The Naxalite Movement: Origin and Development

The organisation. An All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries was formed in 1968, and on 22 April 1969 the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) was founded, announced at a mass rally in Calcutta on 1 May.

The line, and its cost. Charu Majumdar's line of the annihilation of class enemies, individual killings of landlords, moneylenders and policemen as the method of building a peasant army, split the movement from the beginning: Kanu Sanyal and others opposed it. It also gave the State a straightforward criminal-law answer.

Srikakulam. The rising spread to the Girijan tribal tracts of Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh between 1968 and 1970, which is where the movement first became predominantly ADIVASI rather than peasant, and where it has stayed.

The suppression. Between 1970 and 1972 the movement was broken in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. Charu Majumdar was arrested on 16 July 1972 and died in police custody in Calcutta on 28 July 1972. The CPI(ML) fractured into a large number of groups, some of which abandoned armed struggle and entered electoral politics.

The second phase

The People's War Group. The CPI(ML) People's War was founded on 22 April 1980 in Andhra Pradesh under Kondapalli Seetharamaiah. It built its base in Telangana and in the Dandakaranya forests across the Andhra, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and later Chhattisgarh borders, and it worked through mass organisations of agricultural labourers, tribals and students before it was proscribed.

The Maoist Communist Centre. Originating in a group formed in 1969 in Bengal and known as Dakshin Desh, the Maoist Communist Centre of India built its strength in central Bihar and later Jharkhand, in the caste-and-land conflicts of the Gangetic plain rather than in the forests.

The merger. On 21 September 2004 the two merged to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist), with an armed wing, the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army, and a stated strategy of protracted people's war from the countryside.

The ban. The CPI (Maoist) and its front organisations are listed as a terrorist organisation in the First Schedule to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, membership of and support for which are offences under sections 38 and 39 of that Act.

The State's characterisation. In 2006 the Prime Minister described Left Wing Extremism as the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by the country, a phrase repeated in official documents since and the standard opening of an examination answer.

The magnitude

MU asks for it directly, so give figures with their source and their year rather than a round number of your own.

As quoted by the Supreme Court in 2011. In Nandini Sundar v. State of Chhattisgarh the Court quoted a scholarly account recording the Ministry of Home Affairs' estimate that some 120 to 160 of the country's 607 districts were affected, and that the movement had spread over nearly a quarter of Indian territory.

As stated by the Union in the same case. The Security Related Expenditure scheme, under which the Union reimburses States for security expenditure, then covered 83 districts in nine States.

The geography. The affected belt, often called the Red Corridor, runs through the forested and mineral-bearing districts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. Its worst-affected district in the years of the litigation was Dantewada in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.

The direction of travel. The Ministry of Home Affairs revises the list of affected districts periodically and has reduced it substantially over the last decade, with violence and geographical spread both falling from the peak years around 2009 and 2010. Cite the trend, name the Ministry, and give the year of any figure you use.

Why a law paper studies an insurgency

Because it is the standing measure of the failure of legal social transformation. Every instrument this course has studied so far, land reform, tenancy legislation, the Fifth Schedule, PESA, the Forest Rights Act, was meant to reach exactly these districts, and the insurgency is what grew where they did not.

Because the State's own expert body said so. The Planning Commission's Expert Group on Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas reported in April 2008 that the development paradigm pursued since independence had aggravated discontent among the marginalised, and warned that treating the resulting movements as a simple disruption of law and order was little more than a rationale for suppressing them.

Because the Supreme Court adopted that reading. Nandini Sundar quoted the Expert Group at length and held that policies of rapid exploitation of resources without equitable distribution eviscerate the promise of article 14 and the dignity assured by article 21.

And because the State's methods have themselves been held unconstitutional. The same judgment struck down the appointment of tribal youth as Special Police Officers for counter-insurgency, which is worked in [Internal Security, Social Justice and Development].

A worked example

MU sets: "Critically examine the magnitude of Naxalite movement in certain parts of India." Ten marks, and the word to build the answer around is MAGNITUDE.

Open with the definition and the name. The Naxalite or Left Wing Extremist movement, named after Naxalbari in Darjeeling district, where a sharecroppers' rising was suppressed by police firing in May 1967.

Then the geographical measure. The affected belt runs through the forested and mineral-bearing districts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. Cite the figures the Supreme Court recorded in Nandini Sundar v. State of Chhattisgarh in 2011: an estimate of the Ministry of Home Affairs that some 120 to 160 of 607 districts were affected, spread over nearly a quarter of Indian territory, and the Union's own statement that its Security Related Expenditure scheme then covered 83 districts in nine States.

