Maoists neither down nor out

Author: Ajai Sahni
A dip in fatalities should not be interpreted as the Indian state winning the war on Left-wing extremism. Evidence shows the state is as vulnerable as before.



In quick succession, three disruptive incidents have shocked India out of the complacency that had set in, as the policy establishment celebrated sharp declines in violence and fatalities engineered by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) over the past year.

The worst of these incidents was, of course, the improvised explosive device attack on a CRPF transport at Pustola in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, on March 27, which killed 12 and injured 28. In their enthusiasm during CRPF Director-General Vijay Kumar’s visit to Fulbodi Gatta to inspect a community outreach programme, the jawans had ignored standard operating procedures, driving over a road that had not been sanitised in advance. The Maoists were quick to take bloody advantage.

A loss of lives among security forces personnel, however, is easily ignored and quickly forgotten by the Indian state. The abduction of foreigners and the inevitable international media carnival that follows tends to be far more embarrassing, for much longer, especially when the ‘hostage drama’ extends over weeks. The ‘arrest’, as the Maoists chose to describe it, of two Italians — a tourist and a tour operator — on March 14 in the Daringbadi block of Kandhamal district, Odisha, has, consequently, shattered the illusion of an ‘improved internal security situation’ to a far greater extent. The abduction occurred while the Italians were moving in areas of Maoist influence, officials claim, against the advice of the administration. They have since been released.

Even as the Italian hostage drama was being played out, an MLA, tribal leader Jhina Hikaka, from the ruling Biju Janata Dal, was abducted on March 24 in Koraput district, Odisha, when he chose to ignore security procedures to travel through Maoist-dominated areas from Semilguda to his constituency, Lakshmipur. Hikaka’s vehicle was stopped near Toyaput, and he was abducted after he identified himself.

Crucially, all three actions were incidents of opportunity, reflecting enduring Maoist capacities, rather than strategic intent or planning, and demonstrating quite clearly that a decline in fatalities is not synonymous with a decline in rebel capacities or with an improvement in the ‘security situation’. Indeed, despite the significant reverses inflicted on the Maoists, especially at the leadership level, as well as some contraction in their areas of operation, the rebels’ disruptive capabilities in their core areas along the purported ‘Red Corridor’ remain substantially intact.

Despite many claims of the cumulative ‘improvement’ in the capacities of Central and State security forces, the State’s vulnerabilities remain largely unaddressed. At least some claims of such ‘improvement’ are, in any event, largely falsified or fabricated — including the Union Ministry of Home Affairs’ November 30, 2011 claim that the police-population ratio had been raised to 176 per 100,000, from an National Crime Records Bureau figure of 133 per 100,000 as on December 31, 2010. Others, such as the Home Ministry’s claims of “significant measures taken to strengthen the Indian Police Service” remain something of a smokescreen, since existing deficits in the service will take decades to fill, even with dramatically accelerated intakes.

The Home Ministry also claims that “number of Central Armed Police Force battalions deployed in Left-wing extremist affected States increased from 37 in 2008 to 73 in November 2011”, glossing over the fact that this has roughly been the level of deployment since the disastrous ‘massive and coordinated operations’ were launched by the Union Government in end-2009. That these forces have, along with State police special forces, largely been frozen in a passive defensive posture since the Chintalnad massacre of April 2010, and that offensive operations against the Maoists have now become more and more the exception among demoralised security forces contingents, remain unsaid.

On the other hand, the anecdotal evidence of state vulnerabilities and disarray is mounting. In one devastating disclosure, the Home Ministry conceded that as many as 46,000 officers and personnel took voluntary retirement from the Central forces between 2007 and September 2011, while another 5,220 officers and personnel resigned from service over the same period. As many as 461 suicides and 64 instances of fratricides were also recorded. Worse, the rate of increase of cases of resignation in the CRPF and BSF was “alarming” — at more than 70 per cent in 2011.

If this dry data was not sufficiently disconcerting, Rahul Sharma, an IPS officer serving as Superintendent of Police in the Maoist-afflicted Bilaspur district in the country’s worst-affected State, Chhattisgarh, committed suicide on March 12, blaming his seniors and the political leadership for his decision. Sharma had reportedly confided in a friend that he was frustrated because police officers were required to do what he called “forced labour” (begaar), and ‘extortion’ (ugahi) and that “targets for election expenses” for the scheduled 2013 Assembly polls had “already been set”. This incident provides extraordinary insight into the use and morale of the police leadership in the State worst affected by the Maoist insurgency.

Nor is Chhattisgarh an exception. In the wake of the March 27 incident in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra’s Home Minister RR Patil complained that police officers were “unwilling” to work in Gadchiroli and Chandrapur districts, citing the recent example of four police sub-inspectors who resigned from the force after completing training when they were posted to Gadchiroli. Mr Patil had nothing but a litany of complaints to offer after the Gadchiroli incident, blaming the Union Government for its failure to give advance information of Maoist attacks. Unsurprisingly, Maharashtra saw an increase in Maoist-related fatalities to 69 in 2011, over the 2010 figure of 40, even as the all-India fatalities almost halved.

The other principal Maoist affected States — Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar — suffer from equal and endemic deficiencies in their security structures, as well as from both ambivalence and infirmity in their political leaderships.

Some augmentation of capacities — recruitment, arming, fortification and modernisation — has no doubt occurred across the board, both in Central and State forces, but this has had, at best, limited impact on their capacities and operations on the ground as a result of an incoherence of approach and strategy as well as gross deficits and deficiencies in leadership.

The writer is Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi.
Source http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/51463-maoists-neither-down-nor-out.html