Anti-Maoist operations to begin from Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh

New Delhi: Central paramilitary forces have taken up positions to begin the offensive against Maoist guerrillas in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh in the first half of December, senior officers here say.

The schedule has been worked out, forces have been deployed and, if everything goes well, the first phase of the operations could take off as early as next fortnight.

"The battalions of the Border Security Force (BSF), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) had already taken their positions in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, from where we would first start the operations," a senior officer dealing with anti-Maoist operations told IANS on condition of strict anonymity.

The BSF, ITBP and CRPF would be jointly operating in Chhattisgarh, he added.

Four battalions from the ITBP and at least two from BSF have moved to Chhattisgarh. Each battalion comprises 700 personnel. The CRPF is present in large numbers in Chhattisgarh, the most affected by Maoist violence.

"In Maharashtra the onus of taking on the Maoists largely lies on the shoulders of the CRPF. The force has moved additional three battalions in the state," the officer added.

The CRPF, one the world's largest paramilitary forces, has 207 battalions.

Another senior officer, who was not authorised to speak to media, said: "The operations will be jointly launched in synergy in both the states. It will be coordinated and additional forces would be rushed as per the requirement."

Asked about the launch of offensive operations, the officer said: "It will not be launched nationwide. In first half of December we would be covering Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh."

"After the setting up of a government in Jharkhand, which is presently undergoing elections, we will take up operations there," he said, adding that no timeline had been set for commencing operations in the state.

And, once the election process is complete in Jharkhand, the BSF and CRPF battalions which are presently posted there will undergo specific training related to anti-Maoist operations and will be deployed in Orissa.

"Once they are trained, we would be deploying them in Orissa for the offensive against the Maoists. All the operations would be in phases and one after the other. The plan is to capture and control Maoist controlled areas in the affected states one by one," the official added.

Senior officials confided to IANS that it will not be before March when the security forces will launch their operations in all the Maoist-affected states.

According to rough estimations, over 60,000 security personnel from the central paramilitary forces would be in acction against 6,000-7,000 armed Maoist cadres. Officials say the Maoists are armed with heavy as well sophisticated weapons like light machine guns, AK-47s, AK-56s and Insas rifles.

READ MORE - Anti-Maoist operations to begin from Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh

India : RED ALERT- Maoist collude with North-East insurgents

A CNN-IBN exclusive report has discovered that the collaboration between the Naxals with the Northeast insurgent groups runs well beyond the supplies of arms from the latter. The Naxalas also get on-spot help from the NE insurgents.Maoists camps dot the Jharkhand Bengal border. From these camps, Maoists launch one attack after another, increasing the area they control in India. The Red Corridor has seen progressive increase in terms of area and coverage.

CNN-IBN has now learnt that at least 7000 armed Maoists have spread out across the West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura district in West Bengal along with East Singhbhum in Jharkhand. In Bengal, they are being assisted by 50 hard-core rebels from Manipur's insurgent group, People Liberation Army, who are training tribal villagers living inside these forests.

Just two months ago the Maoists acquired more weapons from illegal arms-suppliers in south-East Asia.

* The weapons were originally meant for the now-decimated LTTE.

* The arms were supplied by an elaborate network that is run in North-East India by the Naga insurgent group NSCN (IM).

* The arms were smuggled in through two routes: Burma and Bangladesh.

* The arms include 850 AK-47 rifles, 4000 small weapons and several hundred grenades.

* They also include cheaper Chinese copies of weapons such as the American M-16 rifles and Russian Kalashnikovs - AK-47s and AK-56s.

* Maoists are also trying to establish links with the ULFA.

* They want ULFA to supply arms from Yunan province of southern China through the insurgents in Myanmar.

Clearly, the Maoists are preparing for a new surge. This time their target is West Bengal and their increased alliances with north-east insurgent groups of India will make it more difficult for the security forces to fight the Red terror.

READ MORE - India : RED ALERT- Maoist collude with North-East insurgents

Attack on train part of Maoist campaign to wrest control over large parts of India

RAHUL BEDI in New Delhi

MAOIST REBELS attacked and derailed a passenger train in eastern Jharkhand state last week, killing one person and injuring at least 30.

The rebels, who say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, bombed the track shortly before the train passed through the sparsely populated area on Thursday night.

Eight of the train’s coaches toppled over, killing one woman instantly, deputy inspector general of police Sindhu Hembram said. Five of the 30 injured passengers were in a critical condition, he added.

The rebels claim to be fighting for the rights of India’s poor and dispossessed and for the establishment of Communist rule.

They have been waging an armed struggle for almost four decades, demanding land and jobs for farm labourers, traditional tribal people and the poor. They have a notable presence in some 223 of India’s 603 administrative districts across 20 of its 29 provinces.

Over the past two decades their activities have claimed more than 6,000 lives, including those of hundreds of security-force personnel killed by improvised explosives and in ambushes.

Human rights groups say Maoist violence claimed more lives in 2008 than the virulent insurgency in India’s disputed northern Kashmir province and in the restive northeastern states bordering Burma and Bangladesh.

According to the Indian Human Rights Report 2009 by the Asian Centre for Human Rights, the number of civilians killed in Maoist-affected areas between 2005 and 2008 was 1,965, compared with 1,195 in Kashmir and 1,666 in the northeast.

India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh has repeatedly declared that the Maoists who run parallel administrations in their areas of influence are the “biggest national security challenge” facing India since independence 62 years ago.

In June 2009 India’s federal administration formally labelled the Maoists a terrorist group, hoping this would empower the security forces to counter their proliferating control over central and eastern India, and portions of the west of the country.

The federal interior ministry is mobilising about 75,000 specially trained and equipped security-force personnel against the Maoists, but has run into administrative difficulties in implementing their deployment.

The Maoists, numbering about 20,000 active cadres with tens of thousands of “overground” supporters and sympathisers, claim to be fighting for the rights of the poor and underprivileged in a largely corrupt system.

Officials, however, accuse them of being little more than criminal gangs using intimidation and extortion to collect money and to control impoverished villagers.

The Maoists operate in regions where there is abject poverty, widespread unemployment, ineffective policing and corrupt governance.

In the Maoist-affected districts, many state institutions have ceased to exist or, at best, have a token presence. The areas are often also rife with caste conflicts and populated by traditional tribes.

Maoist cadres fill the power vacuum by running parallel administrations and carrying out activities such as collecting taxes, running schools, setting educational curriculums and settling disputes in kangaroo courts.

Sources in the federal intelligence bureau claim that the rebels are expanding their influence over rural India by means of coercion and indoctrination, and by encircling – but never attacking – cities.

In many provinces the Maoists have successfully launched “moral re-armament” programmes designed to engender social progress and raise the “calibre” of locals. For example, in some areas they have banned narcotics and have encouraged widows to remarry, which is socially progressive in the conservative milieu found in more traditional areas.

The Indian government’s response, meanwhile, has involved a poorly applied and often harsh use of force, as well as the abuse of anti-terrorism legislation.

The resulting cycle of human rights abuses has, in turn, exacerbated local resentment and heightened social tensions, often driving victims into the Maoist ranks.

READ MORE - Attack on train part of Maoist campaign to wrest control over large parts of India

The A-Z of Naxal menace

by Biplob Ghosal

India, already surrounded by two hostile neighbours in China and Pakistan, faces a challenge that emanates from its own soil, i.e., the violence infested threat from Naxals.

The gravity of the threat can be judged by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement: “I have consistently held that left-wing extremism is perhaps the gravest internal security threat we face. We have not achieved as much success as we would have liked in containing it. It is a matter of concern that despite our efforts, the level of violence in the affected states continues to rise.”

Both the PM and Home Minister P Chidambaram have realised the grave hazard and operations to deal with the menace have gathered momentum.

How it all started?

The root of the Naxal movement dates back to 1948 –Telangana struggle when more than 2000 villages took part in the peasant movement. In the same year, a Leftist ideological document, ‘Andhra Letter’, laid down a revolutionary strategy based on China’s Mao Tse-Tung’s new democracy.

However, this might have just been a spark; the actual fire was ignited by Communist leader Charu Majumdar who founded the Naxalbari movement in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal (WB). It all started with the landlords attacking local tribal peasants and forcefully seizing their land. As a consequence, they hit back, which further provoked the CPI (M) led government in WB to crackdown on them with force, which led to many casualties. The Centre, led by Congress, supported the state government and hence, indirectly became responsible for the birth of Naxalism.

Though, the Naxalist movement was low profile during the 70s’, at present, it has gained prominence in more than 200 districts in states like Jharkhand, Bihar, WB, Chhattisgarh. Other states like Orissa too are slowly, but surely getting engulfed.


When did the Government wake up?

The government, it seems, has begun to really take stock of the situation after the deadly violence has begun to take toll. Killings and atrocities have become the order of the day for Naxalites. The security forces and armed Naxalites have been at loggerheads directly for the past two to three years. According to government data, Naxalites, who have become the gravest internal security threat forcing the Centre to plan an all-out offensive, have killed more than 2,600 people, including civilians, in just the past three years.

Why has the Government failed so far?

It is truly shocking to note why the government failed in assessing, as well as in countering the threat. The government’s stance has been consistently myopic towards tackling the problem. At a time when the movement should have been dealt with good governance, it tried to suppress it with sheer force. Another reason is the presence of different governments, both, at the Centre and the State that paid little attention, and moreover, termed it as a mild law and order problem.

The TDP government in Andhra Pradesh, and Congress in Tamil Nadu and at the Centre, viewed Naxalites as incapable of anything major, and the-then Home Minister Zail Singh who was in power during 1980-1982, categorically termed it as a law and order problem and asked the states to tackle it themselves.

