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RR RUEHAST RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHLH RUEHPW
DE RUEHCG #0322/01 2670409
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 230409Z SEP 08
FM AMCONSUL CHENNAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1864
INFO RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 3295
RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RUEIDN/DNI WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 CHENNAI 000322 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PTER ECON PHUM ASEC IN
SUBJECT:  ANDHRA PRADESH ANTI-MAOIST STRATEGY SUCCESSFUL, BUT TOUGH 
TO REPLICATE 
 
REF:  A) CHENNAI 234 B) CHENNAI 110 C) 07 CHENNAI 569 D) O7 CHENNAI 
559 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  The South India state Andhra Pradesh, which was 
once a hotbed of Maoist activity, has made substantial progress in 
quelling the leftist insurgency within its borders.  The state's 
success can be attributed to improved governance, both in terms of 
more effective policing and the delivery of welfare programs to 
economically backward rural areas.  The centerpiece of the state's 
policing strategy is an elite anti-Maoist paramilitary unit that 
uses jungle-warfare methods and a strong intelligence network to 
eliminate insurgents in the state.  But the unit's heavy-handed 
tactics have led to credible concerns over human rights violations. 
The state also encourages Maoist insurgents to lay down their arms 
and return to society through a forgiving surrender policy.  Years 
of Maoist violence against innocent civilians has led to a backlash 
against the leftists, further strengthening the government's hand. 
The state's recent economic boom has also eroded the appeal of 
Maoist ideology, especially in the once fertile ground of the 
state's university campuses.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) The state of Andhra Pradesh, located in South India, is 
one of the historic centers of the Maoist (also known as Naxalite) 
insurgency that has plagued India since 1967.  Although the 
insurgency originated in West Bengal, it quickly took root in 
northwest Andhra Pradesh.  After decades of guerilla violence, the 
state began during the 1990s an aggressive campaign against the 
Maoists, and is now considered one of India's most successful states 
in terms of controlling the insurgency (refs C and D).  On an August 
25 - 26 visit to Andhra Pradesh, Manpreet S. Anand, Professional 
Staff Member, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign 
Affairs, and Political/Economic Officer met with a range of contacts 
from government, the police, the media, and civil society to discuss 
the state of the insurgency and lessons learned from the Andhra 
Pradesh response. 
 
State of the Maoist insurgency in Andhra Pradesh 
-------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Our interlocutors generally agreed that the state is 
succeeding in diminishing the insurgency.  Police and government 
interlocutors appeared uniformly confident.  Additional Director 
General of Police (Intelligence) Aravinda Rao told Anand that the 
Maoists "are not a major threat" to Andhra Pradesh.  When pressed 
about the difficulties that the states to the north are 
experiencing, Rao said "Chhattisgarh is doing much better" but 
acknowledged that "more work needs to be done" in Orissa and 
Jharkhand.  Andhra Pradesh, he emphasized, has more than twenty 
years experience fighting the Maoists.  The other states are new to 
counter-insurgency but are making fast progress, according to Rao, 
and he has no doubt that "the force of the Indian state will contain 
the Maoists." 
 
¶4. (SBU) Anand and Political/Economic Officer traveled to Andhra 
Pradesh's Warangal district.  Located approximately 140 kilometers 
northeast of Hyderabad, Warangal was once a center of Maoist 
activity in the state.  Srinivas Reddy, Deputy Bureau Chief for The 
Hindu, said that during the 1980s and early 1990s Maoists "openly 
moved about" the district without fear of the authorities. 
Warangal's District Collector and Superintendent of Police said that 
Maoists no longer pose a major problem in the district.  District 
Collector Janardhan Reddy said Maoists "are hardly visible" anymore. 
 Superintendent of Police V.C. Sajjanar said he did not consider 
Maoists to be a serious problem; instead he focused on traditional 
issues like street crime and the maintenance of law and order. 
They did, however, disagree on the degree to which the Maoists are 
still present in Warangal.  Reddy said there are no Maoist-affected 
villages in the district, but according to Sajjanar ten to fifteen 
percent of the district's total surface area, primarily in the 
forested part close to the Chhattisgarh border, is Maoist-affected. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Rao said that there are 200 underground, armed Maoists in 
Andhra Pradesh and roughly 6,000 throughout India.  Sajjanar, on the 
other hand, told Anand that there are "probably 100" Maoists in 
Warangal district alone.  (Note: Given that Warangal is one of 
several Maoist-affected districts in Andhra Pradesh, it is difficult 
to reconcile Sajjanar's estimate of 100 Maoists in Warangal district 
with Rao's figure of 200 for the whole state.  End note.)  Sajjanar 
shared several albums of photos of Maoists that the police believe 
operate in Warangal district.  According to Sajjanar, the photos 
were seized in raids or given to the police by surrendered Maoists. 
Political/Economic Officer counted photos of 62 different alleged 
Maoists, 28 of whom were women.  The Maoists were typically pictured 
in military fatigues in forested settings.  In most of the pictures 
 
