ABOUT three months back, quoting ‘sources’ in the Ministry of Home Affairs, the media announced the commencement of ‘Operation Green Hunt’. We learnt, helped by lurid commentary on mainstream television channels and in publications, that it involved the application of broad spectrum antibiotic of police, paramilitary and Special Forces against the ‘Maoist menace’ in ‘Maoist-infested’ regions of India. As it became clear in a matter of days that infusion of several tens of thousands of additional security personnel to decimate and tame ten thousand or so Maoist cadre would amount to overkill, and government would place itself squarely in the sights of accusations that it is killing on behalf of business, P. Chidambaram, the Minister for Home Affairs, announced that Operation Green Hunt was a media creation.

Then, we heard and read that there is indeed a creature called Green Hunt; and that it would be applied in the spring of 2010, after a slew of assembly elections. Now, to little surprise we are told: it is on.

The truth is: there was never any doubt as to government intention and practice. Since the summer of 2009, the Ministry of Home Affairs has under the tutelage of Chidambaram actively courted the media as a matter of policy, and has played its hand in spades. A great part of the strategy, besides obfuscating its own intentions in the public mind, and downplaying the outright brutality of security personnel in areas of Maoist domination, has been to highlight to urban India that the Maoist rebels are a bunch of frothing killers.

The beheading this past October of a police officer, Francis Induvar, in Jharkhand; in mid-November causing the death of several innocent passengers by blowing up tracks as a train passed, also in Jharkhand; and in late-November, the beheading of a pro-government schoolteacher in West Bengal, have eroded Maoist claims that they are fighting a just war.

These incidents have brought forth public apologies from Maoist leaders, and highlighted the truth that brutality has always been part of the Maoist modus. Besides the killing of declared ‘class enemies’ there have over the years been numerous instances of sheer bloody-mindedness that often accompanies armed rebellion. The bodies of slain police and paramilitary have been booby-trapped. A system of instant justice that has come to be known as jan adalat (people’s court) severely punishes declared offenders, including landlords, suspected police informers, and those who stand up to rebel might with death and dismemberment. Beheadings aren’t uncommon. These have typically made news in localized media, and in the charts of those who track conflict. However, the recent episodes, delivered by a primed media, have served to deepen the reality that the state isn’t the only fallible entity.

 

And Maoists, clearly reacting to lateral government probes that include better sharing of intelligence among central and state forces, better planning of operations, and outright ‘psyops’ or psychological operations, are stretching themselves thin – morally and operationally. The Maoists will need to acknowledge they have lost public relations ground among mainstream media and liberals who, even if they are wary of violence as a means, nevertheless made allowances for Maoists fighting, as it were, for the right thing.

However, it will be an error to accept this phase of conflict as an end-game. From all available indications there is no getting away from intense internal conflict for a horizon that could, at the very least, extend to the next five years.

Maoism is not our greatest internal security threat – a disagreement of semantics that I maintain against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s regular public announcements as to Maoism – or Naxalism, as it is interchangeably referred to – since April 2006. Poverty, non-governance and corruption continue to be the greatest threats to internal security.

To my mind, Maoist rebels mirror India’s own failings as a nation. Their presence in an area that equals a third of India proves abdication by the state. The Ministry of Home Affairs must surely recall its own admission in its Annual Report for 2006-07: ‘Naxalites typically operate in a vacuum created by inadequacy of administrative and political institutions, espouse local demands and take advantage of the prevalent disaffection, perceived injustice among the underprivileged and remote segments of population.’ And so, such a war will not be won by the state by bulldozing rebels and the desperately disaffected.

 

India is witnessing what I term as Naxalism Mark IV. This comes after Mark I in the late 1960s and early 1970s across West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and parts of Uttar Pradesh and Orissa; a splintered but stubborn Mark II in the 1980s; a prescient Mark III in the 1990s with the spread into the Dandakaranya region in central India and the seed of a guerrilla force; and the largely consolidated conglomerate of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) of the present day. Surely, there must be serious flaws in a system that has repeatedly annihilated left-wing movements since the time of India’s independence – the Tebhaga movement in rural Bengal, for instance – only to have these rearing their heads more emphatically with each cycle of resurgence, through socio-economic development and growth in the power of the state.

