Unfinished businesses of India -- the land, caste, and national (especially Kashmir) questions -- are back on the political agenda, as India's parliamentary Marxists have embraced neoliberal capitalism and the CPI (Maoist) -- which resulted from the 2004 merger of the Maoist Communist Centre of India and the People's War Group -- has developed a platform to link them (cf. <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20070319/005511.html> and <http://www.indianexpress.com/story/23908.html>). The Maoist strongholds are in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh, a "compact revolutionary zone" stretching from Nepal, where the CPN (Maoist) teamed up with parliamentary Marxists to overthrow the ancient regime.
The Indian state doesn't have enough police* and security forces to put down the Maoists, hence the employment of "the Salva Judum -- a government-backed militia" that Arundhati Roy mentions ("'It's Outright War and Both Sides Are Choosing Their Weapons'," 25 March 2007, <http://www.tehelka.com/story_main28.asp?filename=Ne310307Its_outright_CS.asp> and <http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/25/77/print/>). Still, the state won't be able to eradicate the Maoists, nor will it be able to make struggles over land as well as those over Kashmir go away.
The Maoists, however, won't be able to conquer urban areas either. Can they find political partners who can organize urban slum dwellers?
* <http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070319&fname=ajainshani&sid=1> The Ignored Red Lights Ajai Sahni
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
At the level of the general police strength, moreover, capacities are dismal and any expectation that this force, however well equipped or trained (and it is, in most cases, neither), can contain an insurgency of the intensity and spread of the current Maoist movement-- even while it continues to discharge its 'normal' law and order management functions-- is utterly misconceived. A quick look at police-population ratios in this context, is informative. The United Nations recommends a minimum ratio of 1:450, which translates to roughly 222 policemen for a 100,000 population. The all-India average stands at a thoroughly inadequate 122 per 100,000 (the US has 238; UK, 235; France, 397; Greece, 426; and Portugal, 481).
The Naxalite affected states are uniformly worse off: Bihar stands at 57 per 100,000; Jharkhand: 85; Orissa 90; Andhra Pradesh: 98; and Chhattisgarh: 103; these figures reflect sanctioned strength, and actual availability in most states is well below this figure. In Chhattisgarh, as against a sanctioned strength of 29,188 in 2006, actual availability was just 23,350-- indicating a deficit of 5,838 men, over 20 per cent of the sanctioned force.
The ratio of police personnel to the land area of the state is also abysmal. The Indian average stands at an inadequate 42.4 policemen per 100 square kilometers; Chhattisgarh has just 17.3; Andhra Pradesh, 28.5; Jharkhand, 30.8; and Orissa, 22.4 (Bihar has a healthier 54.2). Deficiencies in arms, equipment, transport, communications, protection and infrastructure are also endemic.
The situation in the Bastar division -- including the districts of Dantewada (where the Rani Bodli incident occurred), Kanker and Bastar -- the heart of the violence in Chhattisgarh, is disturbing. For an area of 39,114 square kilometres, the five Police districts of Bastar division have a total sanctioned strength 2,197 policemen (5.62 policemen per 100 kilometres). Actual availability is just 1,389, nearly 37 per cent short of the authorized numbers, yielding a ratio of 3.55 policemen per 100 square kilometres. Much of this force, moreover, suffers an acute lack of leadership. Thus, in the Bijapur police district, as against a sanctioned strength of 38 Sub-Inspectors (SIs), only eight were at their posts in 2006. For the state at large, of the 2,900 SI strength sanctioned, vacancies stand at 45 per cent. For Deputy Superintendents of Police, vacancies are 50 per cent of the sanctioned strength.
-- Yoshie