THE COMMUNISTS WORRY ABOUT THE MAOISTS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 CALCUTTA 000068

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

STATE FOR SA/INS AND INR

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PINS PTER SOCI IN
SUBJECT: THE COMMUNISTS WORRY ABOUT THE MAOISTS



1. (SBU) SUMMARY: West Bengal's governing Communist Party of
India-Marxist (CPM) is concerned about the nascent spread of
ultra-Left Maoist influence in rural West Bengal. The Party
would prefer to tackle the Maoist challenge politically, by
mobilizing the rural masses, but has not yet been able to
develop programs or leaders who can successfully accomplish
this. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee favors the iron
fist over the velvet glove and is pressing the state government
to take a hard line. END SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) Deliberations during the triennial State Conference of
the CPM, which concluded on February 12 in Calcutta, indicate
that the Party is taking the Maoist threat seriously. Since the
September 2004 merger between the two largest ultra-Left
"Naxalite" groups, the People's War and the Maoist Communist
Center, the resulting CPI(Maoist) has been engaged in mass
contact programs in their strongholds in West Bengal (the
districts of West Midnapore, Purulia, Bankura, Nadia). This has
involved distributing political literature, organizing small
gatherings and taking up local issues with the administration
through front organizations. This has reached a scale where it
is beginning to raise serious concerns within West Bengal's
governing party.


3. (SBU) According to a ConGen contact, two political trends
are worrying the CPM leadership. First, the rural areas had
been the traditional strongholds of the CPM due to their local
organization, their control of the Panchayat (local government)
system, and their record - now two decades old - of land
redistribution. In the most recent elections the CPM had begun
to develop urban support for the first time, but the Party is
concerned that, at the same time, it may be losing its grip in
the countryside. According to this view, the benefits the CPM
delivered are too far in the past to earn the Party credit,
while the reality of the present is a local organization that it
too often autocratic and corrupt. The Maoists, through their
mass contact programs, are fast moving into the rural political
spaces vacated by the CPM. The second concern our contact
mentioned was the declining political fortunes of the CPM's
traditional political rivals in the state - the Congress and
Trinamul parties. The CPM fears that the Maoists are starting
to assume the main opposition role in some places and may prove
more formidable opponents. Reports from the rural areas
indicate some political workers from the Trinamul and even some
disgruntled CPM cadre have begun joining Maoist organizations.


4. (SBU) Some in the Party would prefer to engage the Maoists
in negotiations while seeking to strengthen the CPM's rural
leadership and deliver more benefits to the countryside. As the
Bengali Nobel-Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has amply
documented, the CPM record on delivering health and education to
the rural countryside has been abysmal in some areas of West
Bengal, leaving ample scope for improvement in service delivery.
Howevr, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharee,
who himself has been on the Naxalites' hit lst, is advocating a
hard-line against the emerging Maoist threat. Citing the recent
experience in Andhra Pradesh, he argues that talks have not been
successful in the past when the Maoists simply used the
negotiating phase to regroup. By contrast the Congress Party,
running the UPA government in New Delhi, appears to favor
negotiations. So far, West Bengal has been adhering to its
Chief Minister's hard line and has been arresting CPI(Maoist)
activists, even though the organization is not legally banned in
the state. Bhattacharjee has expressed frustration that when
the Naxalites engage in terrorist activity (as opposed to their
political work) they usually attack from neighboring Jharkhand
and then return to safehavens out of reach of the West Bengal
police. His concern has now spread to northern West Bengal
where he has requisitioned additional security forces from the
Central government to combat the Nepalese Maoists. The West
Bengal police had earlier detained some Nepalese Maoist leaders
in Siliguri, and there is a fear that more might spill over into
West Bengal following the King's assumption of power in Nepal.


5. (SBU) COMMENT: The CPM concerns appear well-founded, even if
they still represent more of a potential future threat than an
actual present danger. Congress and the Trinamul's diminishing
influence has given the Maoists an opportunity, and through
their mass contact programs they are beginning to fill this
void. It is not clear whether the Chief Minister's decision to
adopt a hard line against the Maoists will work or not. So far,
the Maoists are confined to a few districts in West Bengal.
They could pose a serious political challenge to the CPM if they
spread all across the state. END COMMENT.

SIBLEY