The government and its patrons – primarily, business interests – need to consider why people go against the undeniable might of India’s state apparatus. What drives them to pick up bows and arrows, axes, and looted guns ranging from ancient .303 rifles to more modern INSAS and AK series weapons to defend their position and everyday aspirations?

 

Over the past year, since Chidambaram assumed office at the home ministry, there has been an increase in recruitment of paramilitary; exhortations to increase and modernize police forces and police posts in rebel-affected states; and intelligence gathering and sharing to attack rebels. Several dozen cadres have been killed, many arrested, and several key rebel leaders arrested or killed. More police and paramilitary are being trained in counter-insurgency techniques.

A senior army officer posted to a conflict zone told me some weeks ago that India’s police and ‘civil’ authorities are now equipped with enough laws under the Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, and various laws separately enacted by states, to suborn completely the notion of free speech and action even for non-combatants. The government can use procedure to arrest and implicate whomsoever it wishes for real and imagined crimes ranging from taking up a weapon against state forces to exposing corruption and wrongdoing by the police, bureaucracy and politicians – as repeatedly happens in Chhattisgarh and eastern Maharashtra. These regions also mark instances of rape, torture and faked encounters even towards non-combatants in the course of anti-rebel operations.

The police and the administrative machinery have more power, impunity and immunity, the officer marvelled, than permitted to the army under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, with versions freely applied to Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur. At a recent gathering in New Delhi that included several security insiders, I heard suggestions of ‘finishing off these guys once and for all’ – meaning Maoists. There was talk also of ‘getting rid of Naxalites like that Binayak Sen.’ The reference was to the civil rights activist and barefoot doctor from Chhattisgarh who was jailed for more than two years from May 2007, for highlighting corruption and police excesses in that state.

 

In response, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) too has escalated its activities, hitting targets almost at will in Chhattisgarh, eastern Maharashtra, Orissa, Jharkhand, adjacent regions of West Bengal, and Bihar. Such actions have killed several hundred police and paramilitary – from elite ‘anti-Naxal’ forces in Maharashtra to guards at mining depots in Chhattisgarh – minor politicians, and political thugs – as in the Lalgarh region of West Bengal. Several chief ministers, including Bengal’s Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Chhattisgarh’s Raman Singh continue to be targets.

Maoist rebels will get shriller. The October 2009 issue of People’s March, a pro-Maoist journal, recounted a three-location attack by cadres of People’s Liberation Guerilla Army in Chhattisgarh on July 12 that killed more than forty policemen, including the superintendent of police of Rajnandgaon district. It termed this year’s escalation ‘a slap in the face of the notorious home minister who has taken a personal interest in the operation against the Maoists.’ It talked of ‘punishing the most vile elements’ – suspected police informers who typically have their throats slashed, if they aren’t beheaded or shot – ‘by trying them in people’s courts...’ It urged ‘strategic firmness with tactical flexibility’ in its game plan of revolution, and vilified ‘the US stooge Manmohan Singh’, and panned his November visit to the United States ‘to actually appease US imperialism for further gifting away the country’s interests.’

A large part of the blame for escalation rather than meaningful resolution of conflict will unequivocally remain the joint responsibility of aggressive business and accommodating politics. Business interests include some of the biggest names in India and globally: Vedanta Resources, the Tata Group, Arcelor-Mittal, Essar Steel, Posco Group, JSW Steel, Jindal Power – all engaged in either aggressive planning or execution of a slew of projects ranging from mining of iron ore to production of steel to generation of power – across conflict areas in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal. Memoranda of Understanding signed for proposed investments in these states exceed $50 billion for extractive and heavy industries.

 

These activities typically involve displacement of populations, and the imperfect exercises breed great resentment – rebel tinder. Alongside, the Maoists have taken common cause against Special Economic Zones and the effects of globalization across the country. The rebels have bureaus in most states tasked with recruitment, agitation and raising the level of cadre strength and ‘awareness’. This is to sow rebellion in several ways, a prelude to ‘protracted war’ to gain political power.

