PROJECT REPORT ON

“Naxalism and Internal Security of Affected Indian States”

SUBMITTED TO:

Dr. Uttam Kumar Panda

Faculty of Sociology

SUBMITTED BY:

Himanshu kunjam

Roll no. 60

SECTION C

SEMESTER III, B.A. LLB (HONS.)

SUBMITTED ON:

July 24th, 2020

HIDAYATULLAH NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

Uparwara Post, Abhanpur, New Raipur – 493661 (C.G.)

1|Page
 DECLARATION

I, Himanshu kunjam, hereby declare that, the project work titled, ‘’Naxalism and Internal
Security of Affected Indian States” submitted to HNLU, Raipur is record of an original work
done by me under the guidance of Dr. Uttam Kumar Panda, Faculty Member, HNLU, Raipur.

Himanshu kunjam

Roll no. 60
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to the Almighty who gave me the strength to accomplish the project with sheer hard
work and honesty. This research venture has been made possible due to the generous co-
operation of various persons. To list them all is not practicable, even to repay them with
words is beyond the domain of my lexicon.

This project wouldn’t have been possible without the help of my teacher Dr. Uttam Kumar
Panda, Faculty Member, HNLU, Raipur, who had always been there at my side whenever I
needed some help regarding any information. He has been my mentor in the truest sense of
the term. The administration has also been kind enough to let me use their facilities for
research work, I thank them for this.
 Table of Contents
DECLARATION...................................................................................................................................2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................5
OBJECTIVES.......................................................................................................................................6
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...........................................................................................................6
When did this movement start? How did it get its name?......................................................................7
Do the Naxalites face much opposition?................................................................................................7
Who do the Naxalites target?.................................................................................................................7
Violence by Naxalites............................................................................................................................8
The Killing of 29 police men along with the Superintendent of Police in Chhattisgarh:.......................8
Killing of 76 CRPF Soldiers:.................................................................................................................8
The Gyaneshwari express blast..............................................................................................................9
The Kidnapping of the District Magistrate and the foreign citizens:.....................................................9
Darbha Valley Attack:...........................................................................................................................9
India's Scariest Security Challenge......................................................................................................10
Will the greatest future security threats to India be from inside or outside the country?.....................12
Naxalist - The Biggest Security Threat to India...................................................................................12
Causes of the Threat............................................................................................................................13
Naxalite movement as the biggest threat.............................................................................................14
CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................................15
BIBLIOGRAPHY...............................................................................................................................16
INTRODUCTION

The word Naxal, Naxalite or Naxalbari is a generic term used to refer various militant
Communist 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 like
Andhra Pradesh they are known under other titles. They have been declared as a terrorist
organization under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of India (1967).1The term 'Naxal'
is derived from the name of the village Naxalbari in the state of West Bengal, India, where
the movement had its origin. 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). 2 Maoist had somewhat
misinterpreted the bhagat Singh ideology and then tried there extreme measure lets us not be
confuse this Maoist Naxalites to the other communist democratic party as in my view because
of the Naxalite major impact had been occur to the communist parties which are fighting
democratically.

For the past 10 years, Maoist has grown mostly from displaced tribal and natives who are
fighting against exploitation from major Indian corporations and local officials who they
believe to be corrupt. These conflicts go back to the failure of implementing the 5th & 6th
Schedules of the Constitution of India. These Schedules provide for a limited form of tribal
autonomy with regard to exploiting natural resources on their lands, e.g. pharmaceutical &
mining, and 'land ceiling laws', limiting the land to be possessed by landlords and distribution
of excess land to landless farmers & laborer’s. The caste system is another important social
aspect of these conflicts.The most prominent area of operation is a broad swathe across the
very heartland of India, often considered the least developed area of this country. The
Naxalites operate mostly in the rural and Adivasi areas, often out of the continuous jungles in
these regions. Their operations are most prominent in (from North to South) Jharkhand,
Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, eastern Maharashtra, the Telangana (northwestern) region of
Andhra Pradesh, and western Orissa. It will be seen that these areas are all inland, from the
coastline.

