I found this article by a reactionary bourgeois think-tank in India to be very interesting and useful. Anything in here, of course, should be taken with a grain of salt.
As Chairman Mao said, "I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political party, an army or a school is not attacked by the enemy, for in that case it would definitely mean that we have sunk to the level of the enemy. It is good if we are attacked by the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work."
What Maoists Want
Maoist ambitions in India now extend to the farthest reaches of the
country, and this is not just a fantasy or an aspiration, but a
strategy, a projection, a plan and a programme under implementation ...
Ajai Sahni
"Revolutionary warfare is never confined within the bounds of military
action. Because its purpose is to destroy an existing society and its
institutions and to replace them with a completely new structure, any
revolutionary war is a unity of which the constituent parts, in varying
importance, are military, political, economic, social and
psychological. "
Mao Tse-Tung on 'Guerilla Warfare'
The 'Red Corridor', extending from 'Tirupati to
Pashupati' (Andhra Pradesh to Nepal), has long been passé in
the Indian Maoists' (Naxalites) conception. Maoist
ambitions in India now extend to the farthest reaches of the country,
and this is not just a fantasy or an aspiration, but a strategy, a
projection, a plan and a programme under implementation.
A multiplicity of Maoist documents testify to the meticulous detail in
which the contours of the current and protracted conflict have been
envisaged, in order to "Intensify the peoples' war throughout the
country". These documents reflect a comprehensive strategy, coordinating
all the instrumentalities of revolution, "military, political,
economic, cultural and psychological," harnessed through the
"three magic weapons Comrade Mao spoke about": the Party, the
People's Army, and the United Front.
After a great deal of dissembling and vacillation, India's
security establishment, both at the Centre and in the
'affected' States, appears to have conceded, finally, that
the Maoist threat is, in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's words,
the country's "single biggest internal security challenge." But
the threat is still restrictively envisaged as afflicting only parts of
those States where Naxalite violence is visible, and is assumed to
follow the erratic trajectory of incidents and fatalities from year to
year. However, as the Chhattisgarh Director General of Police, O.P.
Rathor, recently observed at a Conference in Raipur, "Statistics of
incidents never give a real picture of the ground. Whatever is visible
is only the mere tip of the iceberg. Unless caution is exercised,
volcanoes can erupt."
It is necessary to recognize, crucially, that the phase of violence,
which is ordinarily the point at which the state takes cognizance of the
problem, comes at the tail end of the process of mass mobilization, and
at a stage where neutralizing the threat requires considerable, if not
massive, use of force. Within this context it is, consequently, useful
to notice not merely the current expanse of visible Maoist mobilisation
and militancy, but the extent of their current intentions, ambitions and
agenda.
Significantly, the CPI-Maoist has established Regional Bureaus across a
mass of nearly two-thirds of the country's territory (Map 1), and
these regions are further sub-divided into state, special zonal and
special area committee jurisdictions (Map 2), where the processes of
mobilisation have been defined and allocated to local leaders. As these
maps indicate, there are at least five regional bureaus, thirteen State
committees, two Special Area Committees and three Special Zonal
Committees in the country.
This structure of organisation substantially reflects current Maoist
organisational consolidation, but does not exhaust their perspectives or
ambitions. There is further evidence of preliminary activity for the
extension of operations to new areas including Gujarat, Rajasthan,
Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Meghalaya, beyond what is
reflected in the scope of the regional, zonal and state committees. A
'Leading team' recently visited Jammu & Kashmir to assess
the potential of creating a permanent Party structure in the form of a
State Committee to take the Maoist agenda forward in the State.
Map 1
Map 2
In 2004, moreover, the Maoists also articulated a new strategy to target
urban centres in their "Urban Perspective Document", drawing up
guidelines for "working in towns and cities", and for the revival of a
mobilization targeting students and the urban unemployed. Two principal
'industrial belts' were also identified as targets for
urban mobilisation: Bhilai - Ranchi - Dhanbad - Calcutta; and Mumbai -
Pune - Surat - Ahmedabad.
