Friday, April 27, 2012

[Naxalite Maoist India] To be or not to be Anonymous

There is no such thing as Anonymity on the Internet. You can remain anonymous only as long as no one is interested in knowing who you are. Once that changes it is not too difficult to determine the identity, location of individuals provided one has enormous resources at once disposal and sufficient power( i.e government agencies).

To err is human and all one needs to do is wait till the person choosing to be anonymous commits a mistake. Sadly, that is the nature of the Internet, every action of yours leaves an electronic trail than can be traced to a computer, mobile network and region.

To rephrase an old quote...
You can be anonymous to some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but nobody can be anonymous to all the people all the time.
Nobody has learnt this lesson better than our Hacktivist friends at Lulzsec who were unmasked last month and are now most likely to spend decades in prison.

As I have previously posted, Political Activists in India have been tracked over the Internet leading to their arrests and murders. Indian security agencies have been trained and are being assisted by foreign agencies in this effort.

A Police academy in Hyderabad has emerged as hotspot for carrying out this training, surveillance along with other surveillance centres in Nagpur, Ahmedabad and Chennai.

It is believed that One in four US hackers 'is an FBI informer'. The FBI and US secret service have used the threat of prison to create an army of informers among hackers all over the world.

In such a scenario it won't be surprising to know that many of the pro-maoist websites, groups are actually linked to security agencies in India and abroad and help them keep a tab on Maoist supporters and trap the occasional Maoist leader. 

Many of these website attract new sympathisers like a honey pot and leave them exposed to surveillance. 

Trust no website or person on-line. If you don't understand the Internet stay away from the Internet and people who spend time on the Internet. Kindly read this Disclaimer about visting this website.

This is just a reminder to readers of this website.


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Posted By Abhay to Naxalite Maoist India at 4/27/2012 11:24:00 PM

[Naxalite Maoist India] Cu Chi Tunnels - Strategies of the Vietcong

The documentary contains interviews with former guerilla fighters of the National Liberation Front (Vietcong) where they discuss the strategies used by them to defeat the World's most powerful conventional army - The US Army.

Cu Chi Tunnels - Documentary film on the Vietcong

The Cu Chi Tunnels, a Mickey Grant film, is the story of life underground told by the people who lived the experience. It is a story told by a surgeon, an artist, and actress, an engineer, and the few survivors of the guerilla band who left the tunnels each night to fight against an enemy of vastly superior strength.

Attached to the guerilla bands were Viet Cong documentary cameramen and camerawomen whose footage of the war from the Vietnamese point of view and of love, life and death in the tunnels has survived and is used in the film.



http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1919775245219225387

Know more about these tunnels at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cu_Chi_tunnels


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Posted By Abhay to Naxalite Maoist India at 4/27/2012 10:41:00 PM

[Naxalite Maoist India] SATP releases fake map of Maoist affected Areas in India

A fake map exaggerating the Maoist presence in various states has been released by SATP.

In this map supposed to based on 2009 data, the entire state of Chhattisgarh is shown as Highly affected by Maoist activities including it's capital Raipur !



This is followed by a map based on 2011 data that claims sharp reduction of the Maoist affected areas.



This is nothing but propaganda to exaggerate the success of the government operations.Moreover none of these maps are to be taken seriously as nobody knows what the terms " Highly affected", "Moderately affected" and "Marginally Affected" constitute.




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Posted By Abhay to Naxalite Maoist India at 4/27/2012 10:24:00 PM

[Naxalite Maoist India] Indian Army men kill a dog for Breakfast in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh

The Army man can be heard shouting Operation Kutta is successful at the end. Somebody give these guys a medal !

Mr Chidambaram kindly supply your troops with some rations and meat, or I won't be surprised if they take to cannibalism in Dantewada.

On the one hand the mongrels of Dantewada / Bastar save the lives of hundreds of Paramilitaries by sniffing  out IED's and paramilitaries repay this favour by consuming more than 5000 of these dogs over the last few years ?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw1-8AMoBlM

This video was posted online in June 2010.

In this picture , CTJWC Director Basant Kumar Ponwar trains his 'students' in the techniques of IED detection
Brigadier B K Ponwar needs to change his dog training motto to " Mission Breakfast Nahin Banana".



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Posted By Abhay to Naxalite Maoist India at 4/27/2012 10:09:00 PM

[Naxalite Maoist India] Maoists justify abducton of Chhattisgarh collector Alex Paul Menon


Even as the second round of talks between interlocutors was set to begin at Raipur, outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) circulated a three page note early on Friday morning, listing in detail their perception about the problems being faced by the tribals and incidents of alleged atrocities by the security forces in tribal Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.

A three page note "why we detained the collector", issued by CPI (Maoist) South Bastar regional committee secretary Ganesh Uike said they were forced to issue such a statement to set the record straight after a group of so-called intellectuals, supported by vested interests, unleashed a propaganda to whip up sympathy in favour of the Sukma collector.

"These people need to understand the reality on the ground and the manner in which the people are suffering state's repression and the role of district collector in it", Uike claimed alleging that it was during the tenure of Alex Paul Menon that a tribal youth Podium Mada was first tortured in police custody and later murdered. Later, this murder was passed off as a suicide in police custody, he alleged.

According to the Maoist release, another youth Podyam Sanna was picked up from his house at Pollampalli on February 11. Before the formation of Sukma district, police in erstwhile Dantewada district picked up a woman Soni Sodi from village Jabeli and subjected to third degree methods. But the district collector Alex Paul Menon did not utter a word when the then superintendent of police of Ankit Garg was bestowed with the President's police medal on Republic Day, it alleged.

Describing Chhattisgarh government's on-going "gram Suraj'-a village outreach programme-- as a farce, the Maoist leader alleged that such a campaign was being carried out at the behest of the World Bank. He said the CPI (Maoist) had earlier given a call for boycott of gram Suraj campaign. He also alleged that the government machinery, which also includes the district collector, were in fact trying to extend benefits to corporate houses by trying to hand over Bastar's rich natural resources to them.

Alleging that nearly 2000 villagers were languishing in jails of Dantewada, Jagdalpur, Raipur, and Rajnandgaon, Uike said 700 people were stuffed inside the Dantewada prison, which has a capacity to accommodate only 150 inmates. Besides, the rebels also alleged that the police had slapped false cases against a large number of people and the security were continuously violating human rights in the tribal areas.

Uike alleged that the security forces had launched an operation code named as "Operation Vijay " in Abujmarh in March this year and attacked the houses of villagers and destroyed their houses. He said the so-called intellectuals and others, demanding release of collector Menon, should first study whether the report submitted by the district collector at the meeting of "left wing extremism affected districts", organised by the Centre, was in the interest of the poor tribals of the region.

Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Maoists-justify-abduciton-of-Chhattisgarh-collector-Alex-Paul-Menon/articleshow/12893876.cms


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Posted By Abhay to Naxalite Maoist India at 4/27/2012 09:52:00 PM

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

[Naxalite Maoist India] Essential Knowledge for Professionals


https://www.coursera.org

http://www.udacity.com

http://www.codecademy.com

The course on Applied Cryptography seems interesting... began on the 16th April

http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs387/CourseRev/apr2012

Game Theory too..

https://www.coursera.org/course/gametheory

Note : All courses are free... 