CHENNAI 00000322  002 OF 004 
 
 
the Maoists carried rifles, some of which were identified as AK-47s 
by the police officer who was showing the photos.  In one series of 
photos a group of approximately ten Maoists, all carrying weapons, 
were pictured standing at attention in formation. 
 
 
Improved governance - carrots and sticks 
-------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) The importance of improving governance was a common thread 
throughout our discussions in Andhra Pradesh.  The civilian 
administrator emphasized the importance of delivering government 
services to rural areas whereas police officers focused on 
implementing effective policing strategies.  Warangal District 
Collector Janardhan Reddy said that "governance is key" to the 
state's efforts to combat the Maoists.  He listed a litany of 
government welfare programs that have helped reduce the appeal of 
Maoist ideology, including education (he claimed that 100% of 
children under 14 years old in the district are enrolled in school), 
health care, insurance set up through state-sponsored "self-help 
groups," housing programs, and publicly funded irrigation projects. 
Reddy did, however, admit that "the quality of service delivery has 
to be improved."  Reddy also spent a good deal of time talking about 
the importance of bureaucratic accountability and responsiveness to 
the public's demands.  He said the district has focused on 
"responding to the needs of the vulnerable Scheduled Castes and 
Scheduled Tribes" by increasing opportunities for these communities 
to participate in the democratic process.  Reddy pointed out that, 
going down to the village-level, there are 10,000 to 15,000 elected 
representatives in the district.  "All of these participatory 
channels mean that people don't need to resort to alternative 
methods to express their grievances," Reddy said, clearly alluding 
to the Maoists. 
 
 
Not just carrots, but also sticks:  the Greyhounds 
-------- 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  In contrast to the various inducements Reddy described, 
police officers focused on the sticks rather than the carrots. 
Additional Director General of Police (Intelligence) Rao, who began 
his career as a young officer in Warangal district in the 1980s, was 
dismissive of the development-oriented approach described by 
Janardhan Reddy.  He said the problem in India's Maoist-affected 
areas is not development but the "absence of the writ of law."  Rao 
said that "if the people see that the police don't come to their 
village they will turn to the Maoists, but if the police are present 
they will not." 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Rao said the state's elite anti-Maoist unit, known as the 
"Greyhounds," will contain the insurgency.  The Greyhounds, India's 
first unit designed especially to combat the Maoist insurgency, are 
not a typical Indian police unit.  In an August 2007 meeting the 
Greyhounds chief explained that the Greyhounds have recruiting 
standards equivalent to India's elite military units, train for 
independent jungle warfare operations, are equipped with the best 
weapons, and are paid a substantial premium for their service in the 
unit.  The Greyhounds also have a sophisticated intelligence 
operation that includes a wide network of informants (refs C and D). 
 Human rights lawyer K. Balagopal told Anand and Political/Economic 
officer that the success of the Greyhounds is largely due to the 
information it receives from informants who have turned against the 
Maoists due to the insurgents' increasingly heavy-handed tactics. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The Greyhounds emphasize killing, rather than capturing 
suspected Maoists.  In what are known as "combing" operations, 
Greyhounds units search patches of thickly forested regions for 
Maoists based on intelligence leads, living in the forests for days 
at a time, operating in small, independent units, seeking out Maoist 
insurgents and engaging them in firefights.  The Greyhounds are also 
known for "encounter killings," an Indian euphemism to describe an 
extrajudicial killing of a suspected Maoist (or criminal), where the 
police stage the scene so it appears that the victim attempted to 
escape police custody or was going to shoot a police officer. 
Srinivas Reddy of The Hindu said that at least 60 percent of the 
Maoists killed in Andhra Pradesh die in "encounter killings." Rao 
flatly denied the possibility that the recent ambush which killed 
more than 30 Greyhounds (ref A) indicates that the Maoists have 
gained an upper hand.  He said they are analyzing all that went 
wrong but that it is "quite clear that the unit had made several 
mistakes," which led to the successful Maoist ambush.  He said the 
ambush would not deter the Greyhounds from continuing to conduct 
cross-border operations in neighboring states (ref b). 
 