Within this broad geographical spread, the Maoists include, in their
inventory of "immediate tasks", among others, the following:
* "Coordinate the people's war with the ongoing armed struggles
of the various oppressed nationalities in Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland,
Manipur and other parts of the Northeast.
* "Build a broad UF (United Front) of all secular forces and persecuted
religious minorities such as Muslims, Christians and Sikhs…
* "Build a secret party apparatus which is impregnable to the
enemy's attacks…
* "Build open and secret mass organisations amongst the workers,
peasants, youth, students, women and other sections of the people…
* "Build the people's militia in all the villages in the
guerrilla zones as the base force of the PGA (People's Guerrilla
Army). Also build armed self-defence units in other areas of class
struggle as well as in the urban areas."
The Maoist strategy is clearly to fish in every troubled Indian water,
and to opportunistically exploit every potential issue and grievance to
generate a campaign of protests and agitations. The principal vehicles
for these 'partial struggles' are 'front' or
'cover' organisations of the Maoists themselves, on the
one hand, and a range of individuals and organisations best described,
in a phrase often attributed to Lenin, as "useful idiots" , " well
intentioned and often gullible people who are unaware of the broader
strategy and agenda they are unwittingly promoting through their support
to specific and unquestionably admirable causes.
As the Political and Organisational Review of the erstwhile Communist
Party of India, Marxist-Leninist Peoples War (CPI-ML-PW, also
known as the Peoples War Group, which merged in September 2004 with the
Maoist Communist Centre to create the Communist Party of India-Maoist) noted,
Cover organisations are indispensable in areas where our mass
organisations are not allowed to functions openly…There are two
types of cover organisations: one, those which are formed on a broad
basis by ourselves; and two, those organisations led by other forces
which we utilize by working from within without getting exposed.
This strategy has already contributed to the 'eruption' of
a few unexpected 'volcanoes' in the recent past, with the
role of Maoist provocateurs often discovered much after the event. Two
of the most recent and impeccable causes that have been embraced in this
cynical strategy include the caste conflict in Khairlanji and the
escalating tensions and violence over the displacement and Special
Economic Zones (SEZ) issues, including Singur and Kalinga Nagar.Sources
indicate that current Maoist debates and documents condemn the "second
wave of economic reforms" as a "violent assault on the right to life and
livelihood of the masses", and call for "an uncompromising opposition to
the present model and all the policies that are coming up." Internal
debates on the issue have further underlined the "need to build a huge
movement against displacement and the very model of development itself",
and to unite all "genuine democratic and anti-imperialist forces…
to create a tornado of dissent that forces the rulers to stop this
juggernaut".
The issues at stake envisaged for potential mobilisation comprehend
"development driven through big dams, super highways and other
infrastructural projects… gigantic mining projects, Special
Economic Zones (SEZs), urban renewal and beautification" .
Within the same pattern, United Fronts and Joint Action Committees have
focused on "burning issues of the peasantry such as for water, power,
remunerative prices for agricultural produce, against exploitation by
traders, against suicides by the peasantry, against the WTO, and on
worker, student, women, Adivasi and Dalit issues." Thus, "Issue-based
joint activity with other forces has been the general form of UF (United
Front) undertaken by our Party at various levels…" Suitable
'issues' are not picked up randomly or opportunistically,
but are based on extensive 'investigations' into
'social conditions and tactics', and are meticulously
reconciled with the broader Maoist strategy and agenda.
These various causes, as already noted, are impeccable, and no one can
be faulted for extending support to demands for greater equity, justice
and access in these various spheres. For the Maoists, however, these
various causes, whether they relate to 'oppressed
nationalities', minorities, caste excesses, or other social and
economic issues, are an integral component of their strategy of
political consolidation, leading to military mobilisation.
