Indian Defence Review

All warfare is guided by certain principles and established rules, and asymmetrical conflicts like Naxalism are no exception. A critical analysis of the tactics and strategy pursued by the Naxalites of India reveals that they are emulating the principles of asymmetric warfare so eloquently enunciated by the theorists of fourth-generation warfare1. This article is an attempt to trace the tenets of fourth-generation warfare, or asymmetrical conflicts, in the Naxalite movement of India.

Their strategy is to first build up bases in rural and remote areas, which would gradually be converted into “liberated zones,” where they would be running their parallel government.

The principle of fourth-generation warfare seems to guide the strategy and rules of conduct of the Naxalites. It is said that to defeat an enemy, one first needs to understand its strategy, determining its strength and weaknesses, such that one can formulate ones fighting strategy accordingly. Naxalites have thoroughly studied the weaknesses and strengths of the Indian Union and have accordingly prepared themselves, which is responsible for their success to a great extent. The forces fighting the Naxalites also need to understand the principles guiding the functions and organisations of the Naxalites. Such understanding of the principles governing the Naxalite movement is critical for evolving the best practices of counterinsurgency.

Introduction

One of the basic arguments of the theory of fourth-generation warfare is that conventional warfare would be replaced by conflicts between states to conflicts between states and nonstate actors. Further, the theory says that in a fight between states and nonstate actors, one needs to be aware of the issues for which the actors profess to fight and the objectives which they intend to achieve because these two factors guide the strategy of nonstate actors. This in other words means that “at the core of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) is a crisis of the legitimacy of the state, and counter-insurgency cannot address that crisis,”2 which means that there needs to be something more than the attitude of treating counter-insurgency as a fight between the state and the nonstate actors.

The ideology of Naxalism is a deadly combination of the ideology of Marxism, Maoism and Leninism.

There is the need for understanding the basic strategy of Naxalite fighting, which is quite different from the strategy guiding conventional warfare. According to the theorists of fourth-generation warfare, this kind of warfare is based on dispersion, or decentralisation, of command and control, which makes the concept of battlefield quite vague. The warfare is not attached to any “theatre”; rather the attack is aimed at culture and the media, with the intention of collapsing the enemy’s will to fight. In fourth-generation warfare, the aim of the adversary is not to get decisive results; rather the aim is to prolong the conflict to exhaust the resources of the states. Thus, in fourth-generation warfare, the enemy never attacks from the front but from the rear, never relying heavily on centralised logistics.

Basic Premises or Strategies of Waging Fourth-Generation Warfare

The theory of fourth-generation warfare has clearly laid down that irregular warfare has made the world cease to think of warfare “exclusively as conventional clashes of massive, sophisticated weapons on the battlefield, and reverted to seeing war in its rawest, truest and oldest form, characterised by small groups of warriors striking by surprise, or at night, against the actual or psychological rear of the enemy. Ravaging defenceless civilians, hit-and-run raids, sudden assaults on ill-defended places, hiding in inaccessible lairs, all these and more are the centuries-old elements of irregular warfare, of a strategy of the snare and of refusal to meet the main military strength of the enemy in open battle. The specific ancient rule the terrorists followed is to avoid the enemy’s strength and strike at weakness.”3 In the light of the principles cited by the theorists of fourth-generation warfare, Indian rural hinterland presented the ideal ground for the Maoists of India to follow the ideology of Marxism-Maoism-Leninism, since it had all the ingredients required for playing the rules of asymmetry successfully.

The Naxalites have a well-laid-out plan for how to achieve their stated objective.

It was Marx who showed the way of bringing revolution through organised proletariats,4 and the idea has been used by different revolutionaries, including the Indian Maoists, moulding it to suit their prevalent social, economic and political scenario. Both Lenin and Mao used Marx as a base for bringing in revolutions. Mao Tse-Tung propagated the theory of organised peasant insurrection, in which political power is captured through protracted armed struggle through the strategy of guerrilla warfare.5 The idea of Mao was used by Lenin to capture power in Russia but through an innovation of using a tight party structure for the purpose.6 Naxalites in India have combined the ideologies of Marx, Mao and Lenin to achieve their objective of creating “people’s government” through “people’s war.” The Naxalites have a well-laid-out plan for how to achieve their stated objective.

