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P R 051142Z JUL 06
FM AMCONSUL MUMBAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3967
INFO RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 5267
RUEHBI/AMCONSUL MUMBAI 8726
RUEHCG/AMCONSUL CHENNAI 1113
RUEHCI/AMCONSUL CALCUTTA 1023
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 0582
RUEHLH/AMCONSUL LAHORE 0074
RUEHKP/AMCONSUL KARACHI 0189
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU 0479
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA 0574
RUEHLM/AMEMBASSY COLOMBO 0593
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MUMBAI 001253 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  7/5/2016 
TAGS: PTER PINR PHUM PGOV ASEC CASC IN
SUBJECT: HOW SOUTHERN CHHATTISGARH BECAME INDIA'S HUB OF NAXALITE 
VIOLENCE 
 
REF: A) MUMBAI 358, B) MUMBAI 1119 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Michael Owen, Consul General, Consulate, Mumbai, 
State Department. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (C) Southern Chhattisgarh has become the epicenter of 
Naxalite violence in India, with 214 insurgent-related 
casualties to date in 2006 and every indication that numbers 
will continue to rise.  There are several causes for this 
escalating crisis.  After the state was established in late 
2000, the Government of Chhattisgarh (GOC) has attempted to 
establish control over and develop Naxalite-administered 
territory in the southernmost Kanker, Bastar and Dantewara 
districts. This has prompted insurgent attacks and compelled the 
GOC to militarize its police force and double it in size.  At 
the same time, Naxalites from Andhra Pradesh reportedly shifted 
significant operational capacity to southern Chhattisgarh during 
and after the 2004-05 failed peace talks in AP.  Finally, a 
counter-insurgency movement, "Salwa Judum," began in June 2005 
among the region's tribal population, which has resulted in 
violent civil conflict among the people of Dantewara district 
and record numbers of civilian deaths.  Our contacts recommend 
public-private partnerships as the best method for bringing 
peace and development to southern Chhattisgarh, while noting 
that corporate giants Essar, the National Mineral Development 
Corporation, and Tata all intend to build steel plants in 
Dantewara.  End summary. 
 
 
2006 Casualties 
--------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) In February 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh 
described Naxalites as "the single biggest internal security 
challenge ever faced by [India]."  Currently, India's most 
severe Maoist insurgent challenge is in southern Chhattisgarh. 
According to the South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR) there 
have been 214 Naxal-related casualties in 2006 through June 27 
in Chhattisgarh, almost all of which occurred in the 
southernmost districts of Kanker, Bastar and Dantewara. 
Official state police statistics are not yet available for this 
period but our sources in the department confirmed these 
numbers.  The reported deaths include 45 police, 50 insurgents 
and 119 civilians.  The next closest Indian state by comparison 
is Andhra Pradesh, which, according to SAIR, experienced 63 
fatalities over the same period. 
 
 
Creation of a New State and the Origins of Conflict 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Until achieving statehood in 2000, Chhattisgarh was 
the most neglected part of Madhya Pradesh, itself one of the 
more underdeveloped states in India, EconOff heard at a 
conference on Naxalism hosted by Mumbai's Nehru Centre on June 
¶23.  Even within Chhattisgarh, the state's southern third is 
considered a backwater.  As described in ref A, the sparsely 
populated Kanker, Bastar and Dantewara districts in southern 
Chhattisgarh are hilly and heavily forested.  "Scheduled Tribes" 
as a percentage of the total population in this region increase 
as one travels south, from 56 percent in Kanker, to 67 percent 
in Bastar, to 79 percent in Dantewara.  Scheduled Tribes are at 
the bottom of India's social-caste structure, and in southern 
Chhattisgarh they continue to live in primitive farming and 
hunter-gatherer communities deep within the forest.  Exercise of 
government authority and provision of state services in these 
wilderness areas has been largely absent.  The Abujhmar (or 
"Unknown Land") region of west Bastar, for instance, is only now 
being surveyed for the first time, and that by remote sensing, 
according to civil society activist and journalist B.G. 
Verghese. 
 
