Indian Maoists meet with South Asian Revolutionaries

This comes from the bourgeois press (The Economic Times of India) but contains important events of how the Indian Maoists are uniting with revolutionaries from South Asia.

Maoists join hands with South Asian sister outfits, resolve to fight ‘Indian expansionist hegemony’

NEW DELHI: Even as the West Bengal government explores the option of brokering peace with the Leftwing extremists, the Maoists have resolved to work with their sister outfits in Nepal and other South Asian countries to fight the “Indian expansionist hegemony” and make South Asia a base for the “world proletarian revolution.”

The declaration of the South Asian Maoist outfits – assembled under the umbrella of Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) – “to develop ongoing people’s wars, initiate new ones, and accomplish a new democratic revolution in their respective countries” was made in a resolution adopted at their fifth international conference held in March this year, possibly somewhere in Nepal.

Congratulating the Maoist forces in India for “successful withstanding the state’s counter-revolutionary offensive”, the conference noted that “while the initial victories in beating back this war of the people, politically as well as militarily, give better conditions to the revolutionaries, the gravity of the challenges they face remains.”

Recalling the CCOMPOSA was formed to unite the Maoist revolutionaries of South Asia – spread across India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and even Afghanistan – and fight Indian expansionist hegemony and imperialism in the region, the resolution asked them to “seize power where it is possible, develop ongoing people’s wars to higher levels, prepare and initiate people’s war where parties exist and build up parties where they don’t.”

Interestingly, the resolution was adopted even as the Trinamool Congress was warming up to the Maoist forces in the run-up to the West Bengal polls. Mamata Banerjee went on to promise the withdrawal of Central forces from Jangalmahal are and a likely truce with the Maoists in the state, in the event of her party being voted to power.

On Tuesday, Banerjee made her first visit to Jangalmahal as chief minister. She appealed to the Maoists to give up arms, while announcing an economic package for the area. The Centre, meanwhile, has decided to adopt a wait-and-watch policy.

However, the security agencies here are not quite convinced about the peace moves with the Maoists getting too far. “The Maoist ideology provides for tactical political alliances, but this is only to achieve further annihilation of the State forces…. they use peacetime to regroup and rearm,” a senior official of the security establishment warned, adding that Banerjee may soon realise this strategy and would be forced to turn the heat on the Maoists once again.

“The description of Indian State as a ‘expansionist hegemony’ in the March 2011 CCOMPOSA declaration clearly shows that Maoists are anti-national and are instigating their sister outfits in other South Asian countries into joining the war against the Indian State,” the official noted.

Interestingly, the West Bengal government has shown no inclination to cut back the 5,000-strong Central forces deployed in Jangalmahal by the erstwhile Left Front government for anti-Maoist operations.

In fact, at a recent conference of DGPs of nine Naxal-hit states, the West Bengal DGP sought additional Central forces but was told by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram that the forces will be spared only after it has put in place the necessary infrastructure for housing them.