What comes out as a peculiarity here is that the government itself was busy in other issues such as border problems, terrorism and gave this movement ample amount of time to organise itself.

Another aspect which government has lacked-in is assessing the root of the problem, i.e., the ideology. The government may say that they have followed up with development programmes, but the Naxalists have destroyed schools, telephone towers or other government projects. This is because they follow a different set of ideas and not what is laid down in the Indian Constitution.

They don’t want a democratic set-up that the nation follows, instead, they want to propagate their own school of thought and run their own government. They totally disapprove of the Indian system of governance and teaching. The Naxalites claim to represent the most oppressed people in India, those who are often left untouched by India’s development and bypassed by the electoral process. This is where the crux of problem lies and the government this needs to reconsider its approach.

Though a part of the solution can be taken from Home Minister P Chidambaram’s statement, “I am of the view and my ministry is of the view that we would first have to clear and hold an area dominated by Naxalites and then developmental activities will take place.”

It is not that people have just shifted to Naxal camps and moved away to jungles and taken up arms at the slightest provocation. It is the government’s approach that has forced them to do so. Salwa Judum, which was formed by Chhattisgarh government for restoring peace in the area, has instead proved to be a violent institution which served only to further provoke.

According to the Committee Against Violence On Women’s (CAVOW) report, “Women have been raped and molested, dole being given out to people is insufficient, ration does not last for the whole week, international organisations working out of the area have documented that there is malnutrition and hunger, minors are being recruited as Special Police Officers and under-trial women in jails are victims of sexual abuse.” Even the Supreme Court had expressed its disapproval of the Constitution of Salwa Judum by Chhattisgarh government, and giving them arms to tackle the Naxal menace in 2008.

The government has failed to give these people their own rights, and above all, deprived them of what they possessed. A report by the Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms states that “The temples of modern India reduced millions of tribal people to ecological refugees”; now “the minerals seen as the building blocks of modern India” are putting them “at risk of losing their land through acquisition and further disruption of their societies and economies”. These types of policies create insecurity and a cycle of growing lawlessness and poverty. Thus, violence becomes a natural outcome of state’s neo-liberal economic agenda.

The attitude of politicians has also added fuel to the fire. For grabbing votes, they have either made people fight among themselves or suppressed them using force. Some states have set up their cadre base, which are involved in killing and encroachment. The politicians need to think about the country first, rather than acquiring a coveted chair.

In a renowned newspaper, it was published that a top Naxal leader Narla Rabi Sharma, who is wanted in the killing of Jharkhand intelligence officer PS Induwar, said, “They would continue to fight oppression and would try and get Maoist prisoners freed. He also disclosed that the Maoists had whole heartedly backed the TMC in Nandigram and even now some of the members were in Nandigram to help TMC strengthen its position.”


What can be done?

Our government, which is now beginning to get a true sense of the problem, needs to focus on gathering intelligence, modernising its policing, and taking help of the Army as offensive action is needed to defeat Naxals. And with all this, good governance should go hand in hand to eradicate poverty from the affected areas.

Development should be the key and both the Centre and the state governments should ensure adequate as well as fruitful allocation of funds. Thousands of crores sanctioned by the Centre should not get wasted. Good monitoring and stringent punishment should be ensured for the defaulters.

Our police system should be revamped, and the paramilitary as well as the Army should train them. Better arms and sophisticated machinery should be provided to counter the Maoists as there are several examples of policemen falling prey to Naxals, which reflects the inability of the policemen. Thus the government should ensure modernising the police force and that too in a quick succession.

A different approach can be set up, like the one suggested by an expert on security and anti-terrorism operations, B Raman: “Judicious mix of incentives, disincentives and political initiatives- incentives to section of society in the affected areas who have kept away from movement despite intimidation, disincentives who have taken up arms in the form of vigorous application of the law against them and political initiatives to counter the ideological attraction.”

Negotiations like what Andhra Pradesh (AP) government did in 2004 with the Maoist rebels, is another viable option. The government can go for a similar option as violence had lessened after the truce talks.

India has a porous border with Nepal, China and Bangladesh and their involvement in fuelling this menace is not hidden. It is now evident that Maoists have external linkages. Recently, Home Secretary GK Pillai said that “Chinese are big smugglers... suppliers of small arms. I am sure that the Maoists also get them.”

Even the Home Minister had said last month that the Maoists were acquiring weapons through Bangladesh, Myanmar and possibly Nepal. “We know now that the weapons are coming through Bangladesh and Myanmar and possibly Nepal,” he had said. This aspect should be strictly and vigilantly tackled.

Apart from these, there are problems of caste and social discrimination. The Naxalites get an opportunity in attracting these marginalised people to resort to violence in the name of justice.

The Naxals should realise they have failed in a major part of their objective, as they have stayed away from mainstream national politics and just confronted the state through violent means. They should realise they can disrupt and destroy only up to a certain extent, but cannot defeat the state forces. Thus, they should come forward and hold meaningful talks with the government and fight for their rights by engaging themselves in the state administration.

Being a democratic and peace loving country we cannot repeat the experience of Lanka’s war on LTTE or Chinese crackdown of Uighurs and Tibetans. They are our own people, thus the government needs to take a firm stand by winning the battle of both the guns and the hearts.

READ MORE - The A-Z of Naxal menace

Politicos funded Assam rebel group: probe

The National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) maiden chargesheet has exposed the nexus militants in the Northeast enjoy with politicians, bureaucrats and contractors.
The 34-page chargesheet against 14 people, filed in a court on November 17, outlines how Rs 20 crore (200 million) in central funds was diverted to a militant outfit through the public health engineering and social welfare departments in Assam’s North Cachar Hills district.
Most transactions were made through a hawala (illegal money transfer) racket based in Kolkata to reach arms smugglers, to provide guns to the Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel) group, says the chargesheet. The group is also called the Black Widow.
The Centre had in June asked the NIA to investigate the nexus, two months after the Assam police arrested two Black Widow rebels with weapons and Rs 1 crore in cash. The two confessed they got the money from Mohit Hojai, then chief executive member of the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council.
The twin arrests almost coincided with the capture of Jewel Garlosa, the group’s chairman, in Bangalore. Hojai and Garlosa are among the 14 chargesheeted, as are Jiang Juming, a Myanmarese gunrunner, and social welfare deputy director R.H. Khan. Of the 14, 11 are in jail, two out on bail and one yet to be arrested.
The NIA has referred the case to the CBI as there are government officials involved.

READ MORE - Politicos funded Assam rebel group: probe

Combating Terrorism in Asian Waters

By: Vijay Sakhuja

Indian soldiers take position at the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai

Last year’s devastating attack on Mumbai by operatives of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was a reminder of the importance of securing the maritime environment against terrorist activities. It was not the first time terrorists had exploited weaknesses in marine security in Asia, but it drew attention to the necessity of securing national coastlines, a challenging task for the developing naval forces of many Asian nations.

The “Mumbai Dossier” prepared by Indian government agencies through the interrogation of Muhammad Ajmal Amir (a.ka. Kasab—the only terrorist captured alive in the attack) and other material evidence provides a clear and coherent picture of the sequence of the attack, including its planning and preparation (Hindu.com, January 5).  According to the dossier, ten terrorists departed Karachi in Pakistan for Mumbai onboard the fishing vessel Al-Husseini. En route they hijacked the Indian fishing craft Kuber, killed the crew and threw their bodies overboard. Afterwards they abandoned the fishing vessel and shifted to inflatable craft that landed at unsecured waterfronts in Mumbai. The perpetrators were highly motivated, well trained and proficient in use of GPS (global positioning systems). During the attack, the terrorists were in constant communication with their masters in Pakistan through satellite telephones.

Terrorist Groups in Asia with Maritime Capability

Besides Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a number of terrorist groups in Asia are capable of using the maritime medium to conduct attacks:

• Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Before their recent defeat by the Sri Lankan military, the LTTE had successfully exercised control of the seas off Jaffna in the northeast region of Sri Lanka. The movement’s naval wing, the Sea Tigers, were proficient in wolf-pack tactics using fast speed boats, underwater operations involving saboteur attacks and daring forays against the Sri Lankan Navy.[1] The group was also known to own and operate a fleet of ocean-going vessels that facilitated LTTE’s weapons and logistics supply chains. Besides already providing a major source of revenue, these vessels were also engaged in drug smuggling.

• Al-Qaeda is known to possess some naval capability. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (captured in 2002 and currently held in Guantanamo Bay) was al-Qaeda’s naval specialist who designed assaults on shipping and underwater attacks by suicide demolition teams. In fact, al-Nashiri was the mastermind of the USS Cole and MV Limburg attacks in 2002. He devised a sophisticated naval strategy against shipping that recommended ramming merchant ships with motorized swimmer delivery vehicles carrying explosives, planting explosives on ships in port and carrying out underwater attacks by divers (Asia Times, May 11, 2007).