 
¶4.  (SBU) The few state officials posted to southern 
Chhattisgarh were frequently accused of misconduct by villagers 
 
MUMBAI 00001253  002 OF 004 
 
 
there, according to former intelligence officer Anjaneya Reddy. 
By the mid-1980s, Naxalites from Andhra Pradesh gained a 
foothold in the area by offering to protect tribal communities 
from abusive police, forest officials, timber mafia and 
money-lenders.  In return, Naxalites forcibly recruited one 
child from each local family, and "taxed" local farmers, 
contractors and traders at 12 percent. The then state government 
in Bhopal had generally abdicated its rights and obligations in 
the area, and the Naxalites increased in size and influence 
without facing much resistance.  Annual levels of 
insurgent-related deaths in Chhattisgarh were typically in the 
single digits. 
 
 
¶5.  (C) This all began to change when Chhattisgarh became a 
state in 2000.  Abdication was abandoned in favor of extending 
government control and promoting development, which inevitably 
brought the state into direct confrontation with the insurgents, 
Verghese concludes.  (Comment: Whatever past expediencies local 
politicians may have traded with area Naxalites surely must have 
paled in value to developing India's most mineral rich state 
from the government's newly won seat of power in Raipur.  End 
comment.)  The GOC, accordingly, has doubled the size of the 
state police force and is giving every officer a six-week 
paramilitary training program at the Counter-Terrorism and 
Jungle Warfare Training Center in Kanker (CTJWTC - ref B). 
Naxalites, in turn, have increased attacks against police and 
banned most new development initiatives, especially roads, 
bridges, and schools.  Preventing connectivity to the outside 
world, administrative penetration, and educational empowerment 
are fundamental to preserving power from the insurgents' 
perspective, several conference participants argued.  Naxalite 
tactics include election fraud, threats, infiltration and 
misinformation.  They divert local resources from state and 
private development projects and subsequently attack respective 
administration offices to destroy evidence of their wrongdoing. 
The director and staff of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in 
Chhattisgarh report that many NGO projects in southern 
Chhattisgarh are now closed due to Naxalite pressure.  The NGO 
community's inability to provide disaster assistance to 
Dantewara district's growing IDP camps - also due to fear of 
Naxalite retribution - is another result of this tactic, which 
will be further detailed septel. 
 
 
Naxalite Profile in Southern Chhattisgarh 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (C) Today, the Naxalite insurgents operating in southern 
Chhattisgarh are the former People's War (PW) element of the 
recently created CPI (Maoist) organization and led by Telagu 
speakers from Andhra Pradesh, with Chhattisgarhi tribal people 
filling out the preponderance of rank-and-file membership.  An 
estimated 3,000-4,500 Naxalite troops are based in southern 
Chhattisgarh, usually in bands of 30-40 fighters, according to 
Director General of Police Rathode.  Brigadier General (ret.) 
B.K. Ponwar, Special Inspector General of Police and Director of 
the CTJWTC told ConGenOffs that "Kosa" took over command after 
former Naxalite state commander "Sanyal" was captured this 
March.  Like his predecessor, Kosa is from Andhra Pradesh. 
Shailesh Pathak, Secretary to the Governor of Chhattisgarh, 
earlier told us that the state's insurgency problem escalated 
during and after the failed October 15, 2004 - April 4, 2005 
peace talks in neighboring Andhra Pradesh, as the insurgents 
used the ceasefire period to consolidate greater operational 
capacity in southern Chhattisgarh. 
 
 
¶7.  (C) Chhattisgarh's insurgency problem increases as one 
travels south.  In May 2006, ConGenOffs rode with police escort 
from the state capitol Raipur to the CTJWTC in central Kanker 
district (ref B).  Despite the heavily reported presence of 
Naxalite operatives existing throughout Kanker, daylight road 
traffic seemed normal.  John Ash, a veteran expat resident and 
local tour operator, told us that travel is risky in Bastar and 
becomes consistently dangerous south of the Bhopalpatnam to 
Jagdalpur highway in Dantewara, an area where he refuses to take 
customers.  Insurgents have not targeted tourists to date, and 
are not likely to do so in the near future, according to Ash and 
the police, but their frequent use of land mines and IEDs make 
 
MUMBAI 00001253  003 OF 004 
 
 
travel in almost all of Dantewara wholly unsafe. 
 