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Posted By Abhay to Naxalite Maoist India at 4/25/2012 02:04:00 PM

[Naxalite Maoist India] Making a leader - By Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw

A few words of advice from the Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. For just about anyone...

Making a Leader 

Excerpts from a lecture on leadership and discipline


By SAM HFJ MANEKSHAW

The first, the primary, indeed the cardinal attribute of leadership is professional knowledge and professional competence. Now you will agree with me that you cannot be born with professional knowledge and professional competence even if you are the child of the prime minister, or the son of an industrialist or the progeny of a field marshal.

Professional knowledge and professional competence have to be acquired by hard work and by constant study. In this fast-moving technologically developing world you can never acquire sufficient professional knowledge.

You have to keep at it, and at it, and at it. Can those of our political masters who are responsible for the security and defence of our country cross their hearts and say they have ever read a book on military history, on strategy, on weapons developments? Can they distinguish a mortar from a motor, a gun from a howitzer, a guerilla from a gorilla, though a vast majority of them resemble the latter.

Professional knowledge and competence are the sine qua non of leadership. Unless you know what you are talking about, unless you understand your profession, you can never be a leader.

The next thing you need for leadership is the ability to make up your mind and make a decision and accept full responsibility for that decision. Have you ever wondered why people do not make a decision? The answer is quite simple. It is because they lack professional knowledge and competence, or they are worried that their decision may be wrong and they will have to carry the can.

According to the law of averages, if you take ten decisions, five ought to be right. If you have professional knowledge and competence, nine will be right and the one that might not be correct will probably be put right by a subordinate officer or colleague. But if you do not take a decision you are doing something wrong. An act of omission is worse than an act of commission. An act of commission can be put right. An act of omission cannot. Take the example of the time when the Babri Masjid was about to be destroyed. If the prime minister, at that stage, had taken a decision to stop it, a whole community—180 million people—would not have been harmed. But, because he did not take a decision, you have at least 180million people in this country alone who do not like us.

What comes next for leadership? Absolute honesty,fairness and justice—we are dealing with people.We in India have tremendous pressures—pressures from the government, pressures from superior officers, pressures from families, pressures from wives, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews and girlfriends, and we lack the courage to withstand those pressures. That takes me to the next attribute of leadership—moral and physical courage.

What is the moral courage? Moral courage is the ability to distinguish right from wrong and having done so, say so when asked, irrespective of what your superiors might think or what your colleagues or your subordinates might want. A 'yes man' is a dangerous man. He may rise very high, he might even become the managing director of a company. He may do anything but he can never make a leader because he will be used by his superiors, disliked by his colleagues and despised by his subordinates. So shallow—the 'yes man'.

I am going to illustrate from my own life an example of moral courage. In 1971, Pakistan clamped down on the province, East Pakistan, hundreds and thousand of refugees started pouring into India. The prime minister, Mrs Gandhi had a cabinet meeting at ten 'o clock in the morning. The following attended: the foreign minister, Sardar Swaran Singh, the defence minister, Mr Jagjivan Ram, the agriculture minister, Mr Fakruddin Ali Ahmed, the finance minister, Mr Yaswant Rao Chavan, and I was also ordered to be present.

There is a very thin line between becoming a Field Marshal and being dismissed. A very angry prime minister read out messages from chief ministers of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. All of them saying that hundreds and thousands of refugees had poured into their states and they did not know what to do .

So the Prime Minister turned round to me and said,

"I want you to do something."

I said, "What do you want me to do?"

She said, "I want you to enter East Pakistan."

I said, " Do you know that that means war?"

She said, "I do not mind it is war."

I, in my usual stupid way said, "Prime Minister, have you read the Bible?" and the Foreign Minister, Sardar Swaran Singh in his Punjabi accent said, "What has Bible got to do with this?", and I said, "The first book, the first chapter, the first paragraph, the first sentence, God said, "let there be light" and there was light. You turn this round and say "let there be war and there will be war. What do you think? Are you ready for a war ? Let me tell you— it's the 28th of April, the Himalayan passes are opening now, and if the Chinese give us an ultimatum I will have to fight on two fronts."

Again, Sardar Swaran Singh turned round and in his Punjabi English said, "Will China give ultimatum?" I said, "You are the foreign minister. You tell me."Then I turned to the prime minister and said, "Prime Minister, last year you wanted elections in West Bengal and you did not want the Communists to win, so you asked me to deploy my soldiers in penny pockets in every village, in every little township in West Bengal. I have two divisions thus deployed in sections and platoons without their heavy weapons. It will take me at least a month to get them back to their units and to their formations.

Further, I have a division in the Assam area, another division in Andhra Pradesh and the Armoured division in the Jhansi–Babina area. It will take me at least a month to get them back and put them in their correct positions. I will require every road, every railway train, every truck, every wagon to move them. We are harvesting in the Punjab, and we are harvesting in Haryana, we are also harvesting in Uttar Pradesh. And you will not be able to move your harvest."

I turned to the agriculture Minister, Mr Fakruddin Ali Ahmed, "If there is a famine in the country afterwards, it will be you to blame, not me." Then I said, "My armoured division has only got thirteen tanks which are functioning." The finance minister, Mr Chavan, a friend of mine, said, "Sam, why only thirteen?" "Because you are the Finance Minister. I have been asking for money for the last year and a half, and you keep saying there is no money. That is why."

Then I turned to the Prime Minister and said, "Prime Minister, it is the end of April. But the time I am ready to operate the monsoon will have broken in the East Pakistan area. When it rains, it does not just rain, it pours. Rivers become like oceans. If you stand on one bank, you can not see the other and the whole countryside is flooded. My movements will be confined to roads, the Air Force will not be able to support me and, if you wish me to enter East Pakistan, I guarantee you a hundred percent defeat."

"You are the government", I said turning to the Prime Minister, "Now will you give me your orders?"

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have seldom seen a woman so angry, and I am including my wife in that. She was red in the face and I said, "Let us see what happens." She turned round and said, "The cabinet will meet this evening at four o' clock." Everybody walked out. I being the junior-most man was the last to leave.

As I was leaving, she said, "Chief, please will you stay behind?" I looked at her. I said, "Prime Minister, before you open your mouth, would you like me to sent in my resignation on grounds of health, mental or physical?" "No. Sit down, Sam. Was everything you told me the truth?" "Yes. It is my job to tell you the truth. It is my job to fight and win, not to lose."

She smiled at me and said me, "All right, Sam. You know what I want. When will you be ready?"

"I can not tell you now, Prime Minister", I said,

"But let me guarantee you this that, if you leave me alone, allow me to plan, make my agreements, and fix a date, I guarantee you a hundred percent victory."

So there is a very thin line between becoming a field marshal and being dismissed. Just an example of moral courage. Now, those of you who remember what happened in 1962, when the Chinese occupied the Thag-la ridge and Mr Nehru, the prime minister, sent for the army chief, in the month of December and said, "I want you to throw the Chinese out." That Army Chief did not have the moral courage to stand up to him and say, "I am not ready, my troops are acclimatised, I haven't the ammunition, or indeed anything." But he accepted the Prime Minister's instructions, with the results that the Army was beaten and the country humiliated.

This takes me to the next attribute: physical courage. Fear, like hunger and sex, is a natural phenomenon. Any man who says he is not frightened is a liar or a Gorkha. It is one thing to be frightened. It is another to show fear.