•    Jemmiah Islamiah (JI) in Indonesia. The JI has contacts with al-Qaeda and may have been trained in maritime attacks and suicide scuba diving. In 2003, Singapore authorities foiled JI plans to attack U.S. naval vessels in the Changi Naval base. The JI operatives had meticulously drawn up plans and identified “kill zones” to conduct suicide boat attacks on vessels in the narrowest part of the channel. [2]

• Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI). The Bangladesh-based HuJI is believed to be an offshoot of a group based in Pakistan with links to Osama bin Laden and has a force of about 15,000 operatives (Satp.org, November 12). HuJI is also intricately linked to insurgent groups in northeast India and has been a major source of weapons in this area for a long time (Indian Express, August 17). Huge consignments of illegal arms sourced in Southeast Asia are moved across the seas by HuJI and unloaded in Bangladeshi ports before being sold to Indian insurgent groups. [3]

• The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines. The MILF has been active in waters around the Philippines and has a limited maritime capability. In 1999, the group is alleged to have approached North Korea for a mini-submarine, though a MILF spokesman said the report was “absolutely untrue” (Reuters, January 4, 2005). The ASG has significant maritime capability built around stealthy, high speed, shallow-draft wooden boats that are equipped with machine guns. The group was responsible for the February 2004 bombing of Super Ferry 14 90 minutes out of Manila Bay that killed over 100 people (Asia Times, April 24, 2004).

It is evident that some terrorist groups in Asia possess significant maritime capability, or at least the ability to strike targets on or from the sea.  In the past, they have successfully employed sophisticated tactics and recorded spectacular attacks against ships and coastal infrastructure. The ability to mount attacks through the subsurface medium using mini-submarines, submersible platforms, sea mines (Limpet mines) and saboteurs are sought after and at least one group (the LTTE) had gained some proficiency in these methods.

Complexity of the Maritime Domain

The sea offers both opportunities and challenges. It is an open highway and nearly 90 percent of global trade is carried onboard commercial ships, making the sea lanes the umbilical cord of the global economy. At another level, the sea can be perilous; it is vast, opaque and provides an excellent means to engage in terrorism “at sea,” as demonstrated by the USS Cole and MV Limburg attacks, and “from the sea,” as witnessed by the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Although the sea is a complex medium and requires greater skills to conduct attacks, it is becoming popular among terrorist groups partly due to the success of maritime attacks mounted so far. Significantly, a variety of equipment found in the inventory of terrorist groups (high speed recreational boats, sea scooters, scuba diving equipment, etc.) are of dual nature and are relatively easy to acquire commercially without inviting suspicion. The innovative use of these tools by the terrorist groups has overwhelmed Asia’s maritime security agencies.

Responding to Maritime Terrorism

Several Asian navies have modified their strategies and doctrines to address threats arising from asymmetric actors. There is an ongoing transformation in the naval force structure built around highly agile platforms like smaller boats that can be quickly deployed for a wide spectrum of low-end missions to engage a sophisticated enemy operating on the high seas. Distinctive assets are provided by air platforms for surveillance and reconnaissance. These are both manned (fixed wing aircraft and helicopters) and unmanned (unmanned aerial vehicles, aerostats and satellites) and are highly networked with a variety of sea-based platforms. In essence, Asia’s navies are building capabilities to obtain credible maritime domain awareness.

At another level, several multilateral, trilateral and bilateral forums have mushroomed in Asia, where countries must address maritime asymmetric threats and challenges. These include the East Asia Summit (EAS), ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), and Track II initiatives such as the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP). The Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) is a significant government-to-government agreement by fourteen Asian countries to enhance the security of regional waters.

At the functional-operational level, Asian countries are engaged in bilateral and multilateral naval exercises focused on terrorism and piracy, intelligence sharing arrangements, symposiums, conferences and training arrangements. The Malaysia-Singapore-Indonesia (MALSINDO) trilateral naval patrols and the Eyes in the Sky (EIS) air patrol involving maritime aircraft from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand are significant regional initiatives aimed at enhancing security of the Straits of Malacca.

The Asian nations have also undertaken capacity building initiatives that involve the training of personnel, financial assistance, technology support and even maritime surveillance assistance.  For instance, Japan and India have committed financial assistance and China has provided technological support for the security and safety of the Straits of Malacca. [4] The United States has supplied radars to Indonesia for maritime surveillance and Japan has transferred small ships to Malaysia and Indonesia to bolster their patrolling capability. [5] India also provides maritime surveillance cover to the Maldives. (Times of India, October 17)

Some Asian countries are ill-equipped to guarantee maritime domain awareness since there are critical weaknesses and deficiencies in their monitoring and surveillance. Furthermore, they are overwhelmed by the responsibility of monitoring vast littoral territories. In the absence of technological wherewithal, they remain vulnerable while their coasts emerge as hotbeds of illegal activity that provide a breeding ground and launching point for terrorist activities. At the operational level, the absence of “hot pursuit” agreements is dexterously exploited by terrorists, insurgents, pirates and other criminals to evade capture. Many Asian states have yet to develop a common legal framework to prosecute terrorists, partly due to varying domestic perceptions and humanitarian laws.

Conclusion

It is evident that maritime asymmetric challenges and threats require a sophisticated strategy that pivots on domain awareness, an effective intelligence apparatus, and a credible armed response. So far Asian nations have done well by building capacities to respond to maritime terrorism, but further incidents like the 2008 Mumbai attack still remain a possibility. At one level, this is due to the covert nexus between states and terrorist groups in which some states may employ terrorism as a policy against their adversaries. At another level, it could be due to poor governance of sea spaces resulting in “chaos in the littorals,” particularly in Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Robust maritime domain awareness still eludes Asian countries due to financial and technological deficiencies.  This situation has the potential to adversely impact the security of the entire region. There will be added pressures on Asian nations to build response capabilities to preclude intervention by other stakeholders, including extra-regional powers who could try to exploit the security vacuum as a means of establishing a wide naval presence in Asian waters.


Notes:

1. Vijay Sakhuja, “The Dynamics of LTTE’s Commercial Infrastructure”, Observer Research Foundation Occasional Paper, April 2006.
2. The Jemaah Islamiyah Arrests and the Threat of Terrorism,” White Paper, Ministry of Home Affairs, Republic of Singapore, 2003.  
3. Anthony Davis, ‘New Details Emerge on Bangladesh Arm’s Haul’, Jane’s Intelligence Review, September 2004.
4. Hasjim Djalal, “The Development of Cooperation on the Straits of Malacca and Singapore,” Paper presented at the International Symposium on Safety and Protection of the Marine Environment in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, November 24, 2008.
5. John B. Haseman and Eduardo Lachica, “Getting Indonesia Right”, Joint Forces Quarterly, Issue 54, 2009.

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'Chidambaram's action endangering peace and integrity'

