Maoists: high on spirit, low on tech

There was a curious phrase that Maoist rebels used in a report in the wake of operations by security forces in the Abujhmad area of Chhattisgarh in mid-March

There was a curious phrase that Maoist rebels used in a report in the wake of operations by security forces in the Abujhmad area of Chhattisgarh in mid-March. When a chopper arrived to evacuate a couple of injured personnel of the Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), they were at it like “honeybees”. With outmoded rifles.


That’s what the Maoist rebellion still is: High on spirit, low on tech. Or, at any rate, lower tech than what the security forces sometimes throw at them, for instance, the giddily-named CoBRA, spun out of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to battle Maoists. As pressure mounts on rebels, and they hit back when they can—an ambush here, a mine explosion there, taking hostages somewhere else—how these guerrillas arm and fight is worth looking at. (Especially as police and paramilitaries have begun to upgrade. And, are taking the help of the army and the air force for training, logistics and tracking. An unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicle-monitored movement of a group of rebels during a recent operation in Chhattisgarh.)
Rebel weaponry is primarily what they have looted. There have been some spectacular armoury raids in the past, like the one in Koraput, Orissa, in 2004 when they lifted a cache of as many as 500 weapons including ancient .303 rifles, ageing light machine guns and submachine guns, hand guns and ammunition. A couple of years later, they raided a store of the National Mineral Development Corp. Ltd in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, and made off with an estimated 20 tonnes of explosives and other material. The weaponry was spirited away by cadres and several hundred militia in bundles slung from bamboo poles.

Such raids haven’t taken place in a while, but even occasional attacks on police patrols, railway guards and a guarded construction site yield weapons and ammunition. If a CRPF patrol comes under attack and troopers are carrying AK series rifles, INSAS carbines and two-inch mortars, then rebels will try to lift such weapons and ammunition from slain troopers. (Security experts worry about Maoist rebels tapping into a supply chain from north-eastern India—a buzz is doing the rounds that People’s Liberation Army of Manipur is helping with logistics and arms, but it hasn’t yet coalesced into a firm relationship.)

Rebels wear what in army parlance is called “OG”—olive green. Failing that, everyday wear. No camouflage fabric beyond common sense, using terrain and the help of sympathetic locals. Footwear: canvas boots, basic sneakers, sandals. Packs can range from the sort that schoolchildren carry, to what is taken from police and paramilitary. Armour: none; this makes them lighter on their feet than many police and paramilitary troops who still wear 14kg of armour—two 7kg convex plates in the front and back to protect the torso. No helmets. Water bottles can be reused PET bottles that once carried soft drinks. Food is basic, rice and dal, and whatever they find on the run.

Rebels train on the job with advice provided by veterans; or retired personnel from police, paramilitary, and the army who call India’s least developed areas home. “Even a driver in the army,” a top police official in West Bengal told me, “is a trained soldier”. Rebel documents that security forces have procured over the years, such as “standing orders for armed squads” are copybook army. There have been other impulses. A top-ranking Naga rebel general told me how his colleagues helped Maoist rebels till a few years ago. Security officials claim the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam taught Maoist rebels in southern India the arts of improvised explosive devices and guerrilla warfare, in return for sanctuary.

Know-how is used to deadly effect whenever possible. The landmine that in November 2008 nearly killed West Bengal’s then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and two Union ministers in the accompanying motorcade near Salboni, the site of a proposed project by JSW Steel Ltd, was set off by Maoist rebels hiding behind nearby railway tracks. The one that killed 13 CRPF personnel in a bus in late-March in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra is of the sort routinely employed across Maoist-affected states. Should forces bring in robust “anti-landmine” vehicles, Maoists simply pack in more explosives to incapacitate these. The trigger for landmines can be provided by line-of-sight devices as basic as the equipment that triggers flashlights.

And anger. One mustn’t forget the anger that permits cadres and militia to lay claim as protectors of the marginalized —knowing well that the remainder of their lives could be very short. Honeybees know something about that.

Sudeep Chakravarti writes on issues of conflict in South Asia. He is the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country and the soon-to-be-published Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land. This column, which focuses on conflict situations that directly affect business, runs on Fridays.

Source http://www.livemint.com/2012/04/12230603/Maoists-high-on-spirit-low-o.html