 
CHENNAI 00000322  003 OF 004 
 
 
Surrender policy helps pull Maoists back into society 
-------- 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Warangal Superintendent of Police Sajjanar said that 
Maoists "regularly" surrender, which is the result of a deliberate 
policy designed to encourage Maoists to give themselves up.  The 
policy as Sajjanar described is quite forgiving and applies to 
Maoists except the insurgents' most senior leaders, who are believed 
to be so ideologically committed that they are very unlikely to 
surrender.  Sajjanar said the Maoists who typically surrender are 
people who joined the insurgency for "understandable reasons," such 
as extreme poverty, family problems, or caste-based oppression in 
their villages.  Maoists who surrender are not punished; they are 
sent back to their home villages to be reintegrated into society. 
They receive help in securing employment and, if there was a reward 
for their capture, the surrendering Maoist receives the reward. 
Sajjanar said that the police do debrief the Maoists upon surrender 
for any useful information and they monitor their activities after 
reintegration. 
 
Backlash against Maoists helps the cause 
-------- 
 
¶11.  (SBU) K. Balagopal, who has represented accused Maoists and is 
openly sympathetic to their cause, admitted that the insurgents' 
excesses have led to popular backlash against the movement. 
Balagopal noted that the majority of those killed by the Maoists are 
poor people wrongly accused of being police informants.  He 
attributed the lack of discipline on the part of the Maoists to a 
breakdown in their vetting process.  "Before the cadre was driven by 
ideology, but now many are just rowdies," he said.  Between the "the 
alienation of local people" generated by the Maoist violence and the 
police's willingness to offer generous amounts of money to 
informants, Balagopal said it is no surprise that the police have 
obtained a good deal of actionable intelligence against the Maoists. 
 He added that "an armed movement requires social support."  Looking 
dejected, Balagopal told Anand and Political/Economic Officer that 
"we hoped they [the Maoists] would see that they were alienating 
themselves from their supporters and reduce the violence, but quite 
the opposite has happened." 
 
Economic growth lessens Maoist appeal 
--------- 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Andhra Pradesh's growing prosperity, largely fueled by 
information and biotechnology, has also helped in the fight against 
the Maoists.  Much of the economic growth has taken place in and 
around Hyderabad, which is just a short drive from the state's areas 
of Maoist activity.  Proximity to prosperity is lessening the appeal 
of Maoist ideology, especially to young people.  Srinivas Reddy, 
Deputy Bureau Chief for The Hindu, said that at India's universities 
-- once the Maoist's prime recruiting grounds -- there is little 
interest in leftist ideology:  "young people want to go to school, 
get a job at Oracle, or get an H-1B (visa) and go to the U.S."  K. 
Balagopal, an opponent of liberalizing India's economy, grudgingly 
agreed, noting that Indian youth "are more interested in material 
wealth," but added that neo-liberal economic policies are creating 
more support for the Maoists among dispossessed rural Indians. 
 