Himanshu Kumar knows that his phone is tapped and he is under surveillance not only in Chhattisgarh where he lives but even in Mumbai [ Images ] where he had come to address a discussion on 'Insurgency and counter-insurgency: Challenges of building a shared prosperity' last week. Chhattisgarh's Bharatiya Janata Party [ Images ] government recently demolished the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram that Kumar had established to work with the tribals in Kanwalnar, Bastar. A staunch Gandhian, Kumar spoke to rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore about what attracted him to work with the tribals, on the atrocities committed on tribals by various paramilitary forces in Bastar and what could possibly solve the Maoist problem in India [ Images ].
What inspired you to start your ashram in Bastar?
Mahatma Gandhi [ Images ] had said that young men should go to the villages and work there, otherwise this democracy would become a democracy of the goons.
I visited Bastar in 1988 and saw the pathetic condition of the Adivasis there. In 1992, I finally decided that I should go there and work for the upliftment of the tribals and so I set up my ashram there.
Who gave you the land to start the ashram?
As Bastar falls under Schedule V (a law that provides protection to the Adivasis living in Scheduled Areas) area, gram sabhas have the right to decide on land allotment. So the gram sabha in Bastar allotted us a piece of land on which we constructed our ashram. We used to give training to tribal boys and girls on personal hygiene, health, education and sanitation.
Why did the Chhattisgarh government bulldoze your ashram?
Because we had started raising issues of tribal alienation, the Salwa Judum's (the state government-supported movement against the Maoists) atrocities on tribals.
The government of Chhattisgarh was very uncomfortable about the issues we raised. While we were trying to rehabilitate the tribals, the state government was trying to evict them out of their homeland.
So we came in direct conflict with the government's plan to evict the tribals.
But why would the state government do that?
Just to get the tribal land and give it to corporates so that they could mine the land for mineral wealth.
Are you hinting at a nexus between the corporates and the state government?
Yes, it is very clearly established. There is a government report which is published in last week's Outlook magazine which says that the Tatas and Essar funded Salwa Judum. And being there on ground zero, we see that the Tatas and Essar have stakes there.
They want land and they want no Naxal activity in the area so that they can mine the mineral wealth peacefully and in an uninterrupted manner. So they started it and they are in the field.
Are you saying that the strong corporate presence is driving operations like Operation Green Hunt, the Union government's military campaign against the Maoists?
Operation Green Hunt is nothing but an operation to get the tribals out of their villages. The paramilitary forces and Salwa Judum are attacking innocent old men, women and children.
Where are you getting these reports from? Or are these mere allegations?
We are meeting the people of these areas directly. We meet the victims of such atrocities. We are present in the field. We work in these areas and don't rely on others to get reports.
Has Green Hunt actually started in the way that it was reported in some sections of the media?
It is very much functional. It is going on.
Since when?
First, the superintendent of police, Dantewada, said it when they attacked a village named Vishapal. They said it is Operation Green Hunt. And now our home minister (P Chidambaram [ Images ]) is saying that it is a media-invented term. The Chhattisgarh police first coined the term.
Do you think that the government is using the beheading of Jharkhand intelligence officer Francis Induwar as an excuse to launch Operation Green Hunt? Are such beheadings justified?
We condemn violent acts by all, irrespective of who the perpetrators are. But Naxals (the Maoists) are not our forces. They are not responsible to us. But these COBRAs (the government's Combat Battalion for Resolute Action) are responsible to the nation, to the state government.
I know of an incident where the COBRAs beheaded a 12-year old tribal boy only a month ago.
Do you have photographic evidence to prove your charge?
We have an eyewitness. His grandfather was with him and he has told us that his grandson's hands were tied to a tree and he was beheaded.
If small boys are beheaded like this and the government is not condemning it, it means it (the government) is for it (beheading of innocents).
Every day there are killings and lootings of the innocent.
Why don't reports of such atrocities appear in the media?
It appears that the media is very much influenced by the corporate houses and the Indian middle class that does not want to know about these tribals.
Tribals are not marketable news items. They are not even consumers (of modern amenities)that we should bother about them.
Are you saying that on one hand we have tribals and people like you and on the other hand the rest of India?
It's not like that. We very much want to be part of mainstream India. We want to draw the attention of the rest of the nation to the atrocities being committed against the tribals in this belt so that they can feel that they are a part of India.
So far the tribals are not feeling that way because India has not reached them.
Considering this style of violence can one say that the Salwa Judum and the Maoists are two different sides of the same coin?
It's not like that. It is the resistance that is there on the ground. It is very less Naxal violence now. It's people who are resisting government forces now.
Would tribals have beheaded Francis Induwar or was it an act of the Naxals?
It is a Naxal act.
In that sense do you think the Naxals and Salwa Judum are two different sides of the same coin?
You should understand why violent acts take place. In the tribal villages if these family members find policemen (who beheaded the 12-year-old boy) will they spare him? Will they not behead him?
While we should try to understand these reactions we should also strive to create an atmosphere where everybody shuns the use of violence.
What measures are you taking personally so that such an atmosphere evolves on the ground?
We are trying to rehabilitate villagers who are displaced by the acts of Salwa Judum and the state government. We are trying to get them justice by taking their cases to courts so that their anger calms down.
We are striving to get the civil administration back on its feet in these areas so that people can get rations, food, medical facilities, and they start leading a normal life.
At the same time are you also trying to prevail over the tribals, telling them that beheadings are wrong? Violence as a means to get justice is wrong?
Yes. Very much, everyday, every time we tell them not to indulge in violence in all our meetings.
In your presentation you said that Naxals have never attacked development workers. But they have attacked people working to build roads and bridges?
You are giving examples of roads... the roads are not for the tribals... they are mainly for the corporates, government and the police forces.
Tribals do not ask for the roads that are 80 feet wide. They ask for their rations first, schools and medical infrastructure for their families. But that is not given to them.
In Dantewada, 80 feet roads are being constructed, but schools lie in shambles. The priority of the government is roads because they want to strip off these areas of all the mineral wealth.
Is Operation Green Hunt all about taking India beyond the 10 per cent GDP growth rate?
I fear that we are getting caught up in a situation where such a development process will actually hamper development and prove counter productive. Because if you are going to attack the tribals, the Naxal influence on them is going to increase and their cadre is going to increase. And when their cadre increases they expand and if they expand development will be hampered.
Do you fear that the Chhattisgarh government will make another Binayak Sen out of you?
Me? Yes, they can. Let them do it. No problem.
Have there been explicit threats to your life?
(Dismissively.) It's alright. I'm facing FIRs (First Information Reports), my house was demolished. Yes, every day there is so... but it's ok.
Is there a threat of your being eliminated physically?
Yes, I have heard about it. There are plans to kill activists like me and the Naxals will be blamed for it.
What are you planning next?
I will start a padyatra to stop this violence.
By this violence do you mean violence by both the paramilitary forces and the Naxals?
Yes, both.
Can you say that explicitly?
Yes. (I will strive to stop the violence) By both parties. The Naxals and the State.
Do you have any message for our home minister?
Chidambaram's actions (the use of massive force to drive out the Naxals) are endangering the peace and integrity of our nation. He should put justice before everything else.
Is that the only way in which the Naxal problem can be solved in India?
Yes I believe so.
There is an allegation that you are a Naxal sympathiser. Would you like to comment on this allegation?
I'm always trying to suggest ways which can help reduce Naxal violence. I have never done anything that will help Naxalites [ Images ]. So it should be Naxalites who should be angry...
But the allegation is they are not angry with you... they let you function peacefully in Bastar...
No. It's not right. It's because people love us, people like us to be there.
Naxalites attacked us twice. They snatched away all our belongings once when we were on a peace march.
On another occasion they beat up our volunteers. So it's not that the Naxals like us.
The tribal people there have created a pressure on the Naxals that they should allow us to function in that area.
Finally, can you recite the poem that you said during your presentation?
Jab aakhri machchli mar jayegi (When our quest for development will take its toll on the last available fish in the ocean)
Jab aakhri nadi gandi ho jayegi (When our quest for development will pollute the last available water resource)
Jab aakhri ped kat jaayega (When our quest for development will uproot the last available tree on this planet)
Tab hame samajh main aayega (Will it be only then when we will realise)
Ki hum paise ko kha nahi sakte (That we can't eat money and survive)
Photograph: Uday Kuckian

READ MORE - 'Chidambaram's action endangering peace and integrity'

Bangalore hub of arms trade

On an average, 12 persons are shot dead every day in India, reports Times News Network.Globally, around 3,75,000 die from bullet wounds every year. Students sometimes manage to lay their hands on guns and shoot their friends. The `hardware of violence’ is readily available in open markets. In the backdrop of an alleged global apathy towards regularization of arms trade, the Control Arms Foundation of India has been trying to highlight the social impact of this menace.
Binalakshmi Nepram, secretary general of the foundation, said New Delhi and Bangalore were the top two arms trade hubs in India -- apart from being places where defence decisions are made and military hardware are manufactured.
Now, the upcoming Aero India 2009 is what the foundation is looking at. Nepram said around 600 companies from India and abroad will participate in the show. “The UN deems aircraft as part of conventional arms and ammunition. In this regard, we want to draw attention to the larger picture of arms trade and the impact it has on the lives of millions of people,” she explained.
The members of the foundation have planned a meeting in Bangalore when Aero India starts. They will try to highlight various issues revolving around arms trade. A human chain protest on MG Road is also planned. There will be a training session for volunteers of the foundation.
The foundation comprises members ranging from college students to academicians to survivors of gun injuries and journalists. There are even singers and ex-military personnel men.
“We hope to draw the society’s attention to how the sale of arms in the open market can harm us, especially the youth,” she added.

READ MORE - Bangalore hub of arms trade

30,000 live cartridges, six weapons, explosives seized in Bokaro

PATNA: Bihar Police personnel on Tuesday seized 30,000 live cartridges of .315 bore, two AK-47 rifles, four INSAS rifles and huge quantity of explosive from a house in Bokaro in Jharkhand, ADG (headquarters) U S Dutta said.

Acting on a tip-off, the state police sought help from the Jharkhand Police and raided a house in Sector 12 Bokaro and recovered the firearms and explosive, Dutta said.

Special Task Force of Bihar Police had on November eight seized liquid explosive, 14 carbine-manufacturing machines, two pistols, 7,221 live cartridges, 50 detonators, one box containing naxal literature, CD and cassettes from a place under Kankerbagh police station in the state capital, he said.

READ MORE - 30,000 live cartridges, six weapons, explosives seized in Bokaro

Living with India's 'Red Menace'

MARKAPAR — In a rural Maoist stronghold in central India, off limits to the police and government officials, people are queuing for photos they hope might save their lives.

Indian security forces are set to launch a major offensive against Maoist rebels whose insurgency has escalated across the country, posing a challenge to the authority of the state led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Stuck in the middle of the conflict zones are thousands of villagers from indigenous tribes -- some embittered by years of government neglect, others brutalised by the rebels and many who simply want to be left alone.

The queue in Markapur, 186 miles from the capital of Chhattisgarh state in central India, is for photos to be used on makeshift identification cards that can be brandished if the long-forecast offensive begins.

"We decided to get an identity card. I could flash it to prove that I am neither a Maoist nor an anti-Maoist," said Bukti Mai, 36, a member of the Gonde tribe who lives in small mud house hidden deep in the forests.

Bukti stood with other tribal men and women outside the studio to get the first photograph of her life, which will be used on an ID card that is stamped by the village head but of no official value.

"People are scared. They are making the cards on their own, just to be on a safe side when the war begins," explained Ramesh Ghondal, a government officer in Dantewada, about an hour's drive from Markapur.

Tribal groups such as the adivasis in Chhattisgarh have been left behind by economic development elsewhere in India and their poverty and discontent with local government corruption is seen as a major source of Maoist support.

They sit at the bottom of society, eking out a meagre living by growing vegetables, collecting honey, making hand-rolled cigarettes and distilling liquor. Most are illiterate and unable to count or use money.

"The Maoists sold us a dream. A dream of a better tomorrow and convinced us that it was our duty to kill the rich who exploit the poor," said Huda Sukhnath, a former rebel who lives in another Maoist-dominated village near Markapur.

In the past two decades, Maoists have trained thousands of tribal men and women as foot soldiers, teaching them and their children to fight, lay landmines and make remote-control detonators for explosives.

Those who pledged allegiance to the Maoists and vacated their ancestral land to set up training camps were rewarded, handed guns and indoctrinated in the ideology of fighting government rule and landlords.

But the impoverished rural masses, on whose behalf the Maoists claim they are fighting, are subject to the vagaries of rebel power, with its summary justice, intimidation and ideological strictures.

Sukhnath was expelled by the group after he refused to kill a landowner in 2007 and he now lives in fear of being gunned down by the Maoists or the police.

"It's a hostage-like situation," says Hardain Ram, a father of three in Markapar who collects wood and honey to sell in the local market.

