1

Sociology II

Maoist Insurgency in

India

Devesh Mohan Meena

I.D. No. 1974

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Index

Introduction…………………………………………....………….03

Chapter 1: Birth of a movement………………………………….04

Chapter 2: The Ideology………………………………...……….08

Chapter 3: State’s response……………………………………...10

Conclusion……………………………………………………….13

Bibliography………………………………………………..........14

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Introduction

The aim of this paper is to understand the socio-economic, political & historical conditions

behind the Naxalite movement in India. The researcher begins by giving an overview of the

agrarian condition of post-independence India and the problems with the ownership of land

that gave rise to the basic tension between the landowners and the peasantry. Some would

argue that the tension between these two classes always existed but the conditions in post-

independence India provided the right atmosphere for an organised revolutionary struggle.

The researcher then moves on to the ideology of the Naxalites and gives an account of how

this ideology was constructed by adopting the thoughts of thinkers like Marx, Lenin and Mao.

The researcher highlights the pivotal role played by Charu Majumdar in the construction and

implementation of this ideology in Indian conditions. The rise and development of the

Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) is also traced along with its early activities and

organisation.

The researcher finally arrives upon the role the Indian state has played in the development of

the revolutionary movement. The state’s apathy towards the adivasis and the dalits along with

collusion with the dominant classes is highlighted as the main reason why the need for

revolution was felt by the people. Blunders such as Operation Green Hunt and its counter-

productive effects are also looked upon.

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Birth of a movement

Karl Marx predicted that class struggle would arise in heavily industrialised societies due to

the inherent faults of the capitalist mode of production. But what actually transpired was very

different. Class struggle and rise of the working class took place in predominantly agrarian

economies like Russia, China and many other countries of the Asian continent. Therefore, to

understand the nature of the Maoist movement in India, we first need to analyse the various

socio-economic factors that were responsible for it.

Though Marx never saw the rise of the proletariat in Asian societies, the socio-economic

factor of the modes & owners of production that post-independence India inherited from the

British Raj was bound to create tension and conflict between the landlords and the poor

farmer. The agrarian condition on the eve of the uprisings in Naxalbari was dire. Reports of

wide-spread malnutrition, starvation and ransacking of food godowns by peasants in the

countryside were common. This was the time before the Green Revolution; there was a

shortage of about 10 million tonnes of food grains in a failing agrarian and public distribution

system and conditions of famine were looming over the horizon. Food supply was already

suffering but it was made worse by corrupt practices of the landlords and big farmers in their

reluctance to give up surplus produce and an incompetent bureaucracy.1

What ailed the agrarian system and led to the severe food shortages was the ownership of

land in rural India. Even after the policies of redistribution of land and land ceiling acts, most

of the agrarian land was still owned by the landlords, who managed to bypass these laws. One

of the main reasons why these endeavours failed was that most of the dominant political

parties were represented by these very landlords and rich farmers, thus their interests were

protected and these policies were enacted only on a superficial level.2 According to the report

of the National Sample Survey of 1966-67, 40% of the net cropped area was owned by only

5% of the rural households, which consisted of the landlords and the big farmers. This shows

the inequity in the ownership of land in rural India at the time. These landlords leased their

land to tenants and wage-earners, who were either landless or owned small holdings of land

1Sumanta Banerjee, IN THE WAKE OF NAXALBARI, 2, 1980.2Timothy Besley, Robin Burgess, Land Reform, Poverty Reduction & Growth, London School of Economics, 1998.

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that were not fit enough for agriculture as the land was barren or that they did not enjoy the

financial condition to prepare the land for a good harvest. Consequently, 56% of the rural

households only operated on 7% of the total net cropped area and belonged to the depressed

classes.3

These factors were responsible in making the life of the rural peasant as miserable as

possible. The rural peasant was either landless or not able to produce any surplus to sell in the

open market or the public distribution system. Those who owned land could not retain it for

long as land required irrigation and fertilizers. They would mortgage their land to the

landlord and eventually sell it to him, reducing them to the condition of tenants on their own

land. Now that they were reduced to the status of a landless farmer, the tenants had to pay an

exorbitant rent to the landlord, which most of the time took away 70-80% of the produce,

leaving barely enough for them to subsist upon.4

Although the tenants were protected under law from exorbitant rents, the landlords again

managed to bypass it. Under certain tenancy laws, the tenants were eligible to occupy the

