GW Discourse

India will deploy at least 20,000 troops against what Prime Minister Singh called India’s greatest security threat. While the Mumbai attacks shocked the world, the forty year old Naxalite insurgency has killed hundreds of Indians annually for the past decade. Based in eastern India, the Naxalites follow the Maoist strategy of striking from rural areas where they operate with impunity. They now control huge tracts of India’s jungles and threaten major cities such as Kolkata.

Courtesy raviwar.com

Efforts to contain the Naxalites with police forces failed. Armed with colonial-era rifles and ill-trained for guerrilla warfare, they face well-trained foes wielding military-style weaponry. Maoist fighters killed 17 out of a 40-man police commando patrol today, and lately have begun adopting tactics such as beheading and use of IEDs.  The intensification of leftist violence highlights the challenges of corruption, economic inequality, and social marginalization. Some left-wing politicians have invoked India’s legacy of non-violence, and opposed militarization. Nevertheless, the increasing violence has demonstrated that treating the Naxalites as a law-enforcement problem is unsustainable.

To an Indian government which takes pride in its economic growth and democracy, the Naxalites insurgency is embarrassing and disturbing. The desire to balance security concerns with effective governance and economic growth is not just a problem for Indian interests in Afghanistan, but within India itself. Though India suffers ongoing separatist violence in Kashmir and Assam, the Maoist insurgency affects much of the Indian mainland and enjoys the sympathies of some Indian intellectuals and politicians. Consequently, the Indian government tends to understate the threat and has put off treating the Naxalites as a major security threat until today. COIN theory calls for a coordination of military and civilian efforts, but given the experiences of India’s neighbors, observers may be right to fear bloody struggle ahead.