1
Kumar Kujur, D., 2009. [online] Files.ethz.ch. Available at: <https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/103329/IB109-
Kujur-NaxalBan.pdf> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
2
ramakrishna, v., 2005. THE NAXALITE CHALLENGE. [online] Frontline. Available at:
<https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article30206845.ece> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
 OBJECTIVES

The broad objectives of this research project are:

1. The main objective of this project to is to study the origin and history of Naxalist
in India.
2. Another main objective is to study the reasons that how the Naxalites lost their
motive and became a threat to the society.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The research methodology adopted for this research project is Doctrinal. The research is
based on both primary and secondary sources of data. There has been an extensive use of
authoritative texts, reports, journals, online articles, etc. The mode of citation that has been
followed is the Bluebook form of citation (20th Edition).
When did this movement start? How did it get its name?

The earliest manifestation of the movement was the Telangana Struggle in July 1948 (100
years after the Paris Communes were first set up, coining the word Communist). This
struggle was based on the ideology of China's Mao Zedong, with the aim of creating an
Indian revolution. Not surprisingly, the ideology remains strong in this region of Andhra
Pradesh.

But the Naxalite movement took shape after some members of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist) split to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), after the former
agreed to participate in elections and form a coalition government in West Bengal. Charu
Mazumdar led the split.

On May 25, 1967, in Naxalbari village in Darjeeling district, northern West Bengal, local
goons attacked a tribal who had been given land by the courts under the tenancy laws. In
retaliation, the tribal attacked landlords and claimed the land. From this 'Naxalbari Uprising'
came the word Naxalite.3

Do the Naxalites face much opposition?

Yes, they do, almost from the entire Indian political spectrum. Noticeably, when the Naxalite
movement first started in the late sixties in West Bengal, it was the CPI-M that cracked down
hardest on the Maoist rebels, with ample support from the Congress at the Centre. At village
levels, the Naxalites' terror tactics have spawned local armies to provide protection to the
landlords and others. The most infamous of these is the Ranvir Sena in Bihar and Jharkhand,
formed by Bhumihar caste landlords, which kill tribals, Dalits and landless labourers either in
retaliation or to enforce their domination.

Who do the Naxalites target?

Ideologically, the Naxalites claim they are against India as she exists currently. They believe
that Indians are still to acquire freedom from hunger and deprivation and that the rich classes
-
- landlords, industrialists, traders, etc. -- control the means of production. Their final aim is the
3
Diwanji, A., 2003. Primer: Who Are The Naxalites?. [online] Rediff.com. Available at:
<https://www.rediff.com/news/2003/oct/02spec.htm> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
overthrow of the present system, hence the targeting of politicians, police officers and men,
forest contractors, etc.

At a more local level, the Naxalites have invariably targeted landlords in the villages, often
claiming protection money from them. Naxalites have also been known to claim 'tax' from
the Adivasis and landless farmers in areas where their writ runs more than that of the
government.

Violence by Naxalites

There are uncountable numbers of cases which shows the violent face of the Naxalites and
brings them in the category of terrorists.

Few very shocking and extreme cases are:

The Killing of 29 police men along with the Superintendent of Police in Chhattisgarh:

On 12th of July, 2009 a troop of 29 policemen were going for a search operation inside the
jungles of Madan Vada (a dense Naxalite area) and it was led by the Superintendent of Police
of Ranganathan District Mr. Vinod Kumar Choubey. While they were moving inside the
jungle, they were being attacked by about 400 Naxalites who trapped these policemen in an
ambush and then all the 29 policemen including the SP Shaheed Mr. Vinod Kumar Choubey
laid their lives while fighting with the gorillas and it was the first time in the history of
Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh when an IPS officer was being killed in an Naxalite attack.