Finally, for leadership, men and women like their leader to be a man, with all the manly qualities or virtues. The man who says "I do not smoke, I do not drink, I do not (No, I will not say it), does not make a leader.


Edited extract from Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw's lecture at Defence Services Staff College, Wellington,November 11th 1998. Quoted in Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw: Soldiering with dignity by Lt Gen Deepinder Singh (Natraj Publishers, Dehradun, 2nd Ed, 2002)



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Posted By Abhay to Naxalite Maoist India at 4/25/2012 02:03:00 PM

[Naxalite Maoist India] Alex Paul Menon Kindnapping - Nandini Sundar

Take a different route



By Nandini Sundar - nandinisundar.blogspot.in

Bitterness. When I started receiving calls that Alex Paul Menon, the collector of Sukma, had been kidnapped, that was my over-riding feeling. Bitterness and a cold anger. Menon is one of the best collectors I have met, and doing what he could to make life better for the people of his district, even in the face of an overall counter-insurgency policy designed for the opposite. Though kidnapped by the Maoists, Menon joins the ranks of several other hostages who have paid the price for their efforts to bring about peace. Take for instance, my co-petitioner in the Supreme Court in the Salwa Judum matter, Kartam Joga, an elected representative who believes in democratic means. He has been held hostage by the Chhattisgarh government since August 2010, in jail on a variety of trumped up charges.

Podiyam Panda, the former sarpanch of Chintagufa, who was singlehandedly responsible for getting seven Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) men released in an earlier hostage crisis, and who ensured that through the worst times the school in his village was not blasted and continued to function, is now accused of over a dozen heinous crimes. It is men like Menon, Joga and Panda, who can broker peace at an everyday level, and yet these are precisely the men who are being turned into hostages by ruthless revolutionaries and an equally ruthless security establishment, both of whom see nothing beyond the use of military force.

Maj Gen (retd) GD Bakshi's plea in the Supreme Court that prisoners should not be released in a hostage crisis because the security forces risked their lives to arrest Maoists is, at best, a very partial truth. In truth, the vast majority of people in the jails of central India arrested as "Maoists" are ordinary adivasis, who have been incarcerated on flimsy grounds and whose families cannot muster the amounts needed to pay lawyers or file for bail. The government and judiciary should take urgent steps to release them, not because of the Maoists, but because it is what the Constitution demands. The Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh, now synonymous with a Maoist front, started off as a legitimate movement for adivasi land rights. Yet, the State's preferred response was to side with the oppressors and file cases against its leaders.

Manish Kunjam, CPI leader in Sukma and I met Menon in his office in January. I had just come back from Tadmetla, where the CBI was investigating attacks on villages by Special Police Officers (SPOs) in March 2011. While the villagers were incredibly brave in testifying, despite the intimidating presence of security forces, frustration is inevitably building up. People have no hope of legal redress because the State refuses — despite many directions from the Supreme Court — to recognise the crimes that were committed by the security forces and their proxies. Far from disbanding the SPOs after the Supreme Court declared their use unconstitutional in 2011, the Chhattisgarh government has renamed them an "armed auxiliary force', and given them better guns and more money. Emboldened by this, in February, the SPOs even attacked the CBI team. The superintendent of police who tried to stop them was physically manhandled by his own SPOs.

Manish and I said how, in this kind of context, "development" through the "integrated action plan" (IAP) was beside the point. Moreover, it was doomed to fail in the interior villages, because none of the sarpanches lived in the villages, and the money was being spent on paper.  Menon said he was interested in some basic changes — especially agricultural improvement — not because it would win hearts and minds, but simply because it was the right thing to do, and his duty as a collector. He described how, in his first posting in Bijapur, he had slipped away and attended a Maoist meeting incognito, but could no longer do so,  because after Vineel Krishna had been kidnapped, the government had issued instructions to all its officers not to travel alone. We agreed that by kidnapping officials, the Maoists are doing the villagers no favour, because there is no one to monitor whether schools are being restored in the villages or anganwadis are functioning, even if the teachers agree to go.

However, it is not as if the top security establishment is keen to restore normalcy — they have been resisting peace talks by killing off Maoist leaders, and for two years, stalling any discussion of a rehabilitation plan for Dantewada in the Supreme Court. The IAP then becomes not only irrelevant, but also appears a form of low intensity counterinsurgency. This, in turn, has hardened the Maoist attitude towards what villagers are allowed to access from government. While schools, handpumps, anganwadis and PDS are allowed, the Maoists do not want the villagers to accept any other funds from government, including compensation, unless it comes with criminal prosecution of Salwa Judum leaders. They argue that this would be tantamount to accepting blood money. The villagers themselves want both the state and the Maoists, since they bring benefits of different kinds: they want National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) but not the police and forest guards.

Where does that leave people like us, who are struggling for justice under the Constitution? The Centre's first statement is not encouraging, with its offer to send more troops. They can send all the paramilitary forces they want, to die as cannon fodder.  There are also plenty of half-starved adivasis waiting to be killed. Perhaps some mediators will come forward, but at best, this will be piecemeal. Rather, since the CRPF claims that the kidnappings are an indication of their success in putting the Maoists on the back foot, such incidents are bound to increase. As against the government's two pronged strategy of security and development, therefore, I would suggest a three pronged strategy — peace talks, reparations and genuine devolution of control over resources. Only then will our collective bitterness begin to thaw.  Under the ice, there is always clear water.

Source :

http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorial-views-on/Edits/Take-a-different-route/Article1-845110.aspx


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Posted By Abhay to Naxalite Maoist India at 4/25/2012 01:55:00 PM

[Naxalite Maoist India] My name is NOT red - Week Cover Story


My name is NOT red
By Deepak Tiwari

Listen to the voice of imprisoned innocents branded as Naxals


Juliana Purti, a class 9 student,spent three months in jail on suspicion of being a naxal sympathiser.
The Week - Cover Story

http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?contentId=11313795&programId=1073755753&tabId=13&categoryId=-174121

Fettered dreams
He dreamt of being a journalist and ended up a newsmaker. Vittal Malekudia, 22, was arrested from his home in Kuthlur hamlet of Belthangady taluk in Dakshina Kannada district by the Anti-Naxal Force (ANF) of Karnataka on March 3. Currently in custody, he has been charged with waging war against the state.Teachers said that the postgraduate student of mass communication and journalism at Mangalore...

http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?contentId=11313796&programId=1073755753&tabId=13&BV_ID=@@@&categoryId=-174121

War against words
Sudhir Dhawale was arrested for alleged Naxal links in January 2011. A Dalit activist and freelance journalist, he wrote and published booklets on oppression of Dalits. He was arrested at Wardha railway station while returning from a Dalit literature conference. When he was in jail, his two sons and wife were dependent solely on her 
salary as a nurse.The police said Bhimrao Bhoite, an...

http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?contentId=11313797&programId=1073755753&tabId=13&BV_ID=@@@&categoryId=-174121


A cobbled charge
Sitaram Meher, 32, said he was the first lawyer from western Orissa's cobbler caste. But today his identity is that of a Naxal sympathiser. The Gangadharnagar police picked up Meher on May 17, 2011, after he was allegedly seen with a known Naxal at Bargarh railway station. He spent 80 days in jail under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.Active with the Bahujan Samaj Party,..

http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?contentId=11313798&programId=1073755753&tabId=13&BV_ID=@@@&categoryId=-174121


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Posted By Abhay to Naxalite Maoist India at 4/25/2012 01:52:00 PM

Saturday, April 14, 2012

[Naxalite Maoist India] The Fog of War - Quote by Carl von Clausewitz


War is an area of uncertainty; three quarters of the things on which all action in War is based on are lying in a fog of uncertainty to a greater or lesser extent. The first thing (needed) here is a fine, piercing mind, to feel out the truth with the measure of its judgment).  
The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently — like the effect of a fog or moonlight — gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance.  
- Carl von Clausewitz


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Posted By Abhay to Naxalite Maoist India at 4/14/2012 10:50:00 PM

[Naxalite Maoist India] Analysis of the situation in 2012

Give below is my analysis of the current situation. This is a purely hypothetical article.