Their strategy is to first build up bases in rural and remote areas, which would gradually be converted into “liberated zones,” where they would be running their parallel government. They intend to further extend their liberated zones to urban power centres. The worst thing is that Naxalites are succeeding in their objectives, and the main reason for this has been that those who know very little about the Naxalite movement know that its central slogan has been “land to the tiller” and that attempts to put the poor in possession of land have defined much of their activity. This fact has even been cited as the main structural cause for the growth of Naxalism in the Indian rural hinterland, in the 2008 report of the Planning Commission on Naxalism. The report, providing statistics of 125 districts from the Naxal-affected states, had concluded that the state bureaucracy has pitiably failed in delivering good governance in these areas.

They fight guerrilla warfare, where they try to gain success by hitting at the enemys weakness. Their strategy is not to defeat the state physically but to defeat it morally by depriving the state of the support of the masses.

The ideology of Naxalism is a deadly combination of the ideology of Marxism, Maoism and Leninism. In contemporary Maoist eyes, Mao stands on the shoulders of Lenin as Lenin presumably stands on the shoulders of Marx.7 Despite the fact that scholars have tended to agree or disagree with the intricate relationship between the trio in bringing out revolution in the real world, the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-M) of India gives due credit to these three for building up a new democratic revolution around the world, and this becomes quite clear while going through their strategy for getting victory in the new democratic revolution which they profess to wage.

It says, “To achieve victory in revolution, there are three magic weapons and the first weapon is a strong revolutionary party based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its guiding ideological basis in all matters; that is well-disciplined and built up through revolutionary style and method; that is based on democratic centralism; that links the theory with practice; practice criticism and self-criticism; is closely integrated with the masses and relies firmly upon them; and stands firmly on the class line, mass line and armed struggle.”8 So Maoists in India do not shy away from admitting that their strategy is based on the principles of guerrilla warfare or follows the principles enunciated by the theory of fourth-generation warfare. The following sections try to trace the principles of fourth-generation warfare in the ideology and methodology of the Indian Naxalite movement.

“¦they proclaim that their objective is to establish “peoples government through peoples war,” propagating that this is the only way by which true justice could be given to tribals.

The genesis of Maoism reflects that it is more than a conflict between the state and the non-state actors. Maoism is a movement with a well-laid-out strategy and objectives. Maoists do not abide by the principles of conventional war. They fight guerrilla warfare, where they try to gain success by hitting at the enemy’s weakness. Their strategy is not to defeat the state physically but to defeat it morally by depriving the state of the support of the masses. Maoists reside in jungles which are difficult to penetrate. They attack from behind the scene, avoiding direct confrontation with the state. Their targets are civilian and military establishments which can’t be confined within the walls of “theatre of battlefield.” For the Maoists, the entire societal space is their battlefield. They feed on the support of the “disgruntled tribal masses,” thus forcing the government to wage war on its own people. One can thus safely conclude that Maoists are being guided by the principles of fourth-generation warfare and they are following strategies which are most suitable to fight such asymmetric warfare. How the Maoists have formulated their strategies to suit the principles of fourth-generation warfare is being dealt with in the next section.

Tracing the Tenets of Fourth-Generation Warfare in the Naxalite Movement of India

The entire eastern part of India (Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka) is now under the influence of Naxalism, with its slow and steady spread towards the western part, taking a U-turn towards the states of Kerala and Maharashtra and reaching up to Madhya Pradesh in central India. The reason for their sporadic spread across the states is their strategy of “deliberate flexible mobility.” It is deliberate because they can’t afford to have “a theatre”—a theatre of war which could be the easy target of security forces.

