PROBLEM OF NAXALISM IN INDIA

Transcription

1 KAAV INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ARTS,HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES PROBLEM OF NAXALISM IN INDIA Dr.NEERAJ BHARDWAJ Department of Military Science Govt. MJS College,Bhind Naxalite A Naxal or Naxalite is a member of any of the Communist guerrilla groups in India, mostly associated with the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The term Naxal derives from the name of the village Naxalbari in West Bengal, where the movement had its origin. Naxalites are considered far-left radical communists, supportive of Maoist political sentiment and ideology. Naxilte problem in india Naxalite Insurgency Naxalism, synonymous with Left Wing Extremism, has come to pose the single biggest threat to India s internal security. Revolutionary Left Wing violence, which has persisted for a long time now, has assumed serious and threatening proportions. In fact, it has emerged as India s security blind spot. Today, the Security Experts describe the Naxal Groups as a direct challenge to the might of India. In words of Mr.AjitDovel, the former Director of Bureau of Indian Intelligence, Naxalism is now a bigger threat to the country than the Islamic Militancy in Kashmir or the Separatist Militancy in the North East. The Naxalite problem has grown exponentially over the last few years. The recent attacks on security personnel and civilians have shown how violent and barbaric the Naxalities have become. They have stopped being rebels protesting against the government machinery, and become domestic terrorists/ militants. One can never forget the biggest Maoist attack in April 2010, when at least 70 CRPF Jawans were killed & several injured in the ambush in Dantewada District in Chhattisgarh. What started as a purely agrarian dispute in a small place called Naxalbari in West Bengal has today transformed into the biggest armed insurrection that the State has witnessed since its inception over sixty years ago. Naxalism, in the light of its violent nature and pre-defined aims, is a political ideology, and not a socio economic movement dedicated to uplift the poor. Naxals believe in Marxist Leninist as well as Moist methodologies. These twin ideologies extol the Naxal violence as means to seize 431

2 political power. Naxals do not believe in parliamentary democracy and consider state as an agent of aberration of the elite class, which does not cater to the interests of the lower strata of society. There is what is known in India as a Red Corridor in which the Maoist are particularly present, which stretches for 2000 km along the entire length of India s east coast from the city of Sikkim in the north to the outer edge of the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The States most strongly affected by militant Maoist activity are West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh. The primary reason for the success of the Maoist movement is to be found in the severe poverty and consequent dissatisfaction of the rural populations. The region comprising backward rural areas and dense forests is ideally suited for Maoists to carry out the Guerilla Warfare strategies and trainings. Till recently, Naxalism has been considered more as a Law and Order problem of the States, and less as an issue to be dealt with by the Central Government. The States have used inadequately armed, equipped, trained and motivated police forces and other resources in a switch on and switch off mode. There has been a lack of lucid analysis and consistency in formulating and implementing a viable strategy. However, the Central Government has woken up to the problem now. In late January 2010, the Union government began a renewed offensive strategy to curb the escalating Naxal pressure Operation Green Hunt. The aim was to restore the Rule of Law in the Red Corridor region. A total of 42 battalions of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) are involved in the action, over 60,000 armed forces. Maoist volcano erupted in Nepal and its lava is spilling over vast Indian territories. In recent months, the rebels have succeeded in extending the radius of their actions considerably and in exploiting the social grievances of the local population. However, the Naxalite problem is not just about the violence, it is also about the State s failure to adequately provide for the tribals. The Central and State Governments should ensure that the fruits of development should reach those backward areas as well. Only then we can lay down a strong foundation for an equitable, stable and peaceful society. Naxalite strategies Maoist rebels have been in constant struggle with the Indian state for almost 45 years. They are active in an area that covers roughly one-third of India s total territory. This so-called Red Corridor stretches from Bihar and West Bengal in the north to Andhra Pradesh in the south. In spite of its long history, the conflict seems far from being resolved. Naxalite violence claimed at least 4,800 lives between 2005 and The persistence of this conflict contrasts sharply with India s fast economic growth. Policy makers acknowledge the scale of India s Maoist problem. In 2008, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described the Naxalite movement as the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country. Yet, the conflict is not just a security challenge; it is also a developmental challenge. A vast body of research documents the devastating effects of civil war on human development and economic growth. India s Naxalite conflict is no exception; it submits the affected population to direct violence, displacement, disruptions, and investment insecurity. These concerns are all the more important because the conflict zone includes some of India s poorest 432