Dissenting voice says "U.S. should be worried" 
--------- 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Srinivas Reddy, Deputy Bureau Chief for The Hindu, 
sounded a discordant view against the general consensus that Andhra 
Pradesh has a good handle on the insurgency.  Reddy, who has 
followed the Maoists in Andhra Pradesh for more than a decade, 
started the conversation by saying "the U.S. should be worried" 
about the Maoists because they "are a real threat to Indian 
sovereignty."  Reddy said "New Delhi is focused on the troubles in 
the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir; it has not mounted a serious 
response to the Maoists."  He added that although the Maoists are at 
war against the Indian state, their propaganda fixes a great deal of 
attention on "U.S. imperialism."  According to Reddy, the Maoists 
will not, however, attack U.S. interests in India for fear of 
drawing the United States into the conflict. 
 
¶14.  (SBU) Reddy said the Maoists have ample funding and weaponry to 
continue the fight.  He said "money is no problem, they get more 
than enough from the MNCs (multinational corporations) and their 
subcontractors," who pay protection money for the right to do 
business in Maoist areas.  Reddy also argued that the Maoists have 
no trouble arming themselves.  The Maoists seize most of what they 
need from the police, Reddy said, citing as an example the February 
2008 Maoist raid of a government armory in Nayagarh, Orissa which 
 
CHENNAI 00000322  004 OF 004 
 
 
netted the insurgents at least 600 weapons.  Reddy added that the 
Maoists can easily purchase weapons in India's Northeast states. 
 
 
¶15.  (SBU) Police contacts, though confident that the state is 
beating the Maoists, echoed Reddy's sentiment that Maoists have 
ample funding and the ability to acquire enough weapons.  Warangal 
Superintendent of Police V.C. Sajjanar said mining companies pay 
protection money to the Maoists; Additional Director General of 
Police (Intelligence) Rao mentioned the forestry industry.  Rao also 
agreed with Reddy that the Maoists source weapons from the Northeast 
states.  He said the Maoists have obtained weapons from the United 
Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). 
 
¶16.  (SBU) Reddy also criticized the idea that Andhra Pradesh's 
paramilitary-based approach is an effective solution for the rest of 
India.  "The Greyhounds are a myth," he said.  "It took thirty years 
for Andhra Pradesh to get to this point."  But it is "not 
replicable," because Chhattisgarh and Orissa do not have the time or 
resources it takes to build up a Greyhounds-like unit. 
 
Comment: success at the cost of human rights 
--------- 
 
¶17.  (SBU) Comment:  There is no doubt that Andhra Pradesh has had 
success against the Maoist insurgency, much more so than the other 
affected states.  It has done so through the application of brute 
force, the use of intelligence, and by delivering welfare measures 
to the rural parts of the state.  The state's economic boom, though 
largely happening in urban Hyderabad, has helped by depriving the 
Maoists of vital support among the youth in universities.  But the 
state's success came at a price:  the tacit acceptance by the body 
politic of extrajudicial killings of suspected Maoists allows the 
state to fundamentally disregard basic human rights. 
 
Comment:  Andhra Pradesh a difficult model to replicate 
--------- 
 
¶18.  (SBU) Comment continued.  Putting aside the desirability of the 
security/human rights tradeoff that Andhra Pradesh has made, the 
other Maoist-affected states may lack the administrative 
capabilities and, more critically, the time to implement the Andhra 
Pradesh model.  Andhra Pradesh's Greyhounds have achieved a level of 
sophistication far beyond that of the vast majority of Indian police 
and paramilitary units.  Moreover, Andhra Pradesh's relatively 
strong bureaucracy and vast budgets give it the ability to implement 
a wide array of welfare programs throughout the state.  Finally, the 
state's political leadership, particularly former Chief Minister 
Chandrababu Naidu, made defeating the Maoist insurgency one of the 
state's primary goals.  But even with these elements in place, it 
took more than twenty years for Andhra Pradesh to reach this point, 
and the threat has not been eradicated.  Indian policy makers may be 
looking to Andhra Pradesh as their model, but the record there 
indicates that victory against the Maoists is not likely to come in 
the immediate future.  End comment. 
 
SIMKIN