Their objective is to spread the war to as many theatres as possible (basic principle of fourth-generation warfare) since this is the best strategy for exhausting the resources of the state, a perfect strategy for starting an irregular warfare against an adversary whose resources are plenty. One example would suffice to show how this strategy of spreading the war to many theatres is slowly exhausting the state fighting capacity. During the Jharkhand elections, the MHA was able to cull out merely 300 companies of central paramilitary forces and armed police despite the fact that Latehar, Chatra and Palamu were worst affected by Naxalism and the state required more forces to conduct free and fair elections. The reason was that its forces were overstretched due to the upcoming anti-Naxal offensive across four states.

The forces fighting the Naxalites also need to understand the principles guiding the functions and organisations of the Naxalites.

However, merely spreading their warfare to different states is not sufficient for achieving their objective of capturing power in Delhi, which becomes amply clear after reading the party programme laid down by CPI-M, which says that “Since we have to capture the big cities, that is, the fortress of the enemy, during the last phase of the New Democratic Revolution, our Party has to carry on target-oriented work in the cities from the very beginning . . . It means that, firstly, we have to built a fast and well entrenched underground network of the party and also other mass organisations among the working class and other toiling sections of the people along with students and intellectuals.”9 In other words, the Naxalites’ ultimate aim is to capture power in Delhi, but since they can’t afford to do it through open conflict (another principle of fourth-generation warfare) with the Indian government, they try to hide it.

So, while they are trying to spread their bases to as many districts as possible, they are mindful of doing it covertly, hiding in jungles. Besides, they proclaim that their objective is to establish “people’s government through people’s war,” propagating that this is the only way by which true justice could be given to tribals. So, what Maoism in India is doing is avoiding direct conflict with the state while simultaneously waging a war against the state.

The idea of “peoples” government’ propagated by the Naxalites is part of a broader strategy pursued by nonstate actors all over the world for achieving their objectives. If one tries to analyse the idea represented in the CPI-M party programme, one gets the feeling that its strategy well resonates with the strategy propounded by al-Suri10 for creating “global jihad,” wherein he says that the different groups fighting the state will be connected by ideology rather than by any hierarchical principles and organisations.11 The idea of al-Suri has been well documented by Cruickshank and Ali,12 wherein they have mentioned that the “The morphing of Al Qaeda from an organization with its own Afghanistan-based bureaucracy, hierarchies and modus operandi into an ideological umbrella for more loosely tied jihadists around the world, is by now a familiar story.”

The rural hinterlands of India have for centuries been left untouched not merely by the Indian government but also by the British government for many reasons.

The same analogy holds true for the Maoists in India. The Maoists openly express their solidarity with and support for all the separatist and revolutionary movements not only in India but all over the world. It has been clearly laid down in the party programme of CPI-M that “One could not move a single step towards revolution in any country without fighting and defeating it. Hence the Indian proletariat must fight against both ‘Right’ and ‘Left’ opportunism in advancing the class struggle and the revolutionary war. The party, while drawing lessons from the past revolutions, and later, from the restoration of capitalism in Russia and China, must uphold the relevance of the most modern experiences of the GPCR particularly in the struggle against revisionism. Thus, it has to build unity with all the genuine Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties, groups and forces in the world today. It also has to establish unity with the proletariat, oppressed nations and oppressed people of the whole world. By uniting with them and through the practice of learning from each other, it forms part of the global struggle to eliminate imperialism and counter revolutionary forces from the world.”13 So, what Maoism is trying to achieve is to build a loose network of like-minded revolutionary groups across the world linked through ideology and not through any hierarchical structural network (another tenet of fourth-generation warfare). These tactics of Maoists gel well with the principle of decentralisation of the command and control structure practiced in guerrilla warfare.

The offensive is against the Naxalites who are waging a guerrilla warfare based on principles of fourth-generation warfare, misleading the tribals and using them to achieve their well-laid-out objectives. The sooner the states realise it, the better it will be for the counterinsurgency forces that are facing casualties every day in their fight against the Naxals.

