Routes on the Red Corridor

Centre (MCC).

An ominous development has been the successful merger of all the LWE groups in 2000, which earlier had failed owing to turf wars and differences between the leaders of the PWG and the MCC. Since then, LWE has been on the ascendant and both ideological and operational synergy achieved to the detriment of the state, which is always slow to react. These insurgent groups have also endeavoured to foster ties with other insurgent groups to spread their areas of operations and influence.

A major ‘Unity Congress’ was held in January 2007 in the jungles on the Jharkhand-Bihar border to mark the complete merger of the major LWE groups, intensify their struggles and chalk out their future strategies against the Indian state. This gathering reportedly had delegates from 14 states including from the Northeast and J&K. In this congress, the Maoists have called for strengthening the “nationalities struggles of Kashmiris, Assamese, Nagas, Manipuris and Tripuris”. Besides many anti-national resolutions having been passed, the congress also opined that the special economic zones which are coming up all across the country are nothing “but foreign economic enclaves”. Some reports also link the Nandigram unrest to Maoist penetration in West Bengal.

As an old soldier, I am astonished what our security agencies were doing as such huge anti-national gatherings took place. There are also reports of burgeoning linkages of Indian Maoists organisations with those in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Turkey and Nepal. Nepalese Maoists have reportedly also set up bases in the Indian border districts of Champaran, Sitamarhi and Madhubani, as our security agencies are aware. The likely linkages of our LWE elements with the LTTE, Pakistan’s ISI and Bangladesh’s DGFI need to be strictly monitored.

There are also authentic reports that the CPI (Maoist) has established regional bureaus across nearly two-thirds of the country to mobilise local cadres and ‘spread the word’. Some preliminary activities towards their cause have been undertaken in the so far untapped areas of Gujarat, Himachal and even Meghalaya. The prime minister’s concerns, as stated above, take due cognisance of these serious

developments.

An in-depth analysis of the Maoist activities all over India clearly brings out, most tellingly, that they have declared a war on the state. It is thus time for action by all the security organs of the state to combat this insurgency before it assumes more dangerous proportions. The home ministry, which is the nodal ministry for tackling the menace, must accord top priority. Though some measures have been taken by the Centre and state governments, much remains to be done. Movements like the anti-Naxalite people’s self-defence campaign in Bastar in Chhattisgarh, the Salwa Judum, need to be given all the encouragement by the local administration. However, tribals who get displaced and relocated in government camps must be cared for and not left to fend for themselves. It must be borne in mind that coordinating self-resistance is a sound strategy but to make it succeed, the administration must adopt a sincere multidimensional approach to address the grievances of the tribals, the poor farmers and the landless.

The currently expanding Red Corridor has to be first contained and then speedily and effectively demolished and consigned to the pages of history.

The writer, a retired lieutenant general, was the first chief of India’s Defence Intelligence Agency