Disclaimer 
My knowledge of Maoist and communist theory is limited. I am not trying to fit my analysis into any particular ideological framework.

Analysis of the situation in 2012

As the Home Minister P Chidambaram has stated repeatedly over the last several years, the Government Of India (GOI) has come up with a two-pronged strategy to deal with the Maoist insurgency
"Appropriate police action led by state governments in collaboration with central forces and development works in the affected areas to deal with the Maoist rebellion. He also makes it clear that he is confident this strategy will show results in the medium term." (CNN-IBN, March 14th, 2012).
This two pronged strategy of the Central Government translates into the "Clear, Hold, Develop approach to tackle Naxalism". This doctrine is derived from the Clear, Hold and Build model used by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is not clear what time frame "Medium Term" constitutes but my assumption based on various factors, reveals that this could be in the range of 2-3 years (750-1100 days).

Now this two pronged Carrot and the Stick approach which has been under development over the last few years, has acquired a broad outline, structure and purpose.

1. Operation Green Hunt (OGH) and it's coming successors : Operation Haka, Octopus etc, which will climax with the entry of the Indian Army in direct operations by as early as 2013. (The Stick)

2. Integrated Action Plan (IAP) , Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellowship Scheme (PMRDFS) and other related schemes. (The Carrot)

Let us now analyse the first part of this strategy

1. Operation Green Hunt (OGH).


Operation Greenhunt is a new phase in a very old war being fought since millennia , the actors have changed, the stage has changed but the purpose remains the same - Appropriation of Avarna Resources.

Savarna's Vs Avarna's

For centuries the Avarna's in India, have retreated deeper and deeper into the forests under the onslaught of Savarna rule. The Avarna's whose population once spanned the entire length and breadth of the Indian sub-continent, today find themselves encircled in a few forest pockets in central India.

Over centuries the more that the Avarna's acquiesced to Savarna demands , the more sacrifices were demanded from them. Today it has reached a point where the Savarna's are demanding nothing less the total annihilation of the Avarna's, their way of life and transfer of all their lands, rivers, forests into the hands of corporations owned by puppet Savarna individuals and their foreign masters.

As Arundathi Roy has stated in an article
" There's an MoU on every mountain, river, forest glade. What the media calls the Maoist Corridor—the Dandakaranya—could well be called the MoUist Corridor." Chidambaram's War - Outlook.
OGH is a product of a Savarna mindset and has been planned by the Bania's and Brahmins who rule over India. The execution of OGH will be done by the Indian Army and security forces comprising of Kshatriya's and Avarna's.
Savarna Alliance - The Brahmin CRPF chief and his Bania master.
Brahmin Strategist : Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Rural Development.
Dr Raman Singh- The Brahmin Chief Minister of the state of Chhattisgarh 
Brij Mohan Agarwal (Fmr Home Minister of Chhattisgarh) - The Bania Mastermind behind Salwa-Judum.
The Genesis of Operation Green Hunt

Depending on the definition, Green Hunt either began in July 2009, September 2009 or November 2009. Speaking off record, senior policemen have confirmed that the intensification of "search and comb" operations in Maoist dominated districts in Central India began as early as July 2009.

In September 2009 the press reported on the progress of "Operation Green Hunt" : a massive 3 day joint operation in which the central CoBRA force and state police battled Naxal forces in Dantewada.
"By November 2009, the press was regularly reporting on the planning and progress of Green Hunt, prompting Home Minister, P. Chidambaram to term the operation a "media invention." Since then, the security apparatus has scrupulously avoided all mention of Green Hunt." (The Hindu February 6, 2010)
The seeds of operation Green Hunt were sown as early as in 2006 , when India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh first made efforts to project Left Wing Extremism as the greatest threat to India, since then the tape recorder has been playing ad nauseum for good effect and was last heard repeating the message on February, 2012.

The threat and fear of Maoists needs to be raised at regular intervals so that there is no slack in the pace of mobilization or a let down in the guard of the administration.

The deployment of OGH has also been influenced by the Sri Lankan military's total annihilation of the Tamil Tigers in Eelam War IV which ended in May 2009.

The general chorus in the security establishment at that time was that if the tiny island nation of Sri Lanka could rout the LTTE (A non-state actor which had it's own navy, air force and was building it's own submarines) then what's stopping India a nation of 1.1 Billion with the world's largest standing volunteer army from taking the Maoist bull by the horns ?

Moreover unlike India which has a US$ 1.8 trillion economy to fund and sponsor the war, the Sri Lankan economy and military were in shambles and the Lankan government had to depend on borrowed bullets, planes and foreign military aid from Pakistan, China to defeat the LTTE.

Soon some of these experts were heard tom-tomming the Sri Lanka Model as the solution to India's Maoist problems at various forums. Before the Sri Lanka Model caught the fancy of the Security establishment, the Kashmir Model was explored for some time.

The Kashmir insurgency as we know, started in 1987, after wide spread fraud was reported in the elections to state assembly, the Indian army was later moved in and had to evolve a different doctrine containing grid based deployment to contain the insurgency.

The Origin of the Grid in Jammu and Kashmir
By May 1990 it was clear that Kashmir valley was in the grip of an insurgency of intensity not seen before. It started out in the urban areas and then spread to the countryside. The army which till then was the guardian of the international border (IB) and the line of control (LOC) was called in to assist in Counter Insurgency (CI) ops.

Based on its experience with low intensity conflicts in Nagaland, Sri Lanka and Punjab, the Indian Army was quite wary of trying to replicate strategy and tactics successfully used elsewhere. 
By 1993 the army had got together a doctrine for the low intensity conflict in Kashmir. In Nagaland for example, the army had learnt that physical domination of each and every village was one way to combat insurgency. 
Long experience had taught the army the value of the grid system. In this system the whole terrain was divided into a grid. Each node at any given time would have a platoon worth of ready to move soldiers, the so called quick reaction team which would mutually reinforce other nodes. All would be covered with heavier fire support and have adequate logistics. 
However the grid often looked better on paper than on the ground. The obvious reason for this was the terrain. In the Wanni jungles of Sri Lanka where the grid had been successfully applied, civilians and villages were few and far between, and so attack helicopters and artillery could be used. This enabled heavy firepower to be brought in to support troops in the grid in minutes. 
Now the Kashmir valley is very densely populated and there is fear of collateral damage from using heavy fire support. So troops fighting CI had to do without it. To makeup for that the grid had to be more densely packed. This is where the army saw the need for additional forces such as the Rashtriya Rifles (RR). Wikipedia.
The same Rashtriya Rifles (RR) which enforced the Grid in Jammu and Kashmir is now being deployed in the Naxal-affected areas of the country particularly Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. Rashtriya Rifles to move from Kashmir into Red zone.

