Mamata vs Maoists

Joint Forces personnel and local residents stand near the body of a Trinamool Congress activist who was allegedly killed by Maoists at Jhargram in Pashchim Medinipur district on September 20. - PTI

West Bengal: Mamata Banerjee and the Maoists head for a confrontation as the security forces resume operations in Jangalmahal.

IT appears that the honeymoon is finally over and the gloves are off as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) shed niceties in favour of harsh and threatening language. The Trinamool Congress' relations with the CPI(Maoists) began to sour soon after it assumed power in May. The Maoists were clearly annoyed with Mamata's ambivalence on her pre-election promise of releasing all political prisoners and withdrawing the joint forces of the Central and State governments from the Jangalmahal region, the Maoist belt in the forested area along the borders of Pashchim Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia districts. Matters began heading for the inevitable face-off when, prompted by the killing of three Trinamool activists allegedly by the Maoists in the tribal region, Mamata Banerjee resumed operations by the joint forces against the left-wing extremists.

It has become clear that neither her initiatives for social and economic uplift of the tribal people in the Maoist belt nor the rehabilitation package announced for the Maoists who wish to surrender has succeeded in curbing the extremist movement. TheMaoists rejected repeated invitations by the State government for talks and set two conditions for coming to the negotiating table: withdrawal of the security forces and unconditional release of all political prisoners.

As the talks with the rebels got deadlocked and a confrontation appeared imminent, the Chief Minister continued to keep her hopes pinned on the interlocutors, Sujato Bhadra and Chhoton Das (both social activists), negotiating with the Maoists to achieve a breakthrough. Just as the joint forces began operations for area domination in Pashchim Medinipur district, the CPI(Maoist) State secretary,Akash, issued a statement, signed jointly with the two interlocutors, on October 4 offering a monthlong ceasefire provided the State government suspended all operations and disarmed political groups allegedly organising violent resistance against the rebels. The Maoists also indicated that they would form their own group of interlocutors to talk to the government. As of October 10, there was no official response to this from the State government.

As the State government geared up to intensify the anti-Maoist operations, the rebels lobbed the ball back into the government's court, issuing a statement saying that joint forces operations and peace talks were incompatible.

After about five months of peace in Jangalmahal, during which period the Trinamool Congress assumed power after defeating the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front in the Assembly elections, the Maoists announced their return to armed rebellion by resuming their programme of killing. The first victim was a CPI(M) worker of Pashchim Medinipur who was shot dead on August 22. Three days later, a Trinamool Congress worker from the same district was killed, as if to remind Mamata Banerjee that she had not kept her election promise. The killing of the Trinamool activist prompted Mamata to respond with strong words.

"The Maoists are killing civilians. This politics of murder has to stop. No one has the right to murder," she said. Her tone became stiffer following the killing on September 20 and 21 of two more Trinamool workers who were apparently encouraging the local people to resist the Maoists. "Killings and negotiations cannot take place together. You will have to decide your way out," she said. Likening the Maoists to "thieves", "robbers" and "cowards", she challenged them to try and stop the development process in Jangalmahal.

For Mamata, the latest Maoist action was an awakening to a reality that she had found convenient to deny while in the opposition. When her party was in the opposition, and the Maoist movement in the State was at its peak and Left supporters and workers were its main targets, she refused to acknowledge the Maoist violence in Jangalmahal. In fact, she dismissed the deaths occurring then as factional killings. Today the Chief Minister turns a deaf ear to the Maoists' demand and has forgotten her assurance to them that the joint operations in the region would be called off. But she had staged a rally in Jangalmahal in August 2010 to demand the withdrawal of the joint forces.

As Mamata Banerjee's political fortunes started soaring following her resounding victory in the Lok Sabha elections in 2009, she started to dissociate herself gradually from Maoist politics and from the People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA), a Maoist front organisation that claims to be democratic but maintains an armed militia. In February 2009, she even shared the dais with Chhatradhar Mahato, the then convener of the PCPA, and extended unequivocal support to his cause, but after his arrest in September that year she made no mention of him either at press conferences or at rallies. "Even if she may denounce them now, the Maoists will not let Mamata forget that it is because of them that she got the political upper hand in Jangalmahal.

Now her people will experience what we have been going through since 2008," a Left source in Pashchim Medinipur told Frontline. In fact, before the April-May Assembly elections, the extremists' sway in the Jangalmahal area had diminished considerably chiefly because of the stiff resistance put up by the local population and the operations conducted by the police and the security forces. Although they did occasionally strike at various places in the region, the activities of the Maoists were mainly confined to the hills of Purulia district. However, police sources said that the Maoists had been making use of the period since the elections, when peace prevailed in the area, to regroup and strengthen their organisational base, particularly in places where they had lost ground.

In fact, since early August, Statelevel Maoist leaders have been seen to be mingling with the local population. "We have definite information that the Maoists are trying to regroup, recruit young people and re-establish their control in the region, as they did during the pre-election days, before they were driven out of their strongholds," Praveen Tripathi, Superintendent of Police, Pashchim Medinipur, told Frontline.

According to police and political sources in the region, the Maoists have not yet come close to regaining the ground they had lost before the Assembly elections, and with the joint forces intensifying their operations, they are bound to lose whatever little they may have gained in the past few months. "Our past experience shows that this [the ceasefire offer] is a typical Maoist strategy to gain time. One month of ceasefire will be further extended, if they agree for talks, to another couple of months. In this period, even if they keep their militant activities in suspension, they will undoubtedly continue with their revolutionary politics, which involves meeting the masses and recruiting people, which is an integral part of protracted `people's war'," a senior intelligence source told Frontline.

It is significant that the Maoists did not mention their two demands in the signed statement. According to political observers, this may indicate the possibility of a dialogue in the near future when these demands can be brought up. Another point that remains unclear regarding the ceasefire offer is whether it had the approval of the group's central leadership. "The silence of the top Maoist leaders on this issue also casts doubt on its genuineness," said a senior police source. But the main reason why there is so much scepticism about the offer of ceasefire is that if the Maoists actually believe that the issues can be settled through the socially accepted channels of negotiations, then it can only mean that they have started discarding their ideology. "Their recent activities in West Bengal and other affected States clearly indicate to the contrary. So it would be an unwise decision to suspend the operations against them, as it is evidently a tactical ploy," a police source said.