The Naxalites’ strategy of extending their network across the borders is revealed through the group’s collaboration with foreign terrorists and insurgent groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and LTTE. The arrest of Azam Ghouri, a Lashkar-e-Tayyiba terrorist, revealed that before his arrest, he had a meeting with important People’s War Group (PWG) leaders in Warrangal and Nizamabad districts of Andhra Pradesh, where they discussed the supply of arms and explosives to the Naxalite groups.14 Not only this, the Maoists also have established relations with Indian separatist groups like United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), Bodo Liberation Tigers Force (BLTF) and Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM), whose collaboration with the Maoists of Nepal is an open fact. Besides, the Maoists in India have maintained cordial relations with the left revolutionary movement going in other parts of the world also. This becomes evident when one goes through the message released by the Peru People’s Movement (MPP) on 2 December 2009, wherein it not only sends regrets to the Maoists of India for not attending its convention against war on people, held in New Delhi, but also promises full support to the movement. To quote, “Very unfortunately it was not possible for us to attend your very timely and important meeting, but we send you this message as an expression of our deep felt solidarity and agreement with your aims and purpose . . . The Indian revolution and the people of India are truly powerful and we are sure that they will defeat the reactionaries. In doing so, they should always feel assured that they can count on the support by the Peruvian revolution and the people of Peru who wage the people’s war against the same enemies.”15

It is being debated in the civil rights group and even among sections of the government that it is the failure of the government of India in delivering to the tribals what happens to be their due rights of land and natural resources that has led to the Maoists taking up arms against the state time and again. Part of the reason happens to be true. It is true that the government since independence has tended to ignore the rights of the tribals and has also not tried to bring them into the mainstream of the society, which provided the Maoists some reason to make inroads among the tribals, making them conscious of their rights, as reflected in the first peasantry rebellion in the state of Andhra Pradesh against the tyrannical and feudal rule of the Nizam. But there also happens to be another side of the story. Maoism pronounces asymmetric armed rebellion against the state in which the Maoists are advised to look for the weakest point where they can hit. The rural hinterlands of India have for centuries been left untouched not merely by the Indian government but also by the British government for many reasons. These places were located in areas where there were no roads and infrastructure built and also the tribals practiced their own customs and laws, which the British India was not ready to tamper with. The Indian government after independence continued the same policy, as a consequence of which, these areas remained isolated from modern developments. There were no roads, no hospitals, no courts and no police stations in these areas, and even if there were any; they were too far away for the tribals to commute to. In a nutshell, government authority or presence in these areas was the weakest, which gave the Maoists what they had been looking for—the weakest nerve of the government, which they could utilise to further their objective of armed rebellion.

Offensive against the Naxalites will never succeed until the forces dealing with them have an understanding of their basic strategy and tactics”¦

The above analysis could even be culled out from the arguments put forth by the Naxalites, wherein they have affirmed that “Our class enemies-imperialism, comprador big bourgeoisie and feudalism-have built up their strong bases in big cities where their armed state machinery is very strong. In such a situation, the party of the proletariat has no other way but to take the path of protracted people’s war, just as in China, to advance the revolution towards victory i.e. to liberate the rural areas first and then having expanded the base areas-the centre of democratic power in rural areas- advance towards countrywide victory through encircling and capturing the cities”16 (taken from Maoists’ document issued after the merger of the two factions of PWG and Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) into CPI-M). So, Maoists have played the rules of asymmetry very carefully, and if there were no villages with population with grievances against the state, they would have found some other weak points where they could have played their game of asymmetry and that is what modern terrorists are doing, destroying public places and killing civilians which are symbols of government authority and simultaneously easily accessible to strike at.

Conclusion

So, the question arises, how do we deal with an enemy which is fighting a very different form of warfare with a well-laid-out strategy and tactics? The answer would be to train our own forces according to the principles of guerrilla warfare in which the Maoists profess to excel. The Maoist movement is based on certain ideology, the ideology of Marxism-Maoism and Leninism guided by the rules of asymmetric conflict. The Indian government can’t win this kind of warfare without defeating the ideas for which the Maoists stand to fight. The Maoists will never accept on their own that their ideology has become redundant. They will have to be shown the fruitlessness of their ideology by first weakening their fighting capacity and then by talking to them regarding the uselessness of their warfare. History is replete with examples of nonstate actors never agreeing to negotiation until and unless pressure has been mounted on them through offensive measures.

