Maoists and the Govt.

India’s Maoist Revolt: Internal Crisis, External Reach

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

Though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the communist insurrection India’s ‘biggest internal security threat,’ the attack that massacred 76 security personnel in central India indicates it has become a much bigger issue, writes Sudeshna Sarkar for ISN Security Watch.

By Sudeshna Sarkar in Kathmandu for ISN Security Watch

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The attack by Maoist guerrillas in India’s tribal heartland Chhattisgarh state on 6 April - described as the deadliest in nearly five decades of communist insurgency – killed 76 security personnel and marked a rise in both the frequency and intensification of the offensives.

Last year, the Maoists carried out 10 major operations in India, killing nearly 200 people. This year, with the ambush in Dantewada district, they have already executed three major attacks in three states, killing at least 110 people. 

In February, the outlaws stormed a police camp in West Bengal, the eastern state where the armed uprising first started as an ill-equipped peasant uprising in 1967, killing 24. On 4 April, they planted a landmine in Orissa, one of India’s poorest states adjoining West Bengal, which blew up nearly 10 security personnel.

A statement by Maoist spokesman Gudsa Usendi after the Dantewada massacre also underscored how the Maoist offensives were becoming stronger and better-planned compared to the earlier hit-and-run attacks. The statement said the attack was “meticulously planned” after scouts watched security forces’ movements for nearly six months. About 300 People's Liberation Guerrilla Army combatants took part in the three-hour operation, losing only eight of their fighters, it added. On the other hand, they seized the weapons of the slain security men, including AK-47s, light machine guns and self-loading rifles.

Civilians caught in the middle, again

The Indian government reacted aggressively, ruling out talks with the Maoists and favoring deploying additional forces. Home Minister P Chidambaram has claimed that the federal government will be able to combat the Maoist challenge “in the next two to three years.” Analysts and activists however say that India needs to realize that the Maoist movement is no longer just “an internal security threat,” as dubbed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.