The Naxalsim menace

The RED Terror

A PROJECT ON NAXALITES

FACT India has commissioned a new exhibition on Maoist Terrorism, what the PM of India says as "the single largest threat to India" naxalism.

The Exhibition features the Maoist, leftwing Ultras the problem of what has come to be known as Naxalism a movement which started off as a small uprising of people in Naxalbari an unknown village in west bengal to a blodywar that lost its ideology.

The objective is to portray the sufferings and danger that the leftwing ultras, Naxalism is bringing to the people of India. The unity and sovereignty of India needs to be protected. The fact that gun can never be the only solution needs to be highlighted. Socio-economic development can be an effective solution along with a strategy for maintaining Law and Order. The efforts of Non Governmental organisations in disarming people with dangerous violent ideologies is an important factor. The ancient techniques such as pranayama can also help to bring this people around, as a few spiritual organizations have already proved... for example the Art of Living Foundation. There is a subtle manner the Naxalites operate in extremely poor areas exploiting the poverty, ignorance and lack of governmental presence.

The exhibition will :

1) demonstrate graphically and with statistics the widespread presence of Naxalites in India (along with a brief on how they may link to Maoists in Nepal) and

2) What we can do/what has already been done to bring them around.

We plan to do this project in three stages:

1) A travelling exhibition with about 40 panels with captions and text blended with photographs realtime and the statistical analysis.

2. A film, which will be shown during the exhibition and can be made into a documentary for television channels

3. If both these are successful, we can envision doing a book on Naxalites with text and photos, whose angle will be historical and academic and that will aim at becoming the reference book for journalists/academics on Naxalism. Book will have to be funded by a publisher.

Format of the exhibition

1) Statistics

2) photos showing havoc created by Naxalites (recent, attack on innocent civilians like the one on marraige party CPRF camp in UP, escape from jail etc)

3) portraits of famous/notorious naxalites/most wanted

4) A history of Naxalism

5) film/archives footage on naxalites and on regions where they operate (AP, UP, Bihar etc)

6) A detailed brief on firearms/explosives they employ and how they procure them

7) The red corridor (dandakaranya), from Nepal to Tamil Nadu.

How you could also help behind the scenes:

1. Volunteer for the cause

2. Help us to generate high publicity inaugurations

3. Help us Spread the word

4. Contribute to the cause in cash / kind
   

The estimated budget of the project. Rs 700,000/-

Here we have been working on a series of issues on Naxalism and the havoc it has created over the years on the Indian populace.


Naxalism: A threat to the Unified Nation of India

“Its (Maoism’s) purpose is to destroy an existing society and its institutions and to replace them with a completely new structure.”

- Mao Tse-Tung

Maoism a.k.a Naxalism

Naxalism is flourishing in a vacuum created by the total inadequacy of administrative, political and social institutions in certain areas. Issues related to land-reforms, education, health, hygiene, etc have remained un-addressed since hundreds of years.

Well-educated Naxalite leaders have taken advantage of the grave dissatisfaction among the poor and uneducated population by offering them an alternative way to growth and development.

The Genesis

The Naxal Movement began as a violent peasant uprising against the landlords at Naxalbari village, West Bengal on 25th May, 1967.

It began under the leadership of revolutionary communists Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal. On 22nd April, 1969, they formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).


Above: 9th Unity Congress, January, 2007.

The Present Day

Today, there are many Maoist parties and organizations that either predate the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) or emerged from factions when the CPI-ML split after the death of Charu Mazumdar.

Communist Party of India (Maoist) is the largest Maoist rebel group with operations in over 9 states and strong relations with Nepal's Maoists.

Article 19 of its Party Constitution clearly states: “Every member must be ready to participate and play a vanguard role in class struggle in the form of armed agrarian revolutionary war.”


The Naxal Havoc


Chhattisgarh

15th March, 2007

Maoist rebels massacred 16 officers of the Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF), 39 Special Police Officers (SPO’s) and injured 12 others at the Rani Bodli village.