land permanently if they occupied the land for a specified period of time. The law had a

simple loophole and the landlords simply evicted the tenants before they could complete the

stipulated time period. Landless and desperate, the peasant would even refrain to record his

name as a tenant in order to occupy land to work upon till the next harvest. The attitude of the

bureaucracy towards this malpractice was also inclined towards the landlords. The peasant

could not seek legal protection as his name was never recorded.5

Consequently, most of the tenants were unemployed for a major part of the year when their

services on the farm was not required by the landlord. They had to do other menial jobs or

borrow money. Due to their unfamiliarity with the government agencies and cooperative

societies, the peasants usually turned towards the rural moneylenders for credit, as they were

easily available and did not demand any complex paperwork. Naturally, these private agents

of credit were exploitative in nature and charged high rates of interest and the inability to pay

off the debt pushed these landless peasants into bonded labour. These peasants also

3Banerjee, supra note 1, at 3. 4Banerjee, supra note 1, at 5. 5Sumanta Banerjee, Beyond Naxalbari, Vol. 41(29), ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLEY, 3160-3161, July 22, 2006.

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sufferedfrom social exploitation and discrimination as most of them belonged to the

depressed classes or tribal communities.6

This condition of doom and gloom was furthered by the inequity of the Green Revolution.

High yielding varieties of seeds coupled with better irrigation, fertilisers and pesticides led to

a dramatic increase in the production of food grains in the late 1960’s. But this new

technology was expensive and only rich farmers & landlords were able to afford it. The

implementation of the new policy was only confined to the wheat belt of north India and rest

of the areas remained backward. Most of the profits went to the landlords and the increase in

food grains made no major difference in the financial condition of the peasant. The rural poor

who took the initiative to adopt this new technology could only do so by taking loans at

exorbitant rates of interest, which proved to be insufficient in most cases. This led to

widespread discontent and disillusionment among the peasantry.7

The image of the rural peasant was another factor in their exploitation. The rural peasant was

seen by the Indian bourgeoisie as subservient and accepting injustice & hardships. This image

was propagated by the major political parties and contradictory opinions were looked down

upon. The official histories downplayed the violent protests of the peasants in order to sustain

this perception. The submissive peasantry was therefore a lie, which was propagated by those

in power. The illusion created was so potent that not only the Indian bourgeoisie but also the

rural peasant started to believe in it. As a result, the consciousness of freedom of the rural

peasant was subverted.8

The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) tried to free the peasant of this illusion.

According to them, the peasant always had revolutionary tendencies. The CPI (M-L) turned

to history to establish the point that the peasant was always the oppressed, but not

subservient, as popular accounts of history had us believe. Histories of various peasant

revolts like the Santhal uprising in 1855, militancy in the Bhil & Meo peasants etc. were

rewritten to project the peasant as always having revolutionary tendencies.9

6Shajan Perapaddan, No Hope of a Life of Dignity for these Bonded Labourers, THE HINDU, October 18, 2012, available at <http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/no-hope-of-a-life-of-dignity-for-these-bonded-labourers/article4010252.ece> (Last visited on April 11, 2013). 7P.N. Junankar, Green Revolution & Inequality, Vol. 10(13), ECONOMIC & POLITICAL WEEKLEY, 16-17, March 29, 1975. 8Banerjee, supra note 1, at 18-19. 9Kathleen Gough, Indian Peasant Uprisings, Vol. 9(32), ECONOMIC & POLITICAL WEEKLEY, 1395-1396, August 11, 1974.

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What was more important was the fact that these peasant revolts failed and the oppression of

the peasant and the tribes continued. According to the CPI (M-L), the reason behind the

failure of these revolts was the absence of a scientific theory and a leadership to lead them to

victory. For them, a ‘Peoples Democratic Revolution’ was required in the countryside to

abolish feudalism.10

They did not believe in the idea of the Indian state in its present form. For them it was a state

where all power was concentrated in the hands of the big landlord and the comprador-

bureaucrat-capitalists. All laws and policies enacted under this state always served the

interests of these powerful classes and the interests of the rural poor and the peasant was

always neglected. This, according to the CPI (M-L), was the basic nature of the state, which

could only be corrected through revolution.11 These were the socio-economic & historic

factors that created the tension between the state and the oppressed to create conditions of a

Marxist revolution in an agrarian economy like India, a revolution that has taken many lives,

a revolution that still goes on.

