[A-List] India's Maoists and Coal

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

<http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8875555>
India's politics
Mar 19th 2007
> From the Economist Intelligence Unit ViewsWire
Maoist rebels are causing trouble across much of the country

Maoist rebels or "Naxalites" killed an estimated 55 people in an
attack on a police camp in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh on
March 15th. The Maoists' enduring foothold across many parts of India
remains a serious concern for the central government, so much so that
the prime minister last year called it the "single biggest internal
security challenge ever faced by our country". But the Maoist
insurgency is not just a law-and-order issue: it also has implications
for the energy and minerals sectors, and highlights dilemmas inherent
in the central government's current high-profile drive to bring
economic development to the rural poor.

The government is finding the Naxalite problem stubbornly difficult to
eradicate. The Naxalites are so named after Naxalbari, a town in West
Bengal where a communist rebellion erupted in 1967. The 40-year-old
insurgency is thought to have a presence in as many as half of India's
28 states and is a major political force in poor tribal states such as
Chhattisgarh, Jharkand and Orissa. By some estimates, the movement has
spread to nearly 40% of the country's geographical area. A large
number of people have been displaced as they have fled the Maoists,
although the movement also benefits from support in rural villages,
making policing its activities difficult. Also feeding the conflict
has been the relatively recent emergence of an anti-Naxalite tribal
militia known as Salwa Judum, which has assisted local police and
security forces.

The Maoists' revolutionary ideology aside, the government believes
that the heart of the Naxalite problem lies in many of the same
issues—poverty, lack of economic opportunity, poor public
services—that currently dominate its national-level economic policy
thinking. Last year the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, identified
exploitation, low wages, unemployment, a lack of access to resources,
geographical isolation and an underdeveloped farm sector as the main
factors that have contributed to the growth of the Naxalite movement.

Herein, however, lies the dilemma. The areas in which the Naxalites
operate are in dire need of economic development, but experience has
shown that investment in infrastructure or industry requires care to
avoid the perception that is just perpetuating the very exploitation
it is intended to address. Villagers are often suspicious, not without
reason, that new projects will not provide as many local jobs as
promised or are simply an excuse for rapacious developers to seize
land from farmers without adequate compensation. It is noteworthy that
the latest attack in Chhattisgarh coincided with an outbreak of
rioting in the state of West Bengal that left 14 villagers dead. The
protesters were complaining about plans to develop a chemical complex.
Similar concerns have fuelled resistance to the spread of special
economic zones—based loosely on the successful Chinese
model—throughout India in recent months.

The government's handling of the Naxalite rebellion also has
implications for India's energy security. The rebellion is strongest
in states that have reserves of the natural resources, especially
coal, that are required to fuel India's industrial boom. The five
states in which the movement is strongest account for 85% of India's
coal deposits. India's electricity generation is predominantly
coal-based. Naxalite rebels have, on occasions, made direct attacks on
companies in the sector.

--
Yoshie