India: Democracy, Nationalism and Conflict II
‘Maoist/Naxalite uprising in India’
Harinda Vidanage PhD
Naxalites
• The Maoist movement, also called the
Naxalite movement, after Naxalbari the name
of a rural town where a 1967 peasant uprising
ignited this tendency within the Indian
Communist movement, has the New
Democratic Revolution as its declared
objective, the overthrow of the ‘‘semi-feudal,
semi-colonial’’ state through protracted
people’s war. Because of this, it has always
faced severe state repression. (Giri 2009)
• Why Naxalite, The word Naxal comes from the
village of Naxalbari, near Siliguri in West
Bengal where the movement first originated.
The origins of all Naxalite groups come from
the CPI (ML), the Communist Party of IndiaMarxist-Leninist
• Until the 1990s the Naxalites were a marginal
presence in Indian politics. But in that decade
they began working more closely with the tribal
communities of the Indian heartland. About 80
million Indians are officially recognized as
“tribal”; of these, some 15 million live in the
northeast, in regions untouched by Hindu
influence. It is among the 65 million tribals of the
heartland that the Maoists have found a most
receptive audience.
Tribals
Economically The tribals are the most deeply
disadvantaged segment of Indian society. As few
as 23 percent of them are literate; as many as 50
percent live under the poverty line. The state
fails to provide them with adequate education,
healthcare or sanitation; more actively, it works
to dispossess them of their land and resources
Tribal Images
Naxal + Tribal
The naxals enjoy immense support among the lower strata of
the society in what is known as the Red corridor, a collection
of states with active naxalism (most of these atates are
mentioned in the above para). The adivasis regard the Maoists
as their friends for it is these rebels who have stood by them.
All the normal channels of redress are closed for them. The
police beat them. The political parties – be they the Congress
or the Bharatiya Janata Party – are with the Salwa Judum (A
anti naxalite movement in Chhattisgarh.)The courts do not
give them a hearing. The media does not care. Where else will
they go except to the Maoists? When the police attack them,
it is the Maoists who save them
(Awaaz 2010)
Operations
They were strongest in the states of Bihar and
Andhra Pradesh, where they organized lowcaste sharecroppers and laborers to demand
better terms from their upper-caste landlords.
Naxalite activities were open, as when
conducted through labor unions, or illegal, as
when they assassinated a particularly
recalcitrant landlord or made a daring seizure of
arms from a police camp
Two phase struggle
1. The original struggle was against feudal landlords
and landownership
2. The new struggle is against state domination,
modernization and development which parallels
the rise of India as a strong economy propelled
by capitalism and liberal economic gains.
• The issue of identity politics is a strong driver of
the conflict
Red Corridor
Nation state and security
• Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India,
called Maoist insurrection, “the single biggest
internal-security challenge”
• Home Secretary G.K Pillai reiterated the
magnitude of this threat, saying the Maoists
want to completely overthrow the Indian state
by 2050.
Framing of the problem.
This security-centric understanding of the
Maoist ‘‘problem,’’ is challenged by sections of
the dissident left who see it as a socio-economic
problem, arising from deprivation, loss of
livelihood, lack of employment opportunities
and abject poverty, given a neo-liberal state
abdicating all welfare functions
• Politically the tribals are very poorly
represented in the democratic process. In fact,
compared with India’s other subaltern groups,
such as the Dalits (former Untouchables) and
the Muslims, they are well nigh invisible.
Dalits have their own, sometimes very
successful, political parties; the Muslims have
always constituted a crucial vote bank for the
dominant Congress Party.
Space for expansion
The twin marginalization, economic and
political, has opened a space for the Maoists to
work in
Operation Green Hunt
• Green Hunt either began in July 2009, September
2009 or November 2009. Speaking off record,
senior
policemen
confirmed
that
the
intensification of “search and comb” operations
in Chhattisgarh began as early as July last year. In
September 2009 the press reported on the
progress of “Operation Green Hunt”: a massive 3
day joint operation in which the central CoBRA
force and state police battled Naxal forces in
Dantewada. (Hindu 2009)
Chinese connection
• Charu Mazumdar, the pioneer of the Naxalite
movement had said: “China’s Chairman is our
Chairman and China’s path is our path”.
• While we Indians are sensitized about the
ongoing proxy war by Pakistan, there is very little
or no consciousness that Maoism or Naxalism is
actually a proxy war by China being waged
against India for last five decades. (Singh 2010)
Ideology
• When more than 70 CRPF personnel were martyred in
Chhattisgarh, some students of a university in Delhi,
created for pioneering research but now considered a
leftist bastion, celebrated the tragedy. Some students
of the same university had celebrated the Tiananmen
Square massacre of students in China in 1989 for what
they thought was necessary to prevent China going
down the Soviet Union way. This university does not lie
in the ‘impoverished, underdeveloped and exploited
tribal mineral heartland of India’. Its students thrive in
excellent facilities made possible by the tax-payers
money. (Singh 2010)