In 2009, an attempt was made to induct the Rashtriya Rifles into anti-naxal operations but the Army was reluctant to redeploy them for various reasons. What suffering awaits the Adivasi's at the hands of the RR nobody knows but a look at it's record in Kashmir is quite indicative.

The British Counter-Revolt Model

For three centuries starting from 1778 AD , the East India Company and later the British Raj brutally suppressed hundreds of big and small tribal revolts all over India. For details refer to wikipedia List of revolts by Adivasi's in India.

One of the key strategies used by the British was to recruit and organize Tribal Battalions who would then be unleashed on the revolting communities. These tribal battalions were highly successful and extremely loyal to the British empire.

The Bhil Battalion for instance which was constituted in early 19th century to suppress the revolt by Bhil tribals stayed loyal to the Britishers even during the Revolt of 1857 when Sepoys of the East India Company revolted nation wide.

The current administration seem to have taken a leaf out the British experiences and there is currently large scale recruitment and deployment of tribal personnel on similar lines as a part of Operation Green-hunt. It can be said that Salwa Judum was merely a 21st century manifestation of an 18th century idea.

Both the Indian Army and various state governments intend to recruit Avarna's and engage them in a fratricidal war.

Maharashtra: state to form tribal battalion to fight Naxals - March 2012

To beat Maoists, Centre plans an army of tribals : March 2012

Thus OGH has been planned based on the direct experience in suppressing revolts and lessons learnt in four broad theatres of War.

1. The Tribal revolts during British Raj.
2. The Counter insurgency in North East.
3. The Counter insurgency in Kashmir.
4. The Eelam Wars (Sri Lanka Model).

OGH and it's successors will use elements from all these four theatre's of war to bleed the naxalite movement in India.

It is imperative that those bearing the brunt of this offensive should study and learn from the experiences of these 4 conflicts in which the victor has always been the State.

Map showing the first 60 IAP districts. The Ring of Fire in Central India is now spread across 78 districts in 9 states.
The Ring of Fire

Operation green hunt will be focussed on 78 IAP districts spread across 9 states identified by the GOI. These districts form a ring in central India and are the most affected by Maoist Insurgency. OGH aims to clear these areas of Maoists and then launch so called developmental activities.

One key strategy of OGH remains to first break the contiguous ring and then box the Maoists into areas isolating them from their comrades in other districts. This will lead to the fragmentation of the Maoist controlled areas and cause complications to the Maoist leadership in the long run.

Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY)

As part of PMGSY, roads have been planned and are being constructed at strategic locations to fragment the ring of fire and provide support to security forces. These all weather roads once built will divide and weaken the hold of Maoist forces in these 78 districts.

OGH aims to inflict heavy losses and increase the body count of Maoists substantially. The Intelligence Bureau will complement the effort by going after top Maoist leaders in urban areas and those leaders who venture out of their jungle bases.

Indian Army Personnel will engage with the Maoists during the final crunch.
Indian Army's Role

Last year , the Indian Army came out with an assessment saying it needs 65,000 troops to fight Naxals. The Indian Army has already completed the training of at-least 5000 Army Personnel at it's newly acquired training bases in Greater Bastar, Chhattisgarh. These trained personnel will eventually be deployed some years from now in Anti-Maoist operations.

The Indian Army has played an important role in the formulation of OGH. A whole host of capacity building  initiatives are also under way under their direct supervision, most of which has not yet been made public.

Over the next two years, the stage will be set for a final brutal assault on the Maoist movement during which the Indian Army will play an active and crucial role like it did in "Operation Steeplechase" which broke the back of the Naxalite movement in West Bengal during 1971.

In fact, there is loose talk that the current Anti-Maoist operation is based on the 1971 template.
Indian Air Force

With logistics in mind a seperate Air-Wing for Anti-Maoist operations has been planned and will be given shape this year. Air wing to help in anti-Maoist ops - MHA. This Air Wing could be functional within the next 700 days.

In 2009, a 1,300-m airstrip was constructed in the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College Campus without DGCA (Director General of Civil Aviation) approval. Indian Express

More such airstrips are being built in the IAP districts as the battle for India's heart intensifies.

Air support played an important role in the defeat of the LTTE in Eelam War IV, it is not yet clear if the Indian Government has acquired the will to carry out aerial bombardment of Maoist dominated districts. But yes they can now fire in so called self defence.

As the late Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower once said
"You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have
been won or lost primarily because of logistics."
The government is aware that getting the logistics of troop deployment right and ensuring the supply chain functions will play an important role in the success of this campaign.

Unlike the Maoists who mostly live of the land with support from the local population , the Paramilitary has to ensure a regular supply of food and rations from a hostile population and access to medical facilities in case of injuries.

5 Years of Mobilization

The GOI had realized that the merger of the PWG and MCC in late 2004, would lead to an expansion in Maoist capabilities and operations. Since 2007/08 the GOI began making serious efforts in augmenting the capabilities of the security forces. This is reflected in the report released by the Ministry of Home Affairs in December 2011.

3 Year Report on Major tasks accomplished by Ministry of Home Affairs

Extract from the Report

Left Wing Extremism : LWE

29.The following interventions have been made to contain the growth of Naxalite movement in the country:
  • CPI (Maoist) included in the Schedule to UA(P)A and declared terrorist organisation.
  • 5 Polit bureau members and 7 other Central Committee members of CPI (Maoist) in custody.
  • Number of CAPF battalions deployed in LWE affected States increased from 37 in 2008 to 73 in Nov 2011.  In addition, 10 cobra battalions also deployed. ( Comment : If each battalion consists of 1000 armed personal then it translates into 83,000 pairs of feet on the ground, out of which 10,000 are CoBRA personnel trained in Jungle warfare. The above statistic does not include other anti-maoist groups like Salwa Judum activists and SPO's who could collectively number in the 15,000 range. This figure is much lower than the estimated 350,000 Indian Army troops stationed in Jammu and Kashmir, along with 200,000 paramilitary forces. Meanwhile the Maoist Army's (PLGA) strength is conservatively estimated at 9,000-10,000 armed fighters, with access to about 6,500 firearms.)
  • Capacity building of State police forces in 9 LWE affected States through enhanced allotment in 2011-12 under Security Related Expenditure Scheme (SRE) (Rs.598 cr) and Scheme for Special Infrastructure (SIS) (Rs.362 cr).
  • Focused development of 60 Tribal and backward LWE affected districts in 9 LWE affected States through Integrated Action Plan (IAP).  63,416 projects sanctioned, of which 26,593  completed, incurring an expenditure of Rs.1,391 cr till Nov 2011.
  • Monitoring of flagship and other development schemes in LWE affected districts by the Planning Commission.
  • A road requirement plan (RRP-1) for 5565 km in LWE affected areas at a cost of Rs.7,300 cr approved by CCEA in Feb 2009.
  • Construction/strengthening of 400 fortified police stations at a cost of Rs.2 Cr per police station approved on 20 June 2010.
  • Talking the walk is easy but walking the talk is an altogether different affair. The devil as we know lies in the details and in the case of OGH it lies in the execution of plans prepared by Delhi.
Ground Realities : Cup half empty or half full ?

