Editorial: Defeat by delusion

Maoists’ myopic attitude could be attributed to their flawed assessment of the prevailing situation and tactics of security forces

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle — wrote Sun Tzu in his military treatise The Art of War, some twenty-six centuries ago. The last line of Sun Tzu’s quote exemplifies the current state of affairs in the Indian revolutionary movement spearheaded by the CPI (Maoist). The Maoist leadership, hitherto known for its incisive socio-political analysis of society, now appears to suffer from a delusion — continuing to believe in the possibility of success through a protracted armed struggle to achieve the New Democratic Revolution (NDR). The latest wave of offensive by the security forces in the Maad area of Chhattisgarh, leading to the killing of CPI (Maoist) general secretary Namballa Kesava Rao along with 26 others, exemplifies how the Maoist party, which had made the Maad area an impregnable fortress, has begun to lose ground. The reason for this myopic attitude could only stem from a flawed assessment of the prevailing situation and an inability to gauge the growing strength and the changes in strategy and tactics employed by the security forces. It is as if Sun Tzu was prescient in saying, “…If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

That the Maoist movement was facing a severe setback across the country was the writing on the wall. Reasons could be many — drastic changes in social, political, economic and cultural spheres; the rise of careerism among youth; and the political empowerment of different sections of society have all mitigated the justification for an alternative ideology to the parliamentary democracy system. The Maoist movement, which appeared to be spreading to newer areas just about five years ago, has not only stagnated but has also seen its base shrink, with practically no recruitment from youth, students, women, workers and other downtrodden societal segments. In addition to this diminishing base, the security forces have succeeded in honing their skills in jungle warfare, supported by advanced communication networks and a uniformly implemented counter-insurgency strategy across all extremist-affected areas. That the Maoist movement was losing ground was evident, but the Maoist leadership continued to wage its war — an inappropriate strategic and tactical mistake, indeed. Interestingly, faced with a similar situation after the Emergency period in 1977, Maoist ideologues had then suspended the armed struggle and mobilised masses on a large scale before launching the CPI-ML (People’s War), which eventually merged with the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) to evolve as the CPI (Maoist). Now that society has almost entirely rejected the concept of armed struggle, it is imperative for the Maoist leadership to suspend it. Such a sagacious step can save many lives.