3 regions. Moreover, the conflict disproportionally hits some of the most disadvantaged groups within those regions. Understanding the drivers and dynamics of this conflict holds clear policy relevance. My research focuses on how economic shocks affect the Maoists targeting strategies. Because of the reliance of the Red Corridor on rain-fed agriculture, I use rainfall as a proxy for rural incomes. I find that in those districts where monsoon rainfall is low, Naxalite violence against civiliansintensifies.moreover, most of the civilians who die in targeted attacks are reported to belong to groups who collaborate with the Indian government against the Naxalites. This finding could reflect the crucial role that collaborators play in many civil conflicts. When agricultural incomes are depressed due to low rainfall, the government will find it relatively easy to attract civilian collaborators. However, the rebels can try to prevent such collaboration by increasing the monitoring and intimidation of the civilian population. In guerrilla warfare, the rebels are extremely vulnerable to collaboration by the local population, and keeping the local population (as well as their own cadres) on their side is crucial for their survival. Strategic intimidation could explain why lower rainfall leads to higher violence against civilians, and against civilian collaborators in particular. While civilian casualties increase in response to lower rainfall, I find that violence against the government decreases in districts that see lower rainfall. This drop in violence against the government could reflect a change in the rebels strategy away from attacking security forces, to enable them to increase their intimidation of civilian collaborators. Strikingly, this substitution effect is absent in districts that have sufficiently strong mining activity. These districts see more, rather than less, violence against security forces when rainfall is poor. Why would mining districts see a different relationship between economic shocks and violence against the government? Observers of the Naxalite conflict emphasise that the rebels rely very heavily on mining as a source of income. In districts where the rebels do not have access to mineral resource wealth, agricultural income shocks will hurt their tax base. Hence, they cannot easily exploit the bleak agricultural outlook to attract additional recruits. However, if the rebels derive income from mining resources, their funding depends less on agricultural income. Hence, the rebels can easily finance an expansion of their activities when the rural population sees its income decline. This mechanism could explain why the rebels boost violence against the state s security forces in response to low rainfall, but only if the district s mining output is sufficiently high. My work contributes to reserch on the relationship between economic shocks and violence. Over the last decade, statistical analyses of civil conflict have been embraced by a burgeoning literature in political science, sociology, and economics. Economic theories of conflict often rely on an opportunity cost argument to describe the relationship between income shocks and violence. If the economy is doing poorly, we expect the opportunity cost of participating in a rebellion to be lower. Hence, we should see more violence if people s income goes down, because the actors in the conflict are able to boost recruitment. However, the empirical evidence on this relationship is far from clear-cut. My work on India s Naxalite conflict contributes to this debate by highlighting how the opportunity cost channel could operate differently, depending on the tax base of the rebel group (independent from local labour market shocks or not) and depending on the type of violence 433

4 (civilians versus security forces). India s Naxalite conflict offers a particularly interesting test case for these ideas. Understanding the dynamics of violence in the Naxalite conflict could hold lessons for conflict resolution strategies in India and beyond. First, my research indicates that conflict resolution strategies should be tailored to local economic conditions. In particular, policy makers should carefully consider how military, political and economic interventions interact with the sources of funding of the actors in the conflict. Second, my research emphasises the pitfalls of interventions that encourage civilian collaboration. Governments that fight insurgencies often offer a wide range of formal and informal incentives for the civilian population to collaborate against the insurgents. This is clearly the case in India s Naxalite conflict. However, if the insurgents are able match the appeal from collaboration with violent intimidation, collaboration strategies may not win over the civilian population. Rather than changing the course of the conflict, such collaboration strategies could push the civilian population into the line of fire and expose them to increased direct violence. The fight over the affiliation of civilians plays a central role in most civil wars. Therefore, improving our understanding of its dynamics is crucial for the design of effective conflict resolution strategies that limit the exposure of the civilian population Naxalite Developed in India Naxal, Naxalite or Naksalvadi are generic terms used to refer to various militantcommunist groups operating in different parts of India under different organizational envelopes. In the eastern states of the mainland India (Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa), they are usually known as, or refer to themselves as Maoists while in southern states likeandhra Pradesh they are known under other titles. They have been declared as a terroristorganization under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of India (1967).Leaders of the movement have been found to have hideouts located in China. The term 'Naxal' derives from the name of the village Naxalbari in the state of West Bengal,India, where the movement had its origin. The Naxals are considered far-left radicalcommunists, supportive of Maoist political sentiment and ideology. Their origin can be traced to the split in 1967 of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), leading to the formation of thecommunist Party of India (Marxist Leninist). Initially the movement had its centre in West Bengal. In later years, it spread into less developed areas of rural central and eastern India, such as Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh through the activities of underground groups like the Communist Party of India (Maoist). For the past 10 years, it has grown mostly from displaced tribals and natives who are fighting against exploitation from major Indian corporations and local officials whom they believe to be corrupt. The solution for Naxalism Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, equipped with cameras, data and video links are the latest weapons to be deployed against Naxals in India. Developed by Hindustan Aeronautics, each machine will cost at least Rs 18 lakh. Will they work to contain or subdue what the prime minister has called the greatest threat to India s internal security? I doubt. 434

5 Naxal activity in India today spreads across 90 districts in 10 states: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. To start with, they are poor. Studies show that 85 of the country s 100 poorest districts are in seven of those 10 states. In the Naxal-affected districts, 32% of the population is below the officiallymeasured poverty line, compared to 24% elsewhere. Second, in these districts, state governments have a terrible record of delivering public goods and services. Only 68% of homes in Naxal-affected districts get safe drinking water, in other places, the number is 74%. There are so many JassicaLal - Manu Sharma cases which we don't even know about. Their family, friends are easily attracted to naxalism for instant justice. So There should be equal justice for all to solve the naxalism problem They want justice and that is why they have opened their own courts called Jan Adalat. What made them do so when they can solve the matters through judiciary system? Perhaps the denial of justice from the system end resulted in Jan Adalat. Naxalism is a major threat faced by our country today. It is harming the innocent people and the people at fault are roaming around. Fight for the right but if you make wrong your right then all actions are going to lose their meaning. References : articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com Collections West Bengal