On 7 May 2005, a well-organized group of leftist revolutionaries attacked and laid waste Hindalco’s mine in Chhattisgarh. Those absorbed in the vision of India shining may dismiss this as an isolated problem of occasional violence that the forces of law and order can handle. I would urge that this is not the case.

Left-wing insurgency in India goes back at least to the days of the Telangana agitation of 1948.  But in its present form, it was born in Naxalbari 1967. The movement has had its ups and downs, its splits and mergers.  But as of now it is more united and spreading. Over the past year, the Naxalites have been extending their areas of activity at the rate of an average of two districts each week, and have gone from just 55 districts in nine States in November 2003, to 155 districts in 15 in States by February 2005.

The two main groups, the Peoples War Group (PWG) and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) came together in September 2004 to form the CPI-Maoist. The MCC's current areas of influence extend over Bihar and Jharkhand, with some sway in Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal, Uttaranchal and a few pockets of Madhya Pradesh. The PWG's areas of dominance include Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu.

Following the merger, the general secretaries respectively of the erstwhile PWG and MCC said: “The immediate aim and program of the Maoist party is to carry on and complete the already ongoing and advancing New Democratic Revolution. This revolution will be carried out and completed through protracted people’s war with the armed seizure of power remaining as its central and principal task.”

According to the assessment presented in the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the merger now brings the Maoists closer to their objective of 'liberating' their proposed Compact Revolutionary Zone (CRZ), which extends from Nepal through Bihar in the North to Dandakaranya region (forest areas of Central India) and Andhra Pradesh in the South. The intention is to have a continuous stretch of territory under their influence and control, with the ultimate goal of eventually "liberating" the entire zone. Large parts of this territory have already been brought under the extremist influence with only some link-ups now necessary in the remaining pockets to make the CRZ a reality. Once achieved, the CRZ will virtually drive a wedge through the vital areas of the country and would help crystallize linkages with other Maoist groups operating in South Asia, including the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) and the Communist Party of Bhutan-Maoist (CPB-M).

The Maoist groups are based largely in remote interior areas.  But their reach is spreading. Over the past five years, Naxalite activities have increased in the districts surrounding Bangalore city - India's 'Silicon Valley'. Both Tumkur and Kolar districts share borders with Andhra Pradesh and are situated to the North and East of Bangalore, respectively. The Naxalites have been active in both districts since the 1980s.
To the West of the city, the Naxalites have increased their activities in the Malnad region of the Western Ghats. The southern part of Bangalore city shares its borders with the Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu, which has been under the Naxalite influence for the past two decades.

The roots of Naxalism lie in perceptions of gross injustice.  In 1967 the immediate provocation in Naxalabri came when a tribal youth, who had a judicial order in his favor, was killed by a landlord’s goons as he tried to till his land.  In Karnataka, the displacement of tribals in Kudremukh gave the Naxalites the opening they needed.

BV Raman, a former intelligence official, and a thoughtful commentator says: “India, which has been able to effectively counter the Pakistani jihadi terrorists sponsored and infiltrated by Pakistan, finds itself clueless before its own sons and daughters of the soil, who have taken to the Red Terror not for the sake of a territory or religion as the Pakistani jihadis have done, but for their right to have two meals a day, to have a plot of land, which they can call their own and to have a job and for their liberation from the servitude under the feudal landlords and rural money-lenders.”

Naxalism thrives in remote forested and tribal regions of the country and is enmeshed in our failure to integrate our tribal areas in the mainstream of our polity and economy.  This is despite, or perhaps because of the fact that some of these tribal areas are the primary source of our mineral and forest wealth. Most tribal areas in India adjoin non-tribal areas that are doing rather badly in terms of development.  This is true of the Santhal dominated tribal areas in the Bihar, Orissa, and Madhya Pradesh trijunction and in the Gond dominated areas at the Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra trijunction.  It is perhaps not as valid for the Bhil dominated areas at the Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat trijunction.  The fact that this ‘Bhil’ area has less of an insurgency problem strengthens the conviction that the failures of tribal development require us to look at the adjoining non-tribal areas also.

The development stagnation in the adjoining non-tribal areas leads to an outward push of non-tribals into tribal areas where they try to grab land, trading opportunities, and bureaucratic positions.  Many of these non-tribals are from SC/OBC communities.  My impression from my work with the Sivaraman Committee on Backward Areas (which dates back to 1980) is that the major social problem in many tribal areas is the SC-ST conflict. This conflict is worse now as the political power of the SC/OBC communities has increased. The upper castes too are the oppressors, particularly when the tribal population takes to Christianity and the political forces of Hindutva enter the picture.  

The tribal population is alienated from the machinery of governance at the local level.  Tribal leaders are not influential at the national level. The establishment of the new states in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh could improve matters in this regard over time if they can provide a political process that can engage tribal elites and tribal youth.  But the political maneuvers that followed the recent elections do not give much ground for hope.

At present what we have in tribal areas is a dangerous brew of economic stagnation, social conflicts, political alienation, and widespread corruption. The essence of the problem is in the mode of governance. 

Revolutionary violence clearly has to be countered with lawful force.  But that will not be enough.  We need to ask how one can combine the police actions needed to combat the violence with more participatory political processes that provide tribal youth in particular with more constitutional means of advancement.

A fresh look at development strategy for the Naxalism affected areas should look into the grievances of the local population.  But it must also look at adjoining areas from where exploitative pressures are exerted and focus attention sharply on issues of governance.

A failure to address the problem of development and law and order in the one-third of the country where Naxalism is rife will endanger development in the remaining two-thirds as well. Our democratic process and our economic development can be derailed by it.  We underestimate it at our peril.