Then the organisational measure. One proscribed party since the merger of 21 September 2004, the Communist Party of India (Maoist), with an armed wing, listed in the First Schedule to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967.

Then the official characterisation. The Prime Minister's description in 2006 of Left Wing Extremism as the single biggest internal security challenge the country had faced.

Then the trend, which is where the "critically" is earned. The Ministry of Home Affairs revises the list of affected districts and has reduced it substantially over the last decade, with violence falling from the peak around 2009 and 2010. An answer that gives the 2011 figures as the present position is wrong, and an answer that gives the reduction without its source is unusable.

And close on the point of the paper. That magnitude on this subject is measured in districts and casualties, but the constitutional measure is different: it is the number of districts in which land reform, PESA and the Forest Rights Act have not been delivered, which is the subject of the next chapter.

What this does NOT mean

It does not mean the movement is a single organisation. Dozens of groups have used the name; several CPI(ML) descendants contest elections and are lawful parties; and only the CPI (Maoist) and its fronts are proscribed.

It does not mean the affected districts are tribal by definition. The Bihar and Jharkhand base was built in caste-and-land conflict, and the Andhra base began in the plains.

It does not mean the account of causes justifies the violence. The Expert Group and the Supreme Court both explain the conditions and neither excuses the killings; an answer that reads as an endorsement fails on the "critical appraisal" MU actually asks for.

And it does not mean the movement is over. The trend is downward on the official figures; the conditions that produced it are the subject of the next chapter.

Quick revision

Naxalbari, Siliguri subdivision, Darjeeling district, West Bengal, May 1967: sharecroppers' rising over land, police firing at Bengaijote on 25 May, eleven villagers killed, under a United Front government in which the CPI(M) held Home. Leaders Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal, Jangal Santhal. Historic Eight Documents; AICCCR 1968; CPI(ML) founded 22 April 1969; the annihilation line, opposed within the movement; Srikakulam 1968 to 1970, where the movement became adivasi; suppression by 1972; Charu Majumdar arrested 16 July 1972, died in custody 28 July 1972; fragmentation.

Second phase: CPI(ML) People's War, 22 April 1980, Andhra Pradesh, Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, base in Telangana and Dandakaranya; Maoist Communist Centre from Dakshin Desh of 1969, base in central Bihar and Jharkhand; merger 21 September 2004 into the CPI (Maoist) with the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army; proscribed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967. Magnitude, as recorded by the Supreme Court in Nandini Sundar 2011: an MHA estimate of 120 to 160 of 607 districts, nearly a quarter of Indian territory, and 83 districts in nine States under the Security Related Expenditure scheme; worst affected, Dantewada in Bastar. Official counts have fallen substantially since.

Test yourself

1. Where and when did the movement begin, and what was the immediate grievance? At Naxalbari in the Siliguri subdivision of Darjeeling district, West Bengal, in May 1967. Sharecroppers, largely Santhal and Rajbanshi, whose tenancy rights had never been recorded and who were being evicted, began forcibly harvesting and occupying land; a police inspector was killed on 24 May and police firing at Bengaijote on 25 May killed eleven villagers.

2. What political circumstance gave the rising its ideological force? West Bengal was governed by a United Front ministry in which the CPI(M) held the Home portfolio, so the firing was ordered by a government of the parliamentary Left. That was the evidence its leaders used for the claim that the parliamentary road could not deliver land to the tiller.

3. Trace the organisational line from 1967 to 2004. The Naxalbari rising, 1967; the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries, 1968; the CPI (Marxist-Leninist), founded 22 April 1969; fragmentation after Charu Majumdar's death in custody in July 1972; the CPI(ML) People's War in Andhra Pradesh from 22 April 1980 and the Maoist Communist Centre in Bihar; and their merger on 21 September 2004 into the Communist Party of India (Maoist).

4. What figures did the Supreme Court record about the magnitude of the movement, and in which case? In Nandini Sundar v. State of Chhattisgarh, 2011, it quoted the Ministry of Home Affairs' estimate that some 120 to 160 of 607 districts were affected and that the movement had spread over nearly a quarter of Indian territory, and recorded the Union's statement that the Security Related Expenditure scheme covered 83 districts in nine States.

5. Why is an insurgency a subject for a paper on law and social transformation? Because it is where the legal instruments of transformation failed. Land reform, tenancy law, the Fifth Schedule, PESA and the Forest Rights Act were all directed at these districts, and the Planning Commission's Expert Group in 2008 and the Supreme Court in 2011 both held that the development paradigm applied there had aggravated the discontent and that treating the result as a mere law and order problem would breed more of it.