Communist Party of India (Maoist)

The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is an underground political party in India which aims to overthrow the government of India through people's war. It was founded on 21 September 2004, through the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People's War (People's War Group), and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI). The merger was announced on 14 October the same year. In the merger a provisional central committee was constituted, with the erstwhile People's War Group leader Muppala Lakshmana Rao, alias "Ganapathi", as general secretary.

The CPI (Maoist) are often referred to as Naxalites in reference to the Naxalbari insurrection conducted by radical Maoists in West Bengal in 1967.

The present draft document of their joint platform was finalised by Joint CC of the erstwhile CPI (ML)[PW] and the MCCI in September 2004 after extensive discussions. Five draft documents were prepared after intense discussions in a series of bilateral meetings held between the high-level delegations of the two erstwhile parties between February 2003 and September 2004. The Joint CC meeting deeply studied these five draft documents, freely exchanged the rich experiences acquired through the revolutionary practice during the past three decades and more, and arrived at a common understanding on several vexed questions confronting the Indian revolution in the backdrop of the international developments.

The present document – Party Constitution – is the synthesis of all the positive points in the documents of the two erstwhile parties, as well as their experiences in the course of waging the people’s war, fighting against revisionism, and right and left opportunist trends in the Indian and international communist movement, and building a stable and consistent revolutionary movement in various parts of the country.

They claim to be fighting for the rights of the tribes in the forest belt around central India-Chattisgharh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharastra, and West Bengal. New organizational expansion has been reported in Uttarakhand, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka. That region contains deposits of minerals which are of interest to mining companies like Tata and Essar.

Ideology
The People's War Group (PWG) maintained a Marxist-Leninist stance, while the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) took a Maoist stance. After the merger, the PWG secretary of Andhra Pradesh announced that the newly formed CPI-Maoist would follow Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its "ideological basis guiding its thinking in all spheres of its activities." Included in this ideology is a commitment to "protracted armed struggle" to undermine and to seize power from the state.

The ideology of the party is contained in a "Party Programme." In the document, the Maoists denounce globalisation as a war on the people by market fundamentalists and the caste system as a form of social oppression.

The Communist Party of India (Maoist) claim that they are conducting a "people's war", a strategic approach developed by Mao Zedong during the guerrilla warfare phase of the Communist Party of China. Their eventual objective is to install a "people’s government" via a New Democratic Revolution.

Views on Islamic upsurge
The CPI (Maoist) views the Islamic upsurge as a struggle towards national liberation against imperialism, rather than as a clash of civilisations, and Vinod Anand claims that in the past, some of the party members have described it as "a progressive anti-imperialist force in the contemporary world." In the words of Kishenji: "The Islamic upsurge should not be opposed as it is basically anti-US and anti-imperialist in nature. We, therefore, want it to grow".

Location
Currently the Party has a presence in remote regions of Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh, as well as in Bihar and the tribal-dominated areas in the borderlands of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Odisha. The CPI (Maoist) aims to consolidate its power in this area and establish a Compact Revolutionary Zone from which to advance the people's war in other parts of India. A 2005 Frontline cover story called the Bhamragad Taluka, where the Madia Gond, Adivasis, live, the heart of the Naxalite region in Maharashtra.

Organization
The current General Secretary of CPI (Maoist) is Muppala Lakshmana Rao, who uses the alias "Ganapathy". The party hierarchy consists of the Regional Bureaus, which look after two or three states each, the State Committees, the Zonal Committees, the District Committees, and the "dalams" (armed squads).

Politburo
The highest decision making body of the ultra-leftist political party is the Politburo, comprising thirteen or fourteen members, six of whom were killed or arrested between 2007 and 2010. Prashant Bose alias "Kishan-da" and Katakam Sudarshan alias Anand, are the two most prominent Politburo members of CPI (Maoist). Sudhakar alias "Kiran" is another Politburo member of CPI (Maoist). Amongst those jailed, Kobad Ghandy is the one of most momentous Politburo member of the party. Other arrested Politburo members of the party between 2005 to 2011 include Pramod Mishra, Akhilesh Yadav, Amitabh Bagchi, Baccha Prasad Singh, Narayan Sanyal and Sushil Roy. Ashutosh Tudu is another one of the captured Politburo members of the party. Among those assassinated, Cherukuri Rajkumar alias "Azad" and Mallojula Koteswara Rao alias "Kishenji", were the two senior-most prominent members of the CPI (Maoist)'s Politburo.

Central Committee
The Central Committee of the political party takes command from the Politburo and passes on the information to its members, and has 32 members. During an interview in 2010, Anand told media personnels that out of the 45 members of the Central Committee of CPI (Maoist), 8 has been arrested and 22 has been killed by the agencies of the Indian government. Anuradha Ghandy, who passed away on 12 April 2008, was an eminent member of CPI (Maoist)'s Central Committee. Kadari Satyanarayan alias "Kosa", Thippiri Tirupathi alias "Devuji" and Mallojula Venugopal alias "Bhupati" are another three cadres and Central Committee members of the party. Narmada Akka who was killed on 4 December 2012 by the State's police forces, was also a Central Committee member of the party, and reportedly, the in charge of the female cadres of CPI (Maoist).

Publication division
CPI (Maoist) also has a publication division. Besides volunteering as a polit bureau member of the party, Sudhakar alias "Kiran" also works for its publication division.

Estimated strength
The military wings of the founding organisations, the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (the military wing of the MCCI) and the People's Guerrilla Army (the military wing of the PW), also underwent a merger. The name of the unified military organisation is the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army.

