Naxalites – CounterVortex

India boasts final drive against Naxal insurgency

CounterVortex — Thu, 29 May 2025 18:38:52 +0000

India’s government claims to have killed a top Naxalite rebel leader as part of a month-long military operation targeting the Maoist guerillas. Nambala Keshav Rao AKA “Basavaraju,” secretary-general of the banned Communist Party of India–Maoist (CPI-M), was killed alongside 25 other insurgent fighters in a May 21 shoot-out in Narayanpur district, Chhattisgarh state. The Naxalites have waged an armed struggle for more than two generations in the impoverished interior regions of East and Central India, but New Delhi has now vowed to clear the country of the rebel movement by March 2026. (TNH)

Photo via MIM

India: security forces launch new anti-Naxal ops

Jurist — Sun, 28 Apr 2024 17:17:17 +0000

Indian security forces killed at least 29 Naxal insurgents in Kanker Bastar district of Chhattisgarh state this month. Chhattisgarh is one of several states officially designated as affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE), along with Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Kerala.

The Indian Border Security Force (BSF) and District Reserve Guard (DRG) carried out the joint operation in what the BSF called “a major crackdown against the Maoist menace.” Among those reported killed was a top Naxal commander, Shankar Rao. A large cache of weapons was also reported to have been seized in the operation. One BSF member was said to have been injured.

Indian Home Minister Amit Shah commended the security forces for the operation, adding that the government is committed to eradicating Naxalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.

The Maoist Naxalite insurgency arose in the late 1960s, waging guerrilla warfare across a “Red Corridor” through the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Odisha (then rendered Orissa). In the ensuing decades of conflict, human rights abuses have been committed by guerrillas and security forces alike. Human Rights Watch has condemned the rebels’ use of threats, extortion and killings to enforce control over their territories.

In 2006, the Indian government established the Left Wing Extremism Division under the Ministry of Home Affairs to comprehensively address the insurgency.

From Jurist, April 19. Used with permission.

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Map: Wikipedia

Podcast: India’s forgotten wars

CounterVortex — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 02:15:08 +0000

In Episode 137 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores two of the many under-reported internal conflicts in India, which are rooted in unresolved issues left over from the colonial era in spite of 75 years of Indian independence. In the east-central interior, the Naxalite insurgency has been met with harsh repression from the security forces—especially against the Adivasis, or indigenous peoples who make up the movement’s support base. In the remote Northeast, the long struggle of the Naga people is still met with massacres at the hands of the military today. For three generations the Naga have been fighting for their independence, keeping alive their indigenous culture, and protesting the genocide of their people—to the silence of the international community. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Books discussed: Colonial Institutions and Civil War: Indirect Rule and Maoist Insurgency in India by Shivaji Mukherjee; The Naga Nation and its Struggle against Genocide, compiled by the International Working Group on Indigenous Peoples (IWGIA); The Nagas: An Unknown War by Gavin Young

Production by Chris Rywalt

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Photo via MIM

India: high court rejects probe of Adivasi killings

CounterVortex — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 18:57:57 +0000

The Supreme Court of India on Juy 14 dismissed a petition seeking an independent investigation into extra-judicial killings of Adivasis, or tribal people, in villages in Chhattisgarh state. The petition charges that state security forces, including the Chhattisgarh Police and affiliated paramilitary groups, were responsible for the deaths of villagers during anti-Naxalite operations that took place in September and October 2009. The petition was filed by Gandhian social activist Himanshu Kumar and 12 relatives of the slain villagers.

The petitioners sought an investigation by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or the National Investigation Agency (NIA). In rejecting the petition, the court observed that these agencies had already investigated the villagers’ deaths, and had filed charges in the Chattisgarh courts for offenses including murder and banditry. However, these charges were all against members of Naxalite insurgent groups, rather than the security forces.

The Indian government opposed the petition, and sought perjury charges against the petitioners for supposedly false accusations against the security forces. The Supreme Court left it to the Chhattisgarh state government to decide on the perjury charge and other possible charges against the petitioners, such as criminal conspiracy. It also imposed costs of 500,000 rupees, more than 6,000 US dollars, on Kumar.

From Jurist, July 14. Used with permission.