This is a lateral expansion of thought and activity to keep up with the times, extending the Maoists’ traditional turf of fighting for agrarian, tribal and caste issues. This is the continuation of a process from as far back as 2004, when a definitive Maoist document, ‘Urban Perspective: Our Work in Urban Areas’ recommended that ‘the centres of key industries should be given importance as they have the potential of playing an important role in the People’s War’ – what Maoists call their armed movement. In 2007, Muppala Laxman Rao, the chief of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), stressed another thought from the document. ‘We have to adopt diverse tactics for mobilizing the urban masses into the revolution,’ said Rao, better known by his nom de guerre Ganapathy, ‘and take up their political-economic-social-cultural issues…’ In effect, dip into pools of negative energy.

 

Many businesses depend on state governments to stand surety for land procurement and facilities, and state police and paramilitary to provide security as willing proxies. They will find it increasingly difficult to traverse the contentious universe where business, human rights, and tradition intersect with urgency – as in the controversy over Vedanta’s ore-extraction project in Niyamgiri Hills of Orissa, scared to the Dongria Kondh tribe. All too often, the notion of ‘corporate social responsibility’ merges with the concept of ‘resettlement and rehabilitation’ – without understanding the dynamics that operate in areas where a project, whether extractive or manufacturing, inevitably displaces people. This happens in a physical and economic sense; and emotional displacement that CEOs, business planners, accountants and engineers may not clearly understand – or care to understand.

Equally, some businesses also feel strengthened, even invulnerable, if they are in partnership with a government entity. In these situations, the idea of ‘eminent domain’ – that permits government to expropriate land for the greater good – is often abused in spirit and execution, where resettlement always takes precedence over rehabilitation. Businesses that actively pursue a project in a clear zone of conflict – a war, civil war, or violence rooted in corruption and political mismanagement – especially businesses with global footprint, ambition and stock listings, could find themselves in court at home and elsewhere.

 

A document titled ‘Red Flags: Liability Risks for Companies Operating in High Risk Zones’, published in 2008 by International Alert (www. international-alert.org) and Fafo (www.fafo.no) lists several grounds for litigation, including some that are commonplace in India. Under international law, expelling people from their communities by ‘the threat or use of violence to force people out of their communities can be a crime,’ Red Flags maintains. ‘A company may face liability if it has gained access to the site on which it operates, where it builds infrastructure, or where it explores for natural resources, through forced displacement.’

Other points of liability include ‘engaging abusive security forces’ (directly or through the proxy of state police or paramilitary) to effect and perpetuate a project; and ‘allowing use of company assets for abuses’, such as overlooking mistreatment of people by security forces and providing company facilities for such activity to take place.

In plain words: it will be difficult to explain away presence in a conflict zone where a project clearly stands to gain by government forces killing off rebels. And it will be difficult to deny moral responsibility for the death and displacement of innocents in such a conflict. Also, governments both at the Centre and the states will need to assume responsibility for creating governance woes that can, has and will lead to resentment and violent outpouring of anger.

Take West Bengal, where the state government has diligently courted grief. Since it assumed power in 1977, the CPI(M), more than its coalition partners, has skilfully built a network of cadre and leaders. This came to control the politics, political economy and business, and dealt harshly with opposition. It unravelled in Singur and Nandigram, squarely on account of the state’s leadership and its system of patronage.

 

In the Lalgarh region, which I visited in June 2009 to witness the confrontation between a team of tribals and Maoist rebels, and security forces, it was easy to track ‘anti-establishment’ targets. Almost without exception, the largest and best homes and businesses and farmland, belonged to, or were controlled by, the local leadership of CPI(M). Rebels and aggrieved residents killed many, and chased away more. Even if the state is able to steamroll rebels, the political and administrative rot in the region will need to be reversed before lasting peace emerges.

In Chhattisgarh, trouble is acute. Exceeding Maoist rebels they accuse of brutality, the police, paramilitary and Salwa Judum recruits continue to freely kill unarmed men and women. It has wrecked any short- to medium-term hope of winning tribals and forest dwellers back to the fold of the state. This is now conventional wisdom, accepted at senior levels of the Ministry of Home Affairs as well as at the chief ministerial and police headquarters of several states – with the notable exception of Chhattisgarh.