P.V. Ramana, of the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi, estimates the Naxilities' current strength at 9,000–10,000 armed fighters, with access to about 6,500 firearms. Other estimates by Indian intelligence officials and Maoist leaders suggest that the rebel ranks in India number between 10,000 and 20,000, with at least 50,000 active supporters.

Front organisations
Front organisations of the party included the Radical Youth League, Rythu Coolie Sangham, Radical Students Union, Singareni Karmika Samakhya, Viplava Karmika Samakhya and All India Revolutionary Students Federation.

Governance tactics
The Naxalites tax local villagers and businesses, abduct and kill "class enemies" such as government officials and police officers, and regulate the flow of aid and goods. To help fill their ranks, the Maoists require each family under their domain to supply one family member.

The organisation has been holding "Public Courts" in trials of their opponents. These "courts" function in the areas under de facto Maoist control. The Maoists have also taken care to demolish government institutions under their de facto jurisdiction.

Military tactics
The Party retains the tactics of its predecessor, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War, of rejecting parliamentary democracy and capturing political power through protracted armed struggle based on guerrilla warfare. This strategy entails building up bases in rural and remote areas and transforming them first into guerrilla zones, and then into "liberated zones", in addition to encircling cities.

The military hardware used by Maoists, as indicated through a number of seizures, include RDX cable wires, gelatine sticks, detonators, country-made weapons, INSAS rifles, AK-47s, SLRs, and improvised explosive devices. According to MHA reports, as of October 2008, the CRPF has seized over 6000 kg of explosives in Bihar and 893 kg in Jharkhand. Security forces also recovered codex wire in Jharkhand; this is a highly potent explosive with a blast-range of up to 720 m, which has so far been used only by modern national armies.

Funding
Funding comes from setting up unofficial administrations to collect taxes in rural areas where official government appears absent. According to Ganapathy who e-mailed The Hindu's correspondent: "“The party mainly collects donations from the people and funds from the traders in our guerrilla zones... [We] also collect rational levy from contractors who take up various works in our areas.”"

Legal status
The party is regarded as a terrorist outfit by the Indian government. Several of their members have been arrested under the now-defunct Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act. The group is officially banned by the state governments of Odisha, Chattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh, among others. The party has protested these bans. On 22 June 2009, the central home ministry, keeping in mind the growing unlawful activities by the group, banned it under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Earlier, the union home minister, P. Chidambaram had asked the West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, to ban the Maoists following the Operation Lalgarh violence.

Following the ban, the Maoists were liable for arrest under the UAPA. After the ban, they were barred from holding rallies, public meetings and demonstrations, and their offices, if any, will be sealed and their bank accounts frozen.

Opposition
The Party is regarded as a serious security threat by the Indian government which is taking countermeasures, pulling the affected states together to coordinate their response. It says it will combine improved policing with socio-economic measures to defuse grievances that fuel the Maoist cause. In 2005, Chattisgarh State sponsored an anti-Maoist movement called the Salwa Judum. The group, which the BBC alleges is "government backed", an allegation rejected by the Indian government has come under criticism for "perpetrating atrocities and abuse against women", using child soldiers, and the looting of property and destruction of homes. These allegations were rejected by a fact-finding commission of the National Human Rights Commission of India, appointed by the Supreme Court of India, who determined that the Salwa Judum was a spontaneous reaction by tribes against Maoist atrocities perpetrated against them. The camps are guarded by police officers, paramilitary forces and child soldiers empowered with the official title "special police officer." However, on 5 July 2011, the Supreme Court of India declared the Salwa Judum as illegal and unconstitutional. The court directed the Chhattisgarh government to recover all the firearms given to the militia along with the ammunition and accessories. It also ordered the government to investigate all instances of alleged criminal activities of Salwa Judum.

International connections
The CPI (Maoist) maintains a dialogue with the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) which control most of Nepal through the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA), according to several intelligence sources and think tanks. These links are, however, denied by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

While under detention in June 2009, a suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative indicated that the LeT and the CPI (Maoist) had attempted to coordinate activities in Jharkhand state. Reports in 2010 indicate that the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines, Southeast Asia’s longest-lived communist insurgent group, has been reported to have engaged in training activities for guerrilla warfare with Indian Maoists.

The Indian Maoists deny operational links with foreign groups, such as the Nepalese Maoists, but do claim comradeship. Some members of the Indian government accept this, while others argue that operational links do exist, with training coming from Sri-Lankan Maoists and small arms from China. China denies, and is embarrassed by, any suggestion that it supports foreign Maoist rebels, citing improvements in relations between India and China, including movement towards resolving their border disputes. Maoists in Nepal, India, and the Philippines are less reticent about their shared goals.

Timeline of incidents
See Timeline of the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency

External links and further reading

 * Interview:


 * An exclusive interview to The Hindu by Azad, spokesperson of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), The Hindu
 * Interview With Comrade Ganapathy, General Secretary (GS), CPI (Maoist) given to Swedish writer Jan Myrdal and Gautam Navlakha, January 2010
 * The French journalist, Vanessa's conversation with Narmada and several other Comrades, OPEN


 * Documents


 * Party documents


 * Other:


 * International Campaign Against War on the People in India
 * An Encounter with Charu Majumdar: Vol. 44, No. 2, July 24- 30, 2011
 * “Deep Intelligence” in Bastar: Mapping The Maoists From The Skies by Trevor Selvam
 * Israel to help West Bengal tackle Maoists, Rediff
 * Staring at Defeat – Even the security forces know that every starving Indian is a potential Maoist insurgent, OPEN
 * Of Wars and Demons – Indian forces are ready for a big offensive against Naxal insurgents in Dandakaranya and elsewhere. Let’s be clear, India will be at war, OPEN