Photo: IMPRI

India: anti-mine protesters face repression

CounterVortex — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 01:49:42 +0000

Police in Gadchiroli district of Nagpur division in India’s Maharashtra state broke up a thiya andolan (sit-in) by local peasants and adivasis (tribal people) at the site of the contested Surjagarh iron-ore mining project, and arrested six of the organizers Oct. 29. Gadchiroli is within central India’s “Red Corridor” of Naxalite guerilla activity, and local authorities accuse the rebels of stirring up the protests. Following a demonstration at the mine site earlier in the week, two attendees were arrested by a local police “special operations team” as they departed, on charges of being Naxals. The mine at Surjagarh, in Etapalli taluka (subdistrict), is under lease by Lloyds Metals & Energy Ltd (LMEL). Since it began operations in June, it has faced repeated protests from local residents over its ecological impacts and usurpation of traditional lands. (Times of India, ToI, ToI)

Map: Google

India: tribal rights activists accused as ‘Naxals’

CounterVortex — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 20:55:44 +0000

The Bombay High Court on Sept. 13 issued a notice to India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA), directing it to file a reply to the bail plea of Anand Teltumbde, a Goa-based professor and civil rights activist who faces charges under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in relation to the notorious Bhima Koregaon case. In the case, dating to 2018, several advocates for Dalits (“untouchables”) and Adivasis (tribal peoples) are accused of links to the Maoist guerillas known as the Naxalites. Fifteen face lengthy prison terms and are still being denied bail. The case was back in the news in July, when a 16th among the accused, Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy, 84, died in a hospital in Mumbai after taking ill in jail. His medical bail plea was still pending when he expired.

The case concerns the Jan. 1, 2018 Elgar Parishad, or celebration, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra state. In the 1818 battle, an army of Dalit foot-soldiers raised by the British East India Company defeated the Peshwas, a military caste of the Maratha Confederacy. The battle has today emerged as a symbol of Dalit pride. At the 2018 Elgar Parishad (literally “declaration assembly,” or “congress for speaking out”), clashes broke out between Dalit and Maratha groups, resulting in the death of at least one person and injuries to several others. In the aftermath, several of the event’s speakers and organizers were rounded up by the NIA, and charged under the UAPA with being Naxalite collaborators. The Naxalites’ Communist Party of India-Maoist is outlawed under the UAPA.

Father Stan Swamy had been a tribal rights activist in Jharkhand for some 30 years, particularly advocating for the land and forest rights of the state’s Adivasis. He had also been demanding implementation of the long-delayed Fifth Schedule of the Indian constitution, which calls for establishment of a Tribes Advisory Council, made up of representatives of officially recognized Scheduled Tribes, to secure their rights and dignity.

In a statement two days before the NIA took him into custody, Swamy protested the “indiscriminate” arrest of thousands of young Adivasis, with authorities unjustly labeling them as “Naxals.”

The NIA charged that Swamy was a member of the Persecuted Prisoners Solidarity Committee, which it considers a front organization of the CPI-Maoist.

Also charged in the Bhima Koregaon case are writer and poet Varavara Rao, attorney Sudha Bhardwaj, academic Vernon Gonsalves, and human rights advocates Arun Ferreira and Gautam Navlakha. (PTI, India Today, Indian Express, LiveLaw, The Print)

Photo via Intercontinental Cry

India sterilization abuse: genocide by other means

Bill Weinberg — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 05:56:55 +0000

A horrific case in India's impoverished Chhattisgarh state has won a modicum of international headlines. A surgeon has been arrested on charges of "attempted culpable homicide" in the deaths of at least 13 women who underwent sterilization operations at a field camp in the village of Pandari. Dr. RK Gupta and his a team operated on 83 women in just six hours Nov. 8—in a filthy room, with rusty equipment. Gupta—who had performed over 50,000 sterilizations, and was awarded a state honor for his work—was arrested after initially fleeing, and remains intransigent, blaming the deaths on painkillers the women were given by a village clinic. The death toll may rise, as many women are gravely ill, apparently from infection. The desperately poor women were paid 1,400 rupees ($23) for the surgery. "Health workers" (sic!) also received payments for bringing women to the camp.

Local activists say this is part of a pattern, and are calling for the resignation of the Chhattisgarh health minister. The Chhattisgarh government has hired some 125 surgeons to carry out this work, and set a target of 1.75 lakh (1 lakh=100,000) sterilizations for the year 2014-2015—the same as last year, and 30,000 more than the targets for 2010-2012. In January 2012, three men were arrested in nearby Bihar state for operating on 53 women in two hours. The men had carried out operations in a field and without the use of anaesthesia. (CNN, Reuters, Reuters, NDTV, Indian Express, Nov. 13; BBC News, Nov. 11)

While international reports have not mentioned it, the inescapable context for this is the Indian government's ongoing war against the Naxalite guerillas. Chhattisgarh has been the very center of the ongoing counterinsurgency campaign dubbed "Operation Greenhunt"—which, as if often the case, has only fueled the insurgency. Just about a month before the ghastly Pandari incident, India's media reported of yet another "fierce gun-battle" in the forested tracks of Chattisgarh's Bijapur district in which three "Naxal women" were killed by a 100-strong joint patrol of local police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). Local activists charge this was another "fake encounter" in which villagers are assassinated and later reported to have been guerillas killed in combat (a practice known in Colombia as "false positives"). (Sanhati, Oct. 19)

The breakneck sterilization should be understood as genocide by other means, motiviated by fear of the peasantry—as also seen in similar cases in Mexico and Peru. Ironically, given the Naxalites' Maoist politics and the origins of the Chinese state, something akin to this can also be seen in contemporary China. Of course this kind of oppression is rendered even more perverse by India's "first world" pretension of a space program…

