Hearts and mines

The police in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra's Naxal heartland 850 kilometres east of Mumbai, are touting the success of their efforts in balancing the hunt for rebel guerrilla fighters with winning cooperation from the villagers caught in the crossfire. For years, the villages in this area were havens for Naxals. In 2009, 55 policemen died in Gadchiroli; since 2004, some 10 policemen have died every year. In 2015, though, no police deaths were recorded in the district. Police records show that the numbers of Naxal fighters have shrunk from over 500 in 2010 to fewer than 200 at present. From January 2015 to April this year, they say, 103 Naxals have surrendered, 40 have been arrested and 13 have been killed.

Early in May in Gaderi, a hamlet of 25 families, villagers were having what appeared to be an informal chat with policemen about their problems under a sheltering tamarind tree. "Sahib," began village head Dilip Mahami, "the borewell is not working and we need more." Police sub-inspector (PSI) Ashok Bhapkar, an officer in his 20s, listened, while his colleague, PSI Bharat Nagre, took notes. Bhapkar turns to a woman in the audience. "Yours," he says, "is the only village in which the women's self-help group is yet to be formed. Do it in a week and I'll arrange two plastic covers for your house during the monsoons." The 'gram bhent' (village visit) is an example of the police's strategy to win over communities sympathetic to the Naxals, a strategy the officials credit with improving intelligence and bringing down casualties.

In February last year, police posts were opened in the villages of Regdi and Kotmi. They patrolled the villages on foot, organised volleyball, cricket and kabaddi tournaments, held meetings to organise women's groups, participated in local festivals, even offered tea and biscuits at meetings. "When we came here," Bhapkar says, "the villagers wouldn't even give us water to drink. But they quickly understood that we wanted to create a new relationship with them, that we were working for them. Within a month of us setting up the post in Kotmi, they warned us when Naxals had planted explosives on the path to the post, enabling us to defuse them in time. It was the first sign that things were changing."

The police C60 commandos in their mine protected vehicles in Gadchiroli. Photo: Mandar Deodhar

The police say the decision to open a post every 15 kilometres has helped them connect with people in what were once no-go areas. Infrastructure has also improved in the 60 kilometre stretch west to east, from Ghot to Kasansur, Maharashtra's 'Naxal belt'. After a 1994 incident when Naxals set fire to a bus, the state transport corporation had stopped operating routes in the area. Elections for the local gram panchayat had not been held since 1991. It took place in November last year. The Naxals had even dug up parts of the road to prevent big vehicles from getting to the villages. In essence, for long periods of time, the villagers had known no governance other than that provided by the Naxalites. Now signs of development are everywhere. In March, the iron mines at Surjagarh, a project that was stalled for years, were opened (operations have stalled again, but this time the problem is political opposition). Construction has begun on a 630 metre bridge over the Indravati river, the missing link in the plans to connect Sironcha in Gadchiroli to Pattagudam in Chhattisgarh. Building bridges over the Godavari and its tributaries to connect Gadchiroli with Chhattisgarh and Telangana is crucial to the enhanced economic and cultural exchanges that authorities hope will make locals more hostile to Naxals.

Sandeep Patil, the district superintendent of police, argues that Naxalism will not end until the police are able to effectively reach out to the people (after a two-year tenure, he has now been transferred to Satara). Police presence, Patil says, gives other government departments a sense of safety. "They feel more able to follow us into the area and do good work when they know we are here," he says.

But Mohan Hirabai Hiralal, a community forest rights activist, says the police in the three adjacent states (Maharashtra, Telangana and Chhattisgarh) have failed to coordinate their efforts. "In my experience," he says, "Naxal activity declines when the police do their job and resurfaces when the police go slow." He believes the Forest Rights Act, 2006, needs to be implemented effectively to end Naxal rebellion. "The tribal people feel the government gives all the benefits of natural resources to private companies. If Naxal violence is to end, the tribal people must be treated fairly, their lives must be improved. I doubt whether the government is genuine about doing this," he says.

