Growing Naxal Threat in West Bengal
Saumitra Mohan
Additional District Magistrate, Hooghly, West Bengal
e-mail:
saumitra_mohan@hotmail.com
If recent patterns of Naxal violence and activism in West Bengal are any indication, the Maoists' new strategy seems to be moving into new territories and taking up emotive issues like forcible displacement due to industrial and infrastructure development projects. Reports of alleged involvement of the Naxals in the Nandigram disturbances and the recent 'ration riots' across West Bengal indicates their changing tactics.
With Singur and Nandigram coming into focus, the Naxalites are taking advantage of the agrarian revolution, with protracted people's war becoming the path for their so-called 'new democratic revolution', seen during the Naxalbari upsurge in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The motive for reverting to the older four-decades-old agenda is the temptation to capitalize on the controversy regarding the conversion of farmlands into industrial areas. The Naxalites have cashed in on the popular resistance to the proposed land acquisitions in Singur and Nandigram, if reports of their expanding mass base here are accepted.
The recent surge in Naxal violence in West Bengal has established that Naxalism is no longer a mere law and order problem. Naxalites have teamed up with Nepal's Maoists to create disaffection among people of Nepalese origin, who have been living for generations in the Darjeeling and Dooars regions of West Bengal. They want to engineer a movement for 'self determination,' which could unleash violence on a wider scale, worse than what was witnessed during the 'Gorkha Land' agitation.
They have also linked up with extremists of the Kamtapur Liberation Organization (KLO) to allegedly provide them the moral and logistical support to agitate for the creation of a separate Kamtapur state to be carved out of North Bengal and Assam. Closure of many tea gardens and continuing industrial sickness in the tea gardens of North Bengal has provided them with a potent issue to expand their network and activities in this region.
The perceived administrative inefficiency and relative underdevelopment in the districts of West Medinipur, Purulia, Bankura and parts of East Medinipur and Burdwan have given the Naxalites leeway to grow in size and they are running parallel administration in the so-called 'liberated zones' of these districts. They have been striking at will as evident from frequent Naxal attacks on some police posts and party offices in Belpahari, Bandowan and other places resulting to the killing of policemen and party cadres.
The Naxalites follow flexible tactics. If the situation warrants, they restrict their movement to political mobilization, highlight local issues through front organizations and organize meetings in their strongholds to garner popular support. They are believed to be working on a strategy, including exploring new ways to intensify the people's war by enlarging their mass base across the state and strengthening their armed cadres.
The Maoists do not abruptly launch an 'armed struggle' or violence, but proceed methodically after conducting a study of the local social, economic and political milieu, and the vulnerabilities of particular social groups before drawing up customized action plans. They deliberately keep violence low in border regions to avoid police attention and facilitate intra-state movement. The porous borders with Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan provide an easy getaway to safer hide-outs in those countries.
If we study the pattern, breadth and precision of Naxal violence in the country, we would notice that the Naxalites have successfully strengthened the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the military wing of the CPI-Maoists, and recruited more cadres through militant, but populist, mass movements against the neo-liberal policies of globalization, liberalization, and privatization. Their strategies are designed to expand the armed struggle from 'guerrilla war' to 'urban and mobile warfare', focusing on industrial areas.
Taking a cue from their Nepalese counterparts, the 'desi' Naxalites are learnt to have colluded with revisionist and secessionist forces to expand their support base. The Maoists in Nepal had supported eight minority autonomous regions during their armed struggle phase, and got immense support, in turn, from these areas. Similarly the Naxalites have been supporting demands for a separate state of Kamtapur as part of their larger goal for setting up a communist state in India. Apart from this, they also support the secessionist movements in north-east and Kashmir, and thus pose a bigger threat to national security than we have believed thus far.
Now that increasing evidence of their extra-national linkages with forces hostile to the interests of this country is emerging, there is an urgent need for a national policy on Naxalism to evolve a well-coordinated approach towards a resolution of this problem.
Note: The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government.
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