 
¶8.  (C) West Bastar's Abhujmar area, which shares a hilly border 
with Maharashtra, is home to large pockets of insurgent fighters 
and is another no-go zone, Ash told us.  Likewise, increasing 
violence in eastern Dantewara towards and into the town of 
Jagdalpur, which stems from attempts to link Dantewara- and 
Orissa-based Naxalite operations, makes travel there 
inadvisable.  CRS staff in Chhattisgarh agreed with this 
assessment and added that significant insurgent encampments also 
exist in the Konta, Gangalore and Bijaput areas of Dantewara, on 
the state's southernmost border with Andhra Pradesh.  Insurgents 
concentrate operations in state border areas so as to better 
flee between police jurisdictions, our police contacts told us. 
 
 
The "Salwa Judum" Counter-Insurgency 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶9.  (C) India's only active anti-Naxalite, grassroots 
counter-insurgency is the "Salwa Judum" campaign in Dantewara 
district, which is primarily responsible for Chhattisgarh's 
escalating casualties among civilians.  The origins of Salwa 
Judum as either a true people's uprising, or a GOC organized 
offensive was the matter of much debate at both the Naxalite 
conference in Mumbai and in the Indian press.  Leftist elements 
within the UPA government in Delhi have publicly accused the 
BJP-led GOC of instigating the bloody counter-insurgency, and 
are demanding that the GOC put an end to Salwa Judum.  However, 
Dantewara MLA Mahendra Karma, who also is leader of the Congress 
opposition in state parliament, told EconOff that his 
constituents began the movement on their own and then drafted 
him as Salwa Judum's leader.  Karma claims that he convinced the 
GOC to support Salwa Judum as a means of securing resources from 
Delhi.  His account was confirmed by BJP insider Pathak. 
(Comment:  Regardless of how it started, the counter-insurgency 
would appear difficult for the GOC to unilaterally end, even if 
it were so inclined, because GOC forces currently exert little 
control over the relevant actors in the movement or the district 
in general.  End comment.) 
 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Droughts in 2004 and 2005, as Karma and Verghese tell 
the story, limited the harvest of wild tendu leaves that are the 
major source of cash income for southern Chhattisgarh's tribal 
people (tendu leaf is used locally to roll inexpensive 
cigarettes).  To make up lost "tax" revenues, the Naxalites 
demanded that wholesale buyers pay twice as much for this 
product, which was rejected.  The Naxalites then banned all 
tendu harvesting from April to May 2005. This deprived tribals 
of sales revenue and the customary annual government bonus they 
receive after the final market sale of the season. 
 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Resentment sparked tensions and on June 5, 2005, in 
Ambeli village, Dantewara, eight Naxalites were beaten and 
apprehended by supporters of Mahendra Karma.  Naxalites 
retaliated by killing eight innocent villagers in nearby 
Kotrapal village.  What followed next is unclear, according to 
our contacts.  Fighting, abductions, torture, reprisal killings 
and burned villages, in any event, have created deep divisions 
among the tribal people, over 50,000 of whom fled or were 
forcibly brought to roadside IDP camps.  (Comment:  The ferocity 
of the Naxalite's response is not without precedent.  They 
killed 70 tribal people to quash a 1992-93 rebellion in the 
region.  End comment.) 
 
 
¶12.  (C) Today, Salwa Judum has approximately 5,000 members.  Of 
these somewhere between 2,500-3,000 have been made Special 
Police Officers.  They receive 1,500 rupees a month salary 
(roughly $35) and rudimentary training and are placed alongside 
CRPF and other paramilitary units to provide camp security and 
to operate road-blocks and checkpoints.  Some have received 
guns, but many use bows and arrows.  They are an "aggressive, 
out-of-control rabble," according to Verghese, who visited 
Dantewara in March 2006 to inspect IDP camps and interview Salwa 
Judum members.  Verghese accuses Salwa Judum of atrocities 
similar to those committed by Naxalites, including in particular 
 
MUMBAI 00001253  004 OF 004 
 
 
widespread burning of suspected Naxalite sympathizers' villages. 
 
 
Comment: Suggested Solutions 
---------------------------- 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Conference participants recommended public-private 
partnerships to bring development to southern Chhattisgarh, 
noting that corporate giants Essar, the National Mineral 
Development Corporation, and Tata all intend to build steel 
plants in Dantewara.  Local villagers should be given a place at 
the negotiating table and a greater role in governing and 
policing themselves, it was agreed.  If the security situation 
improves enough to make such investment possible, then these 
recommendations have obvious merit, but given that it will also 
upset thousands of years of social order, bringing development 
to the area's Scheduled Tribes may have unpredictable challenges 
of its own.  End comment. 
OWEN