For example, ever since Operation Green Hunt was launched by the Government of India, several efforts have been made by different sections of the civil society to facilitate dialogue between the Indian government and the CPI-M but with no positive outcome. Offensive against the Naxalites will never succeed until the forces dealing with them have an understanding of their basic strategy and tactics, which means that the forces fighting the Naxalites will need to be trained on the pattern of fighting asymmetric warfare incorporating the principles of fourth-generation warfare, like movement in small units, less dependence on logistics and decentralisation of control and command.

The present initiative by the home ministry of launching a joint operation taking along all the states affected by Naxalism is a good attempt. States like Bihar and Jharkhand are not willing to be a part of this offensive, but they need to understand that Naxalites are not “citizens who have lost their way.” The recent episode where the Naxalites abducted four jawans in Bihar and even killed one of them during the first week of September clearly shows that Naxalites are in no mood to suspend their activities. They are manipulating the support of the “disgruntled tribals” that have lost faith in the Indian democratic system, guided by the principle of asymmetric warfare. The offensive is against the Naxalites who are waging a guerrilla warfare based on principles of fourth-generation warfare, misleading the tribals and using them to achieve their well-laid-out objectives. The sooner the states realise it, the better it will be for the counterinsurgency forces that are facing casualties every day in their fight against the Naxals. Individual attempts of states will lead to half-baked results because it will give the Naxalites an opportunity to shift their bases to adjoining states, a tactics of asymmetry which they have been following since time immemorial but which the government at the centre and the state fails to perceive.

Notes and References

1. For details concerning the fourth-generation warfare theory and its tenets, refer to the works of Lind, Hammes, Martin, Steven, Alexander and others.
2. United Press International. “Outside View: Exploring 4Th Gen War.” 14 January 2006, <http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Outside_View_Exploring_4Th_Gen_War.html>, (accessed 11 February 2010).
3. Bevin Alexander. “How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War—From Ancient Greece to the War on Terror.” <http://www.bevinalexander.com/books/how-wars-are-won-into.htm>, (accessed 23 April 2009).
4. Mao Tse-Tung. The Little Red Book- Quotations from Mao Tse-tung. Peking: Oak Grove, 2008.
5. There is mismatch in the references…this one seems to be missing
6. Ilyich Vladimir Lenin. Essential Works of Lenin: “What is to be Done?” and Other Writings. U.S.: Dover Publications, 1987.
7. Maurice Meisner. “Leninism and Maoism: Some Populist Perspectives on Marxism-Leninism in China.” China Quarterly vol. 45, no. 2, January 1971. p. 36.
8. Party programme released by CPI-M in 2004 after the merger of PWG and MCC into CPI-M. <http://www/satp.org>, (accessed 21 January 2010).
9. Ibid.
10. Brynjar Lia, editor. Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaeda Strategist Abu Musab al Suri. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
11. Al-Suri is one of the most important contrarians and theorist-practitioners in the history of al-Qaeda. Ackerman has pointed out that “If bin Laden’s lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is analogous to V.I. Lenin, Al-Suri is the jihadist Leon Trotsky: eager to pick a doctrinal fight and inject a reformist current into Al Qaeda’s operations.”
12. Paul Cruickshank and Mohannad Hage Ali. “Abu Musab Al Suri: Architect of the New Al Qaeda.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism vol. 30, June 2006. pp. 1–14.
13. Op cit, n. 7.
14. Sanjay K. Jha. “The Neglected Naxalite Arsenal.” Outlook, 24 July 2003. <http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?220851>, (accessed 19 February 2010).
15. The message of MPP to the “Convention Against War on People.” Red Sun Magazine. <http://www.redsun.org/mpp_doc/mpp_200912_India_En.html>, (accessed 19 February 2010).
16. Op cit, n. 7.
17. Op cit, n. 7.