Why New Delhi must closely watch Maoists reaching out to insurgents in North East

When insurgent organisation People’s Liberation Army of Manipur’s commander-in-chief, Manohar Mayum (who has recently taken over the group’s chairman after the death of Chaoren) met journalists in Myanmar’s Somra Tracts (opposite Ukhrul) in 2008 and proclaimed his group’s alliance with Communist Party of India (Maoist) to fight the “common enemy”, the speculation that had been doing the rounds about Maoist inroad into the North East became a reality. Mayum was quite categorical about the alliance. He said (the statement below is a verbatim replication of what the PLA leader said in a video-taped statement, excerpts of which are in the possession of this author) “We have been maintaining relations with CPI (Maoist) for some years. But from 2008 this has become stronger and it has been upgraded to a new level. We should unite against a common enemy. This unity should be part of our campaign against our enemy even as we fight for our legitimate cause.” While it is not immediately known as to what the “upgradation to a new level” actually entails, analysis has it that it could involve not only joint training in the new training facilities of PLA (Manipur) in Sagaing Division but sharing of bases and joint operations as well. After all, PLA (M) is one group whose principles closely approximate that of the Maoists, by way of its ultra-left ideology. It must also be appreciated that the atmospherics in Manipur provides anti-India groups of all denominations to fish in troubled waters. One anecdotal report has stated that Manipuri people (it is not known from which grouping) had been seen alongside Maoist cadres in West Bengal. It is also learnt that CPI (Maoist)’s Eastern Regional Bureau has been tasked with the responsibility of engineering association with insurgent groups in the North East with a clear objective of securing ground in the region. The alliance with the Meitei groups, in all probability, was one of the Bureau’s successes. The Maoists “Unity Congress” that was formed in September 2004, “declared” its support to insurgencies by “various nationalities”, including those by ULFA, NSCN (both factions) and PLA (M), stating, “This Congress reaffirms its whole-hearted support to all these nationality movements and their right to self-determination, including the right to secession.” The Congress supported the “right of self-determination of all the oppressed nationalities, including their right to secede from the autocratic Indian State.” If the report about Manipuris being sighted among Maoists in West Bengal had any truth to it, then the cross-pollination between left-wing-extremist groups in heartland India and insurgent groups in the North East has started. It is also learnt that the late Koteswar Rao, as known as Kishenji, the then military wing chief of CPI (Maoist), communicated with ULFA chief of staff, Paresh Barua (interestingly Baruah identified himself as Deepak). The PLA communiqué above and reports about increasing contact between North Eastern insurgent groups and the Maoists clearly indicate that one of India’s primary internal security threats is attempting to systematically engage insurgent groups in the region, and gain a foothold in the area. Indeed, Maoist alliance with ULFA reportedly dates back to at least the days preceding the 2 April 2004 arms haul in Chittagong. Reliable reports have stated that a sizeable portion of the arms—Paresh Baruah and Anthony Shimray of NSCN (IM) have been named by apprehended Bangladeshi arms dealer, Hafizur Rahman as the two primary recipients—was meant for the Maoists. While not much is immediately known about the exact sum and substance of the conversation between Baruah and Rao (at the time) alluded to above, one condition that was reportedly put forward by Rao to the ULFA chief of staff was that ULFA must stop targeting Hindi-speaking people, which it had been doing with impunity in order to attract New Delhi’s attention. Kishenji told Baruah that the Hindi-speaking people, mostly from Bihar (and ones that have been systematically targeted by ULFA, NDFB, KLNLF etc), constitutes the parish for the Maoists, and it would be incorrect to kill people of such hue, who are themselves bearing the brunt of New Delhi’s “exploitation”. Interestingly, ULFA did not target people from the Hindi-speaking community since the aforesaid communication between Kishenji and Paresh Baruah. But to return to the question of Maoist inroad into the North East, it is the author’s analysis that alliances and arms-trading, with attendant aspects like training, base-sharing, conduit to China and even combined operations, is not tantamount to establishing robust ground inside the North East. The primary reason for this is because the North East does not provide a ready fertile ground for the Maoist to thrive. After all, some of the realities that characterise areas like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and thereabouts in which left-wing-extremism is flourishing are not evident in even an unrest-ridden milieu like the North East. While rampant corruption and exploitation pervade the enchanted frontiers, much of the ire is trained against non-North Easterners, for instance the Marwari community or people from Bihar (who came as petty labourers, and who are slowly being replaced by illegal Bangladeshi migrants). Therefore, not only are the conditions—including the fact that poverty and personalised exploitation are not as all pervading and ingrained in the North East as it is in areas where Maoism has taken strong roots, but a sense of social justice continues to characterise the region. This is perhaps because of the policy of the British to administer much of the region in exclusion or partial exclusion (as it saw no profit in occupying the hill areas of the region), choosing to send punitive expeditionary missions only to control marauding Naga raiders when the latter descended on tea plantations in mainland Assam. In most states in the region there is an inner-line permit regime in place and outsiders cannot purchase or own land. This prevents land takeovers, which acts as a protective mechanism against outside control (it is another matter that illegal Bangladeshi migrants are coming in hordes and settling in the region, albeit with patronage from certain quarters). Another reason why Maoism will not be able to gain a foothold in the North East is because of Christianity, which is the primary religion among almost all tribes of the region barring the caste Assamese, a few Bodos, certain Bengalis of Assam and Tripura, who are Hindus, and the animistic religious communities of Arunachal Pradesh. Although even the tribes of central and east India also have Christianity in their midst, the fact of the matter is that the socio-economic conditions that prevail in the region have led the constituency to embrace