India's Maoists take their war to a new level

India's Maoist rebels, known as Naxalites, have scored a series of successes in recent weeks in their insurgency, underscoring their growing ambitions and changing strategy, and stoking fears of attacks on high-profile and urban targets in coming months. Last Thursday, they attacked a police post in the central state of Chhattisgarh, killing 55 people. A fortnight earlier they assassinated member of Parliament (MP) Sunil Mahato inneighboring Jharkhand state.

Last week's attack, described as among the deadliest in decades of Maoist insurgency, was carried out by some 350 heavily armed Maoists. It took place in Rani Bodli police outpost, in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada region, some 525 kilometers from the state capital, Raipur. The rebels surrounded the police post and lobbed grenades and gasoline bombs before setting the camp ablaze.

They blocked roads to the village by felling trees to prevent police reinforcements from reaching the heavily outnumbered police at Rani Bodli. Of the 55 killed in the attack, 16 were members of the Chhattisgarh Armed Police. The rest were Special Police officers - tribals who were part of the government-sponsored civil militia, the Salwa Judum.

The assassination of Mahato and the attack on the Rani Bodli police outpost signal a sharp escalation in the Maoist insurgency. In the past, high-ranking victims of the Maoists included legislators and ministers, but these were at the local and state levels. Mahato was the first sitting federal MP to fall victim to the Maoists.

Again, while police outposts have been routinely targeted by the Maoists, the attack at the outpost at Rani Bodli was noteworthy for the number of victims it claimed. The death toll at Rani Bodli is by far the largest among recent Maoist attacks.

The frequency of such spectacular attacks has grown over the past two years. In November 2005, more than 1,000 Maoists participated in an attack on Jehanabad jail in Bihar and freed about 350 of their jailed comrades. Last March, they hijacked a train in Jharkhand that was carrying some 300 passengers. In June, at least 400 Maoists participated in an attack on a camp of the Central Reserve Police Force in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand.

The scale and frequency of attacks are one concern. Another is the vast area across which Maoists wield influence. In the early 1990s, the number of districts affected by varying degrees of Maoist violence stood at just 15 in four states. This figure rose to 55 districts in nine states by the end of 2003 and shot up to 156 districts in 13 states in 2004. Today, at least 170 of a total of 602 districts in the country are said to be under Maoist influence.

The Maoists have been able to strike with considerable energy because of the unification of the two main groups. The Maoist Communist Center and the People's War Group merged in September 2004 to form the Communist Party of India (Maoists). From operating as scattered localized cells, they have been able to operate as a stronger and unified force along a vast swath of territory often described as the "red corridor" running from Nepal down to Andhra Pradesh state.

Experts warn that the recent attacks signal a widening and intensification in Maoist violence in the country. According to Bibhu Prasad Routray, research fellow at the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, "Mahato's killing could just be the starting point for the escalation of the Maoist 'people's war' throughout the country."

Maoist documents and statements provide pointers to their growing ambitions and changing strategy. In 2004, Maoists, who had hitherto focused their operations in rural India, spoke of a new strategy to target urban centers. Their Urban Perspective Document lay down guidelines for working in towns and cities and for mobilizing support among students and urban unemployed. They identified two belts as targets for urban mobilization: Bhilai-Ranchi-Dhanbad-Kolkata and Mumbai-Pune-Surat-Ahmedabad.

More pointers to their growing ambitions were provided in statements issued at their "Unity Congress" this year. "The Unity Congress ... resolved to advance the people's war throughout the country, further strengthen the people's army, deepen the mass base of the party, and wage a broad-based militant mass movement against the neo-liberal policies of globalization, liberalization [and] privatization pursued by the reactionary ruling classes under the dictates of imperialism," said a statement issued at the meeting last month.

"No more hit and run," Muppala Lakshman Rao (also known as Ganapathi), who was re-elected general secretary of the organization, is reported to have said at the meeting. "Now the time has come to spread in the towns and identify specific targets, hit them precisely and with impunity."

An important trigger and target of Maoist attacks over the past year has been civilians who are part of the Salwa Judum - the Chhattisgarh government's initiative to arm villagers to fight Maoists on behalf of the state. Salwa Judum was initially thought to be a voluntary initiative of villagers in Maoist areas, who were fed up with the Maoist violence and wanted to fight the rebels themselves. It was touted by the government as a peace movement.

However, soon it became apparent that while some people in these villages might indeed be weary of violence, Salwa Judum was in fact government-sponsored and a civil militia, and tribals were being forced to join it. While a part of Salwa Judum's work involved political work, ie, propaganda against the Maoists, it also had an armed wing, which was seen as the tribal face of the police fighting the Maoists.

Soon, Maoists started targeting members of the Salwa Judum. Camps in which Salwa Judum members lived or buses in which they traveled were targeted by the Maoists. Hundreds of Salwa Judum members have been killed in the 18 months since it was formed.

The counterinsurgency strategy of the Chhattisgarh government, with Salwa Judum at its core, has unleashed civil strife in the state. Tribals have gotten caught in the crossfire between Maoists and the state. In the past, the Maoists targeted forest officials and police. Now it is tribals seen to be members of Salwa Judum who have become targets of Maoist ire. The 39 Special Police officers who were killed in last week's attack on the Rani Bodli police outpost were part of the Salwa Judum.

Entire villages have been emptied as tribal communities flee from the burnings, lootings and killings. The civil war in Chhattisgarh has driven more than 50,000 people out of their homes and into camps. Government authorities claim that the tribals are seeking refuge in the camps; tribals tell a different story. They maintain that they are forced into the camps. The land on which the tribals live is rich in minerals and other resources. Human-rights activists say companies backed by the government that are keen to extract the area's mineral wealth want the tribals to leave the land. Salwa Judum has become a convenient way to drive the tribals out of their land and into camps.