Left-Wing Extremism (LWE)

Left-wing extremism (LWE) is once more in the limelight with the Home Minister asserting that the government is committed to rooting out the menace. The LWE movement also known as Maoism or Naxalism originated in the Naxalbari village of Darjeeling district in West Bengal in 1967. They follow the ideology of Mao Zedong and use violence and guerilla warfare to destabilize the state.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh identified it as the most significant threat to internal security of India. However, the Left Wing Extremist movement has been waning out since then.

Emergence and Ideology

The Naxal movement originated under the leadership of Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal. Maoist doctrine professes a ‘Protracted People’s War’ which is a capture of State Power through a combination of an armed insurgency, mass mobilisation and strategic alliances. It considers industrial-rural divide fundamental to capitalist exploitation and hopes to overcome it by a violent mass struggle.

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Factors responsible for the rise of Naxalism

Rise of Naxalism is attributed to the gross lack of development even after being mineral-rich areas combined with other socio-economic problems. These can be summarised as

Developmental Deficit: the Naxal affected areas face rampant poverty and unemployment. The areas also lack education and health facilities. There is also a deficit of infrastructures such as roads, bridges and communication facilities.
Governance Deficit: there is a lack of routine administration with incompetent, ill-trained and poorly motivated personnel. There are corruption and mismanagement of government schemes and poor implementation of special laws. Electoral politics is perverted and the working of local government is unsatisfactory.
Social Exclusion and Alienation: there are human rights violations and the dignity of life is not ensured. There is a disconnect with the mainstream society which all leads to the discontent against the government.
Jal-Jangal-Jameen: the issues of land, forest and water rights. There is an evasion of land ceiling laws and unlawful encroachment and illegal occupation of community lands. The traditional rights are not recognised and there is unfair land acquisition without any compensation or proper rehabilitation. The tribe- forest relations are also disrupted.

Such conditions make it easier for an ideology like Maoism to take root. The government and the capitalist class are identified as the perpetrators of the backwardness of the region and the youth are motivated to take up arms against them.

Spread of Naxalism

The Spread occurred in three phases –

The first phase started in Darjeeling in West Bengal from where it spread to Odisha, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The phase ended with the Emergency period seeing the arrest of most of the Maoist cadres.
The second phase started when the movement emerged in a more violent form after the emergency and spread from West Bengal again to Bihar, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh.

The third phase started with the formation of CPI (Maoist) in 2004. Thus Naxalism spread in eastern India often referred to as the ‘Red Corridor’, a narrow but contiguous strip connecting Karnataka and West Bengal through Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Government measures to fight Naxalism

The Maoist issue has been identified as a law and order problem and was taken care of by the state government until 2006 when the Prime Minister declared it as the biggest challenge to internal security. A new division was created in Home ministry and the D Bandopadhyay Committee was formed.
The D Bandopadhyay Committee identified the socio-political, economic and cultural discrimination against the Scheduled castes and tribes and lack of their empowerment as the reason for the spread of Naxalism. It highlighted the failure of governance and recommended for tribal friendly land acquisition and rehabilitation.

Developmental measures

Some Schemes implemented include

Special Central Assistance (SCA) – to develop infrastructure and public services.
Special Infrastructure Scheme – to cater to critical infrastructure gaps that are not covered in any other schemes.
Security Related Expenditure Scheme – funds to train and equip security forces and rehabilitation of surrendered Naxalites.
Road Connectivity Project– for construction of about 5,500 km roads.
Skill development and educational development initiatives – construction of skill development centres, ITIs, Kendriya Vidyalayas, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas and schools under the Eklavya model.
Installation of Mobile Towers– for endless telecom connectivity.
Financial inclusion- for ensuring the presence of banking facilities to all citizens residing in LWE affected areas.
Roshani Scheme– Skill development program for the Tribal population by the Rural Development ministry.