10Banerjee, supra note 1, at 36. 11Banerjee, supra note 1, at 36-38.

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The Ideology

The ideology of the Naxalites comes from Charu Majumdar's thought. Majumdar was a

famous communist leader who wrote various articles based on the ideology of Marx, Lenin

and Mao, which later came to be known as the ‘Historic Eight Documents’. Majumdar

applied the principles of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism to Indian conditions and the basic

framework of the Naxalite ideology comes from these eight documents.12 Majumdar rejected

any engagement with the state and saw revolutionary politics as the only way of furthering

the Communist movement in India.

Charu Majumdar’s vision of revolution was first realised in the uprising in Naxalbari in 1967.

A tribal youth was attacked by the landlord of the area for ploughing his land, even though he

had a judicial order to do so. This sparked violent outburst from the tribal community which

started to take back its land with force. This incident was subject to great publicity and this

was where the term Naxalism was born.13

The ideology, though, was still in a nascent stage. At the meeting of the All India

Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) in 1968, it took a

concrete from of an ultra-leftist ideology which represented revolutionaries from seven states

of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, UP, Bihar, Karnataka, Orissa and West Bengal. The committee

rejected the Soviet Union as the leader of the revolutionary process and branded it as a ‘Neo-

Colonial power’ along with United States’ ‘Neo-Imperialism’ and the comprador-

bureaucratic bourgeoisie of post-independent India.14

According to revolutionaries like Majumdar, the present Indian state and the parliament were

nothing but bourgeois institutions hindering revolution in the semi-feudal and semi-colonial

agrarian economy of India. These forces led to the formation of the CPI (M-L) under the

leadership of Charu Majumdar. The aim of the party was a guerrilla warfare based revolution

against the Indian state and boycotting of elections. They believed that a strong worker-

12Rabindra Ray, THE NAXALITES AND THEIR IDEOLOGY, 5, 1988. 13Henrike Donner, The Significance of Naxalbari, London School of Economics, 2008. 14Banerjee, supra note 1, at 97.

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peasant alliance applied on the basis of Maoist philosophy was sufficient to bring down the

landlords and the bureaucrat-capitalists of the Indian state.15

The revolutionaries were also aware of the counter-revolutionary tendencies of the Indian

state. As a result, Charu Majumdar, throughout his eight documents, maintained the need for

setting up underground organisations and gradual collection of arms to resist counter-

revolutionary activities. He also stressed on the need to differentiate between the activities of

the trade unions and peasant associations from the ultimate aim of revolution and seizing

power. Although he did see the need for trade unions and kisan sabhas as uniting factors in

the Marxist-Leninist activities. He considered these activities as only a build up towards the

revolution.16

Charu Majumdar acknowledged the fact that it was difficult to find common interests in the

diverse Indian society. He wanted to unite the peasantry through awakening their class

consciousness. In his long term vision, he wanted the revolution to become independent of

economic factors though he realised the importance ownership of land in triggering tension

between the classes. His main objective in the short run was to collect as much arms as

possible to resist the counter-revolutionary activities of the state and bring a sense of security

and permanence to this relatively young movement.17

In spite of its expansion to new areas & a rapid progress in its military standing and fighting

counter-revolutionary tactics, the revolutionary movement, now led by the Communist Party

of India (Maoist) is combating a period of stagnation. The Maoists' vision of a mass

movement against imperialism, cornering and defeatingthe hindutva-fascist forces and

building a mass urban movement, particularly of the working classes as complementary to

armed agrarian struggle remain unrealised. At a more theoretical level, the programme and

strategic-tactical line of the CPI (Maoist) is proving to be inadequate in handling the diverse

Indian society & politics in a radically different international scenario, where socialism has

suffered a gigantic knock and barely survives in unreported pockets of the world.18

15Somini Sengupta, In India, Maoist Guerrillas Widen ‘People’s War’, NEW YORK TIMES, April 13, 2006, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/world/asia/13maoists.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0> (Last visited on April 11, 2013). 16Banerjee, supra note 1, at 97-98. 17Id. at 100. 18Tilak D. Gupta, Maoism is India, Vol. 41(29), ECONOMIC & POLITICAL WEEKLEY, 3172-3173, July 28, 2006.

