State told to disband militia fighting Maoist guerrillas

India's Supreme Court has ordered the central state of Chhattisgarh to disband the civil militia force founded six years ago to combat Maoist guerrillas controlling large swathes of the country.

Responding to a petition filed by human rights activists, the court this month directed Chhattisgarh's administration to disband and disarm about 6500 Salwa Judum (Peace March) recruits and special police officers (SPO) deployed against outlawed armed Maoist cadres since 2005 on grounds that it was unconstitutional.

In an 80-page judgement, the two-member bench said the state's policy of countering Maoists with this locally recruited militia would not only fail to resolve the problem but would also "perpetuate the cycle of violence".

And although human rights workers welcomed the decision, the Chhattisgarh authorities said the judgement was a body blow in the fight against Maoists who Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has repeatedly termed India's biggest internal security threat since independence 64 years ago.

Senior police officials in the provincial capital, Raipur, said this would impede operations against the Maoists in Chhattisgarh's thickly forested regions as militia members were familiar with the difficult terrain, the insurgents' hideouts, tactics and command-and-control systems.

"The SPO helped the police in its anti-Maoist operations at a fraction of the cost of raising regular police battalions," said a senior officer. SPOs were paid 3000 rupees ($81.60), a third of a rookie police constable's salary, and were, at times, twice as effective.

But human rights workers disagree. "It's a significant judgment, one which upholds constitutional principles," said Nandini Sundar, a rights activist who was one of the respondents to petition the Supreme Court.

She said the state could not be expedient and opportunistic in fighting an insurgency.

Since their emergence in eastern India in the late 1960s, the Maoists - known as Naxalites after the place where their movement began - have pursued their four-path "People's War" strategy of agitation and propaganda, creating "liberated zones" followed by armed struggle in rural and then urban areas to establish their suzerainty.

The closely knit and ideologically committed Maoists have cut deep into the hearts of central, eastern, western and even southern India, waging an armed struggle to annihilate "class enemies" by adopting the guerrilla tactics of Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

They levy taxes, dispense their own brand of justice and determine the educational syllabuses and moral behaviour of locals.

Maoist cadres comprising tribal people, low-caste Dalits, peasants and landless labourers have a significant presence in 20 of India's 29 provinces or in 223 of 603 administrative districts - a third of the country.

Aiming to economically, socially and politically empower the poor and dispossessed, the Maoists recruit cadres from among marginalised sectors and those oppressed by upper caste landlords in tribal areas where forests, that have been their mainstay for centuries, have been appropriated by the politically influential.

The Maoists' eventual aim is to establish a "people's government" in their areas of control by progressively dominating the countryside through coercion and indoctrination, and by encircling, but rarely attacking, cities.

Over the years, the Government's response in dealing with the Maoists has been a combination of heavy force, anti-terrorism legislation and, in some badly afflicted regions, arming and training local militia to fight the insurgents.

This latter measure - as the Supreme Court ruling indicates - has been counterproductive, creating another extortionist force operating under state patronage.

The Government is also working on a policy that offers financial assistance to Maoists who surrender.

THE NAXALITES
* The ultra-left rebels began their fight with an armed peasant revolt in West Bengal's Eastern Naxalbari village on May 25, 1967, which was brutally crushed by the state government.
* Ideologically led by activist Charu Majumdar, killed in police action in early 1970s.
* Started out armed with spears and bows and arrows, the Maoists have acquired guns, hand grenades and guerrilla war expertise over the years.
* They have a significant presence in 20 of India's 29 provinces or in 223 of 603 administrative districts - a third of the country.