Killing of 76 CRPF Soldiers:

On 6 April 2010 Naxalites showed another face of terror and violence by killing 76 security
personnel. The attack was launched by up to 1,000 Naxalites in a well-planned attack, killing
an estimated 76 CRPF policemen in two separate ambushes and wounding 50 others, in the
remote jungles of Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district in Eastern/ Central India. Also, on 17
May, Naxals blew up a bus on Dantewda-sukma road in Chhattisgarh, killing 15 policemen
and 20 civilians. In third Major attack by Naxals on 29 June, at least 26 personnel of Indian
Centre Reserve Forces (CRPF) were killed in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh.
The Gyaneshwari express blast:

On 28th May, 2010 the Naxalites launched the deadliest assault in the history of the Naxalite
movement by blasting the Gyaneshwari express near the Kharagpur station. When at about 3
am the train was passing from the Rourkela-Kharagpur route which is considered to be one of
the most dangerous Naxalite belts, the train was being blasted by the Naxalites by fitting the
blasting elements in the railway track. About 150 people were killed in this blast and many
more were injured.

The Kidnapping of the District Magistrate and the foreign citizens:

Many cases of kidnapping by Naxalites were till now heard but in last 1 year the cases of
kidnapping the District Magistrates of Sukma (C.G), a DM and a MLA of Orissa in 2011 was
in news. In March 2012 Maoist rebels kidnapped two Italians in the eastern Indian state of
Orissa, the first time Westerners were abducted there4.

In late 2011, the death of Kishenji, the military leader of Communist Party of India (Maoist)
was killed in an encounter with the joint operation forces, which was a huge blow to the
Naxalite movement in Eastern India.12 CRPF personnel were killed on 27 March 2012 in a
landmine blast triggered by suspected Naxalites in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra.

Darbha Valley Attack:

On 25 May 2013, Naxalite insurgents of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) attacked a
convoy of Indian National Congress leaders in the Darbha Valley in the Sukma district of
Chhattisgarh, India. The attack caused at least 27 deaths, including that of former state
minister Mahendra Karma and Chhattisgarh Congress chief Nandi Kumar Patel Vidya
Charan Shukla, a senior Congress leader also later succumbed to his injuries on 11 June
2013.5

4
NDTV.com. 2012. Sukma Collector Alex Paul Menon Released By Maoists: 10 Big Developments. [online]
Available at: <https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/sukma-collector-alex-paul-menon-released-by-maoists-10-
big-developments-480428> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
5
India Today. 2013. Year After Jeeram Massacre, Why We Know Little About The Maoists' Most Spectacular
Attack. [online] Available at: <https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/chhattisgarh-maoist-attack-sukma-
darbha-ghati-massacre-194281-2014-05-25> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
India's Scariest Security Challenge

Prime Minister Mahoman Singh has called them "the single biggest security challenge ever
faced by our country". Fourteen Indian states are struggling to battle the insurgency waged by
their 20,000 fighters. Over the last three years some 2,600 people have died by their hands.

These are the Naxalites, the source of India's scariest security challenge.

Naxalism. It is a topic few in the West are aware of. The international media lends little
attention to India's Maoist insurgents, choosing instead to focus its attention on the more
dramatic attacks of groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba. It is hard to blame them: writing about
Islamic terrorism has become too easy. There is no need to perform substantive reporting or
analysis on the cause of events; pundits simply need to boil down Muslim gunmen and
bombers to the level of caricature and the news has been written. Naxalism, in contrast, does
not lend itself to such easy stereotypes. Not surprisingly, most media outlets have been
conspicuously quiet about the movement.