For all the police optimism about outreach efforts, life for the villagers continues to be fraught. Towards the end of April, two villagers were shot for being, according to newspaper reports, "police informers". Officials attribute the killings to "frustration". A senior rebel was killed by the police in Gadchiroli a week before the shootings took place. The rebels, the police said in a statement, "have been...pushed on [to the] back foot. They are now killing innocents because of huge police pressure and frustration." Again, on May 9, the police were involved in a nine-hour stand-off with suspected Naxals. In the firefight, a woman, identified as Rajita, aka Ramko Usendi, was killed. The police say she was Chatgaon area secretary for the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and say they recovered arms and ammunition from the site.

A little less than a month before Rajita's death, after over a year without any casualties, a Gadchiroli policeman, Nanaji Nagose, was killed by Naxals while he was guarding ex-MLA Deepak Atram during a Dr B.R. Ambedkar birth anniversary function. For all the talk of wooing villagers and persuading Naxals to give themselves up, the police recognise the need for more weapons. District superintendent Patil claims the force's "new weapon", an under-barrel grenade launcher (UBGL), has broken the Naxals' back". The police have 3,000 of these Bulgarian-made UBGLs.

Grenade launchers and mine protected vehicles, reinforced to withstand blasts of up to 50 kg of explosives, do not suggest that the Gadchiroli battle is won, nor that it will be won by making nice with villagers and reformed Naxal fighters. Activist and former MP Prakash Ambedkar (the grandson of Dr Ambedkar) says the government "brands anyone who opposes it as Naxal". He argues that Naxalism will appeal to people as long as the government does not "get to the root cause of why people are unhappy. Surjagarh has the best iron ore in the country but most villages there are opposed to mining. It is causing massive unrest and I am sure the government will brand everyone opposed as a Naxal and anti-national". Tribals and Dalits, Ambedkar adds, "are coming together to make legitimate demands".

Birju, a former Naxal, says he joined the rebels because he was inspired by their street theatre. The Chetna Natya Manch is a Naxal group that performs shows in remote villages about "government atrocities". Birju, a good singer, enjoyed singing songs about the evils of capitalism. When he finally surrendered, the police used his experience to set up their own theatre group, the Lok Chetna Natya Manch, which spreads the message that "democracy can bring development and justice, not violence". PSI S. Patil, who heads the Naxal surrender cell, says the group offers an important counter to Naxal propaganda. "The Chetna Natya Manch theatre used to be a big attraction," he says. "We have managed to reverse that flow to a great extent with our own troupe."

To stifle Naxal recruitment among Dalits, the police have been distributing copies of a Dr Ambedkar speech, where he insists communism is no answer to society's problems. Vikas Palve, the PSI who heads the propaganda effort, says it's another way to help convince "Dalits that they shouldn't allow themselves to be trapped by the Naxals". Patil says treating the former enemies with kindness too has had a positive effect. "When Naxals see that the ones who surrendered are not beaten or thrown into jail, they get encouraged to quit. We not only treat them well, we provide protection too." There's now a colony, Navjivan Nagar, close to the police headquarters in Gadchiroli, to house former Naxals.

The rewards for people giving 'information'-from Rs 25 lakh up to a crore-has led many to suspect the motives of the surrendered rebels. Vira Sathidar, lead actor in the award-winning film Court (India's official entry at this year's Oscars), says most of the so-called 'reformed' Naxals are just petty thieves. A long-time activist, Sathidar was booked by the police under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in 2006 for selling "objectionable" books (the charge was later dropped). He is dismissive of the police efforts: "Naxal activity might be slowing down, but that does not mean there is no injustice. Our fight for the tribals and Dalits goes on." Citing a report by the Asian Centre for Human Rights, Sathidar says thousands more have died in police custody over the past couple of decades than have died because of Naxal rebellion. So which is the more serious issue, he asks.

Back in Gaderi, the police are preparing to wind up the meeting. Mangu, a surrendered Naxal fighter, stands up to thank them for the visit. Two other former Naxals ask PSI Nagre to take a photo of them with his mobile phone. For the policeman, it is a heart-warming snapshot in a still bitter conflict. "Community policing," PSI Bhapkar says, "has helped us grow as human beings. It has taught us how to deal with people, something we will take with us wherever we are posted now." And then he orders his men to begin the march back to their post.