"All orders have to be obeyed here. Members can get married but pledge to never start a family."

According to the Maoist guidelines, all members should refrain from having children as a family could make the "comrade" emotional and hinder his or her ultimate mission of waging a war against the state.

They also have to undergo compulsory military training and refrain from meeting family and friends who are not Maoists.

Hardain is one of few brave enough to speak out in an area where suspicion of the media runs deep and talking to a government official can lead to execution for being an informer.

The rebels also set strict rules governing villagers in their areas. Women, for example, are obliged to prepare food for visiting "comrades."

Hardain says his 12-year-old son was recently rebuked by a local leader and punished after he was found guilty of dancing to a Bollywood film song in the training camp.

"It is our land, our forest. The Maoists and the government have no business to interfere in our lives," Hardain said.

State police documents reveal at least 1,700 people have been killed in Dantewada by the Maoists in the last five years.

Other villagers are exasperated by the government's inaction for so many years and are full of foreboding ahead of the upcoming offensive, dubbed "Operation Green Hunt" and tipped to start this month.

"The government should have launched the offensive a decade ago," said Wandri Dhuva, a naturopath physician working in the Dantewada region.

"It is too late now, the Maoists have gathered a lot of money and arms when the government was sleeping.

"The operation is a waste of time. There will be blood all over the forest land."

India's Maoist insurgency has spread to 20 of the country's 29 provinces, according to the government, and police officials say the majority of the tribal population in Maoist areas has never had contact with the government.

If living on a battleground between the Indian state and the Maoists was not bad enough already, the tribal population must also contend with another force in the forests that acts as a deadly counterweight to the rebels.

The government-backed paramilitary defence movement called the Salwa Judum (People's Army) has recruited some of the villagers who objected to the rigorous military training and the Maoist brainwashing.

In 2008, India's top court expressed its disapproval of state backing of Salwa Judum, which stands accused of gross human rights violations, including arming children to fight the so-called "Red Menace."

READ MORE - Living with India's 'Red Menace'

'Maoists Ideology Outmoded, Warped and Distorted'

The CPI(M) today launched a scathing political attack on the Maoists saying they have never taken any stand on burning issues like price rise or unemployment, nor have they mobilised workers and peasants to carry out movements against "neo-liberal" economic policies.

"Their world view is outmoded, distorted and warped as they consider terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba or LTTE as liberation struggles of South Asia," CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said here.

Addressing a seminar on the role of Maoists in India, he also attacked the extremist group for "importing and borrowing whole-heartedly" the ideology from the Chinese Communist Party "when it was in the grip of Left sectarianism during Cultural Revolution".

This "outmoded, warped and distorted" ideology, which has been discarded by China itself, still drives the Maoists, Karat said, asserting that the ultra-Leftists should be fought politically, ideologically and organisationally.

Criticising the government for not tackling the real issues which were giving the Maoists a foothold in some pockets, the CPI(M) leader charged that a major reason of displacement of tribals was the government's mines and mineral policy.

He asked the government to urgently implement socio- economic programmes in the affected areas to ensure that tribals are not evicted from their traditional habitat and that they receive education, healthcare and basic facilities.

The CPI(M) leader said banning of the CPI(Maoist) or putting them in the terror list "does not lead to suppressing their activities. They are already working underground."

It was only now that the government has woken up to the menace with the Prime Minister also raising concern over not fully implementing the Act to grant forest land rights to tribals.

"But this also does not remove the root cause of misery and exploitation of the tribals. The main cause is the government's Mines and Mineral Policy which is throwing open the tribal areas to the depredations of the Indian and foreign multinational mining companies," Karat said.

Referring to the spate of attacks by Maoists on CPI(M) cadres in West Bengal and elsewhere, Karat said this was not a new phenomenon because Marxists mobilised the people who the extremists want to win over.

Observing that attack on CPI(M) was "most vicious" during 1971-1972 both by the Naxals and the Congress under Indira Gandhi, he said that now it is a "joint enterprise between Trinamool Congress and the Maoists" to attack the Left in their strongest bastion of West Bengal.

Karat asked the CPI(M) activists and supporters to "isolate" the Maoists politically and "push them out of the political framework".

The seminar was also addressed by noted economist Prof Jayati Ghosh and scientist Prabir Purakayastha.

READ MORE - 'Maoists Ideology Outmoded, Warped and Distorted'

Burmese army targets India rebels

Burmese troops have surrounded a base of Naga separatists in the country's northwest and begun bombing it, Indian military officials said.

They said Indian troops have fanned out in the hills opposite this base in Sagaing to arrest any rebels who may try to flee into Indian territory.
The base is operated by the Khaplang faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN).
There are around 300 rebels at the base, Indian intelligence agencies say.
Two Burmese light infantry regiments are involved in the attack, they said.
But Burmese military officials or diplomats were unwilling to provide details.
Villagers around Maniakshaw in Sagaing said they could see the Burmese troops firing mortars, targeting the camp.
Diplomatic pressure
Indian troops confirmed heavy shelling of the Naga rebel base since late on Thursday but were not sure whether the Burmese had launched an infantry assault.
Burma's military junta has been under Indian diplomatic pressure to launch assaults against northeast Indian rebel bases in its territory for some time now.
But the junta has cited counter-insurgency commitments elsewhere in the country for not starting an offensive against these bases located mostly in Sagaing division in the hilly northwest of the country.

Nagaland has also been hit by a prolonged insurgency

The Bhutanese army demolished the northeastern Indian rebel bases in the southern part of the kingdom in December 2003 in an operation.
The success of that operation has prompted India to push its other neighbours in the east to initiate similar military action against the rebels from the northeast.
Bangladesh's new Awami League led government has also started a crackdown against north-eastern rebel hideouts on their hideout.
The separatist United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) has alleged that Bangladesh police has picked up two of the senior leaders from Dhaka this week and expressed apprehensions that they may be handed over to India.

READ MORE - Burmese army targets India rebels

India Maoists can 'hold talks'

There has been a surge in Maoist violence in recent months A Maoist leader in India said the rebels are willing to talk to the government if it puts off a planned offensive against them. Koteswar Rao said rebels would talk "if there was a ceasefire" on both sides. His comments came as paramilitary troops were deployed in areas hit by rebel violence in West Bengal state. The rebels are fighting for communist rule in many Indian states. More than 6,000 people have died during the rebels' 20-year fight. Last month, India's Home Minister P Chidambaram urged the rebels to "abjure violence" before the government could initiate talks with them. Maoist leader Koteswar Rao - alias Kishenji - said Mr Chidambaran's proposal was "ridiculous". "The government is killing innocent people in the name of tackling Maoists and they are asking us to abjure violence, which is ridiculous," he said. "The process of talks can only begun if there is a ceasefire on both sides", he said. 'Sympathetic' Mr Rao asked the government to withdraw paramilitary forces from Maoist-controlled areas in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. "They will have to look into the problems of the tribals in a sympathetic way," Mr Rao told reporters. In 2005, peace talks between the Andhra Pradesh state government and the rebels collapsed with the Maoists saying elite police units were detaining their members and killing them in staged or faked shootouts. Earlier this week, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told chief ministers from 29 Indian states to end exploitation of tribal people. Mr Singh said there had been a "systematic failure" to give tribal people a stake in India's modern economy. He said this was fomenting discontent, making them vulnerable to Maoists. Tribal people often face discrimination from government and local officials in India. There has been a surge in Maoist violence in India in recent months - the rebels have kidnapped and killed policemen, help up an express train, attacked police stations, and blown up railway lines and communication links in affected states. The Maoist insurgency started in 1967 and has spread to cover a third of India's districts, forming a so-called "red corridor" in mainly central areas. The rebels have a presence in more than 223 of India's 600-odd districts across 20 states, according to the government. There have been more than 1,400 cases related to violence by Maoists between January and August, according to official records. Nearly 600 civilians have died over that period. The insurgents wield most influence in areas which are mostly poor and dominated by tribes people. They are also areas widely seen as being rich in mineral wealth which the Maoists say is being handed over to corporate firms while the poor remain deprived.

READ MORE - India Maoists can 'hold talks'

Operation Blind Hunt

MAOISTS ATTACK AT WILL, FORCES ARE ON THE BACKFOOT AND FRAIL WIDOWS ARE THE ENEMY. TUSHA MITTAL LAYS BARE GROUND ZERO

Warpath A tribal woman walks past paramilitary personnel on patrol in Lalgarh PHOTOS: PINTU PRADHAN