This silence is not sustainable. Indeed, an attack staged by the Naxalites was so spectacular
that even the New York Times could not ignore it. On the eighth of October 2009 Naxalites
ambushed a large contingent of Maharashtra police commandos, killing 17 of them in a
gunfight staged in broad daylight. As the Indian government begins a major nation-wide
paramilitary offensive against the Naxalites, the ambush on the eighth shall surely be but the
first of many battles. I suspect that as this conflict enlarges in scope and drags through time
the word "Naxalite" shall lose its alien sound. The day will come when Beltway analysts will
pronounce the fate of Chhattisgarh in the same steady voice as they prophesize of Xinjiang;
soon the pundit class will talk as freely of the Naxalites as they do the P.K.K.

However, this is all in the future -- the post below is for those of you who want a head start.
Mazumdar called his new movement the "All India Coordination Committee of Communist
Revolutionaries", but most Indians knew the group by their place of origin, and began to call
all Maoist-style guerrillas "Naxalites."6 The movement was supported by two very different
groups: leftist college students (mostly from Kolkata), and poor Dalits and peasants who had
just barely survived India's worst famine in a century. A steady flow of aid from China
further

6
Marxists.org. n.d. Charu Mazumdar. [online] Available at:
<https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mazumdar/index.htm> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
strengthened the movement, allowing it to spread beyond the Naxalbari region itself, taking
root in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand.

In the past opposition from the rural population of Eastern India has kept Nasalism from
growing past these remote pockets. The response to CPI-Maoists’ expansion was violent;
many rural landowners would not tolerate a Naxalite shadow state and founded anti-Maoist
militias in an attempt at armed resistance. The pattern was set by the Salwa Judum, a grass
roots resistance movement in Chhattisgarh that was co-opted by the state government soon
after its founding. Eager to find a quick fix to the Naxalite problem, the government of
Chhattisgarh paid members of the Salwa Judum as "Special Police Officers" and ordered
them to clear the jungle of Naxalite influence. The battles that followed this command
resulted in thousands of internal refugees across the state. The heavy-handed tactics of the
Salwa Judum and their government patrons alienated many of the state's rural poor, and early
this year the last vestiges of the movement disappeared.

These Salwa Judum insurgent group deal to eliminate the Naxalites led by the Bhartiya Jante
party and congress party both the man were picked up from the village that is Adivasi and
trained them and loaded them with the heavy weapons there are certain incident that leads to
the human right violation case in tadmetla village in Sukma district the whole village was
burned during the action taken by the government the whole case was went through the
supreme courts petition by the Supreme court lawyer and various other human right lawyers
and some of politician were also there petition and supreme court had put the banned in
Salwa Judum and court bench held that the constitutional pillars must work within the limits
of law basically the constitution and it’s a clear violation of the Article 21 of the Indian
constitution and ultimately the rule of law. Salwa Judum the operation go green hunt had put
lots of innocent tribal killed and there are more severe matters like sexual harasses by the
officers and various types of torture done by the Salwa Judum.

The surge in Naxalite power is not limited to Chhattisgarh. Multiple states, some outside the
red corridor, have seen a troubling growth in Naxalite related violence. Part of the reason the
October 8th ambush made headlines is because it did not occur in Chhattisgarh, Bihar,
Jharkhand, or Orissa, the four states traditionally subject to Naxal violence.
The scope this violence has ensured action on the part of India's central government. Last
month the Central Reserve Police Force reported that it had lost six times the number of men
to Naxalites this year than it has to all other groups in all other combat zones, including
Kashmir. The CRPF announced that it was launching a nation-wide operation to counter the
Naxal threat. Titled "Operation Green Hunt", the campaign is expected to last two years.

Will the greatest future security threats to India be from inside or outside the country?