While all the above initiatives look good on paper, the ground realities we find convey a different picture as Ajay Sahni writes in the Eurasia Review :
  • Despite many claims of the cumulative 'improvement' in the capacities of central and State Security Forces (SFs), the state's vulnerabilities remain largely unaddressed.
  • At least some claims of such 'improvement' are, in any event, largely falsified or fabricated – including the Union Ministry of Home Affairs' (UMHA) November 30, 2011, claim that the police-population ratio had been raised to 176 per 100,000, from an National Crime Records Bureau figure of 133 per 100,000 as on December 31, 2010. Others, such as UMHA's claims of "significant measures taken to strengthen the Indian Police Service" (IPS) remain something of a smokescreen, since existing deficits in the Service will take decades to fill, even with dramatically accelerated intakes.
  • UMHA also claims that "Number of CAPF (Central Armed Police Force) battalions deployed in LWE (Left Wing Extremist) affected States increased from 37 in 2008 to 73 in November 2011, glossing over the fact that this has roughly been the level of deployment since the disastrous 'massive and coordinated operations' were launched by the Centre in end-2009. That these Forces have, along with State Police Special Forces, largely been frozen in a passive defensive posture since the Chintalnad massacre of April 2010, and that offensive operations against the Maoist have now become more and more the exception among demoralized SF contingents, remains unsaid.
  • On the other hand, the anecdotal evidence of state vulnerabilities and disarray is mounting. In one devastating disclosure, the UMHA conceded that as many as 46,000 officers and personnel took voluntary retirement from the CAPF between 2007 and September 2011, while another 5,220 officers and personnel resigned from service over the same period. 461 suicides and 64 instances of fratricides were also recorded. Worse, UMHA noted that the rate of increase of cases of resignation in the CRPF and Border Security Force (BSF) was "alarming", at more than 70 per cent in 2011, over 2010.
  • In the wake of the March 27 incident in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra Home Minister R.R. Patil complained that Police officers were 'unwilling' to work in the Maoist afflicted Gadchiroli and Chandrapur Districts, citing the recent example of four Police Sub-inspectors, who resigned from the Force after completing training, when they were posted to Gadchiroli.
  • Patil had nothing but a litany of complaints to offer after the Gadchiroli incident, blaming the Centre for a failure to give advance information of Maoist attacks. Unsurprisingly, Maharashtra saw an increase in Maoist related fatalities to 69 in 2011, over the 2010 figure of 40, even as the all-India fatalities almost halved (from 1180 to 602).
  • The other principal Maoist affected States, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar suffer from equal and endemic deficiencies in their security structures, as well as from both ambivalence and infirmity in their political leaderships.
The murder/suicide of Rahul Sharma also shows that there are deep structural anomalies in the apparatus directing OGH. If the Superintendent of Police needs to commit suicide to get his point across, then one is left wondering what is the morale and motivation of his minions down the order?

Also when IPS officers over-looking Anti-Maoist operations regularly succumb to heart attacks (i.e O P Rathore, B.S. Maravi ) it hardly evokes confidence in the ability police force.

The fog of war has only started rolling and will only get thicker from now on. A lot of the media reports on the offensive has been released to create disinformation, confusion and contain half-truths. No media report linked in this article can be taken at face value as most of us are aware that  the first casualty of any war is the Truth, OGH is no different.

Thus the dis-separate parts of the security machinery that has come together to constitute OGH is yet to reach a level where they pose a serious threat to the Maoist's and there continues to exist severe deficiencies, anomalies and incongruencies in the state mobilization.

However, the broad general trend among the security forces seems to be an increase in co-operation, capacity building, training and co-ordination but they still far from finding their mojo.

Updated IAP map containing 78 districts where PMRDFS will be implemented. 

2. IAP , PMRDFS and other Schemes

We now move the second part of the two pronged strategy , the so called development activities under the Integrated IAP, PMRDFS and related schemes. ( The Carrots)

War of Attrition

The war between the Maoists and the Indian state is a War of Attrition. While OGH will try to inflict heavy casulties on the PLGA and People's Militia's, IAP and PMRDF will seek to prevent fresh recruitment to the Maoist fold by providing incentives, alternate sources of livelihood to the local population. It will also try to alienate the support base of Maoists by providing civic amenities and financial benefits.

This is the only purpose of the IAP and PMRDF, prevent fresh blood from joining the Maoist fold and keep their attention diverted towards other illusions. If the IAP is implemented as planned it will affect the ability of the Maoists for fresh recruitment in the coming years in these districts.

IAP as a Money Circulation Scheme


IAP is a money circulation scheme , where in money will be first transferred from the GOI's accounts in Delhi to bank accounts in IAP districts after which some dust will be raised in name of development, expenditure etc after which the the bulk of the money will be siphoned back to Delhi from where it will take flight to foreign bank accounts.

Jairam Ramesh has asked the Prime Minister for an additional allocation of Rs 35,000 Crore for the IAP districts over the next three years. Now that's what we call a novel money spinning scheme.

This plan has been in operation for the last 2 years but the results are sketchy and mixed.A revamp has been planned this year.

The number of IAP districts now stands at 78, after more districts were added this year. An overview of the IAP is given below :

Integrated Action Plan to Develop Tribal and backward Districts in LWE Areas
Introduction