Maoism, which in the opinion of the author is actually tribal insurgency, a phenomenon that had characterised the area even during the days of the British with rebellion such as the Santhal uprising. It will also be recollected that the Naga insurgency disassociated themselves from China because they were unwilling to replace “Nagaland for Christ” with communism. The father of Naga insurgency, Angami Zapu Phizo had categorically stated, “Christian Nagaland has no place for a communist revolutionary ideology…if great Russia and mainland China are proud to feel that they follow the ideology of the German Karl Marx, tiny Nagaland is happy to be follower of Jesus Christ, whom we have come to believe in as our Saviour.” In a non-industrialised milieu, where religion and social egalitarian standards are important drivers, Maoism would have to bet hard to find a place under the North Eastern sun. Alongside conditions, space is an important component for Maoism to grow. Every inch of land in the North East already has an indigenous movement with well-focussed localised objectives. An insurgent group such as ULFA—despite hobnobbing with CPI (Maoist) on matters of exigency such as arms-dealing—would not allow the Maoists to set up base in the state. ULFA despite their avowal to a Marxist-Leninist ideology, have little or no idea of scientific socialism. There is an accentuated class distinction among ULFA’s rank and file, and praxis does not form a part of its functional apparatus. Indeed, ULFA has assassinated candidates of even the CPI (ML), like Anil Baruah in Dibrugarh during the run-up to the general elections in 1998 in order to halt the march of the reds into Assam. Although there was a Marxist-Leninist enterprise in the state—of the parliamentarian form, particularly in Karbi Anglong—it soon decayed in the face of centrist politics. An organisation such as ULFA would never abdicate space to any other group, leftist or otherwise—its territorial claims are non-negotiable, and furthermore ULFA does not evince itself as a part of the Communist International even though it projects itself as leftist outfit with socialist standards. At any rate, the present character of ULFA and its chieftain, Paresh Baruah approximates that of a pure warlord who eliminates detractors, governs his organisation by way of whims and fancies and acts financially and politically in the international system without interference. Therefore, even if Paresh Baruah had been talking to the late Koteswar Rao, it would be not about sharing space, but about arms-deals, joint training and safe havens. In the present circumstances (despite reports that even the ISI has held meetings with the Maoists), ULFA would never countenance a truck with the Maoists, especially as it has realised the latter’s power in the Indian heartland. In fact it would resist it. The conditions and the space aspect would, therefore, not permit the ingress of Maoism in the North East in the manner it has spread to other parts of the country. Practical considerations may, however, lead to alignments, but not superimpositions. Even groups such All Adivasi National Liberation Army (AANLA) (it had sent at least 24 of its cadres to Jharkhand to train alongside the Maoists) that has natural affinity to central and east India, being from the Santhal stock, and were brought to Assam by the British to work the tea gardens have shown little interest in the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” and have returned to the mainstream as a result of the intrepid steps taken by the Assam Police’s Special Branch. Maoism meant little for them in the Assam scenario. Clearly they had gone for training with the Maoists in order to acquire muscle against the Bodos that were taking them on. The hard core Maoists of Dantewada and thereabouts—where the Adivasis trained—did not fathom their real objectives. Adivasi sentiments in Assam were locally placed, and against Bodos. The phenomenon is exactly at par with what became of certain indigenous Assamese Muslims who had gone to POK to train alongside LeT, JeM and groups whose motivations were guided by the global salafi movement. The Assamese Muslims came back and surrendered to the authorities. On being questioned about the reason, they said that they had gone to train so that they could come back and aid their Muslim brethren in Assam. Instead, their ISI instructors had pressed them to perform acts like assassinate senior national political leaders and attain shahadat by indulging in suicide terrorism. Such instructions meant nothing for the indigenous Assamese Muslim and being disenchanted they returned to the mainstream. How about the changing course of proletariat politics in the region, especially Assam? A veteran CPI (Maoist) leader, Arun Kumar Bhattacharjee, also known as Kanchan Da, was arrested by the Assam Police in 2022. He was reportedly tasked to set up a state-level committee of the CPI (Maoist) in Assam and create a “red corridor” from China to Maoist-infested states of India. But there is no room for complacency in the North East. Manipur is burning and a subterfuge of the left-wing kind cannot be ruled out. It has also been seen in earlier times that there was a storm-trooping exercise in Assam with the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) whose leftist ideology is not in doubt. But they do not have Maoist links. The author has confirmed this with traditional central agencies that monitor such matters as well. Indeed, even New Delhi has turned down Assam government’s proposal for declaring two districts (Tinsukia and Dibrugarh) of the state as affected by Left Wing Extremism. The Ministry of Home Affairs seems to be clear that the situation in Assam does not warrant such a declaration. A senior bureaucrat in charge of Naxal Management in the ministry told this author that “Assam is not in our scheme of things,” and that certain states “have a tendency to expand the scope of the problem so that they can get central funds.” Mass movements against corruption and mega dams that wax and wane the North East, coupled with the “civil war” in Manipur is being closely monitored by the Maoist leadership. They have tried to influence KMSS, and would undertake measures to provoke the farmer’s organisation into resorting to non-traditional methodology. Fortunately it has not succeeded in their endeavour so far. It is precisely because of these reasons that the state must recognise the faultlines and take a correct course correction action in right earnest. The logic of “winning the argument” must not be allowed to wait until a time when dissonance has already graduated into violent movements. This has been the bane of centrist policy for the North East for decades, with negative results. The author is a conflict theorist and author. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._ Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .