Volume 6, No. 4, April 2005

The state routinely propagates that the people are forced to support the Naxalites. The media routinely propagates that the people are ‘caught’ between the police and the Naxalites. The actual picture is totally different. People are neither ‘forced’ nor ‘caught’. The ongoing People’s War is not something alien to them to be forced or caught. It is very much part and parcel of their lives. The state is no doubt aware of this fact. That is the reason why it tries to distance the masses from the ‘hold’ of the movement.

The movement never drifts away from the masses. The masses never drift away from the move-ment. The increasing participation of the masses reveals the fact that the masses and the revolut-ionary move-ment are intertwined. It is worth knowing how the people respond to the calls of the Party and how they participate.

After establishing the People’s Guerilla Army (now PLGA), by the erstwhile CPI(ML) (PW) the participation of the masses increased tremendously. Militias were formed in which almost all the youth of a village became members. The militia is not a mere organization. It is a movement. Its work ranges from normal routine works related to the movement to taking up retaliation on their own. This apart, the masses resist the police from arresting the leaders of their Sangh.

Let us take some instances of people’s retaliation to get a picture of how it is a real people’s war:

This is an incident in which the people protected the village leaders of the Sangh in the Dandakaranya Special Zone,. In Ahiri area of Gadchiroli, which administratively falls under the state of Maharashtra, forty policemen went to Ekre village to arrest the leaders of the Sangh. Aware of this, the people hid them. The police got mad and got hold of five old men and tortured them. The people questioned this deed. The police said "We shall not keep quiet if you give food to the Naxalites and put up their posters". The people asked them, "What were you doing then? What is wrong in giving food to the Naxalites?" Apprehensive of the people’s resistance the police left the village.

In another incident in Michugunda village, people saved their Sangh leader from the hold of the police. The Police came to the small village of thirteen households and tried to arrest the Sangh leaders. The people stopped them. The police came again in two batches. While one batch engaged the people the other left with the leaders. As soon as they realized what happened, twenty women and men went to the police station even before the police batch could reach. They demanded the SI. When the police batch reached the station with the Sangh leaders, they could do nothing but hand them over to the people. The police even had to go back on their condition to make the leaders visit the station once a week. "Never come to our village" said the people to the police.

This is a heart touching incident that took place in Andhra Pradesh. The readers are aware that Com. Krishna, a State Committee Member, and three others drowned and were killed in river Krishna in AP. In this tragic incident the party lost the weapons of the comrades also. After a few days the then PGA members went to the spot in a bid to search for the weapons.

As they were discussing how to do it, the local people said, ‘Comrade, if you give us a chance we shall get them to you’. The guerillas agreed. How the people searched for the wea-pons is quite interesting to know. They got ten thin iron rods and bent them. They cut a piece of raw wood with ten centime-ters diameter and three and a half meters length. They tied the rods to the log, with two ropes on either side of the log. They put the two ropes in two baskets and dropped it into the river. It is not an easy thing to search at a depth of thirty meters in a river with a width of fifty meters. Moreover there was mud at the bottom, two meters deep. After two hours of hectic search they got hold of one AK 47. Later one more AK 47 and then the .303 rifles surfaced. The guerillas were overjoyed. Despite staying for such a long time in the water, the rifles fired well!

Is anything impossible if the people are really mobilised to actively participate in the people’s war?

Let us once again go back to Dandakaranya to see the heroic deeds of the people’s militia.

Retaliatory actions have become routine, as also the creative activity of the people’s militia. The militia collects information about the enemy and protects the villages and the secondary forces of the PLGA. In a way, the militia are the eyes and ears of the PLGA.

In the past two years the militia took up 275-armed actions in the DK Special Zone. Out of these, 37 were famine raids, 37 harassment acts against the enemy forces, 11 ambushes, 35 single actions, 150 sabotage actions and 5 other actions. The Militias took up seventy percent of these on its own and the rest under the leadership of the secondary forces of the PLGA.

In Tipragad in Gadchiroli, the militia fired five times on a police camp and three times on the Kodur camp. It attacked the police station in Bhamragad, Perimili and Thadki police station in North Bastar two times each. In South Bastar it took up such actions three times in three consecutive days.

‘Pig bombs’ are tied to the arrow and targeted on the police with the bow. These are bombs normally used to kill pigs in the forest. The police mistake these raids to be real ones. They expend their ammunition, grenades, mortar shells, flairs and other such weaponry the whole night in order to counter these ‘dummy raids’ of the militia.