At the time of presentation of the budget for the year 2010-11, the Government had announced its decision to introduce a special scheme to address the development of 33 Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected districts.   It was inter-alia, stated that the Planning Commission would prepare an Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for the affected areas and that adequate funds would be made available to support the action plan. 
The 33 districts (later expanded to 34) referred to in the Finance Minister's announcement were a sub-set of the 83 LWE affected districts identified by the Ministry of Home Affairs for coverage under its Security Related Expenditure (SRE) Scheme.  This sub-set consisted of those districts where more than 20% of the Police Stations experienced some incidents of naxal violence.  Subsequently, West Medinipur district of West Bengal was added to the list due to the situation prevailing there, taking the total to 35 districts. 
Implementation of IAP 
IAP was formulated as an additional central assistance scheme on 100% grant basis in November 2010.  To begin with, the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for 60 tribal and backward districts was to  be implemented with a block grant of Rs.25 crore and Rs.30 crore per district during 2010-11 and 2011-12 respectively for which the funds were to be placed at the disposal of the Committee headed by the District Collector and consisting of the Superintendent of Police of the district and the District Forest Officer. 
The district level committee will have flexibility to spend the amount for development schemes according to need, as assessed by it.  The Committee would draw up a Plan consisting of concrete proposals for public infrastructure and services such as School Buildings, Anganwadi Centres, Primary Health Centres, Drinking Water Supply, Village Roads, Electric Lights in public places such as PHCs and Schools etc. The concerned Development Commissioner/ equivalent officer in charge of development in the State shall be responsible for scrutiny of expenditure and monitoring of IAP. 
The Planning Commission will undertake macro level monitoring of the scheme and implementation of the scheme will be reviewed and suitable decisions taken on the modalities for implementation of the scheme as a part of the 12th Five Year Plan. 
The salient features of the guidelines are: 
(i)The district level committee should draw up a plan consisting of concrete proposals for public infrastructure and services such as school buildings, Anganwadi centres, Drinking Water supply, Village Roads, electric lights in public places such as PHCs and schools etc. The schemes so selected should show results in the short term. 
(ii)A suitable form of consultation is to be ensured with the local Members of Parliament on the schemes to be taken up the under the IAP. 
(iii)The expenditure on the projects should be over and above the expenditure being incurred for the regular State/Central/Centrally Sponsored Schemes.   The district level committee should ensure that there is no duplication of expenditure on the same project. 
(iv)The State Government will release the funds directly into the bank account opened for this purpose by the District Collector or District Magistrate. The State Government will ensure that funds are transferred to this bank account within 15 days of the release of the funds to the Consolidated Fund of the State Government failing which the State Government should transfer to the district penal interest at RBI rate. 
Achievements Under IAP 
The implementation of the scheme commenced in the year 2010-11 and Rs.25 crore per district i.e. total Rs.1500 crore for the year 2010-11 was released in December, 2010.  The districts immediately finalized the works to be taken up, completed the tender processes wherever required and the works on the ground commenced immediately in all the 60 districts.  
Currently, the implementation of IAP in the districts is in full swing. The total funds released so far for the year 2011-12 is Rs.1090 crore and the total funds released so far since the commencement of the Scheme is Rs.2590 crore.  Against the total amount of Rs.2590 crores released so far to the 9 States, the expenditure as on 27.12.2011 is Rs.1468.83 crore i.e. 56.71% of the funds released. 
Under the IAP, so far 62327 projects for an amount of Rs. 3230.02 crore have been taken up in the 9 States.  These include construction of School Buildings/School Furniture, Anganwadi Centres, Drinking Water facilities, Rural roads, Panchyat Bhawan/Community Halls, Godowns/PDS shops, livelihood activities, skill development/trainings, minor irrigation works, electric lighting, health centres/facilities, Ashram Schools, construction of toilets, construction of multi-purpose chabutra, construction of passenger waiting hall, special coaching classes for students, construction of ANM centres, development of play grounds etc. 44.42% of projects taken up so far have been completed i.e., 27687  projects have been completed so far.   State-wise details of physical progress as on 27.12.2011 vis-à-vis projects sanctioned are: Andhra Pradesh- 702 (1140), Bihar - 2367 (12889), Chhattisgarh - 6115 (14718), Jharkhand- 5621 (11769), Madhya Pradesh - 1446 (5352), Maharashtra - 2667 (4398), Orissa - 6829 (15087), Uttar Pradesh - 1337 (1548) and West Bengal - 603 (1272). 
Parameters to Qualify under IAP         
While formulating the scheme, the Planning Commission considered that the scheme should not be limited only to the severely LWE affected districts.  It was proposed by them that the scheme should cover other tribal and backward districts also and the following criteria was adopted to identify districts for inclusion in the scheme: 
(a) Whether the district is included in the list of 83 SRE districts identified by the Ministry of Home Affairs;
(b) Whether the tribal population exceeds 25%;
(c) Whether the forest area exceeds 30%;
(d) Whether the poverty ratio in the district exceeds 50%; and
(e) Whether the district is covered under the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF). 
Districts meeting four of the above-mentioned five criteria and forming a contiguous block were selected for coverage under the proposed scheme.  Thus, with this criteria, a total of 60 districts were selected for coverage under the scheme. 
Monitoring 
The Development Commissioner of the State/equivalent officer incharge of development in the State is responsible for scrutiny of expenditure and monitoring of the IAP in the State.  In order to facilitate the monitoring, the States are required to send district-wise monthly progress reports in the prescribed format and also upload the information on the Management Information System(MIS) along with photographs of the works.
     
Regular monitoring of the IAP is being carried out by the Member-Secretary, Planning Commission through video conferences with the District Collectors/District Magistrates and Development Commissioner of the States concerned.  So far 14 such video conferences/meetings have been held including the Video Conference meetings held by the Union Home Minister, Union Minister of Rural Development and MoS (Independent charge) for Environment and Forests. In addition, the Review Group headed by the Cabinet Secretary also reviewed the progress of implementation of IAP with the Chief Secretaries of 9 States through video conference meeting. 
Provisions for change in IAP 
The Ministry of Home Affairs has also constituted an Empowered Group of Officers with Member-Secretary, Planning Commission as its Chairperson.   The Empowered Group, inter-alia, has overriding powers to modify existing norms/guidelines on implementation of various development programmes and flagship schemes in consultation with the Ministries/Departments concerned. 
States' Response to IAP 
The implementation of IAP has been successful and the scheme has had a very good response.  A number of requests had been received from the Chief Ministers, Members of Parliament and State Governments for inclusion of more districts under the IAP.  On the basis of requests received from the State Govts., the Govt. of India has decided on 07.12.2011 to include additional 18 LWE affected districts under IAP from the financial year 2011-12 onwards and to provide block grant of Rs.30 crore to each of these districts during the current financial year. 
Conclusion: The Government's approach is to deal with Left Wing Extremism activities in a holistic manner, in the areas of security, development, rights of local communities, administration and public perception.  In dealing with this decades old problem, it has been felt appropriate, after various high-level deliberations and interactions with the State Governments concerned that an integrated approach aimed at the relatively more affected areas would deliver results. 
With this in view, a detailed analysis of the spread and trends in respect of LWE violence has been made and 83 affected districts in nine States have been taken up for special attention on planning, implementation and monitoring of security situation and development schemes.
Source : GOI

Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellowship Scheme (PMRDFS)

The Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh who is the force behind the scheme made it clear as to what PMRDFS is about when he spoke to the Hindu this month:
The aim of the unique scheme is simple. "If the Maoists attract youth through their ideology, then the government has to counter that in a similar way." The Hindu
The PMRDFS seems to be loosely based on the US based Peace Corps and Presidential Management Fellows Scheme.

The first batch of 156 candidates were selected this year from a pool of 8,000 applicants. The youth selected will spend the next two years assisting district collectors in implementing welfare programmes across the 78 most-affected Maoist districts (Ring of Fire).

The Ministry of Rural Development in collaboration with the Tata Institute of Social Science will implement this program and the candidates have just begun their training in April 2012.

The Ministry is set to spend Rs 60 crore on the scheme, with stipends amounting to Rs. 53 crore and the training cost Rs 6.5 crore.The Fellows will be paid Rs 50,000 in the initial two months of training to be organised by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, and then Rs 75,000 for the rest of the fellowship period.

Profiles of PMRDFS Candidates selected


Source : Economic Times
Candidates by post-graduate Educational Background

Candidates by number of years of work experience. 
More details of the candidates are expected to be updated on the website here and a brochure of PMRDF can be downloaded here.

A blog is also in the offering : http://pmrdfs.blogspot.in.The job profile of PMRDF's as given on the website is as follows
PMRDFs will basically function as development facilitators, assisting the Collector and his/her colleagues by actively pursuing a district programming approach that follows three key strategies given below:
  • Strengthen the district resource base for programming by finding ways of resourcing all the planned activities and rational budgeting.
  • Establish or strengthen systems by exploring alternative ways of delivering services to reach the most deprived communities.
  • Trigger processes which would support the changes that have been envisioned in this approach (e.g. village planning).

What impact the PMRDFS will have and how will the Maoists deal with this incursion, has to been seen ? My only advice to the Maoist's would be "Fragile - Handle with care".

