A Farewell to Arms

OCTOBER 14 marked the end of the“revolutionary road” for Mallojula Venugopal Rao, the top Maoist commander in Chhattisgarh. When Rao, who surrendered before Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in Gadchiroli—a Maoist hot bed in the state—he was not alone. He brought two zonal committee members, 10divisional committee members of the CPI( Maoist) and dozens of other cadres along with him. In one fell swoop, Rao ended up decimating the senior rung of the party in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. In all, 60Maoists gave up their arms. The scale of the folding up in Maoist ranks can be gauged from the fact that on the same day, another 78 Maoists surrendered before the Border Security Force at Koyalibeda in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh. Kanker is a district that adjoins Gadchiroli district and Koyalibeda is one of the last areas of Maoist influence in the district. Here, as in Gadchiroli, two zonal committee members quit the Maoist party.

The significance of these surrenders lies not just in their numbers but also in the ranks of those who have surrendered and geographic locations where they were active. Rao, for example, is a Politburo member of the CPI (Maoist) as well as a member of the Central Military Commission of the party. Among those who surrendered in Koyalibeda were scores of members from the Rowghat Area Committee. Rowghat is an area on the border of Narayanpur and Kanker districts and a motherlode of very high-quality iron ore.

In recent years, a rail track has been laid from Bhanupratappur in Kanker district to Rowghat. But mining could not be undertaken in this densely forested area that abuts the Abhujmad region, one of the last refuges of Maoists in the state. Now, development of the region can proceed smoothly. At the ideological level, Rao’s surrender is a huge blow to the CPI (Maoist). In May, Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavraj, the general secretary of the party, was gunned down in a remote corner of the Indravati National Park in Chhattisgarh.

After his death, there was a vigorous debate on the future course of the party. From March, well before Basavraj was killed, CPI (Maoist) had been pleading for a “ceasefire” with the Centre. After his death, the voices advocating that course became louder. But a rump faction of the party remained adamant on waging war against the government.

Rao was one of the voices against that course of action and lost out in a factional fight within the party. What made the option to surrender somewhat easier for him was the fact that his wife, Tarakka, another senior party member, had surrendered before Fadnavis last year. The humane treatment accorded to her, as conveyed to Rao through letters dispatched by surrendered Maoists, played an important part in his decision to give up arms.

Ideologically, Maoism in India was always on a weak wicket. What gave strength to the idea was the relative weakness of the government when the current phase of the insurgency began in 1980. The theatre chosen by the Maoists was a remote region of India where the sway of the government was weak to the point of being non-existent. What made matters worse was a plank of the Nehruvian ideology that believed Adivasis should be “left alone” without any administrative footprint of the government. The fons et origo of this costly mistake can be traced to Verrier Elwin, the British missionary and later an anthropologist who operated in these parts of India, among other locations.

The Maoists exploited this vacuum. It took decades of fighting, blood, treasure and innumerable obstacles to undo the mess that began in the age of Nehru.