armed squads have brought down the movement to the level of the criminal underworld “through indiscipline, intolerance, and dishonourable conduct,” and are “nowhere near winning over the majority.”–to quote Gautam Navlakha and Bernard D’Mello.

That the Maoists are losing their base is also evident from cases of growing surrender of their cadres, who are escaping from the hard underground life which they have to cope with in the forests, by responding to the alluring appeals of the government which is offering them cash payment and promising them jobs.

When reviewing the recent developments in the Maoist movement as described above, it is important to analyse the changes that have taken place in the nature of its leadership during the last four decades. To start with, in 1980 a veteran Communist leader with experience in mass movements, Kondapalli Seetharamiah (1919-2002) formed the CPI(ML) PWG (People’s War Group) in Andhra Pradesh, which initiated a phase that combined armed struggle planned from the underground, with mass movements organised at the over ground public space. This galvanised the oppressed poor and empowered them with the striking capacity to win their rights through legal means also. Seetharamiah, as the general secretary of the CPI (ML) PWG led the movement till 1992, after which he was expelled by his opponents in the party on some flimsy ground of ideological deviation. 

Kondapalli Seetharamiah was succeeded by Muppala Lakshmana Rao (known as Ganapathi) as the general secretary of the party. As for his political background, he was ideologically drawn to the Maoist movement during his days as a science student, and later as a college teacher in Karimnagar in Andhra Pradesh. Ganapathi led the movement for twenty five years from 1992 till 2017. It is significant that during these two decades of his leadership, the movement attracted attention and earned reputation both at home and abroad. In November 2018, he was succeeded by Nambala Keshava Rao (known as Basavraj). According to both the police and inside sources in the Maoist movement, Basavraj’s speciality is in making and handling of explosives. This explains the rise in the use of landmines in Maoist operations in Chhattisgarh and other areas in recent times. The guerillas plant them on roads, hoping that they will explode when police jeeps and trucks pass through them. But the police intelligence people are one up above them, alert enough to inspect the roads before any convoy is allowed, and remove the landmines. Not so fortunate are the common pedestrians, mainly villagers, who unaware of the explosives, tread on them and lose their lives.

Without sounding pompous, I may point out that some fourteen years ago, in an article ‘End of a Phase‘ in Economic and Political Weekly, (November 13, 2010) I sounded the warning in these words: “…the indiscriminate violence of the CPI(Maoist) is repelling civil society and alienating its peasant supporters. This makes it easier, and plausible, for the Indian state to stamp out popular protests by unleashing a reign of terror that is more formidable….than the noisy violence of the Maoists.” It is sad to find that the Maoist leadership has not learnt from past mistakes, and is still continuing on the same suicidal path, inviting the ‘more formidable…reign of terror’ by the Indian state, which it is incapable of resisting.

The above developments have also been accompanied by the dwindling number of their ranks, many of whom being killed by security forces, some surrendering to the police, being allured by offers of monetary rewards, and others leaving the forests to go back to their homes in search of security. These trends indicate (i) the CPI(Maoist) leadership’s alienation from the people; (ii) popular resentment against their activities; and (iii) their fast-evaporating base in the forests of Chhattisgarh, Telangana and the border areas of Gadchiroli in Maharashtra.

It is time for the CPI(Maoist) leadership to introspect and think about the need for revising their strategy. The current existentialist and circumstantial pressures–both from the state and from within their ranks and followers–require them to adopt a flexible strategy.

What can be the way out for the CPI(Maoist) to overcome the crisis that it is facing–mainly due to the ruthless oppression unleashed by the state, but also partly caused by its own mistakes and misdeeds that have alienated them from the people? How can its leaders survive and save their cadres? It is time to stop pressing the accelerator and shift to the reverse gear. A respectable face-saving device can be one way.

Given the calibre of its present leaders, as described above, one can hardly expect them to rise to the occasion. They appear to be a bunch of stubborn ostriches burying their heads in the dry sands of outmoded and anachronistic tactics of so-called Maoism – which is inapplicable in present-day India. They are experts only in making bombs and exploding them – and that also in an inexpert way – which instead of targeting the police, kill innocent people. The explosives will soon implode within their party, putting an end to their actions that betray the cause of Communism.

(abridged) [source: countercurrents.org]

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Vol 57, No. 8, Aug 25 - 31, 2024