ON THE morning of October 23, 14 adivasi women walked out of West Bengal’s Midnapore jail in crumpled saris. Frail and bewildered, they wondered how they would travel 100 km back to their villages in Lalgarh. The women did not know why they had been arrested, or why they were being released.
The previous night, these women had been the cause of shrill debate across television studios – their release was equated with the famous Kandahar terrorist swap. Maoists had attacked the Sankrail Police Station in West Bengal, killed two officers and kidnapped the officer in charge (OC). These women — “the Naxal prisoners,” India’s own Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists — were being swapped for OC Atindranath Dutta. A lower court had rejected their bail plea; now a sessions judge in Midnapore had conveniently granted bail.
Then came a piercing outcry: Is the West Bengal Government soft on Maoists? On cue, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya clarified that his government is not weak, that this is a one-off incident, that no such release will ever happen again. Swiftly, Home Minister P Chidambaram distanced himself, saying this was solely a decision of the West Bengal Government. Immediately, Left Front General Secretary Prakash Karat sprung into damage control mode, emphasising his party is indeed against the Maoists. Home Secretary GK Pillai said the swap was unfortunate. Amid the high-decibel rhetoric, no one asked the basic question. Who are these women? What are they guilty of? What is the evidence of their links with the Maoists? Why were they in jail in the first place?
When you see this frenzy over the release of 14 innocent adivasi women – among them a 70-year-old widow – you know there is reason to be afraid. Operation Lalgarh has set off a horrifying blindness, symptomatic of any war zone. There are the troops, there is the enemy; there is nothing in between. Everything else is collateral damage; everyone else, a prisoner of war. When the Centre launches Operation Green Hunt this year, this is what will be replicated on a much larger scale across Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar. There will be many more hostages and neither side may be willing to swap.
If you had met the families of these adivasi women before any such swap was imminent, you’d know there is reason to be afraid. A skeletal Rabi Patro is sewing sal leaves into plates; he earns Rs 50 for every 1,000 plates. He cannot afford the journey to Midnapore jail to meet his wife. Dhanaraj Mahato is grumpy. With his wife gone, he has to feed the cows and goats. Tapasi Baske’s afraid her mother-in-law may never return but her immediate worry is the hen eating up her rice. None of these families have the resources to travel to court or engage a lawyer. None of them know that in a land far away, their kin have already been labelled as Maoists; that the basic tenet of a just State – being deemed innocent until proven guilty – has been reversed.
LOCAL HUMAN rights groups say there have been more than 400 arrests in and around Lalgarh since June 2009. The police put the figure at 388, of which they say 88 have direct links with Maoists. The remaining, they say, are connected to “front organisations of the Maoists” such as the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA). When you begin to examine the evidence, the specific cases against these men and women, a grand charade, a manic witchhunt comes to light. There is a strategy, a pattern. You can be booked for waging war against the State for raising slogans like “Maoist Zindabad, PCAPA Zindabad” at mass protest rallies – rallies you never attended. Arrested as a Maoist for shouting “Run, Kishenji!” while fleeing from the police. The police don’t have to explain how they nabbed you, but missed the much-wanted CPI (Maoist) spokesperson who was apparently in the same crowd. You can be charged for attempting to murder the police with “deadly weapons” such as “brickbats, bows and arrows” though there is no record of police injury. The Maoists could barge into your poultry farm and threaten you to attend rallies and the next day, you could be arrested for “giving shelter to the Maoists”.

the kandahar swap

‘We are not free yet. The police could identify us again’ PODDOMONI AND SUNIYA Farm labourers SUNIYA BHASKE WORKS as farm labour on brinjal and cauliflower fields. Though she had heard of others, this was her first protest march. Feeding her six goats and 50 hens was more important. They are what she missed most in jail.

‘We are fools. We talk straight. Will you use this against me?’ SUDHARANI BASKE 70-year-old widow SUDHARANI BASKE CANNOT understand what has suddenly happened to the country. She is convinced the police is out to pick up everyone. She will not believe you no matter what you say. You are, after all, the police in plain clothes

‘They can’t get the right people, so they are picking us’ PRATIMA PATRO Adivasi sal-leaf picker AS HER HUSBAND is too frail, Pratima does everything – clean the mud hut and earthen pots, till the fields, graze the cows, and gather firewood and sal leaves from the jungle. She screams in anger when you mention the police. Will they feed her family when she is in jail, she wants to know.

Operation Lalgarh has triggered a horrifying blindness. In the name of combating India’s greatest internal security threat, the State is doing to village folk what it did to Muslims in the name of curbing terrorism. “Most of the people we pull up are ordinary villagers and tribals,” an Assistant Commander of a paramilitary unit in Lalgarh admitted. “We pick them up because they don’t listen when we ask them to stop. They try to escape, so we arrest them. We hand them to the Bengal police. The police interrogates them and decides whom to send to jail. Usually, they try to let off the innocent tribals. Mostly, those with previous cases against them are detained.”
If you happened to see what evidence the police have against the 14 ‘Kandahar women’, the horrifying blindness of Lalgarh would become apparent. All 14 were booked for criminal conspiracy, waging war against the state, abetment to waging war against the state, unlawful assembly, rioting, rioting with deadly weapons, rioting with a common objective, obstruction of public servants and attempt to murder. They were also booked under the Arms Act. The charge of waging war against the state is punishable with life imprisonment.
This is what the tribals say happened that September afternoon: While patrolling in Basber village, the paramilitary forces stopped a local boy, Lalu Tuddu, for questioning. He could not tell them where the Maoists were hiding. The police began to thrash him. Chitamoni, an adivasi woman, rushed to his aid; she too was beaten. Villagers then swarmed in protest. The troops left immediately, but the incident tipped over a cauldron of rage welling ever since Operation Lalgarh began. A huge group of adivasis (mostly women, since men were working in the fields) decided to march to the panchayat office in Katapahari and “make the Pradhan aware” of what was going on. The panchayat office is opposite a military camp. As they reached the panchayat, the troops stopped them and sprayed tear gas. The tribals dispersed and some rushed inside the panchayat office. The troops followed them in and began a lathi charge. They managed to catch 14 women and beat them. The lady sarpanch was also beaten up. The 14 women were taken inside the CRPF camp and thrashed again. They were then shoved inside a police van. When they tried to resist, they were told they were being taken to the doctor. The van, however, stopped at Lalgarh Police Station. They were taken to another location in Keshpur to spend the night and presented in Jhargram court the next day. After paperwork at the court, they were taken to Midnapore Jail.

How A Deaf Ear Is Turning Ploughshares To Swords A State stung out of stupor lashes out at opposition, seeing Maoists everywhere, a democratic protest movement inches towards violence PHOTO: AFP ON THE evening of October 27, an armed mob blocked the path of a Rajdhani Express train with felled trees. They abducted two drivers, smashed windows and scrawled a message in red ink, “Chhatradhar Mahato is a real good man.” The incident triggered high drama: “India will not buckle! How can we accept such an audacious Maoist attack?” The group that claimed responsibility for this incident was not the Maoists. Maoists do not patiently engage Bengal’s intellectuals and activists in deep discussion; they do not meet the State Election Commissioner before general elections as this group’s leader, Chhatradhar Mahato had done. In November 2008, this group, the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), led mass protests against police brutality. The government sent troops, instead, calling the PCAPA a Maoist front. There is no evidence till date to prove this claim. The Maoists say they support the PCAPA but there has been no formal statement from the PCAPA supporting the Maoists. This week, PCAPA spokesman Asit Mahato declared the outfit would no longer continue democratic protest. “After continuous torture by the joint forces, the PCAPA has decided to form a people’s militia to combat the forces.” The Rajdhani attack, then, was a show of strength, a warning of things to come if we continue to enforce a police state. Much of the PCAPA’s shift has to do with the arrest of Chhatradhar Mahato on charges of CPI (Maoist) links and the subsequent witch-hunt of his supporters. WHEN SUPPORTERS OF MAHATO ARE ARRESTED EVEN BEFORE HE IS CONVICTED OF ANY CRIME, IT ONLY DEEPENS DOUBT AND MISTRUST Born in Amlia village, Mahato studied at the local Lalgarh school and Midnapore college. Besides farming rice and potatoes, he has a small business procuring sal leaves from locals and selling them in Orissa. By the police’s own admission, Mahato has an annual income of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh. Yet, the West Bengal DGP declared on record in a press conference that Mahato has a Rs 1 crore insurance policy. Days later, when questioned for proof, the DGP admits it is “unconfirmed” and that further investigations are needed. It is such flip flops that make one doubt the other serious police charges against Mahato, which include “hatching a widespread criminal conspiracy to overawe the state government through criminal force, links with the CPI (Maoist) and the murder of CPM activists”. When the police arrest supporters of Mahato even before he was convicted for any crime, it only furthers this climate of doubt and mistrust. (Bhanu Sarkar was picked up in Kolkata while putting up posters demanding the unconditional release of Mahato.) And when they arrest a 70-year-old widow for attempting democratic protest, you know it is the State that is fast becoming its own worst, most violent enemy.

THIS IS the version of Manisankar Mahanta, Sub-Inspector of Lalgarh Police Station: “On 3rd September, me, a lady constable and the joint forces were patrolling near Basber maidan at 2 pm. When we were passing Basber village, we were resisted by women folk and minors. We suddenly heard sounds of the shank, dhamsa, and madal (tribal musical instruments). We saw 300 to 400 villagers armed with bows and arrows, boomerangs, axes, sickles, and other deadly weapons. They did not allow the combined forces to enter the village and were screaming abuses. They were hatching a conspiracy to loot the weapons of the police. They were shouting anti-national slogans like ‘Maovadi Zindabad, PCAPA Zindabad, Kishenji Zindabad, Chhatradhar Mahato Zindabad’ (Long live the Maoists, the PCAPA, Kishenji and Chhatradhar Mahato.) The tribal women and children came forward to form a barricade, while the men, armed with deadly weapons, stood behind them. From the jungle, the Maoists were firing at the police. As they fled, three women sustained injuries on their hands and legs. The police arrested 14 women. At the police station, we seized three arrows and brickbats from them.”
Three arrows, imagined or otherwise, could have kept 14 tribal women in prison for years. It is a bizarre war, and the only people the State seems to be fighting are its weakest citizens.

THE MEDIA DUBBED IT A ‘KANDAHAR SWAP,’ BUT NO ONE ASKED THE BASIC QUESTION: WHO WERE THESE WOMEN REALLY?