Naxalist - The Biggest Security Threat to India:

India, having one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and being the most populous
democratic country, has great potential to become a future superpower. However, in this
increasingly globalized environment, India faces several threats to its security. The Naxalites
have been identified as the biggest internal security threat to India by Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh. The complex and structural causes of the problem support this proposition.
The Naxal movement also presents the greatest overall threat to India in the future, as it
highlights various underlying weaknesses of India’s governance, political institutions and
socio-economic structure. Naxalist is the biggest threat because it affects several areas
including the economy, security and foreign affairs, its citizens and rule of law. Because of
the multi-dimensional aspect of the Naxal problem, a three-pronged approach should be taken
in dealing with the threat. It calls for a balance between military forces, social and economic
development, as well as dialogue between all parties. The Ex. India Home Minister P
Chidambaram had declared that the security forces need to be more assertive against the
Maoists. However, this is only one part of the solution. Examination of the reasons behind the
Naxalite movement indicate that military force on its own will not be enough to counter
India’s biggest security threat.7

7
The Hindu. 2010. Naxalism Biggest Threat To Internal Security: Manmohan. [online] Available at:
<https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Naxalism-biggest-threat-to-internal-security-
Manmohan/article16302952.ece> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
Causes of the Threat:

The causes of the Maoist movement in India are structural. Economic, political and cultural
dimensions are closely linked. The first is the economic situation which is exploited by
Naxalites and their extreme left ideology. It seems much like a catch-22 situation. On the one
hand, India has experienced relatively fast economic growth, which has led to increased
levels of national wealth. To facilitate and continue this development, businesses need more
land and natural resources such as minerals. On the other hand, this economic growth has
been uneven among regions, and has widened the disparity between the rich and the poor.
Proponents of these businesses argue that these regions need economic development, if they
are to catch up with their richer counterparts.

The Indian aboriginals, known as Adivasis, live these richly forested lands, which are wanted
for development by businesses. The conflict between economic progress and aboriginal land
rights continues to fuel the Naxalite’s activities. Their strongest bases are in the poorest areas
of India. They are concentrated on the tribal belt such as West Bengal, Orissa, and Andhra
Pradesh where locals experience forced acquisition of their land for developmental projects.
Arundhati Roy, said that the tribal forestlands should be called a “Moist Corridor” instead of
the “Maoist Corridor” as the people of these tribal forest and have been wrestling with
“Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) of the mining companies. Prashant Bhushan, a civil
rights lawyer noted that businesses are making Adivasis go through “sham formal
consultation” processes where interests of the Adivasis are not sincerely considered.

Second, the alienation that is being exploited by the Maoists has a social, communal and
regional dimension. The battle can also be described between India’s most neglected people
and the nation’s most powerful industrial businesses. The Adivasis make up about 8.4 percent
of the population and live in severe poverty. They live in remote areas where government
administration is weak and there is a lack of government services. These indigenous people
have the lowest literacy rates in the country and highest rates of infant mortality.

Given this socio-economic alienation, it is easy to see how the Naxalite’s ideology is popular
among the rural poor and indigenous tribes, and why the Adivasis view the guerrillas as their
“saviors”. The Adivasis do not feel like they have any political power to voice their
grievances legitimately, and therefore the alternative of subversive, illegal groups seem
attractive.
Some argue that Naxalites are not concerned about the social or economic welfare of these
people and are simply using them as a means to its end goal of seizing political power. The
spread of Naxalist reflects the widespread alienation and discontentment felt by large parts of
the country who are systematically marginalized. Dr. Subramanian, a former Director-
General of the National Security Guard and Central Reserve Police Force notes that Naxalist
exists in these tribal areas because of the dissatisfaction of the people against the government
and big businesses, the terrain is suitable for guerrilla tactics, and there is no existence of a
proper and effective local administration mechanism. In these areas, the conditions are
conducive to warfare and extremist ideologies. Even if Naxalites are simply exploiting the
Adivasis’ situation for their own ends, their popularity indicates the power of the root causes
to create such an environment for insecurity and violence.