India: Maoists appeal to Nagas to resist deployment

CounterVortex — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 01:41:03 +0000

The underground Maoist Communist Party Manipur (MCPM) issued a statement appealing to the paramilitary Naga Regiments to resist government plans to deploy them to the Maoist guerilla stronghold areas of India, especially the Dandakaranya Revolutionary Zone in Chhattisgarh state. The MCPM's Comrade Nonglen Meitei urged in the statement issued to the media that the Nagas, an indigenous group on northeast Nagaland state, not to go to Chhattisgarh as "slaves" to fight other excluded tribal peoples in the region. The statement called on the Naga troops to lay down arms in the spirit of "revolutionary internationalism." (Nagaland Post, Oct. 23)

India: condemn Maoist assassination of journalist

CounterVortex — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 06:21:31 +0000

Voices of protest are mounting in India against the brutal killing of a dedicated journalist in Chhattisgarh state by Maoist guerillas. Following local demonstrations in Chhattisgarh, the Indian Federation of Working Journalists and Indian Journalists Union issued statements against the Dec. 6 assassination of Sai Reddy, who worked for prominent Hindi newspaper Deshbandhu. The northeast India based scribe body Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) also expressed shock at the killing Reddy.

Reddy, 51, a native of Basaguda village in Bijapur district of south Chhattisgarh, was attacked by a group of assailants with sharp weapons in the broad daylight, as he was returning from the Basaguda weekly market. Reddy was sent to the Bijapur hospital, where the doctors declared him dead. Bijapur district is now a stronghold of the Maoist Naxalite insurgency, and indepenent journalists like Reddy have found themselves caught between both sides in the conflict. Reddy, committed to covering local rural issued, had for months received threats from the ultra-left outfits, who were irritated by his coverage of their abuses. Yet he was also harassed by the police as a suspected Maoist sympathizer.

Reddy’s slaying was the second killing of a journalist by Maoists in Chhattisgarh this year. In February, the killing of Nemichand Jain, 43, in Sukma, another district within the state’s “Red Corridor,” led to an outrage—finally prompting the Maoists to issue an apology for the cirme. In the two previous years, journalists Sushil Pathak and Umesh Rajput were also slain in the state. Journalists’ organizations charge that the Chhattisgarh government has done little to resolve the cases and to punish the culprits.

The JFA termed the killing of Sai Reddy as an act of cowardice, and demanded the Chhattisgarh police to take appropriate actions to book the killers under the law. “We also extend our supports to the agitating journalists of Chhattisgarh, who have demonstrated against the killing of journalists in the State,” said the JFA statement.

The JFA statement also noted the grim situation in northeastern Assam state, where over 20 journalist and editors have been killed by over the last two decades. Assam is the scene of an ongoing insurgency by separatist “ultras,” who are believed to be allied with the Maoists.

NJ Thakuria for World War 4 Report

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Nepalese Maoists betray Indian Maoists

Bill Weinberg — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:25:43 +0000

For those who are following the twin Maoist movements in India and Nepal, there was a delicious irony May 30 when Prachanda, leader of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M), sent a condolence letter to Indian political boss Sonia Gandhi over the recent attack by Maoist Naxalite guerillas in which 27 were killed, including senior leaders of Gandhi's Congress Party. "Our party UCPN-Maoist is deeply shocked and saddened by the demise of leaders and workers of the Indian National Congress in the recent attack in Chattisgarh…unleashed by Indian Maoists," Prachanda wrote. Zee News notes that among the dead was Mahendra Karma, a notorious paramilitary leader who was accused of atrocities against perceived guerilla sympathists. A like letter from Nepali Congress party leader Sushil Koirala said: "I am extremely shocked and deeply saddened by the news of the death of senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma, other leaders and cadres of your party along with other innocent people in the ambush by the Maoists in Chattisgarh."

How have the Nepalese Maoists been so thoroughly pitted against the Indian Maoists? Ironically, the decisive factor is thoroughly post-Maoist China. We've noted that Nepal's counterinsurgency against the UCPN-M was initially backed with military aid from the US and India. When these succumbed to pressure from human rights groups and scaled back aid, China took up the slack—seeking to establish Nepal as a buffer state against regional rival India. At the same time, China began quietly aiding the Naxalites, since they were conveniently making trouble for Delhi.

You'll note how little this has to do with, um, ideology. It will be interesting (in a geekish sort of way) to see how sectarian Maoist factions in the US will react to this. The biggest, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), was avidly rooting for the Nepalese Maoists, but seems to have dropped them after the UCPN-M agreed to lay down arms and join the political process. The Kasama Project appears to have its money on the Naxalites, calling out Prachanda on his hypocrisy. We'd sure like to hear what the RCP have to say about the stance of their erstwhile Nepalese comrades.