PWG Naxalites: Set-back in the bastion, expansion elsewhere

The striking capability and influence of the People's War Group (PWG) Naxalites' has steadily been declining in their flagship North Telengana Special Zone (NTSZ) area since the past few years. The death of some experienced, capable and important leaders of the NTSZ, especially in the past couple of years, in security force operations has weakened the Naxalites there.

To make matters difficult for the PWG Naxalites, they have not been able to quickly fill the void created by the loss of the leaders, and even if they did the successors have been less qualified. As a result, internal organisation, fresh recruitment, direction and military operations, as well as expanding the political activities of the group received a set-back. Further, their acts of destruction and a campaign of killing local-level political leaders have created resentment against them among the local populace, which, thus, contributed to erosion in their support base.

The stiff measures adopted by the security forces and a concerted campaign by government agencies against the PWG aided in significant measure to weaken the latter there. As a result, the PWG has taken recourse to bizarre methods in order to display that it retains clout in its traditional stronghold. These included killing civilians and destroying private as well as public property.

PWG offences in NTSZ area

Source: Andhra Pradesh Police, Hyderabad

It is significant to note that there has not been a single security force casualty at the hands of the PWG in the NTSZ area in the year 2003. But, two and eight security force personnel had been killed in PWG operations in the year 2002 and 2001, respectively. The 50 casualties recorded in the year 2003 have, thus, been those of civilians, including local-level political leaders, who the PWG routinely alleges are police informers, and had, thus, to be killed. Of those 50, an overwhelming majority of the killings were reported from two of the five districts that constitute the NTSZ in which the PWG is relatively strong, Karinmagar and Warangal. Besides these two districts, Khammam, Adilabad and Nizamabad comprise what the PWG says is its NTSZ area. The PWG had killed 16 and 17 civilians respectively in Karimnagar and Warangal districts.

Indeed, sustained combing operations by the police in the NTSZ and their frequent visits to Naxalite-affected villages had had two entirely different effects, as this has researcher has noted during a field visit conducted in the area in the first week of January 2004.

One, the PWG has correctly assessed that it was beyond its capacity to militarily fight a determined security force in the NTSZ area. Therefore, it has relocated its squads to safer areas in Andhra Pradesh, where the security forces are either yet to realize the looming dangers of an increased presence of PWG armed squads or are incapable of fighting them. Thus, one would notice increased PWG violence in other parts of Anhdra Pradesh--in the various districts that fall under the jurisdiction of the Andhra Pradesh State Committee of the PWG, which have yet not reported the magnitude of PWG activity that would have enabled the outfit to term those areas as guerrilla zones of domination. (Those districts apart, the five north coastal Andhra districts viz. East and West Godavari, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam are part of what the PWG says are part of the Andhra-Orissa Border special Zone area).

PWG offences in AP State Committee area

Source: Andhra Pradesh Police, Hyderabad

A second effect of regular security force presence in the areas that constitute the NTSZ has been that the local populace look-up to the latter to solve their problems. In fact, at a few number of places in which this researcher interacted with the local people, they have repeatedly said, almost as if in unison, that they have been urging the local police to provide them with amenities for agriculture or forward to the authorities their request for reconstructing the local revenue office or a police station or a telephone exchange that had in the past been destroyed by the PWG in explosions. Indeed, it is either because the people are either unaware that it is not the function of the police--to get revenue offices or telephone exchanges re-built, but it is an activity that the revenue/civil administration has to undertake--or the civil administration does not venture out into areas considered PWG strongholds. The administration it, thus, emerges is far and removed from its people, while the police has been filling the vacuum. The people are, thus, looking towards one of the agencies of the government. The reality, therefore, is like the philosophical question--Is the cup half full, or half empty?

Email ID: [email protected]

* Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Observer Research Foundation.>

• Domestic Politics and Governance
• Defence and Security
• State Level Politics
• Internal Security
• India
• Agenda
• Copyrights
• Covid 19
• COVID-hit
• Developing and Emerging Economies
• EAST AND SO
• EAST AND SOUTH EAST ASIA
• East and Southeast
• gasht-e-ershad
• impeachment trap
• International Trade and Investment
• life-saver
• marine resources
• Mohammad Jafar Montazeri
• Pedro Castillo
• PRIVACY & DATA PROTECTION
• rioters
• severe infection
• sustainable development
• एपेक 2022
• जी20
• तकनीकी विशेषज्ञ
• ताताइवान
• पूर्व एवं दक्षिण-पूर्व एशिया
• बीसीजी बैंकॉक मॉडल
• विकासशील एवं उभरती अर्थव्यवस्थाएं
• सीपीएन – एमसी
• सैन्य सुरक्षा
• हिंद प्रशांत

The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.

PREV NEXT