maoists-offer-of-talks-a-clever-ploy-to-regroup

In October 2004, just a day ahead of the talks with Andhra Pradesh government—the first-ever direct engagement with any government—a top Naxalite leader had famously said, “talks (with government) are war by other means.”

 

The loaded statement was made by Haragopal alias Ramakrishna, who was then the secretary of AP state committee of the People’s War Group (PWG), an outlawed Maoist outfit wedded to the cause of capturing political power through the ‘barrel of gun’.

 

More than two decades later, the Maoist organisation, facing intense heat from the security forces and suffering heavy losses in its strongholds, has come with a proposal for talks to find a lasting solution. 

 

A letter signed by Abhay, spokesperson of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), was released to the media recently. It offered peace talks and a ceasefire to the government.

 

The letter claimed the Maoists would immediately call for a “ceasefire” and initiate peace talks if the security forces stopped setting up police camps and running anti-Naxal operations across Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli, Odisha, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Telangana.

 

Abhay, in whose name the offer has come, is a senior Maoist leader and the younger brother of Mallojula Koteswara Rao, popularly known as Kishenji, who was killed in an encounter in West Bengal in November 2011. Apart from being a CPI (Maoist) Politburo member, he is part of its ‘Central Military Commission’ and the outfit’s spokesperson.

 

A clever ploy?

 

Given the past experience, the offer of talks raises doubts about the real intention of Maoist leadership.

 

In the past, the ultra-left outfit had employed similar tactics to buy time and regroup itself by making new recruitments and procuring arms. The process of talks had only served as a strategic retreat for the Maoists.

 

The collapse of the dialogue process in 2004, initiated by the then Congress government headed by YS Rajasekhar Reddy, highlights the tactics of the Naxalite organisation.

 

The timing of the latest talks offer, in the wake of serious setbacks to the organisation in its hitherto bastions and steady erosion of support base, raises suspicion.

 

It is highly unlikely to yield any positive results. Clearly, the Maoist organisation is gasping for survival. The Union Home Minister Amit Shah has set March 2026 as the deadline to end Left Wing Extremism in the country. Nearly 140 Maoists have been killed in encounters with security forces in Chhattisgarh since January this year. 

 

The media reports suggest that some top Maoist leaders held a meeting in Telangana’s Bhadradri-Kothagudem district recently to take stock of the situation in the wake of a relentless crackdown by the security forces.  Abhay’s letter came days after 86 members of the CPI (Maoist) surrendered before the police in Telangana.

 

Memories of failed talks

 

In the run-up to the 2004 assembly elections, the Congress, which was then in the opposition, promised in its poll manifesto that it would initiate talks with the Naxalites to find a lasting peace.

 

After coming to power, the Rajasekhar Reddy government kept up its word and invited the leaders of the PWG for direct talks. Billed as a historic initiative, the talks began on 15 October 2004 in earnest.

 

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A team of 11 Maoists, led by CPI (M-L) Central Committee member Akkiraju Haragopal emerged from the Nallamala forest near Srisailam to participate in talks. By then, the CPI (M-L) and People’s War Group had merged to form the CPI (Maoist).

 

However, the dialogue process collapsed midway with the Naxalite leaders pulling out of the talks, alleging ‘continued encounters’. Later, it was revealed by the police that the Maoists had used the ceasefire period to regroup themselves and procure arms.

 

In the following years, operations by the ‘Greyhounds’, an elite anti-naxalite unit of the AP police, eliminated top leaders and a large number of cadres in encounters. The success of the Greyhounds led to the governments of Odisha and Chhattisgarh inviting it to help them tackle Maoists in their states.

 

Eroding public support

 

Most of the Maoist top leadership hail from Telangana which was once considered the bastion of the Naxalite movement. However, over years, the movement lost its sheen. A combination of steady erosion in public support and a sustained pressure from security forces forced the Naxalite leaders to escape to the neighbouring states like Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Maharashtra.

 

Once a romantic notion that attracted both the restive urban youth on campuses and the underprivileged and exploited sections in rural areas and gave them a sense of purpose and justice, Naxalism has gradually degenerated into a refuge for a clutch of extortionists and trigger-happy vigilantes indulging in pointless violent attacks and blindly obstructing developmental projects.

 

Indiscriminate killing of innocent people, branding them as police informers, and resorting to the same brutal methods that they often accuse their enemy classes of, public hangings after holding kangaroo courts, killing politicians and policemen and resorting to extortions have resulted in a steady erosion of public support. The academics and intellectual class, once the mainstay of the Maoist ideology, slowly moved away from it.

 

No place in democracy

 

At the core of the Naxalite ideology is the belief that power can be captured through the barrel of a gun and annihilation of class enemies. This abominable path has no place in democratic societies and hence must be fought on multiple fronts.

 

Weak governance, corruption, and inadequate provision of basic services in affected regions contribute to a sense of alienation and disillusionment among the local population. The inability of the government to address the root causes of discontent creates space for extremist groups to exploit the situation.

 

Development policies that fail to reach the grassroot level and address the specific needs of marginalized communities contribute to the appeal of leftist ideologies. Moreover, the uneven distribution of the benefits of economic growth exacerbates social inequalities. Left-wing extremist groups position themselves as champions of the oppressed, promising to address the economic and social disparities that persist in these regions.

 

The government needs to focus on improving socio-economic conditions in areas affected by left wing extremism such as investing in infrastructure, creating employment opportunities, and providing better access to education and healthcare.

 

There is a need to aggressively push for projects that focus on sustainable development and conservation of natural resources in areas affected by extremism. By involving local communities in environmental protection efforts, a sense of ownership and responsibility can be fostered, leading to reduced extremism.

 

A judicious mix of security and developmental measures will put considerable pressure on the movement.

 

The efforts of the security forces have to be complemented strongly by a host of soft measures like the implementation of the forest dwellers act, improving connectivity and communication, and building infrastructure in remote places.