Security measures

Worst affected states launched a large scale offensive by the deployment of heavy troops.
- The Andhra Pradesh government demonstrated the Greyhounds model which led the Maoist leaders to leave Andhra Pradesh.
Surrender and Rehabilitation Policy- the state governments rehabilitate the Naxalites in order to bring innocent individuals caught in the trap of LWE in the mainstream.
The government formed The national strategy to counter LWE, a multipronged approach to ensure participatory governance and protection of the rights of local tribals.
A separate 66 Indian Reserve Battalion (IRBs) was raised to curb the menace apart from Intelligence sharing.

SAMADHAN doctrine

SAMADHAN stands for- Smart Leadership, Aggressive Strategy, Motivation and Training, Actionable Intelligence, Dashboard based Key Performance Indicators and Key Result Areas, Harnessing Technology, an Action plan for each Theatre, No access to Financing.
It is a one-stop solution to fight LWE, encompassing the entire strategy of government from short-term policy to long-term policy formulated at different levels.

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Some Issues and Success models

Failure of Salwa Judum

It was a mass movement against the atrocities committed by Naxalites in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.
The movement was a failure as the Naxalite propaganda effectively countered it by painting it as anti-people and as a proxy police movement.
Several leaders and hundreds of villagers along with a Congressman who supported the movement were executed by the Maoists.

Intellectual Support to Naxalism

Influential Intellectuals advocating an egalitarian society, human rights and tribal rights often support Naxalism. They condemn the security forces for human rights violations but maintain a noble silence on Naxal brutalities.
These intellectual forces must instead encourage the Naxals to join mainstream politics and not to oppose developmental projects. Naxalism is against the Constitution and democratic values and must be condemned.

Story of Sandesh and Aasdwar Project in Jehanabad in Bihar

It is the story of how conducting of panchayat elections created a social cohesion against the Naxalites and embracing of the political process drove out the Naxalites from the most affected Sandesh block of Bihar.
Aasdwar Project is a developmental scheme under which five Panchayats are given a flurry of developmental activities on a war footing. The people have embraced the programme and hence Naxalism is being eliminated.

AP Greyhounds

Andhra Pradesh launched the Operation Greyhounds with a fighting force, infrastructure development and an effective Surrender and Rehabilitation Policy. It forced the Naxalites out of Andhra Pradesh to Chhattisgarh and Odisha.

Current Situation

Events of Left Wing Extremism (LWE) violence came down from 2258 in 2009 to 833 in 2018.
The number of affected districts have also come down to 60 in 2018 from nearly 100 in 2010.
Official data also reveal that it is on a decline in Bihar and Odisha with Odisha declaring almost 10 districts free from Naxalism. However, Odisha Chief Minister still flagged it as a critical menace that needs close monitoring.
Developmental efforts and security measures are seeing success in eliminating the Naxal problem as more and more Naxalites are surrendering and giving up violence o join the electoral process.

Way forward

Developmental Strategy

Political security and accelerated Socio-economic development should be ensured in a holistic way. Better infrastructure like roads, electricity and communication to be installed. Potential youth should be weaned away from the ideology by the decentralised and participatory democratic process. There needs to be effective coordination between departments, police and security forces in implementing the development schemes.

Security Strategy

Hardcore Ideologues should be sternly dealt with a policy of bullet against a bullet. These people do not want development and use the underdevelopment and governance deficit to achieve selfish goals and vested interests. Common people and youth especially should be weaned away from hardcore Naxalites

Some of the measures to be taken include – professional dominance by security forces, special training, modernisation of weapons and technical equipment, special forces along the lines of AP Greyhounds model, collective approach and police coordination by the states since it is an interstate issue, rationalisation of surrender policy etc.

Psychological efforts

Psychological must be done to delegitimize the movement, change the public perception and engage with the civic society and NGOs to restore public faith in the government machinery.

Other Measures

Measures to curb financial support to Naxal movement, peace talks, to promote proper criminal justice system, administration of forest laws etc should be taken.

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Left-Wing Extremism (LWE)