Around 500 rebels attacked the camp, throwing grenades and petrol bombs and shooting people fleeing the burning buildings before escaping with weapons and explosives.

16th December, 2007

In a daring jailbreak, 299 prisoners including 110 naxalites escaped from the Dantewada Jail in Chhattisgarh. The naxals also snatched 6 rifles and a wireless set from the guards before they fled.

Jharkhand

27th October, 2007

Armed naxals massacred 17 people including a former Jharkhand chief minister’s son in the Chilkhari village of the state’s Giridih district.



Bihar

13th November, 2005

200 naxalites attacked the Jehanabad Jail, freed their comrades and assassinated leaders of the Ranvir Sena, the upper-caste militia. More than 300 prisoners made use of the opportunity to escape as the jail was under Maoist’s control for almost two hours.


Orissa

8th February, 2008

300 rebels, including 100 women, gunned down 6 policemen at a police reserve which houses an armoury, 4 others at a training school and 2 at Nayagarh police station in the heart of the town.

The naxals also took away over 1,200 state-of-the art firearms including 298 number of 303 rifles, 130 SLR rifles, 30 AK-47 rifles, 300 Insas rifles, 80 9-mm pistols, 203 escart rifles, and 1 lakh live bullets.

The rebels were within striking distance of the state capital, Bhubaneshwar, which is barely 100 km away.





The Naxal Havoc

Maharashtra

A 40 Sq. km area on the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border is considered a `Liberated Zone' where even the police do not venture. There are around 25 villages in this zone. Naxalites hold military training camps here and even run an arms factory and a printing press.

16 of India's 33 states have Maoists operating in them. This now affects 192 of India's 602 districts.


The year gone by…

In 2007, till the end of November…

There were 1385 incidents of naxalite violence.

214 police personnel have been killed.

418 civilians have been killed.

Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand together accounted for 68.16% of the total incidents and 76.42% of the total casualties.

The year saw an increased use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and Landmines by naxalites.

Naxal attacks on police and police establishments, killings of innocents and attacks on infrastructure (like rail and road transport and power transmission) continued to be reported.


The Declaration

1. Coordinate the people’s war with the ongoing armed struggles of the various oppressed nationalities in Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and other parts of the Northeast.

2. Build a broad UF (United Front) of all secular forces and persecuted religious minorities such as Muslims, Christians and Sikhs.

3. Build a secret party apparatus which is impregnable to the enemy’s attacks.

4. Build open and secret mass organisations amongst the workers, peasants, youth, students, women and other sections of the people.

5. Build the people’s militia in all the villages in the guerrilla zones as the base force of the PGA (People’s Guerrilla Army). Also build armed self-defence units in other areas of class struggle as well as in the urban areas.


The Future

"Taking the trends of the last five years, we can build a model of the security scenario for the year 2010. Over 260 districts, nearly half of India, would be Naxal affected where the government’s writ hardly runs."

- Ajit Doval, Former Director, Intelligence Bureau

“The next ten to twenty years will witness massive political and social upheavals… Militant confrontation between the people and the state will become a general feature throughout the country”

- Muppala Lakshmana Rao, General Secretary, CPI (Maoist)


Links & Support

"Available reports suggest the continued fraternal and logistic (non-strategic) links between Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) and Indian Naxal groups."

- Sriprakash Jaiswal, Minister of State for Home Affairs

“(We will) turn the Countries of South Asia into a Strong Bastion of World Revolution!”
- Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA), a coalition of 13 extreme-left parties of South-Asia



“Times have changed, and the CPI-ML (Liberation) has fielded as many as nine candidates in north Bengal this year.”----- Abhijit Mazumdar, son of CPI-ML co-founder Charu Mazumdar

Information sources:
www.naxalwatch.blogspot.com
www.satp.org
www.naxalrage.org
www.globalsecurity.org
www.india-defence.com
www.fas.org/
www.achrweb.org
www.mha.nic.in

FACT India field study
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