In Maoist doctrine, these 'partial struggles' are no more
than a tactical element in the protracted war, and they have no
intrinsic value of their own. These 'struggles' create the
networks and recruitment base for the Maoist militia and armed cadres.
Where partial struggles thrive, an army is being raised. These
'peaceful' or sporadically violent movements are
eventually and inevitably intended to yield to armed warfare and
terrorism.
Their objective is to "isolate the enemy by organising the people into
various cover organisations and build joint fronts in order to mobilise
the masses into struggles to defeat the enemy offensive." Army
formation, the Maoists insist, "is the precondition for the new
political power", and "all this activity should serve to intensify and
extend our armed struggle. Any joint activity or tactical alliances
which do not serve the cause of the peoples' war will be a futile
exercise." Moreover, the integrity of the 'partial
struggles' and the overall aims of the protracted peoples war is
underlined by the fact that cadres of the Peoples Guerrilla Army (PGA)
are required to engage in these agitational programmes as well. As the
PGA's "Programme and Constitution" notes:
The PGA will participate in the propaganda and agitations programmes as
directed by Party Committees. It will organize the people. The PGA will
extensively employ people's art forms in its propaganda. It will
try to enhance the consciousness of the people.
The Maoists' Urban Perspective Document, moreover, envisages the
formation of 'Open Self Defence Teams' and armed
'Secret Self Defence Squads' in urban areas. The document
notes, moreover, that for the Secret Self Defence Squads,
One significant form of activity is to participate along with the masses
and give them the confidence to undertake militant mass action.Other
tasks are to secretly hit particular targets who are obstacles in the
advance of the mass movement.
It is useful to recall, in this context, that when talk of the
'Red Corridor' was first heard at the turn of the
Millennium, most security, intelligence and political analysts simply
scoffed, dismissing the very idea as a pipe dream and a propaganda ploy.
Since then, however, the Maoist consolidation has occurred precisely
along the axis of the then-projected 'Red Corridor'.
If the state is to prevent a further consolidation of Maoist subversion
and violence across the country, it is crucial that the futile debate
on, and disputable enumeration of, 'affected' States,
Districts and Police Stations, be abandoned, and the scope of the
state's defences be extended to cover the contours of the Maoist
projections. The Maoists are, " and have long been,"
working to a plan, and have explicitly rejected the 'Left
Opportunism' which they believe led to the failure of the
original Naxalite movement (1967-73).
This gives the movement great strength, "but to the extent that
this design is well know," makes it enormously vulnerable.
Regrettably, while there is a handful of officers in the security and
intelligence establishment who are aware of the details of this design,
the general grasp in the security and political leadership in the
affected and targeted states (the latter category now comprehends the
entire country) and at the Centre is, at best, poor. There is, moreover,
the added constraint that the Maoist strategy exploits the
vulnerabilities of constitutional governance and its freedoms to the
hilt, and the security apparatus has only limited instrumentalities of
containment available in the initial stages of subversion and mass
mobilisation.
The Maoists believe that there is, at present, an "excellent
revolutionary situation in India", and have clearly declared that "the
seizure of state power should be the goal of all our activity". Building
bulwarks against their complex strategy is a challenge, it would appear,
that is yet to be imagined by the national security establishment. The
fire-fighting responses of the past, the 'battalion
approach' of deployment of Central Paramilitary Forces (CPMFs)
from one theatre to another, and the preferential allocation of
financial resources to 'disturbed' States and areas, may
help fitfully contain the violence of Maoist armed cadres. However, if
the nation-wide campaigns of subversion are not addressed, and if
prevention, rather than containment, does not become the sheet-anchor of
national policy, there will be a tipping-point beyond which national
capacities for emergency management will begin to fall disastrously
short. That is the Maoist dream; it could become the [Red Heretic Edit: bourgeoisie's] country's nightmare.
Ajai Sahni is Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict
Management. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South
Asia Terrorism Portal