On the afternoon of October 23, the 14 adivasi women returned to the villages of Basber and Tesabandh. Sudharani Baske, a 70-year-old widow was one of them. Two months ago, something made Baske limp out of her mud hut and stride through the jungles into town. Something carried her feeble legs down three kilometres of broken road to the local panchayat office. It was her belief in the Indian Constitution, her faith in a democratic process. Sudharani Baske had heard about a grave injustice – a local boy thrashed by the paramilitary forces. She believed the Indian State allowed her the freedom to protest. She was wrong. In Lalgarh’s war zone, freedom is the first casualty, democracy, the second.

Peasant army Tribals at a protest rally against police atrocities in Lalgarh

A DAY LATER, Baske found herself in Midnapore Jail on charges of “waging war against the state”, and “attempting to murder the police” with deadly weapons. Her thighs were red from the police beating, her knuckles hurt, her swollen fingers wouldn’t close. Nearly two months later, they still don’t.
Skin sagging and visibly frail, Baske is returning from a bath in the pond, wearing a thin white sari. She halts on seeing strange faces. There is bewilderment and dread. You attempt reassurance. She launches into a slow refrain. “Are you the police? Will you take me away again? Why are you taking my picture? What will you do with this information? Please tell me the truth. Will you let me live in peace?” She shivers. Clutches your hand. Shakes your shoulders. She says she can trust no one. She forbids her son from giving his name. She breaks down.
“Maybe the police called her a Maoist because our names were not on the voters list,” says her son Ram Dulal Baske. Baske’s husband was a teacher in the local school; her two sons cultivate a small patch of rice. Their monthly income is under Rs 300. Ever since her release, Baske lives in fear of being captured again. She has stopped eating – her family has to force her to eat a meal a day – and sleeps only for a few hours every night. This is what operation Lalgarh is doing to the people it claims to protect. “I saw some women going to protest. No one called me. I went on my own,” Baske says. “What wrong have we done for the troops to beat us? I thought if I don’t protest now, I could be next. I wonder what got into me. I will not protest again.”

WITH OPERATION LALGARH, THE STATE IS DOING TO VILLAGERS WHAT IT DID TO MUSLIMS IN THE NAME OF FIGHTING TERRORISM

Terror, fear, silence – it is what Operation Lalgarh sows, and it is what Operation Lalgarh feeds on. Travelling inside Lalgarh four months into the operation, there is an eerie stillness. Nothing is alive. The local economy, the markets, the buzz of village life, conversation, everything is stagnant, in slow decay. It is harvest season, and usually the farmers work through the night, but “now, we come back by 6:30 pm”. It is Kali Puja, but the villagers can’t celebrate because “the police will think we are getting together for a sangathan (mass movement). Tribals are scared to venture into their own forests to pick the sal leaves that sustain their livelihood. Women are scared to answer nature’s call – “We don’t have toilets at home, so we go into the jungles. Now we can’t even go to the toilet at night. The police harass us for being Maoists.”
At the local market in Katapahari, almost all the shutters are down. “People don’t come out because they are scared of being questioned and beaten by the police,” says Poddot Pratihar, sculpting rosogollas that no one buys these days. He is one of the few who will whisper such things. Most know better. The police could overhear anything, anytime.

No safe zone Policeman Dibakar Bhattacharya was killed inside Sankrail Police Station on October 20

Behind enemy lines Policeman Atindranath Dutta was kidnapped by Maoists

They know what happened to Swarup Pratihar. His small wooden shack doubles up as a chicken shop and a phone booth. Police often bought chickens from him. Pratihar happened to be deleting some old voice messages on his cell phone when the troops were passing by on their regular patrol. “Who are you calling?” a CRPF jawan questioned. The last dialled calls were checked, the phone was confiscated and Pratihar ordered to march. Hands tied, face covered with a black cloth, he was taken into a jungle with the armed unit, stripped, interrogated and asked to identify pictures he did not recognise – “tell us everything.” After three hours of questioning and some paperwork, they let him go. “I’m scared to continue my phone business now,” Pratihar says. His phone remains confiscated, an income of Rs 1,000 a month lost.

OPERATION LALGARH SOWS AND FEEDS ON TERROR. IT’S HARVEST TIME, BUT NO ONE DARES WORK THEIR FIELDS AT NIGHT

Four months into Operation Lalgarh, the troops are hawks circling above. “If we talk, we are in danger. If we don’t talk, we are in danger,” says Mukata - ram Pratidar. Since the operation be - gan, the sales in his sari shop have dropped from Rs 2,000 to Rs 500 a day.
Ask Tarun Pratihar about the situation in Lalgarh and he shrugs. “I can’t tell you openly,” he says, “what if someone hears me giving my opinion?” It is the same fear many intellectuals in Kolkata have: phone conversations being tapped for any Maoist sympathy. There is a sense of constantly being monitored. “We are living in terror,” says Boloram Pratihar, father-inlaw of a local doctor picked up for Maoist links. “I don’t open my door after 6:30 pm. It wasn’t even this bad during the British rule. I feel caged.”

* * *

Until November 2008, Lalgarh was a nondescript village in the interiors of West Bengal. It had two schools, some roads, no hospitals and no water supply. As Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was returning after inaugurating a Jindal factory near Salboni, a landmine went off ahead of his convoy. Immediately, the police went into an offensive. A wire, they claim, led from Salboni to Lalgarh, which proved that the people of Lalgarh had helped the Maoists in the blast. The witch-hunt began and locals were beaten, a local woman, Chidamani, was blinded. This is what triggered the PCAPA, a democratic agitation spearheaded by Chhatradhar Mahato. The villagers dug up roads, felled trees to block them and refused to let the police enter Lalgarh until the SP came and apologised. But the government decided to send in the troops. In June 2009, the Central and state government launched a combined operation to “flush out” the Maoists in and around Lalgarh. About 2,000 paramilitary forces – CRPF, BSF, Cobra, IRB – were deployed in a 10 square kilometre area. A televised battle between the troops and the Maoists raged.
Within weeks, the government declared the operation successful. The Maoists had retreated, the battle was won. Relief camps were set up to distribute 5 kilos of rice. “Give me irrigation, I’ll give them 50 kilos,” retorts Deepak Pratihar, one of the first victims of police atrocities. His pregnant wife was beaten and he was arrested in connection with the Salboni blast, only to be released two weeks later with a clean chit. When the operation began, he was hunted down again. “You haven’t left Lalgarh, so we’ll let you be,” the police said. “If you had fled, we’d know you were a Maoist and catch you again.” Pratihar works as a security guard of a telephone tower near Lalgarh. “I have never seen a Maoist. It is like some ghost out there,” he says. “But now, whoever wants to protest is a Maoist.”

A Physician In Shackles Why are the security forces targeting a particular group of people in Lalgarh? A BRIGHT PINK doctor’s chamber stands out among wood huts. Perhaps that is why it was one of the first places the paramilitary forces surrounded the day they arrived in Lalgarh. “They asked us whether he treated any bullet injuries,” says his wife Sulekha. “Then, they called him a Maoist doctor.” Arrested for a murder committed two months earlier, where the complainant hadn’t even named him, booked for burning a police outpost on a day where his chamber diary shows he treated 16 patients, Jatin Pratihar, 52, is one of many arrested in Lalgarh post June 2009. Pratihar sold his ancestral land to finance his studies and his clinic. With a homeopathy degree from Kharagpur Medical College, a pharmacy diploma from Calcutta University and three years experience in Midnapore’s Sadar Hospital, he returned to Lalgarh to work among the locals. Pratihar was the kind of doctor who’d go into the jungles at any time of night and even give his own blood when needed. His arrest is significant as it seems to be part of a larger trend of arresting the most educated, the ones with the largest fields, the ones with brick houses. “No one has come to ask for our side of the story,” says Sulekha, in tears. “We have been isolated.”

In September, posing as journalists, the police arrested Chhatradhar Mahato for Maoist links. His arrest pushed other PCAPA members and supporters underground. Many have fled home in fear. Gopal Pratihar, a PCAPA supporter, hasn’t come home in months. The police couldn’t find him so they picked up his son Shibhu, who “died” in police custody. Gopal could not be there for the cremation.

WHAT VICTORY? SCHOOLS ARE OPEN, BUT TEACHERS ARE TOO SCARED. HEALTH CENTRES HAVE BECOME MILITARY CAMPS

Trying to meet a PCAPA spokesperson in Lalgarh is like trying to meet a Maoist. That’s the irony of the operation, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is why it is not surprising that after months of failed democratic protests, the PCAPA has now declared itself “an armed militia”.
What is the definition of victory? If you were to travel inside Lalgarh four months after this grand declaration, a very different reality would emerge. Far from helping development pro - cesses, the operation has isolated Lalgarh completely. Schools are shut. Of the 19 schools occupied by the troops, five have been vacated. Where primary schools are open, teachers are scared to travel from their villages. Bus conductors have changed their routes to avoid the Lalgarh night halt. The health centre in Lalgarh has been turned into a military camp. There were never any doctors in it anyway. Two unwell villagers could not find a vehicle to get to Midnapore hospital. They died.
Meanwhile, the local doctor has been arrested for being an anti-national. The local anganwadi worker who implements the Integrated Child Development Scheme has no work. The food supplies she distributes among pregnant mothers have stopped reaching Lalgarh. The mothers themselves have stopped coming to the weekly meetings. The local NREGS worker has a job card, but no job.
The perception that Lalgarh is a dangerous militarised place has only pushed it further into remoteness. Rental companies in Kolkata are afraid to give you a car to go to Lalgarh. “I want it back in one piece,” says a business owner. Human rights activists, too, seem cut off. “We don’t know what’s happening there because the police is not letting anyone in,” says professor Partho Ray of the Indian Statistical Institute. “It feels like it’s not a part of India anymore.”