There is then the issue over the dynamics of talking peace. ‘The government’s Status Paper on the Naxal problem appropriately mentions a holistic approach and lays emphasis on accelerated socio-economic development of the backward areas,’ acknowledged another Planning Commission document, titled ‘Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas: Report of an Expert Group to Planning Commission’, from 2008. ‘However… the status paper states that "there will be no peace dialogue by the affected states with the Naxal [Maoist] groups unless the latter agree to give up violence and arms." This is incomprehensible and is inconsistent with the government’s stand vis-à-vis other militant groups in the country.’

Chidambaram’s recent statements, perhaps buoyed by diplomatic success with Bangladesh that permitted the capture of a top leader of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), mirror this assertion. The assertion is largely correct. Some rebels in Bodo-dominated and Cachar areas of Assam have surrendered arms before coming ‘above ground’, but most others, including Naga groups, continue to bear arms through years of ceasefire. Unlike these groups, however, Maoists cannot be painted as ‘secessionist’ or ‘separatist’. They have no stated desire to secede from anything except corruption, bad governance and non-governance. Maoist rebels are Indian.

 

They cannily painted the word ‘P.O.W.’ on the front of a police officer from West Bengal they captured two months back, and released unharmed after a few days. This showed three things. One: the Maoists are not indiscriminate in their targets – unlike Al Qaeda, Kashmiri militants and the latter-day incarnation of ULFA. Two: should they choose, the Maoists can play the PR game as well as government with far less resources at their disposal. And three: the Maoists signalled yet again that their rebellion is a war.

 

The danger lies in the government massively scaling up paramilitary deployment in key Maoist affected states, and also placing on standby some battalions of Rashtriya Rifles that typically operate in Jammu and Kashmir. This is in addition to state police forces, both regular and those trained in anti-rebel operations. All this will greatly increase the chance of what forces typically term ‘collateral damage’. This ranges from innocents caught in the crossfire to innocents attacked as revenge for, say, rebels killing some forces. Such violence can also be pre-emptive, to scare away people from offering support – either spontaneous or under duress – to rebels.

This can be completely indiscriminate, leading to the burning of the homes of innocents and their torture, maiming, rape and death. India has a brutal history of such instances in Nagaland, Mizoram and Jammu & Kashmir – and in Chhattisgarh, as recently as mid-September and October.

‘It becomes more vital in the eyes of the administration to prevent the strengthening or growth of Naxalite influence than to answer that just aspiration,’ the Planning Commission report says. It also states plainly what is dismissed when mentioned by media persons and human rights activists: ‘Often any individual who speaks out against the powerful is dubbed a Naxalite and jailed or otherwise silenced… What is to be pointed out here is that the method chosen by the government to deal with the Naxalite phenomenon has increased the people’s distrust… and consequent unrest.’

Current policy initiatives are worrying as these are not oriented to ‘no brainer’ solutions like governance and development, but to maintain conflict at ‘acceptable levels’ in a scenario of stunning corruption. Insurgency scenarios and counter-insurgency capabilities take precedence over addressing issues of skills and education (such as positive or negative job creation); food security; addressing the dispossessed (destitute, abandoned, resentful); and issues of urbanization and migration.

 

Andhra Pradesh partly attempted a resolution. Former Chief Minister Y.S.R. Reddy opted for inclusive policies after the single-minded ‘Cyberabad’ push of his predecessor, N. Chandrababu Naidu. Reddy learnt from Naidu’s mistakes. Among other things, he launched the Indiramma (Mother Indira) project in early 2006 – the acronym expands to Integrated Novel Development in Rural Areas and Model Municipal Areas. The scheme sought to cover every village panchayat in three years and provide what the state has not in decades, including primary education to all; health facilities where there are none; clean water; pucca houses with latrines; electricity connections to all households; and roads.

The hoopla around the project, in bits reborn as the Andhra Pradesh Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, contributed to Reddy’s re-election earlier this year. But until his death in a helicopter crash in early September 2009, Reddy was unable to push things beyond overwhelming application of force and guile. His stick-and-carrot policy has proved patchy, as policing and brutal suppression of Maoists has not effectively been replaced in Andhra areas by development works and delivery of dignity to the poor and marginal. Andhra, along with India, continues to be deeply vulnerable to Maoist activity.

 

© Sudeep Chakravarti, 2009. Sudeep Chakravarti is the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country and the author and co-editor of several other books. He was earlier with The Asian Wall Street Journal; the India Today Group, as an Executive Editor; and Hindustan Times, as Consultant Editor.