Other Schemes 
Along with IAP and PMRDF's, there are various other schemes like Job Schemes etc which have been rolled out and many more which are in the pipeline.

Conclusion : 


The Government of India's strategy is broadly in line with that of LIC strategy developed by the US  Imperialism.

Low Intensity Conflict (LIC)

1. Conducting military, social, economic, political and psychological wars in co-ordination
2. Winning the hearts and minds of the people.
3. Using intelligence as a strategic weapon.
4. Special Forces.

To know more about the shape of things to come, kindly read the booklet below :

Low Intensity Conflict - The Cruelest counter-revolutionary war of the Imperialists

A Booklet authored by Mupalla Laxman Rao alias Com Ganapthy, GS of CPI(Maoist)
https://sites.google.com/site/sakethrajan/home/download-pdf-e-books/low-intensity-conflict.gif?attredirects=0

Anticipation is the Key to Victory

The key to winning any battle is knowing what your opponent is going to do before he does. This comes from experience and pattern recognition.When you can anticipate, you can place yourself in the ideal position to bury your opponents before they have the time to adjust.

The current rate of build up of forces suggests that the Maoist's have 2-3 years before the current government's strategy reaches a tipping point after which the Maoists could face serious reversals and heavy assaults on their strongholds. Preliminary incursions have already begun.

The government has a greater capacity and staying power than the Maoists and can take greater losses and incur a higher expenditure over a sustained period. India has an unemployment rate of 7-10%. Which means there are an estimated 70-100 million idle minds and hands in this country at any point of time.It is very easy for the GOI to train some of these and put guns in their hands, unlike the Maoists who have to operate under many constraints.

The Avarna's under the leadership of the Maoists will then have to face the question of whether they will stand their ground militarily or whether they can counter the offensive through other means ?

A police constable holds a Maoist manufactured rocket launcher seized last month : The Maoist are gearing up for the GOI offensive by fabricating Area Weapons such as these. But can these stop the offensive from advancing ? 

OGH, IAP, PMRDFS and other schemes exist today because the Indian state has acquired the will to roll out these schemes. The character of the Indian State is that of a Puppet, the strings of the puppet lie in the hands of the Savarna alliance, the puppet merely acquires the character of the puppeteers.

All that is needed is that the Maoist's control a few strings of the puppet and it should be enough to throw a spanner in the puppet's functioning and de-stabilize it.

How they could do this is another post for another day.


References and related documents:

Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas : Planning Commision
https://sites.google.com/site/naxalrevolution/Development%20Challenges%20-%20Planning%20Commision.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

MHA-Report-2010-2011.pdf
https://sites.google.com/site/naxalrevolution/MHA-Report-2010-2011.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

MHA-Report-2011-2012.pdf
https://sites.google.com/site/naxalrevolution/MHA-Report-2011-2012.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

Privatisation unlimited-- Rivers for sale in Chhattisgarh
https://sites.google.com/site/naxalrevolution/Privatisation%20unlimited--%20Rivers%20for%20sale%20in%20Chhattisgarh.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

Backward Region Grant Fund Guidelines
https://sites.google.com/site/naxalrevolution/Backward%20Region%20Grant%20Fund%20Guidelines.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

Bureau of Police Research : Social,Economic and Political Dynamics in Extremist Affected Areas
https://sites.google.com/site/naxalrevolution/Bureau%20of%20Police%20Research.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

Anti-Caste posts on Operation Green Hunt
http://www.anti-caste.org/operation-green-hunt/

PMRDFS-Capart
https://sites.google.com/site/naxalrevolution/pmrdfs-capart-india.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

PMRDF Brochure
https://sites.google.com/site/naxalrevolution/pmrdf-brochure.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

Armed Conflicts in South Asia
https://sites.google.com/site/naxalrevolution/Armed%20Conflicts%20in%20South%20Asia.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

Dantewada : Smita Gupta
https://sites.google.com/site/naxalrevolution/Dantewada-Smita-Gupta.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

Integrated Action Plan to Develop Tribal and backward Districts in LWE Areas
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=79472

Jharkhand to study 'Kashmir Model' to curb naxalism
http://news.oneindia.in/2007/06/29/jkhand-to-study-kashmir-model-to-curb-naxalism-1183115454.html

Operation Steeplechase - Indian Army's 1971 operation against Naxalites
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/antimaoist-operation-has-a-71-template/528868/0

Rashtriya Rifles to move from J&K into Red zone
http://www.cg-04.com/news/rashtriya-rifles-move-jk-red-zone

Maoist cult of death
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article440703.ece

India: Enduring Strength Of Maoists – Analysis
http://www.eurasiareview.com/02042012-india-enduring-strength-of-maoists-

International conspiracy behind Maoist activities in India: Chhattisgarh CM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/International-conspiracy-behind-Maoist-activities-in-India-Chhattisgarh-CM/articleshow/12499134.cms

How Maoists went from snatching weapons to making them
http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column_how-maoists-went-from-snatching-weapons-to-making-them_1670298

'Killing Maoist leaders will not solve the issue'
http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-killing-maoist-leaders-will-not-solve-the-issue/20111125.htm

Finally, Army moves into Maoist territory
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-12-14/india/28225740_1_army-moves-army-officer-indian-army

More army soldiers reach Bastar for training
http://www.bharatdefencekavach.com/News/2023_More-army-soldiers-reach-Bastar-for-training.html

Army's presence in Chhattisgarh may improve life for the locals
http://www.asianage.com/ideas/army-s-presence-chhattisgarh-may-improve-life-locals-249

First phase of Operation Green Hunt begins
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-11-02/nagpur/28083958_1_gadchiroli-cpmf-operation-green-hunt

Operation Green Hunt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Green_Hunt

3 Year Report on Major task Accomplished by Ministry of Home Affairs Released http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=78023

Green Hunt: the anatomy of an operation
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article101706.ece

Fresh development plan for naxal-affected districts
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/fresh-development-plan-naxal-affected-districts

Poverty, lack of development lead to Naxalism: Chidambaram
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/poverty-lack-of-development-lead-to-naxalism-pc/239165-3.html

India's Maoists and the Dreamscape of 'Solutions' : Ajai Sahni
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/ajaisahni/10AS-3Seminar.htm

Expedite block-based approach to deal with Naxalism, Jairam tells Ahluwalia
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2766757.ece

The Man Who Went Behind Enemy Lines
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main47.asp?filename=Ne301010The_Man_Who.asp

Shape, Clear, Hold, and Build: "The Uncertain Lessons of the Afghan & Iraq Wars"
http://csis.org/publication/shape-clear-hold-and-build-uncertain-lessons-afghan-iraq-wars

Chasing shadows in Abujmard
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3297568.ece

Can 'Operation Octopus' lead to annihilation of naxals?
http://daily.bhaskar.com/article/MP-RAI-can-operation-octopus-lead-to-annihilation-of-naxals-3080390.html?HT1a=

Mr Chidambaram's War
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?262519

Caste Situation in India (Marxist Perspective)
http://www.anti-caste.org/

Caste Atrocities in India
http://atrocitynews.com/

Communalism Watch
http://communalism.blogspot.in/


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Posted By Abhay to Naxalite Maoist India at 4/14/2012 02:30:00 PM