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State’s Response

The Indian state recognises the fact that the real long term aim of the Naxalites is to seize

power, and it plans its counter-revolutionary strategy based on this notion. Maoist violence

should be seen as the result of increasing atrocities against scheduled castes and scheduled

tribes, especially in the central tribal belt of the country coupled with widespread tribal unrest

due to commercialisation of forest resources. The Ministry of Home Affairs has ignored these

ground realities and acted primarily on reports by the Intelligence Bureau, which is not the

suitable body to study the various complexities of socio-economic conflict occurring in the

Maoist affected areas. The Ministry of Home Affairs has blindly resorted to brute police

force and treated Naxalism as purely a law and order problem, when it should have dealt the

matter with a more political and administrative touch along with protecting the rights of the

Scheduled Tribes & Scheduled Castes of the region. It was the abuse of their rights and lack

of opportunities that forced most of them to turn towards Naxalism.19

This violent reaction by the adivasis and dalits becomes even more hostile and revolutionary

when deep injustices are caused by the police, forest officials and other agents of the state

machinery. This happens when the dalits and tribes approach the state functionaries for

seeking justice against violations of law, denial of entitlements and acts of oppression by the

persons belonging to the dominant communities. Instead of redressal from the state, they face

an indifferent, unresponsive and in some cases hostile state machinery.20

In case of physical violence and criminal acts committed by the landlords and dominant

castes on the tribes and the dalits, the criminal complaints are not even registered by the

police. Rather, in many cases, false counter-cases are registered against the victims on the

complaints of the accused persons. Even when complaints of victims are registered under

pressure from above, deliberate flaws are built into the investigation of cases to spoil the case

19K.S. Subramanian, State Response to Maoist Violence: A Critical Assessment, Vol. 40(32), ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLEY, 3173-3174, August 7, 2010. 20K. Balagopal, Illegal Acquisition in Tribal Areas, Vol. 42(40), ECONOMIC & POLITICAL WEEKLEY, 3173, October 6, 2007.

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and facilitate the acquittal of the accused. In addition, pressure is exerted on the victims to

enter into a compromise with the accused and withdraw the case.21

The state’s indifference is also shown when no action is taken when land allotted to a dalit or

a tribal by the government or dispossession from the land already under valid occupation is

denied. The registration of numerous petty cases under forest, excise laws also triggers

violence and results in the arrest of the tribals who are not familiar with the legal system and

their rights. The violence is also inflicted when civil and political rights are denied, protest

against failure to get justice is suppressed, the entire community is punished for

transgressions of the individuals, and when excesses of officials fail to get investigated fairly

and punished.22

On these lines, one of the major policy blunders by the Government was ‘Operation Green

Hunt’. Although the then Union Home minister, P. Chidambaram, described it purely as an

invention of the media, this counter-revolutionary tactic was pretty real. It was an onslaught

by the state on Maoist operations in the heavily forested areas of central India, popularly

known as the ‘Red Corridor’. Thousands of troops were stationed in these forests to put a

stop to the revolutionary activities of the Maoists in their traditional stronghold and the

results were disastrous. The paramilitary forces failed miserably in their attempts to stop the

Maoists, who were trained in guerrilla warfare and would retreat into the forests after

ransacking the police bases, stealing their guns and killing the troops. Operation Green Hunt

was responsible for turning these central Indian districts into a war zone.23

Too add insult to injury, the Operation increased the distrust between the Maoists and the

Government. The tribal communities of the area were caught between the crossfire. A lot of

them were killed, by both sides, and there were widespread reports of human rights abuse

from the region. This highlighted the state’s apathy towards these people, which was made

explicit by the brutal onslaught. The state itself lost a lot of resources it could have used to

handle the situation politically and administratively and was on the receiving end of much

bad publicity due to the embarrassments of Salva Judum and illegal arrests of social activists

like Dr. Binayak Sen.24

21Balagopal, supra note 20. 22Bela Bhatia, On Armed Resistance, Vol. 41(29), ECONOMIC & POLITICAL WEEKLEY, July 22, 2006. 23Harikrishna Katragadda, Guerrillas In The Mist, THE CARAVAN, April 1, 2010, available at <http://www.caravanmagazine.in/photo-essay/guerrillas-mist>(Last visited on April 11, 2013). 24Submir Bhaumik, Code Red, THE CARAVAN, March 1, 2010, available at <http://www.caravanmagazine.in/perspectives/code-red> (Last visited on April 11, 2013).

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The government is also creating an illusion to keep the mass media away from the war zones.

