The Naxalite threat

Even as India struggles to defend itself from external terrorist organizations, the homegrown Naxalite movement continues to pose serious security concerns. On Sunday the Naxals killed 36 policemen in two separate incidents in Rajnandgaon and Sitagaon areas in the state of Chhattisgarh. Last month they seized around 2000 villages in the Lalgarh region in West Bengal. A huge operation including federal paramilitary forces and state police was undertaken to win back the seized areas. The Indian government thereafter banned the Communist Party of India (Maoist) as a terrorist organization.

The Naxalite-Maoist movement emerged in the late 1960s in the form of low-level insurgency against the Indian government. A peasant rebellion, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in the Naxalbari village in West Bengal in 1967 is seen as the starting point of the movement. Charu Majumdar, a Maoist revolutionary, laid down the basic ideological principals of the movement. An admirer of Mao Zedong, he was of the opinion that the Indian State was a bourgeois institution and needed to be overthrown by a Maoist armed struggle. According to official numbers Naxalite-Maoist violence had killed 1128 people by the end of June 2009. The death toll for 2008 was 1591.

In what could be described as a protracted people’s war, the Naxalites recruit thousands of tribals and other oppressed sections of society to attack the State machinery. Since the underdevelopment and neglect are genuine grievances in the Naxal infested areas, the movement finds sympathizers amongst intellectuals and politicians.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recognizes the Naxalite movement as one of the biggest internal security concerns for India. This understanding needs to be followed up by serious steps to wipe out the movement through strong police action and economic means. Successive state governments have failed to address the basic needs of the affected regions, and the Center needs to hold them accountable for the increased violence and provide support when necessary.

The Naxal belt (comprising of central and eastern Indian states) is trapped in a vicious cycle of underdevelopment and violence. A strong political will is necessary to break that cycle by addressing the root cause of the problem. The biggest challenge and hope for the State is in reducing the underlying appeal of the movement. The foot soldiers of the movement believe that the Naxalite movement will bring about development and prosperity. The government needs to assert its sole monopoly over use of violence and impress upon the people that only it has the true will and ability to fulfill their dreams by providing opportunities through sound economic and infrastructural development programs. The curtailment of violence and infrastructure development is a precondition for the affected areas to join the rest of the country in its economic growth.

Well-trained police forces should be deployed to the region. Declaring CPI (Maoist) a banned terrorist organization sends the right message to the insurgents. But a ban is not sufficient in itself. Banned groups across the world are known to reemerge with a different name. The ban should be followed by strict enforcement, continuous action against members and going vigorously after their financing mechanism.

Internal militant groups such as these pose the risk of joining forces with other militant and terrorist outfits. These alliances can increase their destructive capabilities and make them difficult to defeat. Internal insurgent movements could pose challenges to the unity and integrity of the country. An internally weakened India will be incapable of effectively dealing with the increasing external terrorist threats. As such, even though the Naxalite movement is an internal security concern, it can have serious consequences for the defense of the country and needs to be dealt with urgently.