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.
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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.
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