A second Look CRPF jawans on patrol on the road to Lalgarh

Lock and Load Paramilitary forces during combing operations for Maoist insurgents

Search and destroy Policemen attempt to identify the location of Maoist insurgents near Lalgarh

What is the definition of victory? In a major embarrassment for the CPI(M) government, West Bengal’s first ever guerrilla attack happened four months into a “successful” military operation. Around 1.20 pm, Maoists attack a police station in Sankrail and shoot two policemen. They leave 20 minutes later with a kidnapped OC, looted weapons and Rs 10 lakh seized from the neighbouring bank. When paramilitary forces arrive at 5 pm, huge crowds are already there. A CRPF officer storms out, bellowing, “You bastards, get out.” Within minutes, he is beating the locals. It is the kind of mindless violence and counter-violence a military operation creates.
Meanwhile Kishenji, the CPI (Maoist) Politburo member is engaged in live phone conversations on 24-hour news channels. In a dextrous move, the Maoists demand the release not of high-profile Maoists cadre supposedly in jail, but of 14 hapless tribal women. Days later, in an unprecedented event, he and other CPI(Maoist) members physically meet reporters to hand over the kidnapped OC. The entire exchange is broadcast on television. Yet our specially trained forces seem unable to locate him. An embarrassed Chief Minister officially accepts that “it’s ridiculous we can’t nab Kishenji”. New revelations that Kishenji has been in contact with CPI(M) allies add to the drama. A RSP Minister Kshitij Goswami says Kishenji called him three months ago.

THE STATE IS ON A WILD CHASE, FIRING IN THE DARK. WHAT IS KILLED IS ON THE PERIPHERY, NOT INSIDE THE JUNGLE

It is a bizarre war, and the only people the State seems to be fighting are its weakest citizens. The “Kandahar swap” is the most recent example of how the government is itself creating a situation that allows the Maoists to step in as saviours. Far from weaning the locals away from Maoist influence, Operation Lalgarh is giving them reason to believe the Maoists’ claim that they represent the masses.
Back at the Sankrail Police Station, the lone remaining officer asks for a transfer. The released OC says he’s not sure he will continue with mainstream police service. He also seems to emerge with new empathy. “We think of them (the Maoists) as aggressive, but at least with me, they were not,” he tells TEHELKA. “They shared their food – puffed rice.”
Meanwhile, the CM announces special pay packages for police in Maoistinfested areas, sanctions Rs 7 crore to “fortify police stations and prevent further attacks,” and begins allocation of paramilitary troops to Sankrail. It could be tomorrow’s Lalgarh. As he boards the bus from Lalgarh to Sankrail, you ask an armed jawan if he’s looking forward to it. “Yes, I’m bored in Lalgarh,” he says. “It will be good to see a new place.”

* * *

On an ordinary day, the joint-forces march through Lalgarh once in the morning, once at sunset. This is not an ordinary day. It is midafternoon and a column of armed men are lined along a narrow strip of road between Bodopellia and Katapahari. Every 20 metres, an armed guard stands to attention. Some face the paddy fields; some face the road. All stare into nothingness. Between them, a CRPF jawan pedals a Scooty. Every five minutes, he pauses, stares into a pair of binoculars, hoping for some finite figure, for some outline of prey.
It is when you see him perched upon his moped, searching in vain for something in motion that the irony and perhaps the tragedy of Lalgarh becomes evident. Behind him, another trooper is pacing up and down with a metal detector. Two mines blew up on this road barely an hour ago. Bullets were also fired from somewhere within the jungles, the sounds coming not far from the Lalgarh Police Station. It is the Maoists taunting the forces: We are here. We exist. The police fire back, random bullets flying into paddy fields.
Every time there is a mine blast — there have been about 35 since June — the paramilitary forces will retaliate. Any local loitering in the area will be herded into a police station, interrogated and probably accused of links with the Maoists.
Imagine a blind hunter at the edge of a jungle. He does not know what his prey looks like, or where it lives, except that it resides somewhere in the deep. Imagine prey that cannot be identified. The State is on a wild chase, firing in the dark. What is killed is on the periphery, not inside the jungle. What has never been inside the jungle is now scurrying towards it for cover.

* * *

KISHENJI IS OFTEN ON 24-HOUR NEWS CHANNELS. EMBARRASSED, THE CM AGREES, ‘IT’S RIDICULOUS THAT WE CAN’T NAB HIM’

On the morning of October 23, 14 feeble women walked out of Midnapore Jail. To understand the horror of what is happening in Lalgarh, their story is crucial. It is crucial because of their place in the wider landscape of Lalgarh, in the food chain within it.
There are layers: there are the Maoists, the PCAPA, the party workers – CPI(M) cadre, the TMC supporters and Jharkhand Party members. The fourth layer is the ordinary people of Lalgarh – rice and potato farmers dependent on the rains, migrant labourers, shop owners. The PCAPA’s support base comes from them.
And then there are the adivasis – the easiest prey. They are not Maoist supporters – many haven’t heard of Kishenji. They are not PCAPA members or the ordinary people who attended PCAPA rallies. They do not have the luxury of being ordinary. They are at the absolute bottom of the food chain, human algae. Many don’t even speak Bengali, and they are far removed from any political churning. This is what makes their story more significant.
The adivasi women’s march to the panchayat office on a September afternoon could have been the beginning of another local people’s movement, in the same way that the PCAPA began. There is almost a sense of déjà vu – the story of Chidamani repeated. From among them, another Chhatradhar Mahato could have risen. But this time, the troops were armed, ready to squash any possibility of democratic protest. By crushing the belief of these women in the relief that the panchayat, a State body, could give them, the State is only pushing its own people towards further extremism. In a blind hunt to combat those that don’t believe in the Indian Constitution, the government is actually isolating those that do.
“We are happy that Kishenji has helped us,” says Sudharani’s son, Ram Dulal Baske. “But they should not have killed the two policemen.” Ask why, and Sudharani’s feeble voice chimes in. “Because not all policemen are bad. Man should not kill man.” In the haze of Bengal’s uncertainties, it may not be easy to identify who a Maoist is, but it is easy to identify who a Maoist is not. If the war rages on, this last line of certainty may blur.

THERE ARE TOO MANY STAKEHOLDERS, TOO MANY VERSIONS, TOO LITTLE FACT. IT’S NOT EASY TO GET TO THE TRUTH

Already, the shift has begun. The previously democratic PCAPA has declared itself an armed militia. But DGP Bhupinder Singh is not willing to see. “If they’ve turned into militia, they can no more claim innocence as mere villagers,” he says. “Our task will be easier.” Operation Lalgarh has triggered a horrifying blindness, a fatal arrogance, a convenient amnesia. That is why we have forgotten that the Maoists are not new to Bengal. They have been in the jungles of West Mindapore, Purulia and Bankura since the 1970s. Yet, the first overt attack from them was a mine blast in 2003. Could it be because of a new state policy to tackle Naxalism? In his budget speech in 2001, CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharya emphasised the need for police raids. In his 2002 speech, he said it was “paying dividends”. Fifty-four people were arrested in West Midnapore in 2002, accused of waging war against the state. All 54 spent a year in jail. Bail was granted in 2003, but the cases continued.
In 2008, in a damning judgement, a sessions court judge said: “It is found that from different parts of West Bengal, other chargesheeted, accused persons were arrested and tagged (in this case) only on the ground that the police suspected they belonged to the People’s War Group. [People’s War Group and Maoist Communist Centre later merged to become CPI (Maoist)]. The police tagged these 54 persons in different cases so that they cannot be granted bail and shall be kept in custody for long years. The police falsely arrested them without any evidence. False chargesheets have been submitted against them. The investigation by the police in this case was not apolitical. The conduct of the entire police administration of West Midnapore is always in a partisan manner and politically motivated, which is proved in this case. It is found that people at large are revolting against the police for maltreatment towards the public.”
Operation Lalgarh is not a new war. It is a more visible, military manifestation of State repression that has been brewing in Bengal for years. Far from isolating the Maoists, it is rapidly pushing the masses towards them. There is no reason to believe Operation Green Hunt will yield different results. That is why Chhatradhar Mahato’s mother Niyati has a new sympathy for her eldest son. A member of CPI(Maoist), Sasha - dhar Mahato has not returned home in 18 years. “Earlier I would curse him,” says Niyati. It was because of him that both her younger sons, Chhatradhar and Anil had been jailed previously. “Now I think he’s doing the right thing. He is fighting the police for the poor.”
That is why Anil Mahato’s five-yearold son Arup has a new hero. “I saw him on TV,” he says. “When I grow up, I want to be like Kishenji.”

* * *

On the night of October 27, an armed mob stopped a Rajdhani train and kidnapped its drivers. It triggered hot debate. “The Maoists have political support,” declared Home Secretary GK Pillai. “The Bengal government should prove the existence of Maoists,” retorted Trinamool Congress leader Partho Chatterjee. The captured OC may have links with the Maoists, chimed another report.
There are too many stakeholders, too many versions, too little fact. In such a murky maze, there can be no finite villains and heroes; it is not easy to arrive at any finite truth. Except one. Of this we can be certain – inside the battlefields of Lalgarh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar, the face of the State is more brutal than any other stakeholder. The State is the least attractive option. If this is a war, our government can only win it by reversing that equation. Decades of armed presence have not yet won “the hearts and minds of the people” in Kashmir, in Manipur. There is no reason to believe they will be successful elsewhere. In the haze of India’s uncertainties, it is not easy to identify who a Maoist is, but it is easy to identify who a Maoist is not. If the war rages on, that last line of certainty will blur.

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