In Jegurogonda in South Bastar division of DK, two thousand people from thirty-two villages encircled a police station under the leadership of the militia. While half of them stopped the police from coming out, the other half destroyed the properties of the forest department.

Eight hundred people from thirty villages under the leadership of the militia and PLGA raided the house of a Zamindar in Sonepur in Maad division. They seized his properties, house and destroyed the buildings of the forest department and those of the government.

The enemy is baffled with the actions of the militia. They are panicky and do not know from where they will get hit next. They get afraid with the smallest of sounds even near the police stations. In an attempt to get more protection, the weak police stations are firing shots into the air through out the night. They later inform the authorities that the Naxalites attacked them and are asking for additional force.

The militia in DK are well known for their single actions. The Militias got hold of lone policemen in Avapalli, Merthur, Gottum, Parsagad, Bijapur, Bhairangad in West Bastar division, in Gollapalli, Kishtaram in South Bastar, and in RaoGhat, Ambeda in North Bastar. They act when the policemen go alone to relieve themselves, or to the latrine, or for having bath or when they go to the shanties. Also they would act when the policemen go on a visit to their relatives. The militias observe the movements for some days and then plan for an action. For example, in Kondagam area of Gharaghat, they killed two police and two spies with stones. In the past two years the militia killed one SI, one ASI, nine special police, twelve home guards, spies and many informers. They do not simply kill, but also seize their weapons.

The militia also takes up ambushes on the enemy forces. In quite a number of incidents in Madded area, Bellam Nendra in West Bastar, in Koyilabeda and Enhur in North Bastar they got the activists and people released from the police. In Moula of Tipragad area in Gadchiroli, militia blasted clamors on a patrolling batch going on scooters. In this incident one ASI died and a head constable was injured.

In West Bastar, a SI was returning with his salary from Bijapur on a motorcycle. He got down near a bridge on a small stream and took the help of the local people to take the bike on to the other side of the stream. The people were none else but the militia. They did extend help to the SI. In the process they took the opportunity to kill him and seize his pistol, two grenades and the money.

In South Bastar the militia did an ambush in platoon formation. Two police were going on a scooter on the road between Pamed and Thomgudem. The militia fired on them. After this incident the enemy stopped going alone. In yet another incident the militia blasted a mine on a police vehicle. They also did a clamor attack near a bridge on the Thalper River in Basagudem town. The police ran with fear until they reached the police station.

In North Bastar militia forces ambushed the patrolling police batch as they were crossing the river in Chota Dongar. The police batch was forced to return to the camp.

Militias also conducted sabotage actions on properties of the government and the people’s enemies. The weapons they used were simple tools of tilling. In Kunta, Patnam and Madded areas of South and West Bastar divisions, they destroyed the enemy telephone and cable communication lines. On occasions of protest and bandhs they block the roads by putting large wooden logs on the road.

On the occasion of the third anniversary of PGA (now PLGA) around 450 militia members had an armed demonstration with bow and arrows, axes and burmars in Godemangur in Karpe range in West Bastar division. It inspired the local people. The number of burmars in this demonstration was not less than 150!

Famine raids have become part of the retaliation. With the help of the PLGA the masses are conducting famine raids in many areas of the revolutionary movement. The acute conditions due to decades of neglect by the government result in frequent famines.

Ten famine raids were conducted in Malkangiri district of Orissa. Around four hundred people raided one private godown two times within four to five days. This not only shows the people’s overwhelming response for this deed, but the inability of the state to counter the mass upsurge. Totally 61 tones of rice were seized.

In Vemavaram village of Guntur district, the PLGA was ready in an ambush positions in a paddy field, in order to protect the people who were conducting a famine raid. The enemy attacked the village the next day to seize back the properties. The people took this opportunity and blasted a police jeep and killed one SI and two policemen. There were twelve famine raids in this district in which 275 tones of rice were seized. When the police came to the villages to attack these villages the militia welcomed them with bombs. So not only the police, but the political leaders and government officers also did not dare visit the areas.

In DK the people on the border areas of Chathisgarh and AP raided the godowns of the landlords and seized paddy. There were seventeen famine raids in North Bastar and few more in Maad division. The adivasis seized hundreds of quintals of rice and distributed this among themselves. On the whole 23 tones were seized in DK.

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