RED ALERT: A NAXAL SPRING IN A FAMISHED, FORGOTTEN LAND
For over three decades, the Naxalites have systematically built up their influence in the tribal regions of Andhra Pradesh, parts of Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Nepal. Nitin A Gokhale and Sudarshan Chhotoray venture deep into Naxal country to understand what makes them tick
 Koraput town in South Orissa is still in a state of shock. In one single stroke on February 6, 2004, the banned People’s War (PW) demonstrated why it is arguably the most deadly guerrilla force in the country — it emptied the entire district police’s armoury here. The tally of weapons lost at the end of the Naxalite raid that lasted over three hours was: over 500 .303 rifles, 35 sten guns and over 20,000 rounds of ammunition. But apart from the loss of weapons, the attack struck a telling blow to the morale of the state police.
In independent India’s history, only one other state —Assam— has had the dubious distinction of losing an entire armoury to a militant raid. That was in the early 1990s when Bodo militants confiscated 70 weapons, including light machine guns, from an armed police battalion headquarters.
The Orissa raid was much bigger. Over 300 Naxalites were involved. Investi-gations now show they were preparing for the attack for over three months. The PW also looted three other stations on the same day.
A month later, fear. lurks beneath the facade of normalcy in Koraput. Would deployment of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) invite a retaliatory attack? Says Lakshmi Prasad Rath, a retired air force employee: “Koraput was never touched by the PW cadre despite being surrounded by Naxalite-infested districts in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. But now we are not sure.”
District police chief Arun Bothra, whose force was caught unawares by the raid, says the PW had deliberately left Koraput untouched. “They wanted to keep this district as a safe haven and use it as a sanctuary when the heat was turned on in the neighbouring districts. So, for years nothing happened in Koraput,” Bothra, who took over as superintendent of police, Koraput in November 2003, says. He admits that the district police failed to anticipate the Naxalite operation but says they are determined to make amends. “We now have the well-equipped CRPF with us and we will utilise them effectively,” he told Tehelka.
 If Bothra is forced to put up a spirited defence for the sake of boosting the morale of the force, the shame of having been taken by surprise is written all over the faces of junior policemen and women. At the Lakshmi-pur police station, which was blasted by the PW men on their way back to their hideouts in Andhra Pradesh, constables and inspectors sit mum. They are not willing to talk about their humiliation. They were slapped and beaten up in public by the Naxalites before they made off with the weapons.
It may be the first time for Koraput, but neighbouring districts, like Rayagada and Malkangiri, have been experiencing a spate of such attacks for around five years. According to the Orissa police, at least 50 people have been killed in Naxalite violence in the last five years. And yet, until the Koraput incident took place, the Navin Patnaik-led government had not initiated any special measures to tackle the growing Naxalite influence.
 A week after the Koraput raid, Patnaik deigned to visit the district and announce some cosmetic changes in the police set up. But as a senior police official said on condition of anonymity: “Does the chief minister expect us to fight the Naxalites with bare hands or outdated weapons like the bolt action rifles when they have automatic arms and self-loading rifles?” During his Koraput visit, the chief minister promised to raise a special force meant exclusively to tackle the growing Naxalite menace. But with Patnaik facing elections to the state assembly along with the Lok Sabha polls, no one has taken this too seriously.
Predictably, Patnaik’s political opponents like former chief minister JB Pattanaik are critical of the state government’s policies. “I will hold the state government directly responsible for Koraput. During our government, they had marginal presence, since we had undertaken pro-tribal development. But they have bounced back because of the present government’s anti-tribal stance and confrontationist policies.”
 Others like Anadi Sahu, retired inspector general of police and now a BJP MP, have a different take. “They (the Naxalites) are running short of arms, so they are indulging in violence to get more arms.” He admits that underdevelopment of the southern Orissa region may be one of the reasons for growing Naxalite violence but hastens to add: “For the last two years, the Biju Janata Dal-BJP coalition government in the state is trying very hard to mitigate the backwardness.”
Whatever the reasons, Koraput is now well and truly on the Naxalite map which extends across Andhra Pradesh, parts of Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jhar-khand and Nepal. The Naxalites began the process to bring Orissa, especially its southern districts bordering Andhra Pradesh under its influence after the PW formed a new Andhra-Orissa Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC) in 2001. Security analysts attribute this development to two compelling reasons. One, the intense pressure applied by security forces in Andhra Pradesh forced the Naxalites to look for new sanctuaries and two, to attain the larger goal of creating a corridor connecting Andhra Pradesh to Nepal. The PW and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) which operates mainly in Jharkhand and Bihar, have in fact merged with each other for all practical purposes. Having pooled their resources, leftwing extremism has become stronger.
Given the socio-economic condition in southern Orissa, meeting these targets was never going to be difficult for the Naxalites. Says Bhagwat Rath, a leading Rayagada-based intellectual and keen social observer: “Southern Orissa’s majority population is tribal—amongst the poorest in a poor state like Orissa. Moneylenders, government and police officials have exploited them for years. Quite naturally therefore, the area was ripe for the Naxalites to come and work for the welfare of these people and in the process be seen as saviours.”
Adds another discerning observer Jagadish Pradhan, president of an NGO Sahabhagi Vikash Abhiyan: “Government infrastructure in southern Orissa is poor. Low levels of literacy, and systematic exclusion of tribals from any development process has led to extreme poverty in the region.”
Some of the statistics is revealing. Over 50 percent of Orissa’s tribal population lives in the southern and south-western districts close to Andhra Pradesh. These tribes—mainly Khonds, Bondas, Saoras and Koyas—had traditionally survived on forest wealth and community farming but with declining forests and increasing trend of shifting cultivation, land alienation is rampant. These tribes have been therefore forced to become seasonal wage labourers. In the absence of any meaningful government intervention, it was easy for the Naxalites to gain entry into the area. Today, their presence casts a long shadow on the southern Orissa districts. The government is in retreat here. But it’s not as if the Naxalites are welcomed with open arms everywhere.
Take Krushna Chandra Gudika for example. He is angry with both the police and the Naxalites.
Sitting in front of his kutcha house in Sandubadi under Rayagada district, Gudika laments the fact that his village is right on the border with Andhra Pradesh. “Being the last village on the border in this area, we are caught between the Naxalites and police. While the Naxalites want shelter and food, the police, especially from Andhra Pradesh, come chasing them and harass us instead. Our only source of livelihood, the forests is also destroyed in the process,” Gudika, clearly undernourished, says.
His neighbour, Simadri Ganta, echoes the sentiment. “Since our area is seen as Naxalite-infested, no government official, be it a doctor, an engineer or even teacher wants to come here,” he says. “They all fear the Naxalites.” Indeed, the only primary school in the village is closed for want of a teacher. Ten-year old Shanti says her teacher has not come to work for the past week. The road is in a state of disrepair and mostly kutcha with a smattering of tar in patches. Drinking water is a problem and power is mostly cut off.
The story is repeated in several other villages in the vicinity. The familiar tale of exploitation of tribals, lack of development, government apathy and illiteracy has contributed to the present state of affairs in large areas of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh (see boxes), Jharkhand, Bihar and parts of Maharashtra. The Naxalites who have worked systematically for over three decades is now seeing their reward in the form of larger areas under their control.
Unless authorities across the board start addressing the problem in an integrated manner, combining tough counter-insurgency measures with compassionate development projects, the State’s writ will stop running in more and more districts and states of India’s heartland.
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