Urban naxals-1: Propagating against soldiers, how they planned infiltrating the Army

New Delhi, Aug 30: With the debate around naxalites and their urban activities touching dizzying heights, it would be interesting to see what the strategy has been. The naxals have very often spoken about the importance of nurturing an urban chapter and they began seriously setting this into motion in the early 2000s.

OneIndia will come up with a two part series on this issue. While in this part, we would deal with how the urban naxals planned infiltrating into the Indian Army, in the second part, the subject would relate to the bringing together of minorities to fight the Hindus.

A 53 page document titled,"CPI (Maoist)-Urban Perspective," prepared by Govindan Kutty details the plan on how naxals with the help of their friends in the urban areas planned on infiltrating into the police, para-military forces and Army.

Helping the rural armed struggle:

There are numerous ways through which the urban movement can assist the rural armed struggle and particularly, the base areas and the guerilla zones. Some involve direct and immediate help in terms of materials and personnel; others involve the long-term preparation for the decisive battles in the later stages of the peoples' war, the document reads.

Infiltration:

The document states, "It is very important to penetrate into the military, para-military forces, police, and higher levels of the administrative machinery of the state. It is necessary to obtain information regarding the enemy, to build support for the revolution within these organs, and even to incite revolt when the time is ripe. Other types of technical help are also possible."

"The cities are the strongholds of the enemy and have a large concentration of enemy forces. It is therefore from the cities that attention must be given to this task. Such work can be done by following up contacts obtained from the civilian sphere, or by directly allocating comrades to penetrate the enemy ranks."

"Whatever be the method, the work is of a very special type, which requires a high degree of political reliability, skill and patience. Such work should be without the knowledge of the lower level committees and the details of the work should only remain with the comrades directly responsible."

"Associated with this task is the need for a plan to work in the cantonment towns spread out throughout the country. Such work even among the civilian population of these towns can give us valuable information and openings for penetration in the enemy ranks."

"We should make use of opportunities for entry into the police, para military and military forces. We should very secretly follow up contacts of those already within these forces. Where possible we should enter into them from outside. Such work should be guided directly by the higher committees without informing the local bodies."

"We should regularly conduct propaganda regarding the problems of the ordinary constables and soldiers. We should pick up the burning issues concerning them and arouse them to agitation."

"We should also make a study of cantonment towns, ordnance factory areas, etc. with the purpose of formulating a plan for work in such zones. We should also try to collect and generate the type of forces who would be able to do such sort of work."

Aslo Read | Urban naxals provide the pipeline for arms, money to reach jungles: Ex- Spl Secy, R&AW

Local intelligence

"Intelligence is a much-neglected function in our Party. Very often we suffer severe losses, or lose good opportunities due to the absence of proper intelligence. In the urban areas intelligence is also very necessary to protect and preserve the urban Party as well as the mass movement. Thus the task of information collection and analysis should be taken up from the beginning itself and responsibility should be allocated accordingly. As the organisation grows this task and responsibility should exist at all levels and should be integrated into the functioning of the organisation."

"The objectives of our intelligence work should be to learn about and study the tactics and plans of the enemy forces in the area, to study the activities of informers, to prevent infiltration into the organisation, etc. The methods and structure, particularly at the lower levels, should be as simple as possible and should utilise to the maximum the forces available to us from among the masses."

Urban Military Operations:

"Though the countryside is the main area of operations of the People's Army, there are certain military objectives that need to be performed through operations in the urban areas. This even requires the setting up of permanent structures of the PGA/PLA in the cities and towns."

City Action Teams:

"These action teams are small secret teams of disciplined and trained soldiers of the PGA/PLA who are permanently based in the cities or towns to hit at important, selected, enemy targets. Such targets may be annihilation of individuals of military importance or sabotage actions like the blowing up of ammunition depots, destroying communications networks, damaging oil installations, etc."

"These action teams, which form part of the main force of the PGA/PLA, perform these actions under the guidance and orders of their respective command. Thus these teams should have no connection whatsoever with the local urban Party structure."

"The selection of targets and timing of operations too would be based on the overall political and military needs of the people's war. However the secret team should have some broad understanding of the schedules and plans of the programmes of the open mass organisations. This could where possible help prevent problems due to clashing between the open and secret plans."

(Stay tuned for the next party- Urban Naxals-2: How an anti Hindu force was being built)