The stakes are as high as ever as the Naxal conflict is gradually turning into India’s first

transregional civil war since Independence. It is, indeed, a make or break situation for the

government and the ruling elite of New Delhi on one side and the Maoists and the poor and

dispossessed on the other.25 The tension created is a conflict between two opposing forces of

not only socio-economic factors, but also a clash between two opposing forces of thought.

The ideology of the Naxalites can never die; therefore their operations can never be stopped.

The Indian state would never have been in this mess had it realised this fact, along with the

aspirations of the downtrodden. 

Conclusion

25Sumanta Banerjee, Reflections of a One Time Maoist Activist, Vol. 33(4), Dialectical Anthropology, 268-269, December 2009.

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To conclude, the long fostering conflict between the dominant classes i.e. the landlords and

the capitalists and the adivasis and peasants needed a spark to turn into a revolution. Once the

post-independence Indian state was formed and the disillusionment with democratic politics

and economic development began, the need to overthrow the state through a revolutionary

struggle was inevitable. In an agrarian economy like India, where the peasant has been

oppressed from all corners, the rise of the individual consciousness for freedom was natural.

The researcher acknowledges the role of the CPI (M-L) in building and organising this

revolutionary struggle. It was done in a commendable way, with some of the foremost

intellectuals of India at the forefront of the movement. To stand up against the mighty Indian

state was no easy task and the ability of the Naxalites to handle counter-revolutionary

aggression of state was and still is one of the major accomplishments of the revolutionaries,

who, unfortunately, have been branded as terrorists.

The stare has failed miserably in understanding the real problems of the adivasi and the

peasant. In looking at Naxalism as purely a law and order problem it has committed a

monumental blunder. The Naxal ideology has proved itself to be resilient to aggression and

change, and if the Indian state doesn’t change its stand on the issue, it will push the country

towards civil war.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS:

Rabindra Ray, THE NAXALITES AND THEIR IDEOLOGY, 5, 1988.

Sumanta Banerjee, IN THE WAKE OF NAXALBARI, 2, 1980.

ARTICLES:

Bela Bhatia, On Armed Resistance, Vol. 41(29), ECONOMIC & POLITICAL WEEKLEY,

July 22, 2006.

Harikrishna Katragadda, Guerrillas In The Mist, THE CARAVAN, April 1, 2010, available at

<http://www.caravanmagazine.in/photo-essay/guerrillas-mist>(Last visited on April 11,

2013).

Henrike Donner, The Significance of Naxalbari, London School of Economics, 2008.

K. Balagopal, Illegal Acquisition in Tribal Areas, Vol. 42(40), ECONOMIC & POLITICAL

WEEKLEY, 3173, October 6, 2007.

K.S. Subramanian, State Response to Maoist Violence: A Critical Assessment, Vol. 40(32),

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLEY, 3173-3174, August 7, 2010.

Kathleen Gough, Indian Peasant Uprisings, Vol. 9(32), ECONOMIC & POLITICAL

WEEKLEY, 1395-1396, August 11, 1974.

P.N. Junankar, Green Revolution & Inequality, Vol. 10(13), ECONOMIC & POLITICAL

WEEKLEY, 16-17, March 29, 1975.

Shajan Perapaddan, No Hope of a Life of Dignity for these Bonded Labourers, THE HINDU,

October 18, 2012, available at <http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/no-hope-of-a-life-of-

dignity-for-these-bonded-labourers/article4010252.ece> (Last visited on April 11, 2013).

Somini Sengupta, In India, Maoist Guerrillas Widen ‘People’s War’, NEW YORK TIMES,

April 13, 2006, available at

<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/world/asia/13maoists.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>

(Last visited on April 11, 2013).

Submir Bhaumik, Code Red, THE CARAVAN, March 1, 2010, available at

<http://www.caravanmagazine.in/perspectives/code-red> (Last visited on April 11, 2013).

Sumanta Banerjee, Beyond Naxalbari, Vol. 41(29), ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL

WEEKLEY, 3160-3161, July 22, 2006.

Sumanta Banerjee, Reflections of a One Time Maoist Activist, Vol. 33(4), Dialectical

Anthropology, 268-269, December 2009.

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Tilak D. Gupta, Maoism is India, Vol. 41(29), ECONOMIC & POLITICAL WEEKLEY,

3172-3173, July 28, 2006.

Timothy Besley, Robin Burgess, Land Reform, Poverty Reduction & Growth, London School

of Economics, 1998.