Naxalite movement as the biggest threat

The Naxalite threat is the biggest security problem for India’s future as its effects are multi-
layered. The Maoist movement highlights India’s interior weaknesses, which makes India
also vulnerable to external threats. As part of globalization, threats such as the Naxalite
movement can no longer be viewed as simply internal as it also affects external security. The
security dangers are aptly described by a former Pakistani Director-General of the Inter-
Services Intelligence and his description of India’s foreign affairs. The Director-General
equated India being busy with internal security problems to having two extra Divisions in the
Pakistan Army for free. A nation cannot effectively withstand threats coming from outside its
country if there is instability inside it. Furthermore, globalization has encouraged the
emergence of non-state terrorist actors as well as international interference in each other’s
affairs. India has been one of the victims of international and state sponsored terrorism fueled
by fundamentalist ideologies. The Pakistani support for terrorist acts within India and the
Jammu and Kashmir proxy war is an example of when it is critical that national security
forces focus solely on eliminating external threats. India’s regional neighbors are also
external threats This means having military deployed along the border. In the past, India has
also been involved in territorial disputes with China such as over Aksai Chin At present
incidence in 2020 china had been building the military base camp in Indian controlled land.8

8
joshi, m., 2020. China's Galwan Valley Gambit Is Attempt To Extend Official Claim Line, LAC
Westward. [online] The Wire. Available at: <https://thewire.in/security/china-galwan-valley-lac-indian-
troops> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
CONCLUSION

The complexity of the causes of the Naxalite problem as well as its implications both for
internal and external security reflect a solution that is multi-dimensional and calls for a
synergy between the central governments and the states. In order to comprehensively dissolve
the Naxalite threat, the government has to address its root causes. Socio-economic alienation
and the dissatisfaction with the widening economic and political inequality will not be solved
by military force alone, which seems to be the main instrument employed by the government.
Both
state and government must ensure that things such as statutory minimum wages, access to
land and water sources initiatives are implemented. In coming up with strategies for national
economic growth, the government must always bear in mind the possible effects of fast
growth for all socio-economic groups in a country as large and diverse as India. Second, the
government should initiate sincere dialogue with these marginalized groups, the Naxalites
and state leaders.

The popularity of Naxalites with the Adivasis is a reflection of the fact that the government
has been unaware or “unapologetically indifferent to their plight”. By communicating and
starting a dialogue between these stakeholders, these groups will feel that they being listened
to. the Naxalite problem reflects underlying issues in the Indian social, economic and political
institutions which threaten to expose India to even more danger from outside forces. While
the Naxalite movement is mainly an internal threat, with globalizations, external and internal
security threats are inextricably linked. The complex and multi-faceted approach to solving
the Naxalite issue also reflects the fact that this is the biggest menace to India’s security in the
future.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Marxists.org. n.d. Charu Mazumdar. [online] Available at:

<https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mazumdar/index.htm> [Accessed 12
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 : Diwanji, A., 2003. Primer: Who Are the Naxalites? [online] Rediff.com. Available at:
<https://www.rediff.com/news/2003/oct/02spec.htm> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
 joshi, m., 2020. China's Galwan Valley Gambit Is Attempt To Extend Official Claim
Line, LAC Westward. [online] The Wire. Available at:
<https://thewire.in/security/china-galwan-valley-lac-indian-troops> [Accessed 12 July
2020].
 NDTV.com. 2012. Sukma Collector Alex Paul Menon Released By Maoists: 10 Big
Developments. [online] Available at: <https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/sukma-
collector-alex-paul-menon-released-by-maoists-10-big-developments-480428>
[Accessed 12 July 2020].
 ramakrishna, v., 2005. THE NAXALITE CHALLENGE. [online] Frontline.
Available at: <https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article30206845.ece>
[Accessed 12 July 2020].
 India Today. 2013. Year After Jeeram Massacre, Why We Know Little About The
Maoists' Most Spectacular Attack. [online] Available at:
<https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/chhattisgarh-maoist-attack-sukma-
darbha-ghati-massacre-194281-2014-05-25> [Accessed 12 July 2020].
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 sunder, n., 2016. The Burning Forest. 1st ed. jaggernaut.